Artistic imagination and its role in moral progress. Embracing William James’ cries of the wounded

I Introduction

During Ashura, Shi’i Muslims gather to commemorate and mourn Husayn ibn Ali’s defeat in the battle of Karbala (680 CE), a central event in the genesis and development of Shi’a history, doctrine and traditions. For the past few decades, groups of Shi’i women in the Persian Gulf and beyond have begun performing memorial services and rituals from which they had been traditionally excluded, engaging in lamentation poetry recitation and theatrical representations (Shanneik, 2022, 23). Traditional eulogy composition has become widely accessible online, with new poetic variations of the Husaynian theme continuously emerging. ¹ Women participating in female-only gatherings (majalis) use lamentation poetry originally designed for men, allowing them to relive the ritual’s transcendental experience and challenge male-dominated social and religious norms. By expressing sorrow through physical pain, these women assert agency over their bodies, turning the poems into texts of resistance. Linked to Shi’i transnational struggles, these rituals foster political awareness and involvement among women worldwide.

Alongside professional artists socially recognized as such, an array of non-professional agents, often overlooked as ‘artists’, regularly engage in creative processes using traditional and innovative techniques and media. The above is merely one example of the multilayered interpenetration of gender, religious or political implications that arise from some present-day artistic practices, even when they seem, at first glance, simply integrated in autonomous or separated fields of social interaction. Imaginative forms of communication happen all the time, all around us, but, in many cases, they are not comprehended as moral or political statements, if they do not convey a very explicit political message. Conversely, they happen to be overlooked as socially engaged, historically relevant communicative standpoints and efforts.

What role can artistic practices – as much as the artistic imagination that grounds them – play in instances of moral progress, if they do not carry evident messages of a political or socially critical nature? In this paper, we aim to inquire into presumable shortcomings within (present-day) pragmatist-leaning philosophical literature which aims to suggest methods for improving current moral arrangements, based on the Deweyan view that morality always has room to be made better, and widely leaning on William James’ notion of the cries of the wounded. Specifically, we will discuss Philip Kitcher’s recent approach, which puts conversation at the heart of moral inquiry. We will ask about the role of imagination in his account and scrutinize his analysis of the silence of socially wounded that it conveys. Since art is comprehended, especially in modern times, as an experimental space apt to push the limits of imagination beyond representation and rational discourse, the notion of artistic imagination seems particularly worth exploring due to its productive features, as we will lay out. This comprehends, moreover, a reconsideration of the Jamesian notion, which, so we argue, remains powerful in regard to the very possibility of moral progress, provided that not only the moral status of possibly wounded is being extended but also the comprehension of the conception of ‘cries’ themselves.

II On progressive morality: How can we do better, morally?

The notion of moral progress has gained significant interest among academics during the last decade (cf. Sauer et al., 2021). Many have concentrated on properly defining, defending (or disputing) it, based on the specificities of their field of philosophical affiliation. In the pragmatist-leaning corner among philosophers – often appealing to the teachings of William James, John Dewey or Charles Sanders Peirce (or a mixture) – scholars have broadly concentrated on how to evoke or implement moral progress (cf. Anderson, 2014; Kitcher, 2021; Wilson, 2019).

Here, we understand moral progress, roughly, as a moral improvement within a society or humanity, rather than in the individual subject, that denotes a (gradually occurring) morally desirable change in practices and/or beliefs or consciousness, that may ultimately lead to (morally desirable) changes in culture. It indicates what is hoped to constructively result from our continued moral action (cf. Moody-Adams, 2016). Such a social shift implies agents eventually asking themselves, how they could have been ‘so blind’ not to see the moral wrong in previous practices and arrangements (cf. Reder et al., 2019, 153; Wilson, 2019, 47). Thus, to prevalently ask how to evoke moral progress implies that moral progress is a human resource or potential, hence pointing to a (formal) possibility to implement it. By sticking to the pragmatist corner, we consider a moral issue any practice and connected belief that primarily (directly or indirectly; short- or long-term) affects the other’s wellbeing or suffering (cf. Reder et al., 2019, 151). Moreover, we assume that those practices and beliefs are intertwined with (and based on) the web of values, identities and institutions that are constitutive of social life.

By significantly relying on human agency and responsibility, and by assigning a central role to human action, pragmatist-leaning philosophers imply that moral agents must seek to provoke or create moral progress (or circumstances that may lead to it). This kind of standpoint, thus, does ‘not attempt to offer any ultimate moral principle, assumed to apply in all possible worlds, [but it rather] offers methods for improving our moral norms and principles’ (Anderson, 2014, emphasis added).

A popular notion – one may say, method – proposed by the pragmatist William James and embraced in contemporary philosophical pragmatism, is that of the cries of the wounded. This notion implies that the basis for moving forward morally is listening to those harmed by current (or past) social arrangements, institutions and practices, and working toward changing them accordingly.

It appears that James first mentioned the ‘cries of the wounded’ in his 1891 article ‘The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life’, included in The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897). In 1899, the expression appeared again in a conference titled ‘On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings’, within a long quotation of Josiah Royce’s The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885). In both appearances, James aimed at avoiding dogmatism and at embodying the philosophical stance that he deemed appropriate to assume unexpected and foreign truths: ‘Hands off: neither the whole of truth nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer, although each observer gains a partial superiority of insight from the peculiar position in which he stands. Even prisons and sick-rooms have their special revelations’ (James, 1992b, ‘On a Certain Blindness…’, 860). In the 1891 essay, James argued that only through casuistic experience may moral progress be attained, assuming that human beings – philosophers and non-philosophers alike – are ‘sympathetic instinctively’ and are ‘open to the voice of complaint’:

He knows that he must vote always for the richer universe, for the good which seems most organizable, most fit to enter into complex combinations, most apt to be a member of a more inclusive whole. But which particular universe this is he cannot know for certain in advance; he only knows that if he makes a bad mistake the cries of the wounded will soon inform him of the fact (James, 1992a, 614).

The question laid out above – ‘how could we have been so blind’ – according to the Jamesian view, thus fundamentally roots in the fact that the harm done to certain beings, based on certain social arrangements and circumstances, was overlooked for the longest time until their cries were finally heard.

To promote the cries of the wounded as a core notion when conceptualizing moral progress fits a pragmatist (antirealist) account of moral truth as that towards which any moral agent may aspire, granted that the notion of progress combines change with improvement (thus designating value). Under this perspective, moral truth is regarded as the end of inquiry in the largest possible sense (Misak, 1991), or as what is ‘worth having’ in the most inclusive sense, a notion ascribed specifically to the Jamesian thought (Marchetti, 2010). It is hence reasonable to start with overlooked moral aspects (embodied by harmed beings) to approach a more inclusive (ideally, complete) understanding of what is morally right or wrong in specific situations. As embraced by several modern-day pragmatist philosophers (cf. Kitcher, 2015; Allen et al., 2016; Reder et al., 2019), a stance of this kind understands moral progress as a bottom-up process (as the phrase ‘progress from’ suggests) rather than the approximation of a fixed, universal moral telos.

Yet there are at least three core problems, if one wants to rely on the notion of the cries of the wounded, that need further assessment due to their expressive and communicative nature: (1) How can we be (and make) sure that the wounded actually cry out about them being harmed? (2) How can we be (and make) sure that those cries are heard? (3) How can social actors be motivated to look out for those cries (in order to help evoke a moral progress)? We will first review the answers given primarily by Kitcher, in order to highlight the benefit provided by an aesthetic assessment of artistic imagination regarding a more inclusive approach to the wounded and their cries.

III On (the ideal) conversation and Deweyan society

One contemporary pragmatist philosopher, who embraces the Jamesian notion, while immediately admitting to some of its limits, is Philip Kitcher. He outlines his proposal inspired by an image of what he calls a ‘Deweyan society’, in which agents are ‘aware of the possibilities of moral progress [and] take steps to encourage exploration of possible improvements and to incorporate some of the resultant changes into social practice’ (Kitcher, 2021, 97). Hence, in this society, agents are motivated to constantly look for ways to do morally better. For Kitcher, this is the kind of society that should be endorsed (thus as an end of moral progress) and, at the same time, it is the context that makes instances of moral progress possible. To call it ‘Deweyan’ – and thus place the Jamesian notion in an overall Deweyan context – seems adequate as this model society appears to understand morality itself as something progressive.

In Deweyan thought, the notion of the method – and of philosophy as a method of social improvement – is central (cf. Dewey, 1910). Dewey’s view about the world, which ‘is always incomplete [and comes] into being through collective human decisions and actions’ (Kitcher, 2021, 79), implies that there is always room for desirable change and improvement, that every situation has ‘its own measure and quality of progress and the need for progress is recurrent, constant’ (Dewey, 1922, 282). In this view, the aspect of humans taking on the responsibility for their own claiming and doing, and actively looking for solutions to moral issues, becomes salient.

To embrace the notion of the cries of the wounded means to take the other (mind our understanding of morality above) seriously when comprehending the moral right or wrongfulness of our action and social participation. Kitcher uses the term ‘stakeholder’ to denote anyone (potentially) affected by prevailing moral systems, norms and practices. To look out for the wounded then means to look out for wounded moral stakeholders and take what they have to say seriously.

A core notion in Kitcher’s view about moral progress is conversation. Conversation is where the cries of the wounded stakeholders are ideally embraced, and from which enriched (i.e. improved) moral thought and practice may emerge. This notion resonates – even if it is not Kitcher’s intention – with Richard Rorty’s view on moral progress, who attempts to conceptualize morality within an antirealist stance that is generally understood as relativist. ² In Rorty’s view, presuming that there is no universal moral truth towards which one may tend, a moral inquiry must be, indeed, understood as conversation (Voparil, 2014, 382). On the one hand, according to Rorty, conversation ‘about what to do with [themselves]’ (Rorty, 2007a, ix) is something human beings have simply been doing throughout their history and evolution (cf. also Kitcher, 2014). On the other hand, if done properly, conversation may lead to better ‘vocabulary’, ³ improved moral practices and thus a ‘better future’ (Rorty, 2007a, x; 2007b, 924). A goal of what he calls cultural politics ⁴ is to make the conversation more fruitful. In Rorty, conversation denotes all kinds of (linguistic) human interaction, including all kinds of stories, expressions of sentiment, argument, discussions and poetry, without inherently prioritizing one over the other. This expansive perspective on the conversational moral practice needs to take artistic imagination seriously as a socially engaged and historically rooted, communicative faculty, as we will argue, to foster the inclusion of apparently ‘silent’ stakeholders.

Kitcher envisages conversation as a key step in the process of addressing social problems too, and as the point of union and (linguistic) confrontation of various moral standpoints. His aim is to unfold a more surefooted approach to the analysis and the fostering of moral progress. Yet, in order to be ‘fruitful’ (as Rorty calls it) – hence a fruitful moral inquiry which thus (possibly) leads to a deeper moral understanding and extended moral knowledge ⁵ – it must be a certain kind of conversation: drawing on both Kitcher’s and Rorty’s output, it must be (1) free and open, (2) epistemic or informed and (3) inclusive. ⁶

The notion of free, specifically in Rorty, refers to a sort of Millian marketplace of ideas, where ‘nothing is sacred because everything is up for discussion’ (Rorty, 2011, 12). It refers to what Berlin calls ‘negative liberty’, that is, a matter of the absence of obstacles that interfere with one’s actions (Bacon, 2011, 210). The notion of openness is twofold: as a property of the conversation itself, hence tightly linked to the notion of freedom, and as a quality or attitude of the interlocutors. This latter meaning is again twofold: the interlocutors may talk openly, but they may also be open to other points of view, open to the conversation to go in any number of directions and open to change (themselves). This, again, is linked to what Kitcher calls mutual engagement.

The epistemic condition underscores the significance of truthfulness, accuracy and the aspiration to ascertain moral truths by scrutinizing all conceivable variables that shape moral beliefs, practices and their impact on stakeholders. Thorough investigation, particularly in the moral domain, necessitates maximal inclusivity – to explore beyond one’s subjective standpoint and consider a wide spectrum of perspectives. This brings us to the third condition: inclusiveness. We argue that inclusive conversation necessitates both openness, freedom and an epistemic approach; conversely, closed and constrained dialogue cannot be considered inclusive. Given our assumption that incorporating the experiences, pain and perspectives of (wounded) stakeholders is crucial for approaching moral truth, the epistemic quality of a conversation hinges on its inclusiveness. This implies that inclusiveness inherently encompasses openness and freedom.

The notion of inclusion, regarding conversation, may refer to (1) integrating other moral subjects (stakeholders and potential interlocutors) into one’s discourse, (2) engaging in new conversations and (3) assimilating diverse and potentially conflicting conversations into a larger framework. The third aspect entails establishing common ground, including shared linguistic tools and agreements (termed ‘common vocabulary’ by Rorty), and fostering conditions for disparate conversations to converge. This requires a commitment to exchanging truthful information, viewpoints and beliefs openly, freely and epistemically, presuming a mutual desire for understanding. The second aspect involves a moral subject’s willingness to embrace varied perspectives, experiences and potential transformations, including changes in oneself. The first aspect entails the moral subject consistently seeking individuals not yet part of their conversation (cf. Rorty, 1989, 196).

Listening to the cries of the wounded most evidently resides within the first. Yet, the second implies a circumstance in which moral subjects aim to hear and discuss new moral standpoints – new for the very subjects – and thus aim to listen to voices that they had previously overheard (including those of harmed stakeholders). The third one, moreover, suggests an integration of those voices into an (ever) larger social conversation. In all three scenarios, informed by the Deweyan-pragmatist perspective, human agency is presupposed. Inclusion can be intentional, initiated by the moral subject, or unintentional, incidentally arising as external circumstances lead conversations to expand and unite. The Deweyan-pragmatist perspective posits that human actions can induce effects in the moral world and that individuals possess the capacity to intervene in ways that impact the moral landscape. Consequently, the moral subject holds the power to contribute to the creation of conditions conducive to inclusive processes or to directly stimulate inclusion and a culture of inclusiveness within conversations. Assuming this power, it becomes a moral responsibility for the subject to foster inclusion (in the matter of creating moral systems) – granted that responsibility is grounded in power (cf. Jonas, 1984, 172–176). If, as Dewey argues, the need for progress is constant, then the subject’s ongoing efforts to enhance inclusion must also be continuous.

Yet, if indeed a large portion of these moral responsibilities concern listening to the cries of the wounded (at least as a starting point), how do they come about if the wounded, in fact, do not raise their concerns? How can the responsible moral agent gain insight into their standpoint?

IV Shortcomings of the conversational lens

Some limits of a moral-progress-view that puts conversation at its heart have already been tackled, not at last by one of the three affiliated reviewers of Kitcher’s Moral Progress (Kitcher, 2021), Amia Srinivasan. Srinivasan worries that by focussing on the notion of conversation in regard to moral progress, an important part of what can actually lead to it is omitted: actions and movements of protests, violence, great personal sacrifice and material struggle (Srinivasan, 2021, 109). She suggests that

Seeing the history of moral progress through the lens of ideal conversation risks obscuring […] a long history of resistance among the powerful toward such conversations – and with it, the various strategies that the relatively powerless have developed to force change in the absence of such conversations. Kitcher’s model of moral progress also risks suggesting, falsely, that all marginalized people need to do today is speak up. In our highly non-Deweyan world, the ability for some people to speak, and to be truly heard, is an ability that itself presupposes a radical shift in power (ibid.)

While we agree with Srinivasan on all points, we contend that it is, in fact, integral in the notion of conversation that it must both (1) take messages of protests and material struggles seriously and foster them (in the long run), and (2) that contents of diverse conversations (when people come together and discuss social issues) may, if necessary, lead up to movements of protests, among others. Finally, regarding the resistance of the powerful to certain conversations, the third scenario of inclusiveness (as described above), underlines the aspect of letting conversations grow and come together and, as such, making them stronger, possibly overwriting such resistance.

What concerns us more, as anticipated above, is the continued silence of diverse (wounded) stakeholders in light of ongoing conversations (with a moral outlook). How can one take their moral responsibility to make the conversation more fruitful – and thus, among other things, expand it – if one fundamental element (the cries of the wounded) often remains unattainable?

Before going any deeper, we first have to define who those wounded are. If we refer, on the one hand, to stakeholders in the most extended sense, the term includes mute beings, such as non-human animals or other sentient beings, and even future generations (suspected stakeholders). It thus refers to the (possibly) wounded, who do not possess the capability to cry out at all, or who could not reach timely conversations with their potential cries out about deficits in moral practices and institutions. On the other hand, even if we consider only present-day linguistic beings (qua human beings) in our efforts of inclusion into conversations, we will indeed find ourselves with the problem that even if moral stakeholders have the capability to cry out, they do not always do so for different reasons: for someone to speak up (and therefore participate in a conversation not only formally, but effectively, that is, first and foremost, openly and freely), it requires that they (1) overcome what Kitcher calls false consciousness (Kitcher, 2021, 42–72), (2) find the courage to raise their voices and (3) gain what Marilyn Frye calls semantic authority (Frye, 1983, 106; 166).

By false consciousness, Kitcher refers to cultural and historical contingencies that have shaped the minds of (wounded) people in a way that they accept situations against which they would protest in other circumstances. An example might be a woman convinced that her (natural, exclusive and/or God-wanted) place in society is that as a mother and housewife, as her personal values and beliefs have been shaped by a specific social context. She might therefore not protest against her limited possibilities (independently of whether they are actually beneficial for her wellbeing or not), as she might not even be able to see an alternative. It thus means that under false consciousness, people would not be able to take into consideration a possibly increased wellbeing in alternative circumstances. Moreover, even if people who are oppressed by and within certain contexts realize that different circumstances would make them happier, they might be made to believe that it is morally (or at least socially) wrong to even desire alternatives and change.

As far as courage is concerned, it has been argued that it is enhanced when stakeholders realize that theirs is not an idiosyncratic experience; that they are not alone (Kitcher, 2021; Rorty, 1998). A result of people finding similar-minded (or similarly wounded) people sometimes leads to collectives and movements being formed, which then encourage others to give voice to their experiences and talk about their pain as well. The growth of groups further facilitates them gaining semantic authority within a larger conversation (cf. also Frye, 1983; Butler, 2009).

Semantic authority, on the other hand, encompasses influence over others or oneself (Rorty, 1998, 222–223). The latter aspect is closely tied to overcoming false consciousness, suggesting that individuals grappling with wounds must first acquire a language to articulate their sense of exclusion, even to themselves (Gascoigne, 2008, 195). The former dimension pertains to the impact one has on others and the ability to be heard within a conversation. Semantic authority over others is often unevenly distributed, even in democratic discussions, and may be justified in some cases, such as when expertise ⁷ is a significant factor, considering the importance of the epistemic condition. Unequal distribution can also be influenced by biases, culturally contingent agreements on authority in specific discussions, and other factors like the eloquence or self-confidence of speakers. This is closely related to what Miranda Fricker has called epistemic injustice, encompassing both testimonial and hermeneutical injustice: in diverse social exchanges (conversations) about social experiences and knowledge, some (groups of) interlocutors are more frequently neglected than others in their capacity as ‘knowers’ (cf. Fricker, 2007). As explored in the following section, access to artistic works and practices can serve as a means for stakeholders to gain semantic authority, and the expression of artistic imagination plays a crucial role in this development.

The matter of inclusion or inclusiveness thus refers, first and foremost, to helping other stakeholders gain and strengthen their voices, that is, to gain courage, expand their semantic authority and overcome false consciousness. To help others speak for themselves – in Michel Foucault’s spirit, only those directly concerned can speak in a practical way on their behalf (cf. Voparil, 2011, 121) – is hence preferable to merely speaking for others. Yet, to generously vouch for others and to include issues dear to them in the conversation may well be crucial in this process.

Within this account, the notion of conversation is largely linked to a linguistic matter in the straight sense. While Kitcher ascribes a central role to language when it comes to ethics in general (cf. Kitcher, 2011, 2021, 49) and to the matter of learning and discussing social issues (Kitcher, 2021, 94), in Rorty it is (new) language – that is new or improved vocabulary – that makes moral progress possible. In his view, language can be a tool (e.g. in ‘cultural politics’) to leap over boundaries (Rorty, 2011, 18) thus gain new perspectives, and attain higher purpose (Geras, 1995, 54). The source of new language is imagination (cf. Richard Rorty, 2007a, 114–115).

What is often omitted when accounts focus on language as a prime motor of moral change is that the creative mechanisms of imagination may also lead to non-conceptual elements of expression informing deficient states of moral arrangements experienced by diverse stakeholders. In fact, many cries of wounded stakeholders – for example, the claims of apparently silent or silenced voices – may be found and deciphered in ways of expression that are not strictly conceptual and/or discursive. If we agree to reserve a central spot for the notion of conversation when discussing moral progress, we must then take the non-strictly conceptual modes of expression seriously. In this matter, we are particularly inquiring into artistic imagination (which leads primarily to the limits of conceptual thinking in an interplay of discursive and non-discursive modes of expression).

Considering the possible omission of non-discursive forms of communication in the matter of the cries of the wounded by the morally engaged agent ultimately adds another level to the issue of silent stakeholders. It suggests that a number of silent stakeholders may already be crying out, yet in a way that might first have to be mediated (or translated) to be part of the conversation. Those forms of expressions may sometimes be harder to understand (and translate) than some more explicit statements (or cries). ⁸ On the other hand, alternative (artistic) forms of expression may transcend specific (and thus limited) discursive ways of expression, which consequently reach a more limited audience. In the case of the female-only Shi’i majalis, it is not (only) what is explicit in their chant, but moreover all the unsaid; about what stands between the lines: the cultural context, the historical reading and the image of social change they transmit. The cries reside within a much more implicit social message, transported by their very existence and the particularity of their praxis.

While we appreciate the long-standing and ongoing philosophical and political traditions that emphasize empathy and representation as core notions enhancing a democratic moral stance, we argue that such a perspective limits the possibilities of conveying thorough scrutiny of problematic situations and of identifying unexpected expressions of unrest as such. Inclusiveness is not only a one-way road for others to be included in an ideal moral oneness. The tools and energies of moral philosophers must also be addressed in identifying unrest amongst the unalike, coming from agents that might not conform to the image of the (silent) stakeholder, and whose quarrels, dreams and utopias are confused with silence and conformity due to their peculiar and fleeting articulations of their own standpoints. Following the implications of an aesthetic approach to the relationship of artistic imagination and the fostering of an expansive moral conversation, we will argue that Kitcher’s central maxim for an ideal moral inquiry, which focuses on representative multilateralism, continuous self-assessment and cognitive reliability, must be enriched with a culture of attentiveness to communicative expressions from stakeholders beyond linguistic-centred, discursively conveyed arguments and challenges. We understand that this aim aligns with the goal of overcoming rigid linguistic and cultural boundaries that would be crucial in making the conversation more thoroughly inclusive and fruitful (cf. Richard Rorty, 2007, 114–15; Rorty, 1998, 214). What follows considers artistic imagination as a productive faculty. Its products, the works of art, are understood as forms of communication capable of conveying social unrest beyond the limits of a discursive-rational scope. With the aid of the critical studies in aesthetics, we argue that a wider consideration of the sources and mechanisms of the communication of unrest will help define a more precise image of apparently silent stakeholders, complementary to Kitcher’s maxims for moral inquiry.

V Excessive utterances: On the mechanisms of artistic imagination

This section evaluates the pivotal role of artistic imagination in potentially shaping morally oriented conversations. While the singularity of forms of challenging and pointing at social problematics, which arise from artistic imagination, may have posed challenges for moral philosophers in engaging with contemporary creative phenomena, we seek to bridge the gap by highlighting the affinities between current understanding of artistic creativity in aesthetics and the pragmatic philosophical stance, thus facilitating more inclusive conversations.

The fostering and expansion of moral imagination is often claimed as a desired educational tool to generate more open-minded, tolerant and democratic societies. For Rorty, for instance, as mentioned, imagination is the source of new language and a renewed (progressed) morality (cf. Richard Rorty, 2007). It is the faculty that allows anyone to, as the saying goes, ‘try to walk in the other’s shoes’ – to imagine viewpoints different to one’s own and hence foster morally informed decisions and practices. As a source of new ways of expression, its articulations (both verbal and non-verbal) may provoke reflection and responses in other moral subjects and eventually have an impact on standpoints regarding culture, politics, economy and society. Kitcher has also emphasized the importance of widening the moral resources ‘and to rehearse, in imagination, the ways in which inclusive, informed and engaged deliberation would go’, and has reminded that Dewey envisaged for works of literature ‘a major role in developing the powers of moral imagination’ (Kitcher, 2021, 93). ⁹ Kitcher presupposes an improvement of the conversational possibilities derived from educational reform and an expansion in moral imagination, and his focus is on creating the conditions for a society to become more apt to imagine possible inarticulate unrest in a given society. Imagination, here, is thus considered in connection with empathy and not as an active faculty at the base of communicative elements apt to express contempt about social (moral) arrangements. Imagination may widen the understanding of the listening moral philosopher, but it moreover widens the expressive abilities and resources of stakeholders, as it is a creative faculty through which moral actors present, contrast and modify their stances, while exceeding the merely rational-linguistic capacities of moral reasoning. Artistic imagination in particular, with its concrete products and its resistance to be necessarily oriented to contextual truth, will prove to be a fruitful space for the reconsideration of the sometimes apparently inaccessible cries of the wounded.

Kitcher acknowledges the cognitive value of artistic imagination solely in regard to its general role in the shaping of moral education in any given society. ¹⁰ He specifically relies on a classical aesthetic notion, namely, exemplarism, whereby moral ideals and conceptual worldviews are mirrored in the arts by imitative means: ‘The presentations frequently consist in stories, parables or narratives purporting to be history’ (Kitcher, 2021, 94). Modern art and aesthetics have provided a more complex account of the tense relationship between art and representation. In Le Différend (1983, 200–18), Jean-François Lyotard famously referred to Cézanne, Schönberg and Joyce as artists who suspended the illusion of adequation between the artistic practice and its conceptual structures of legitimation. Lyotard’s understanding of dissensus as the result of such suspension is instrumental in addressing the moral aspect of art practices as social phenomena in parity with economic theories, technological advancements or public policies (Burdman, 2020).

Understanding artistic images and metaphors as the productive result of imagination beyond the scope of representation and truth has singularized artistic imagination as a preeminent heuristic and creative human faculty, consisting in the production of objects – lato sensu, the works of art – that usually exceed any predeterminate conceptual enclosure while at once being inseparable from their social contexts. ¹¹ As Iris Murdoch states: ‘Of course good literature does not look like “analysis” because what the imagination produces is sensuous, fused, reified, mysterious, ambiguous and particular. Art is cognition in another mode’ (Murdoch, 1997c, 11). This opens a space for the understanding of every artistic phenomenon as putting into question the state of things (or not doing so) with every unexpected word and puzzling gesture able to disrupt and redistribute the sensible commonplaces and enacting or embodying new imagined worlds.

Theodor Adorno’s quarrel against the conceptual scope of traditional philosophy is founded in a reassessment of aesthetics as the means of relation with the ontic, and in the suspicion against Kantian reversion of the object and the subject in epistemology. In Negative Dialectics, Adorno argues: ‘Traditional philosophy believes that it knows the unlike by likening it to itself, while in so doing it really knows itself only. The idea of a changed philosophy would be to become aware of likeness by defining it as that which is unlike itself’ (Adorno, 2004, 150). Openness is in this sense what is still objectively – not just cogitatively – unresolved (153). Conceptual solipsism, characteristic of traditional and modern philosophical positivism, is for Adorno the mimicry of synthesis: ‘Consciousness boasts of uniting what it has arbitrarily divided first, into elements – hence the ideological overtone of all talk of synthesis’ (175). In his Aesthetic Theory, Adorno exemplifies this with the expressiveness of the Guernica, pointing at the divergence between the plastic surface of the work and traditional ocular representation as a necessary technique to bring the ‘untruth of the social situation’ to light (Adorno, 2002, 237). Adorno’s stance against formalism and delusional transcendentalism addresses the overlooked concrete, corporal and explicitly physical aspects of reality, with a special emphasis on pain:

The smallest trace of senseless suffering in the empirical world belies all the identitarian philosophy that would talk us out of that suffering: ‘While there is a beggar, there is a myth’, as Benjamin put it. This is why the philosophy of identity is the mythological form of thought (Adorno, 2004, 203). ¹²

The reform of language advocated by Kitcher as a means ‘to facilitate the use of the precepts transmitted, both in action and in deliberation’ (Kitcher, 2021, 96) must find both modes and spaces to expand its attentiveness to non-discursive forms of communication. By acknowledging the moral habit of excluding such apostrophes as an unsettled question in the building up of a more inclusive moral practice, the conversational flow amongst stakeholders will be enriched by a more objective account of social struggle. Art and artistic imagination are a paradigmatic space to explore and unravel the ‘cries of the wounded’, blind spots of actual, immanent social situations that do not create favourable conditions for the inclusion of silent stakeholders in the conversation. The widely extended epistemic assumption that art can create and convey meaning is drawn from the non-exclusionary character of artistic languages concerning preverbal, sensory, kinaesthetic and imaginary ways of expressing, that challenge and displace rational common sense as commonplace. Rather than assuming beforehand that apparently silent groups or individuals in a given situation will very unlikely muster the tools needed to convey their suffering (or others’), the questioning and close examination of their creative practices, which are to be understood as social and moral actions in their own right, might challenge the simple image of the silent stakeholder.

Likenesses and intersections between metaphorical terms and metaphorized things do not preexist any metaphor, ¹³ and the artists of the past hundred years have pioneered the dissolution of any scheme of authenticity in relation to art, since metaphor-crafting is no longer dependent on representation and substitution. The unbounding of such a scheme is not an echo of the old ‘art for art’s sake’ motto, but rather the acknowledgement of art’s indirect and mediated relation with reality. Blumenberg relies on the notions of polysemy (Vieldeutigkeit) and disconformity (Widerstimmigkeit) to address metaphorics as the most remarkable example of the openness of imagination and linguistic signification (Blumenberg, 2001, 112–16). Artistic freedom from conceptual restraints is addressed by him from the standpoint of non-conceptuality (Unbegrifflichkeit).

Due to the problematization of conceptual truth, artistic practices let us understand the production of meaning and knowledge through the creative processes and the forms of presentation of the aesthetic. Miguel de Beistegui argues that metaphor actively disrupts the metaphysical mediation between the sensible and the suprasensible as it rearranges the sensible in open variation and address of the ‘horizon of transcendence that belongs to the sensible world itself – as the hypersensible’ (Beistegui, 2012, 112). While Adorno saw art as the refuge of ‘truth’ beyond conceptual identity, a fleeting promise of justice for the wounded bodies, Beistegui is committed to showing that modern metaphorology assumes the task of displaying the permanent and irreducible tension of the sensuous, that is, its heteronomy: ‘[M]etaphor will consist precisely in the displacement or de-propriation of the proper, in the originary expropriation that provides art with its nourishment’ (Beistegui, 2012, 98). Beistegui problematizes the adequation of quantitative physics and the sensible as addressed by artistic imagination, especially via Chillida’s enigmatic sculptures, masses of matter in perpetual tension with their components and context (137).

From premodern literature to the all-female Ashura gatherings, where artistic, religious and political boundaries are deliberately transgressed by means of widespread online pop culture, tension and inadequacy characterize the relationship between art and morality. There is always an attention to excess in philosophical approaches to artistic imagination. On the one hand, human imagination is capable in general of negating common sense and the present arrangement of the sensible. On the other hand, such recombinations do not necessarily fall in a dialectic scheme of representation and eventual synthesis into unity. The excess they produce is both derived from inadequacy, since no concept can simply exhaust their presence, and from novelty, because their sensible dimension reveals as ever-expanding. Both the products of politically engaged artistic practices and the results of the most apparently solipsistic or personal creative processes face the same paradoxical nature: the work of art does not appear to be entirely at hand, as a tool for social change nor a trustworthy report for policy counselling. To Beistegui (2012, 108–13), Proustian stereoscopic vision exceeds the scope of unity. It showcases conversely the insufficiency of art alone to provide a seamless discourse about identity or truth and, therefore, the entanglement and simultaneous distance between artistic imagination and the moral conversation.

Artistic imagination is thus a faculty able to present an aesthetic non sequitur of the current state of affairs, and this is what determines both its epistemic and its open conditions. Polysemy, non-conceptuality and heteronomy do not hinder artistic potential of conveying meaning, but they are rather the elements that assert the possibility of bringing the sensible novelty to the front: they account for the insufficiency of general knowledge and of the actual terms of any given conversation, and add to them new and other forms of experience and thought, traces of buffered suffering which may remain overlooked by contingent social arrangements. Moral inquiry that takes these communicative articulations seriously and that revolves around their ways of questioning any given moral framework, so we argue, would be making steps towards the possibility of becoming an ideal conversation in that context, presuming that it aims to include more nuanced information directly from the affected stakeholders (Kitcher, 2021, 37).

VI Conversations already taking place: Back to William James and conclusive remarks

In the beginning of this paper, we highlighted the unexpected forms and agents involved in the communication of social unrest via artistic means. While ‘political art’ is an analytic category – as partial as most categories – useful to distinguish between art and propaganda, for example, we believe that the mechanisms of artistic imagination are common to both its professional and non-professional agents and across disciplines, regardless of their apparent abstraction or introspection. Due to its supplementary or excessive relationship with conceptual-discursive thinking, artistic imagination is not only capable of overcoming contextual expressive limitations and of empathizing with others’ suffering, but preeminently of rendering such unrest in an aesthetic form, sometimes clearly engaged, often enigmatic and elusive, but always excessive and new to inquiry.

In the 1899 conference, James cites a wide variety of literary sources to strengthen his perspective on human instinctive sympathy and openness towards changing conditions and conflicted experiences. He relies on the narration of personal anecdotes, on diverse novelists and poets, such as Wordsworth, Stevenson, Whitman or Tolstoy, and on narrative observations by philosophers and anthropologists. Instead of placing individual prejudice first, and partisanly appealing to writers, good or bad, that agree with his worldviews, James faces the canonical figures of modern writing, and takes them seriously as diverse but contextually incardinated accounts on overlooked cries and sources of unrest. In short, James finds in the artistic imagination of classical, authoritative and popular literature of the long 19th century the words and arguments to pave the way for an attentive philosophical practice. A sense of finitude and of cosmic solidarity arises from Pierre’s bitter mockery of his captivity in War and Peace (1867). Moreover, Stevenson’s concern for the enigmatic joy of the neighbour in The Lantern-Bearers (1888) beautifully coalesces with Josiah Royce’s account of shared life’s endlessness – in an excerpt abridged by James:

James aims at evidencing the epistemic shortcomings of the modern, rational stance. All sorts of utterances and languages, and, in James’ own words, ‘the vast world of inner life beyond us’, require a perspective shift that the pragmatic philosopher embodies in this very text: ‘[A] new centre and a new perspective must be found’ (James, 1992b, 847). It is certain that James is rebutting the unsustainable position of disdain towards moral differences, but he is also well aware of the differentiated roles the poet and the philosopher fulfil. To James, Whitman’s character is ‘considered either practically or academically, a worthless unproductive being’: ‘«His verses are but ejaculations – things mostly without subject or verb, a succession of interjections on an immense scale»’ (851). Faced with art’s paradoxical non-conceptuality, James argues for the necessary decentering of the self-absorbed consciousness (854–55). It is possible to overcome one’s own blindness by the open and inclusive moral attitude that shall characterize philosophical pragmatism and is primordial to Kitcher’s conversation for a desirable forward-moving morality.

In Iris Murdoch’s words, love is that which unites art and morals: ‘Love is the perception of individuals. Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality’ (Iris Murdoch, 1997a, 215). Just like James, she finds in novelists and poets of his time valuable evidence of the free, open and epistemic nature of artistic imagination. In her perspective, artistic practices of all sorts ‘can give us a new vocabulary of experience, and a truer picture of freedom’ (Murdoch, 1997b, 295, cf. Nussbaum, 1990, 148–167). The metaphysical role Murdoch assigns to artistic imagination is close to James’, insofar as they both argue for the kaleidoscopic decentering of the self in pursuit of an inclusive morality. While Adorno aimed at overcoming conceptual constraints, Murdoch advocates for the overflow of conceptual nuances: ‘[W]hat we require is a renewed sense of the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons. We need more concepts in terms of which to picture the substance of our being; it is through an enriching and deepening of concepts that moral progress takes place’ (Murdoch, 1997b, 293).

Due to their particular epistemic, open and inclusive features, contemporary artistic practices prove to be an ever-multiplying source of actual, ongoing conversations being sometimes held by apparently silent stakeholders whose excessive nature and whose particular and paradoxical utterances have been traditionally kept aside in conventional political conversation. As non-truth-bound phenomena, their excessive and irreducible appearance ushers novelty into our everyday lives, breaches the limits of common sense – which are therefore not immediately suspended, but certainly frowned upon – and offer nuanced and always challenging perspectives about the world we live in, its flaws and potential.

Building on Kitcher’s concept of a morally ideal conversation characterized by mutual engagement (openness and freedom), an epistemic drive and above all inclusion, we considered the products of artistic imagination, as construed by contemporary aesthetics, as distinct communicative tools. By showcasing the consideration of artistic imagination as an open, free, epistemic and inclusive faculty, and an active and ever-renewing source of apostrophes, we contended that its examination within the framework of moral inquiry reduces the risks of overlooking the challenges set forth by extra-discursive means. In this sense, our contribution aligns with the spirit of Srinivasan’s commentary to Kitcher, regarding the need to closely consider social struggle (in all its forms) and the specific conditions of inequality. Our analysis underscores the concrete, singular and historical nature of artworks, emphasizing their inseparable connection to both artistic practice and a distinct aesthetic regime of openness and liberty. Adorno’s assertion that art, particularly in the last century and a half, serves as a poignant reminder of the world’s permanent unrest is noted. The novelties arising from artistic imagination, while anchored in context, remain unrestricted by necessity, hosting the unexpected and the unspoken. Consequently, the epistemic nature of artistic practices, with heuristic aims ranging from Romantic lyrical introspection to intermedial research by figures like Eduardo Kac and Janet Zweig, is highlighted. This creative process not only shapes sensibility but also plays a decisive role in presenting and understanding knowledge, as we conceptualized it above.

Singular statements arising from artistic imagination are hence obstinate exercises of expansion of the possible far beyond its conceptual and discursive scope. As a creative human ability, artistic imagination generates a sensible excess in the world we share, which will remain forever in tension with the context that made it possible, and with its future interpreters. Such positive yet irreducible excess crucially informs art’s inclusiveness, because it brings to the foreground claims and insights that manage to circumvent the blindspots of their cultural systems, not only as far as the expression of repressed identities, beliefs or ideologies is concerned, but also – and most importantly – regarding the imaginative inclusion of the non-identical and the other in the artistic creative processes and results.

We have, in fact, argued that one of the central challenges of an account of morality and moral progress that puts an inclusive conversation as a key method for moral improvement in focus, is that the exclusion of at least some relevant voices – voices of beings affected by certain social arrangements – seems impossible to overcome. To simply listen to the (explicit) cries of the wounded – as we may deduct from the Jamesian thought – may not suffice in our attempt to move towards a more inclusive morality. Philosophers such as Kitcher and Rorty posit that some moral stakeholders may lack sufficient semantic authority, courage or may be affected by false consciousness, hindering their effective participation. Moreover, there are mute stakeholders, such as non-human animals and future generations, with whom any linguistic exchange is impossible. In the first case, there is a moral responsibility to facilitate the involvement of excluded stakeholders, addressing their obstacles and fostering an inclusive culture and context. The second case demands moral agents to advocate in their best capacity for both excluded stakeholders and what can be reasonably assumed to be in their interest.

We have emphasized, however, that there is another category of apparently silent (wounded) stakeholders – those already attempting to articulate relevant concerns within the social world yet employing modes of expression that do not overlap with coetaneous conversations, or using extra-linguistic (or extra-conceptual) tools to convey their sorrow. By recognizing and nurturing diverse forms of expression and communication, inclusiveness is heightened, especially concerning the potentially ‘wounded’. Artistic imagination plays a crucial role in expanding the terms of moral conversations and acknowledging the voices of this distinct group of stakeholders, as it fosters both new ways of expressing the innermost self and the capacities of acknowledging different kinds of expression, as we argued. If regularly taken into consideration, this angle may provide moral inquiry with a more surefooted development, better prepared to consider artistic expression as a source of morally relevant standpoints, rather than silence.