Ethical Fiction as a Narrative

Abstract

In this paper the author argues that the concept of narrative, as Paul Ricoeur describes it, can be useful for providing ontological and epistemological grounds for theories of fictionalism in contemporary ethics. In the first section, Ricoeur's views on narrative are briefly described, special attention being given to the concept of triple mimesis. Later on, fictionalism as a theory is described, basing on the works of John L. Mackie and Richard Joyce. The author points out to several ontological and epistemological issues, which fictionalists do not seem to solve properly. The final part is devoted to a proposition of treating ethical fiction as a form of Ricoeurian narrative, which seems to answer some of the most problematic questions that fictionalism has to face.