Developing Emotion-Oriented Morality through Fiction

As a peculiar epistemological procedure to understand and represent world facts, literature has ‎constantly imparted major contributions to human knowledge. Literature’s epistemological ‎effects bear on both cognitive and affective measures; however, its emotional functioning is ‎more remarkable. Fiction resorts to mimesis on readers’ mind in developing such moral emotions as empathy, ‎sympathy and compassion in order to build up an emotional balance through discharging ‎adverse emotions. The educational consequences of fiction are in line with affective approach ‎to ethics, according to which avoiding the break between moral judgment and moral act relies ‎on the emotional perception of self and others’ feelings and beliefs, as well as the nature of ‎intergroup social relations. Moral behavior grounded on emotive knowledge is called ‎emotional-oriented morality in this article, which attempts to explain the role of emotions in ‎directing people toward moral virtue and to assess the epistemological effects of fiction in that ‎regard. ‎ The effective involvement of fiction as a tool for moral goodness, in a cultural setting demands ‎psychological and sociological scrutiny. Children’s literature and translated literature are two ‎critical areas of effect due to their acute emotive impacts on readers. Provided that the cultural ‎qualities of the affective system dominating the target community are taken into account, ‎fiction can play a significant role in the development of emotion-oriented morality by building ‎a rich and balanced repertoire of familiar and common emotion on the one hand, and complex ‎and emergent emotions on the other. ‎