Moral Imagination

LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” transports the reader into an ethical dilemma: an imagined world in which a utopian society’s perfection is dependent on the suffering of a young boy. LeGuin forces the reader to explore morality through the use of extremes. The reader’s worldview is unearthed when imagining a world where there is complete and total harmony at the expense of one boy experiencing grotesque torture. Once someone has considered living in the imagined world, it is hard to ignore the mirrored systems of suffering that exist in reality. Le Guin uses moral imagination to make readers confront the flaws in their own societies, pushing them to reconsider their values, especially the idea that the suffering of a few might be accepted as the price of comfort for the many.

Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden also explores moral imagination, but through a different lens. His imagined world is created through the aftermath of a brutal dictatorship and the efforts to form some sort of transitional justice. The reader is dropped into a world where evidence is uncertain, and the line between justice and vengeance quickly becomes blurred. Paulina states, “This time I am going to think about myself, about what I need,” when considering whether or not she will kill Roberto. The reader is forced to imagine themselves in her shoes, contemplating the difference between justice and revenge through moral imagination.

Utility

Bentham declares that “nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure.” These two terms shift utility from an abstract ideal to a measurable standard. Actions hold moral utility when they produce the largest amount of pleasure and the least amount of pain. This consequentialist definition of utility places all emphasis of morality on outcomes in place of intentions. Bentham looks at utility as a mathematical equation, a sum of quantifiable factors that can be measured or compared to come to a decision.

Singer redefines utility by applying Bentham’s consequentialist definition to a global scale. While Bentham focuses on utility as a moral principle that can be used as a tool for evaluating laws or just decisions, Singer radically broadens the idea. He defines utility through an idea that is easily digestible, but difficult to carry out in real-world application: “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” This ideal is so difficult to actualize because the responsibility of individuals increases drastically, and the scope becomes global. While Bentham’s utility could be satisfied through a well-designed system, Singer’s requires constant individual sacrifice.

Exceptionalism

Sturken delves into how exceptionalism, when put into the framework of cultural memory and violence, frames certain violent events as incomparable. This “can be used to justify conflicts in their wake, providing a kind of moral cushion that disallows counternarratives.” When violence is remembered in this way, hierarchies of suffering are created that discount the lived experience of some traumas over others. When events like the Holocaust or 9/11 are remembered through an exceptionalist lens, meaningful comparative understanding of violence becomes impossible. Additionally, “exceptionalism is counter to any movement toward peace” as it justifies ongoing conflict that cannot match the extreme levels of exceptional violence.

Memory

In Sturken’s, Cultural Memory in the Wake of Violence, memory is defined as something that cultures construct rather than something that exists on its own. She discusses how “One of the key ways that we can understand the dynamic of memory of violence and conflict is within the framework of exceptionalism,” meaning memory is not an objective truth, but rather a narrative that can pick and choose whose suffering counts. Cultural memory is formed through the creation of memorials, commemorations, and museum spaces where societies choose what to remember and how to remember it. This erases any sense of neutrality from the act of remembering. Therefore, memory becomes a social process and not an individual process, as it creates a structure of legitimacy for some realities, while marginalizing others.

Taylor redefines memory in Archive and the Repertoire by distinguishing between archival forms and performance. She argues that for too long the archive has been “privileged or even the sole object of analysis”  in Western society, which has devalued cultures’ memory practices. Memory, in Taylor’s framework, is not singular but exists in several different modes with distinct logics and capabilities. Taylor insists that performance and the repertoire have their own system of transmitting and storing knowledge, challenging the assumption that only written records constitute legitimate memory. She shows that performance preserves knowledge that cannot be digested through documents.

Ubuntu

Tutu describes Ubuntu as an African philosophy that states “a person is a person through other people.” Essentially, all of humanity is interconnected, and human existence only occurs through a sense of community. This idea challenges the Western philosophy of “I think therefore I am” by saying that “I am human because I belong, I participate, I share.” The idea of Individualism is completely removed, and humanity is defined instead by one’s ability to interact with others. For Ubuntu, anything that undermines social harmony should be avoided at all costs, as humanity is found through connection.

Chigumadzi critiques Tutu’s theology as grounded in Christian frameworks. She admonishes Tutu for operating under a Christianised Ubuntu because it ignores the intense demand for reparations, while also disregarding “South Africa’s foundational centuries of racial terror.” Where Tutu demands forgiveness through Ubuntu, Chigumadzi demands actual, physical change to occur through Ubuntu’s demand for restorative justice.

Punishment

Dante Alighieri’s Inferno explores punishment through the lens of contrapasso, the ethical principle of justice that establishes a symmetrical correspondence between the sin and the suffering for the sin. Punishment is considered in an exclusively religious context, and breaking the Christian way of thinking results in a form of discipline that fits the crime. Even seemingly noble acts are punished if they are only dignified in the eyes of men, and not God. In Canto 26, Odysseus is revealed to have urged his men to “embrace experience, tracing the sun’s route to the uninhabited region that awaits.” While testing the bounds of human capability may be inspiring to mankind, humans are forbidden by God to pass the limits of the known world. For his thirst for forbidden knowledge and his undying flame of ambition, Odysseus is punished with eternal flame, encased in the very same fire which once drove him. His punishment matched his crime, exemplifying the idea of contrapasso. 

John Locke holds a similar viewpoint on punishment in Second Treatise of Government. He argues that someone’s punishment must be proportionate to what they did, which aligns with the concept of contrapasso; however, Locke removes the aspect of punishment for punishment’s sake. Instead, Locke argues for “reparation and restraint: for these two are the only reasons why one man may lawfully harm another. Locke has a more productive view on punishment, highlighting the importance of correcting mistakes and deterring future wrongdoings as opposed to the inhumane concentrated pain which Dante discusses.

Coloniality

In Discourse on Colonialism, Cesaire describes the processes and logic that would later be theorized as coloniality. He reveals the system that denies colonized peoples’ humanity through the equation of “colonization = thingification,” reducing people to objects as a way to exploit them. This exists not only through political domination but also through mass violence. Cesaire discusses how supporters of colonialism “ talk to me about progress,” while he recognizes the reality of “cultures trampled underfoot.” European knowledge and values are recognized as understood standards, while non-European systems are looked at as primitive. 

Tamale explicitly defines coloniality in Decolonization and Afrofeminism, describing it as “invisible power structures that sustain colonial relations of exploitation and domination long after the end of direct colonialism.” Where Cesaire focused on the broader processes of coloniality, Tamale focuses on the systematic injustices it places on women and people of color. She explains how race was invented through colonialism as a tool to oppress, and how coloniality reconstructed gender ideas in Africa that marginalized women.

Undercaste

In her introduction to The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander defines “undercaste” as a group of people “permanently barred by law and custom from mainstream society.” She distinguishes this carefully from class, arguing that class implies the possibility of mobility. This mobility may be difficult, but it is at least possible. Her argument with the undercaste “is that a huge percentage of them (African Americans) are not free to move up at all.” According to Alexander, the undercaste is not produced by imprisonment itself but by the legal consequences that follow prison. She describes these as “virtual bars and virtual walls, walls that are invisible to the naked eye but function nearly as effectively as Jim Crow laws once did.” Discrimination in employment, housing, voting, and public benefits remains perfectly legal once someone is labeled a felon.

What makes this term useful is that it shifts the explanation for Black poverty and marginalization away from personal failure and toward legal structure. The undercaste is not a group that has fallen behind; it is a group that has been legally kept in place due to systematic inequalities.

Africanist Presence

In Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance, Brenda Dixon Gottschild defines the Africanist presence as “African and African American resonances, trends, and phenomena.” She uses the term Africanist presence to refer to the way Black culture functions as an unseen but foundational force in American life, as described by Toni Morrison. According to Gottschild, the Africanist presence is found in dance, music, fashion, and speech, but it goes unrecognized. It is assimilated into mainstream American culture with little to no recognition of where it came from.Thus, the term allows us to view American culture in a different way: no longer seeing it as having primarily European origins but instead as being profoundly shaped by African and African American creativity. Gottschild argues that Black culture has been a significant force within American culture; however, she suggests that white American culture has relied on it and has not acknowledged that reliance. Therefore, the Africanist presence provides a means of exposing a form of cultural theft that takes place quietly, below the level of everyday American life.

Minstrel Trope

In her chapter “Past Imperfect” in Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance, Brenda Dixon Gottschild uses minstrel trope to describe racist patterns in performance that started as blackface minstrelsy and continue to shape how Black people are represented and perceived in America. She describes it as “the love/hate contestation of the white-black exchange,” meaning it captures both the white fascination with and the white contempt for Black culture and Black bodies. For Gottschild, the minstrel trope is not just a historical artifact; it is an ongoing structure that determines what kinds of Black performances are permitted, celebrated, or punished.

Fungibility

Saidiya Hartman, in her work Scenes of Subjection, utilizes the term “fungibility” to refer to the manner in which slaves were viewed as interchangeable and disposable commodities, whose bodies were used and thrown away depending on the wishes of white individuals. Her argument is that slavery made black bodies fungible vessels that were “an abstract and empty vessel vulnerable to the projection of others’ feelings, ideas, desires, and values.”

In order to illustrate this concept, Hartman draws attention to John Rankin, an abolitionist who attempted to create empathy towards the plight of slaves through an exercise of imagining what it must be like to be in their shoes. According to Hartman, this empathic move illustrates the very concept of fungibility since the slave is rendered invisible and irrelevant, while the white person’s feelings take center stage.

Choreopolitics

In the article Choreopolice and Choreopolitics, André Lepecki explains that choreopolitics is a kind of political activity that occurs through movement that is different from the movement that power has already set for bodies in public space. Lepecki contextualizes this by referring to philosopher Jacques Rancière’s theory of police, where he uses the term police not to refer to the act of law enforcement but rather to any authority that dictates the movement and position of bodies. Movement becomes a political activity because the way bodies move in public can be either compliance or defiance.

Health Equity

In his work, Why Health Equity?, Economist Amartya Sen asserts that health equity is not just about having an equal share of health care: rather, health equity is a wide and multidimensional concept that ties the subject of health into broader discussions of social justice. He states that health is not merely a matter of health status, but is “a crucially significant aspect of human capacities.” He says that without the ability to be in good health, humans are not able to properly exercise the freedoms that they have, cannot adequately function in society, or realize their aspirations.

Sen stresses the fact that we do not achieve health equity by providing the same share of health care services to every human. Citing the example of women, who have been known to live longer than men in non-discriminatory societies, he contends that merely offering men additional care to reduce the disparity of survival rates would be unjust. Health equity is not concerned with outcomes but process. Not simply who receives the care, but who is treated in a manner free from discrimination and other inequalities. Sen states that the prevalence of disparity in health status is reflective of inequalities in society. Therefore, the effort for health equity is not merely a medical one but, rather, a political issue which requires us to regard human individuals according to their placement within society.

Protesting Bodies

In “Choreographies of Protest,” Susan Leigh Foster argues that the body in protest is “a vast reservoir of signs and symbols” capable of “both persuasion and obstinate recalcitrance,” meaning that nonviolent protest is not simply spontaneous or emotionally driven but a learned, practiced, and physically disciplined form of action that the body must be trained to perform. She pushes back against what she calls “the volcanic view” of protest, which treats collective action as an eruption of irrational feeling, and argues instead that protesting bodies are articulate signifying agents. Essentially, the body in protest is making an argument, not just expressing emotion. She traces this across three moments: the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960, the ACT UP die-ins of the late 1980s, and the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999, showing in each case how protestors rehearsed specific physical responses, developed rules of conduct, and trained their bodies to do things that do not come naturally, like absorbing a beating without striking back.

 Big Data

In Predict and Surveil, Brayne looks into racist practices in big data. She describes big data policing as the growing reliance on digital information, combined with automated algorithms to guide decisions on who to monitor, where to patrol, and who to consider a suspect. Algorithms are developed based on societal norms, and if societal norms are racist, algorithms are also racist. In essence, the algorithms used to support policing decisions have absorbed the biases inherent in policing, racial profiling, and the increased surveillance of economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Works Cited

Le Guin, Ursula K. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. HarperCollins, Oct. 1973.

Dorfman, Ariel. Death and the Maiden. 1990. London, Nick Hern, 2011.

Bentham, Jeremy. The Principles of Morals and Legislation. Prometheus Books, 28 Mar. 2012.

Singer, Peter. Famine, Affluence, and Morality. Oxford [England], Oxford University Press, 2016.

Sturken, Marita. Cultural Memory in the Wake of Violence: Exceptionalism, Vulnerability, and the Grievable Life. 1 Jan. 2018.

Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire. Duke University Press Books, 12 Sept. 2003.

Tutu, Archbishop Desmond. “No Future without Forgiveness.” New Perspectives Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 5, Sept. 1999, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5842.1999.tb00012.x. Accessed 9 May 2020.

Chigumadzi, Panashe. “With What are You Apologizing?” ZAM Nelson Mandela Lecture 2023, 5 February 2023, International Theatre Amsterdam.

 Inferno. 1321. Milano, Mondadori, Ottobre.

Locke, John. The Second Treatise of Government. 1689. Peterborough, Ontario, Broadview Press, 1689.

Césaire, Aimé, and Joan Pinkham. Discourse on Colonialism. JSTOR, NYU Press, 2000, www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctt9qfkrm.4.

Tamale, Sylvia. Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. Ottawa, Daraja Press, 2020.