oa Literatuur en toegepaste ethiek

Literature and applied ethics. The study of normative issues in Dutch literature

Within Dutch studies various approaches actively relate literature to the actual world, among which are the critique of ideology, ‘literature and ethics’ (particularly the ethics of alterity) and ‘literature and science studies’. Although these approaches engage, at least to some degree, with societal and political themes, they cannot fully answer Thomas Vaessens’s call – in his controversial book De revanche van de roman (2009) – for the study of the representation of a wide range of normative issues in literary works. While offering analyses of Harry Mulisch’s De ontdekking van de hemel (1992) and Charlotte Mutsaers’s Koetsier Herfst (2008) focused on moral status, it is argued in this contribution how an orientation on the employment of applied ethics might do this, thus complementing the abovementioned approaches.