The latest The Stone installment is a piece by Gregory Currie (Nottingham) where he examines critically the claim made by several prominent people – he mentions in particular Martha Nussbaum in Love’s Knowledge – that reading “great literature make[s] us better”. He points out that in the philosophical debates so far, proponents of this view have presented arguments on how literature and fiction might have this effect, but no compelling evidence to the effect that it does have the purported effect. He adds the parenthetical remark:
Suppose a schools inspector reported on the efficacy of our education system by listing ways that teachers might be helping students to learn; the inspector would be out of a job pretty soon.
When reading the piece, I was intrigued by the claim that there is no, or hardly any, empirical evidence on the effects of reading literature for moral traits such as empathy, kindness etc. Currie seems correct in noting that authors such as Nussbaum and others coming from the philosophical perspective do not refer to empirical data potentially corroborating the position; but is it true that there are virtually no empirical results on the issue?
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