Choo, Suzanne S.

Since the late 20th century, Literature education has entered an ethical turn in response to hyper globalization, the intensification of digital technology, the dangers of post-truth and rising instances of intolerance worldwide. Consequently, influential scholars have rekindled the age-old connection between Literature and ethics. After discussing this turn to ethics and highlighting the pedagogical cosmopolitanization of ethical criticism, this article uncovers the ways in which cosmopolitan ethics grounds recent conceptualizations of ethical criticism and its various strands—relational, analytical, and historical. This paper examines these strands drawing from both “Eastern” and “Western” philosophical traditions. It then offers responses to criticisms of cosmopolitan ethical criticism, namely, arguments concerning moral reductiveness and moral determinism. It demonstrates how these arguments paradoxically reinforce subjectivity to the exclusion of intersubjective accountability and further justify cosmopolitan ethical criticism as tied to its teleological and plurivocal purposes respectively. Cosmopolitan ethical criticism provides the critical tools needed to counter parochial meta-narratives which are essential for human flourishing via societies characterized by hospitality, empathy and inclusivity.

In an age of hyper-globalization, ethical criticism has become vital in tackling the bombardment of information across networked societies. This paper begins by exploring the historical emergence of ethical criticism, its dominant approaches (relational, analytical and historical), and potential for character education. Next, we focus on character education in Singapore. Utilizing a comparative case study analysis, we compared older and recent character education syllabi and applied ethical criticism as an analytical lens. Findings show a discernible shift from moral adaptation to some evidence of ethical criticism where more emphasis is placed on the relational and less on analytical and historical aspects. We then examine the opportunities and tensions for ethical criticism in Singapore’s character education programme. These tensions arise from the simultaneous objectives of empowering citizens to handle the challenges of multicultural engagements alongside the limits placed on critical-ethical thinking when applied to analyzing politics and systemic structures of power.