A post by James O. Young.

Philosophers from Aristotle onwards have held that reading literary fiction can make people more virtuous. Nussbaum (1990) was among the first contemporary philosophers to maintain that literary fiction is a valuable source of moral knowledge. On her view, reading literary fiction assists readers to understand social situations and to understand the complexities of making moral decisions. Similarly, Currie (1995) believes that imagining ourselves in the situations of fictional characters can lead to moral growth. Other philosophers, such as Vogler (2007), have been sceptical about the suggestion that reading literary fiction has any moral benefits. She believes that time spent reading literary fiction is, from a moral point of view, wasted. The only way to become more virtuous she believes, is to perform virtuous acts. She writes that, for example, “if I seek to cultivate generosity, I give….Since silent reading induces retreat from my circumstances, silent reading is the opposite of habituating myself to noticing what’s going on in my world by noticing.” (Vogler 2007: 33) The hypothesis that reading literary fiction makes readers more virtuous is an empirical hypothesis. The most recent empirical evidence suggests that it is true.