Ethics as Poetics. Exploring Imagination in Ethical Life through Gaston Bachelard and Paul Ricoeur

Abstract

This paper explores the constitutive role of imagination in ethical life from the perspective of Gaston Bachelard and Paul Ricoeur. It opposes traditional and rationalist accounts of ethics, proposing instead that our imaginations primarily shape ethical life. In the first place, the paper offers Bachelard’s phenomenological account of imagination through his analysis of poetic reverie. He emphasizes the importance of poetic reverie in preparing the soul for ethical action. The paper argues that this disposition achieved through imagination is essential for our ethical life. In the second place, the paper explores Ricoeur extension of these Bachelardian ideas by giving an account of the productive power of imagination through metaphor and narrative, stating that imagination not only produces new possibilities for being but also synthesizes our experiences into a personal identity through narrative, which is essential for ethical life. The paper concludes by placing ethics as a poetic work, where imagination is not merely a tool for ethical deliberation but the ground from which ethical meanings, norms, and values emerge.