Volume 11, Issue 2, June 2022
Niall Connolly
Pages 106-113
https://doi.org/10.5840/tht202322810
Fictional Resistance and Real Feelings
This paper outlines a solution to the puzzle of imaginative resistance that makes¡ªand if successful helps to vindicate¡ªtwo assumptions. The solution first assumes a relationship between moral judgements and affective states of the subject. It also assumes the correctness of accounts of imaginative engagement with fiction¡ªlike Kendall Walton¡¯s account¡ªthat treat engagement with fiction as prop-based make-believe in which works of fiction, but also appreciators of those works, figure as props. The key to understanding imaginative resistance, it maintains, is understanding how real feelings become part of fictional worlds.