Relatable Motives and Righteous Causes; or, Why the Sympathetic Antihero is Not a Moral Psychological Mystery
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Abstract
Morally flawed antiheroes in TV and film, such as Dexter Morgan and Dirty Harry, often inspire sympathetic engagement from audiences. Media scholars have argued that it is these antiheroes’ status as fictional characters that allows audiences to flout their moral principles and side with the antiheroes. Against this view, I argue that these problematic sympathies can be explained without reference to a special fictional attitude. Human morality is sensitive not only to abstract moral principles but also to the concrete motives and situations of an individual moral agent, and the motives and situations of the sympathetic antihero very often seem exculpatory.
Contributor Notes
Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of English, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research applies perspectives from cognitive media theory and moral psychology to the heroes and villains of fiction. His work appears in journals such as The Journal of Popular Culture, Poetics, and Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture. For more information, including contact information, detailed research interests, and a full list of publications, visit his university webpage: http://au.dk/en/jkc@cc. Email: jkc@cc.au.dk