Henry James and Modern Moral Life (review)

Robert B. Pippin. Henry James and Modern Moral Life. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 193 pp. $49.95.

Robert B. Pippin, professor of Philosophy in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, has in his previous work focused his attention on what he considers the problems posed by modernity for continental philosophers such as Kant, Nietzsche, and Hegel. In Henry James and Modern Moral Life, Pippin maintains his focus on modernity as a philosophical problem, arguing that in his fiction Henry James developed a complex moral philosophy which, although it fully confronts the radical moral dilemmas posed by modernity, ultimately avoids the abyss of moral skepticism.

According to Pippin, James "believed that a vast historical alteration had been taking place in Western European and American societies for some time, that this involved a change in basic mores and sensibilities," and that "it greatly complicated our moral assessments of each other" (11). This "historical dimension" (4-5) is the most familiar and conventional part of his argument. Pippin writes that "While [James's characters] always represent and evince aspects of their social position, [ . . . ] such social positions, functions, roles, the depth of meaning in convention and tradition, and so on, do not any longer provide these characters, in this increasingly anomic and disunified social world, with much of a basis for assessment" (5). That is, Pippin describes the problem of modernity very much as it has traditionally been seen in the works of modern writers from James and Henry Adams to T. S. Eliot. Pippin's further claim that James understood not only that "objective moral qualities" (12) are more difficult to identify in the modern world but also the more radical claim that "there 'really' is no right and wrong, [ . . . ] only what was taken to be so, given certain conditions, at a time" (14) will also probably not breed much controversy among the current generation of James scholars.

What is surprising and what does conflict with many postmodern readings of James's work is Pippin's insistence that although James recognized the radical complexity of the modern dilemma he was nevertheless "no moral skeptic or nihilist" (14). As Pippin realizes, just how James manages to avoid skepticism "is the hardest issue to state properly and by far the most important" (86). He acknowledges that the number of moral possibilities in James's fiction do seem virtually infinite, and throughout the book he is particularly skillful in elucidating many of them. Nevertheless, he convincingly argues that

for all the indeterminacy problems just mentioned, almost always in such cases [James's] heroes and heroines also experience a great, intensely felt, indisputably real limitation on such [moral] exploration, something like the claims of others to be and to be treated as free, equally independent end-setting, end-seeking subjects. (29)

Thus, Pippin contends, although moral absolutes are notably absent in James, there remains a more limited morality, one specific to a community and to time and place. As the passage suggests, this moral reality is a social moral reality, one that depends for its validity on the mutual understanding and interdependence of the involved community (however small it may be). In essence, James's protagonists seek the freedom to be independent, self-directed individuals, but they discover that this kind of freedom can occur only through what Pippin describes as "an achieved like-mindedness" with the others on whom they must depend (26).

Pippin gathers the evidence to support his claims primarily from close readings of a variety of tales and novels. These readings are filled with insight and often lead to new and unconventional interpretations of some of James's most frequently discussed texts. In chapter 1, Pippin introduces the reader to the central arguments summarized above while in chapter 2 he examines The Awkward Age and The American Scene in order to bolster his claim that James understood himself to be living in a new and unprecedented era of moral...