Emersonian Reading and Ethics: Reading for Developing an Ethical Stance toward Self and Other

This article explores the possibilities of engaging reading as a form of ethical practice. Through the writings of American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, the author argues that Emerson views reading as an opportunity for cultivating one’s self and nurturing healthy relations with others and society. Emerson sees the self and identity as malleable and writes throughout his career that human subjectivity exists as a web of relationships between and among selves and others. Furthermore, reading, for Emerson, offers a platform for self-formation that is intimately tied to self-overcoming and transcending limits, as well as living life as a project and an experiment. In addressing the possibilities to which ethical reading may be situated, the author explores the ethics of reading and writing in conjunction with creating healthy selves, how such produced selves and others exist within a web of relations, and, ultimately, the idea that reading ethically enables the transcendence of limitation and living life as a work of art.