Crime fiction and moral emotions: How context lures the moral attitudes of viewers and readers

Torben Kragh Grodal

Crime fiction and moral emotions: How context lures the moral attitudes of viewers and readers

Department of Communication

Abstract

The article first discusses how crime fiction centrally activates moral emotions related to feelings of social trust and social conflicts. The article uses psychological theory to analyse audio-visual fiction, and it takes an evolutionary stance in relation to morality; within film studies, and especially within literary studies, the inspiration from evolutionary studies has been strong in the last decade. Humans are adapted to group living, and emotions linked to fairness have an innate basis. The article then shows how different crime stories activate different stages in Kohlberg’s functional typology of moral systems and how different stages relate to different social systems. Further, a functional description of the various moral emotions is used to characterize crime fictions. The use of moral emotions in crime fiction is exemplified in Oplev’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), angry vigilantism in Fincher’s Se7en (1995) and moral disgust, shame, embarrassment and guilt in the Showtime TV series Dexter (2006–)

Original language	English
Journal	Nordic Journal of Media Studies.
Volume	9
Pages (from-to)	143-157
Number of pages	15
ISSN	1601-829X
Publication status	Published - 2011

Keywords

Faculty of Humanities

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Cite this

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title = "Crime fiction and moral emotions: How context lures the moral attitudes of viewers and readers ",

abstract = "The article first discusses how crime fiction centrally activates moral emotions related to feelings of social trust and social conflicts. The article uses psychological theory to analyse audio-visual fiction, and it takes an evolutionary stance in relation to morality; within film studies, and especially within literary studies, the inspiration from evolutionary studies has been strong in the last decade. Humans are adapted to group living, and emotions linked to fairness have an innate basis. The article then shows how different crime stories activate different stages in Kohlberg{\textquoteright}s functional typology of moral systems and how different stages relate to different social systems. Further, a functional description of the various moral emotions is used to characterize crime fictions. The use of moral emotions in crime fiction is exemplified in Oplev{\textquoteright}s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), angry vigilantism in Fincher{\textquoteright}s Se7en (1995) and moral disgust, shame, embarrassment and guilt in the Showtime TV series Dexter (2006–)",

keywords = "Faculty of Humanities, moral emotions , crime fiction, vigilantism, cognitive film theory, altruistic justice",

author = "Grodal, {Torben Kragh}",

year = "2011",

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journal = "Nordic Journal of Media Studies.",

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AU - Grodal, Torben Kragh

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AB - The article first discusses how crime fiction centrally activates moral emotions related to feelings of social trust and social conflicts. The article uses psychological theory to analyse audio-visual fiction, and it takes an evolutionary stance in relation to morality; within film studies, and especially within literary studies, the inspiration from evolutionary studies has been strong in the last decade. Humans are adapted to group living, and emotions linked to fairness have an innate basis. The article then shows how different crime stories activate different stages in Kohlberg’s functional typology of moral systems and how different stages relate to different social systems. Further, a functional description of the various moral emotions is used to characterize crime fictions. The use of moral emotions in crime fiction is exemplified in Oplev’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009), angry vigilantism in Fincher’s Se7en (1995) and moral disgust, shame, embarrassment and guilt in the Showtime TV series Dexter (2006–)

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - moral emotions

KW - crime fiction

KW - vigilantism

KW - cognitive film theory

KW - altruistic justice

M3 - Journal article

SN - 1601-829X

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EP - 157

JO - Nordic Journal of Media Studies.

JF - Nordic Journal of Media Studies.

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