Resisting Robinson Crusoe in Dechanel’s Film

Abstract

In the past twenty years, philosophers, especially ethicists, have become particularly interested in narrative as a way of understanding conceptions of self and agency, most particularly as a way of providing a clearer notion of the context of our moral practices and so providing a more social foundation for our understanding of ourselves.¹ But philosophers have always drawn some of their knowledge from stories, and one of those narratives which has seemed most irresistible to modern Western philosophers is the story of Crusoe, the story of a character who finds himself in isolation from others. Crusoe is often taken to be the (Active) embodiment of Western individualism.² So for contemporary philosophers to suggest that a narrative approach to ethics can challenge individualistic conceptions of the self is problematic, and requires that philosophers carefully look to both the plot and the structure of narratives if ethicists are fruitfully to draw on them.