Moral Creativity

John Wall argues that moral life is inherently creative. Creativity he says is an element not just in the expression of moral sentiments the application of moral principles or the formation of moral cultures but also the very activity of living morally itself. He supports his argument by means of an examination and critique of the moral thought of the French hermeneutical phenomenologist Paul Ricoeur especially his poetics of will. Wall places Ricoeur''s work in the larger context of historical and contemporary conversations about moral transformation. In the process he draws new connections between morality and tragedy ethics and poetics and the moral life and religious mythology. If moral life is creative at its core Wall argues it challenges all of these inherited oppositions and demands some fundamental rethinking of the nature and meaning of moral life itself.