Carl Plantinga is Senior Research Fellow at Calvin University. Among his books are Screen Stories: Emotion and the Ethics of Engagement (2018) and Moving Viewers: American Film and the Spectator's Experience (2009).

• Notes on Contributors


• Acknowledgments


• Introduction


• by Carl Plantinga


• I. Moral Understanding


• 1. Clarifying Moral Understanding


• by Ted Nannicelli


• 2. Understanding (mis)understanding: Sally be a Lamb


• by Paul C. Taylor


• II. Transfer and Cultivation


• 3. Phenomenal Experience and Moral Understanding: A Framework for Assessment


• By Carl Plantinga


• 4. The Slow, Subtle, Small Effects of Filmic Narrative on Moral Understanding


• by Helena Bilandzic


• 5. Moral Conflict, Screen Stories, and Narrative Appeal


• by René Weber and Frederic Hopp


• 6. How Screen Stories Can Contribute to the Formation of Just Persons


• by Nicholas Wolterstorff


• III. Affect


• 7. Affect and Moral Understanding


• by Robert Sinnerbrink


• 8. Morality and Media: The Role of Elevation/Inspiration


• by Mary Beth Oliver


• IV. Character Engagement


• 9. Media Characters and Moral Understanding: Perspectives from Media Psychology


• by Allison Eden and Mathew Grizzard


• 10. Movies, Examples, and Morality: The Rhetoric of Admiration


• by Noël Carroll


• V. The Reflective Afterlife


• 11. What Roles Can Audiences Play in Generating Moral Understanding?


• by James Harold


• 12. On Reflecting on Reflections: The Moral Afterlife and Screen Studies


• by Wyatt Moss-Wellington


• 13. The Reflective Afterlife and the Ends of Imagining


• by Murray Smith


• Index

Screen Stories and Moral Understanding considers the place of movies, streamed series, and television in the lives of viewers, paying particular attention to their role in leading to moral rumination and learning. The book considers how screen stories can transfer knowledge and cultivate sensibilities and responses. It shows how the affective responses of viewers and viewers' psychological relationships with fictional characters figure into the influence of narrative. It also describes the means by which institutions encourage and direct reflection on screen stories after the viewing has ended.