Cultivating...phronesis? through art

I read two articles for today. The first was by Patricia Werhane. She focused largely on the way we approach morality inside of systems. Her argument was that solutions focusing just on individuals tend to miss the larger picture. Systems are connected, organic; solutions must take account of the relationships that exist between different parts of the system. A common example of a system is a corporation.

After establishing what a system is, she contends that moral imagination is necessary to avoid immorality (or amorality) when dealing with systems. Moral imagination differs from moral reasoning; she contends that moral imagination is tantamount to thinking outside of the box (where the box = the system) whereas moral reasoning is what helps us avoid moral fantasy.

She references the South African electrical corporation Eskom, which existed during apartheid and thereby denied services to non-white South Africans. Upon reflection (she doesn't describe how this reflexive process began) they started hiring non-white employees and expanding services. This approach extended to all parts of the business.

I found this article interesting, but had a few questions. First, I still don't understand how Eskom was an example of the use of moral imagination. I don't doubt that it was, but the process isn't clear to me. Second, it seems to imply that there originally existed some desire for change. The more interesting question for me is how we facilitate change in people who otherwise would have no such desire. She talks about how identifying the parts of the system most prone to change is imoportant, but I think more work could be done here.

Second, I read Art, Imagination, and the Cultivation of Morals by Andrew Kieran. This article was really interesting. He seems to be making a fine distinction: Art is not merely a way of getting at knowledge we already have of morality--it isn't purely instrumental--but is actually apart of the formative process. It shapes our understanding. Art is a way of seeing morality. He uses the term "imaginative understanding" to describe this process. He mentions Aristotle, but does not focus too much here--would it be a misinterpretation to say the process he is describing is that of cultivating phronesis?

He tries to avoid pure aestheticism in favor of ethicism; one argument he makes is that art that misrepresents really is flawed, even if the part of really it misrepresents is ethics. He describes Nazi propaganda here. The take home point is that philosophy and art are not at odds with each other--one still needs moral reflection through reason and philosophical texs--but that art should not be considered a mere subsidiary. Art and philosophy are in conversation with one another.