In her philosophical writings, Simone de Beauvoir argues our existence is defined by an inability to possess an objective understanding of our being. This fundamental ambiguity turns us towards a process of having-to-be – a series of attempts to define who we wish to become and the world we wish to establish. Through a reading of Beauvoir's novel, The Mandarins, I produce an outline of the political subject and a philosophy of political- ethical action that properly navigates this ambiguity. By committing to utopian political projects that aim at universalizing the conditions for collective self-emancipation, the political subject engages in political-ethical action that is a total manifestation of having- to-be at the same time as being.

In her philosophical writings, Simone de Beauvoir argues our existence is defined by an inability to possess an objective understanding of our being. This fundamental ambiguity turns us towards a process of having-to-be – a series of attempts to define who we wish to become and the world we wish to establish. Through a reading of Beauvoir's novel, The Mandarins, I produce an outline of the political subject and a philosophy of political- ethical action that properly navigates this ambiguity. By committing to utopian political projects that aim at universalizing the conditions for collective self-emancipation, the political subject engages in political-ethical action that is a total manifestation of having- to-be at the same time as being.

In 1871, R. H. Hutton criticized George Eliot for "unfairly running down one of her own characters": Middlemarch's Rosamond Vincy. Hutton blamed Eliot for being cruel to her own creation and used his role as a reader and a critic to lodge a public complaint on Rosamond's behalf. Indignant Reading identifies this response--dissatisfaction and even anger with an author for his/her perceived mistreatment of a fictional character--as a common occasion for literary criticism in the nineteenth century. The indignant readings found in Victorian reviews, letters, and prefaces advance conceptions of plot, characterization, and fictionality distinct from those offered in modern narratological criticism or historicist accounts of Victorian novel practice or literary criticism. Rather than abstracting the aesthetic and ethical concerns from the emotional terms common to Victorian criticism, I see these concerns emerging in conjunction with serious emotional demands and significant, if sometimes inchoate, beliefs about the "rights" of fictional characters. In my discussion of indignation resulting from crimes of plot, I argue that insufficiently motivated events were interpreted by Victorian critics and readers as arising from the author rather than from the text. Discussions of crimes of characterization reveal an implicit tri-partite model of fictional character, in which authors might be incorrect about their own characters as well as cruel toward them. This manner of thinking about authorial accuracy and justice implies, I argue, a conception of fictionality that de-emphasizes the distinction between fiction and non-fiction, modeling the author’s relationship to his fiction on that of the historian to his text. This approach to fiction changes, however, in the twentieth century, alongside restrictive attitudes about the role of affect in performing literary criticism. While indignant reading re-enters the academy as one type of feminist criticism, which emphasizes the ethical at the expense of the affective, indignation in its most emotional form has become a primary mode of expression for fan communities.

Science fiction is particularly apt as bioethical thought experiment. In considering the theories of James R. Brown, John D. Norton and Marco Buzzoni, I suggest that mental-modeling theories afford the best explanation for what thought experiments can do. I propose a version of mental modeling that has the flexible modalities of experience found in Nancy J. Nersessian's account, combined with Nenad Miš?evi?'s compelling vision of how existing knowledge is used to create mental models, and Tamar Gendler's use of schemas to understand ethical thought experiments. Bioethics makes use of thought experiments' capacity to move from abstraction to discrete instances. Sometimes thought experiments will be better, and sometimes real cases will be unavailable. Given the cognitive advantages that access to mental models provides, thought experiments will be of use in the field of bioethics. To identify literature that is thought-experimental I look to Geordie McComb's family resemblance theory, and consider accounts of literary thought experiments by Noel Carroll and Edward Davenport. Extended narratives will in some cases be more useful for ethical understanding than philosophical thought experiments. Science fiction has this same advantage: as ethical narrative it is detailed and humanized. In addition the specula-tive nature of science fiction lends itself to the exploration of new and emerging sciences and technologies including those in the field of bioethics.