According to the definition provided by Furetière's Dictionnaire universel (1690), directly from its Greek etymon, ethics is the "name sometimes given to Morality, or to the science of Manners". The word is therefore not only used to designate rules or prescriptions defined by treatises, such as Nicolas Faret's L'Honnête Homme ou l'Art de plaire à la cour (1630), whether or not based on pre-existing practices; it also corresponds to tools and methods aimed at observing and describing individual or collective ways of being. From then on, the enterprise no longer consisted in denouncing or exalting, by virtue of previously established norms, such and such a behaviour, but in giving an account of it, if possible without any judgment.
The theatre has appeared to us as a privileged place for exposing, expressing or manifesting postures or ideas, most often contradictory, on ethical questions - understood in the broad sense - as crucial as that of the reason of State or the relationship between private and public interests within the political sphere.
Download the full presentation and the call for papers here
To have more details please contact :
Sandrine BERRÉGARD: berregard[at]unistra.fr or Francesco D'ANTONIO: dantonio[at]unistra.fr
