On the (So‐called) Puzzle of Imaginative Resistance

Abstract

Abstract What has been called the ‘puzzle of imaginative resistance’, sometimes attributed to David Hume and discussed recently by Tamar Gendler and others, is actually a collection of related but distinct puzzles, none of them aptly described by that phrase. They include the aesthetic puzzle, in several varieties (Do moral failings of a work of art affect its aesthetic value?); the imaginative puzzle, which also divides into several (Why do we refuse to, or why are we unable to, engage in certain imaginings?); and the fictionality puzzle (Why do we resist allowing that certain propositions are fictional, true in a fiction — notably principles of morality that we strongly disagree with?). Only by disentangling these puzzles can we hope to make progress in solving them.

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