Ethics Education from Suffering on Screen?

In this paper I argue that tragic films can have significant potential for ethics education when they prompt audiences to sympathise with suffering on screen. I first summarise two accounts of the relationship between tragic art, moral education and aesthetic value (those provided by Rorty and Lamarque). I then discuss problems with these accounts and explain how a new criterion of aesthetic value might help to resolve them. I thereafter argue that tragic films have potential to ethically educate audiences in a way that enhances the aesthetic value of the films in at least three directions: by deepening moral understanding, by deepening understanding of the nature of human being and ethical purpose and by deepening understanding of ethical theory. I conclude by showing how Denis Villeneuve’s film, Arrival, screens a tragic story with ethics education potential in each of the aforementioned senses.