Responsible Readers

In the last chapter, I explored the idea that there could be an ethics derived from reading. In this chapter, I’ll turn to a related question: is there such a thing as an ethics of reading? Is the act of reading itself governed by moral norms? Lots of common readers think it is. A recurring theme in their reflections on reading is the idea that we mustn't read in just any way we like. There are, we’re told, right and wrong ways to read, and we have a moral obligation to engage in the right ones and avoid the wrong. The norms that supposedly govern reading are different from the hypothetical norms that apply whenever we try to achieve some personal goal. When I read a textbook, I might want to remember what I read, and if I have this goal, then it makes sense for me not to read too quickly. But the responsibilities that many common readers claim to have are different: less instrumental, more impersonal and more like the duties we owe to other people. I may get everything I want out of a book; I may get all the amusement or edification I was looking for when I picked it up. But plenty of common readers would say that my duties as a reader go beyond these personal wants and needs. I owe something to what I read, and if I fail to deliver, I am doing something wrong.

It's easy to find examples of this attitude. In How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler describes reading as a conversation in which the reader has a duty to “hold up his end.” According to Adler, the reader has a responsibility to engage critically, but not rashly, with what he reads. He must not disagree right away, but even more important, he must not agree right away. As Adler sees it, this approach to reading is more than just an effective way for readers to achieve their goals. A good book “deserves a good reading,” and “the undemanding reader fails to satisfy this requirement.” More recently, Alan Jacobs has criticized Adler's “self-help, self-improvement model of reading,” lamenting that much of the reading public “can't take its readerly pleasure straight but has to cut it with a sizable chunk of duty.” But Jacobs doesn't hesitate to say that readers have other, different responsibilities.