Fiction and Philosophy

 In reading Innocence and Experience by Stuart Hampshire, I noticed this passage early on:

I have difficulty in imagining that purity of intention and undivided purposes can be the normal case in politics. I believe that very many people feel divided between openness and concealment, between innocence and experience; and, outside politics, they often find themselves divided between love and hatred of their own homes and of their own habits. The evidence for this belief of mine comes rather from fiction than from moral philosophy, which always presents a tidier picture in the interest of some prevailing epistemology.

 Of course, Innocence and Experience is precisely a work of moral philosophy. It does aim to acknowledge the breadth of the available evidence.