Realism, Ethics and Secularism

This collection assembles George Levine's sustained engagement with the relationship between secular realism, ethics, and the persistence of religious frameworks in ostensibly post-religious thought. Levine examines how nineteenth-century realist literature and contemporary secular philosophy grapple with moral meaning after the decline of traditional theistic authority, arguing that secular ethics need not collapse into nihilism despite the absence of divine foundations.

The essays trace how Victorian realists like George Eliot attempted to preserve moral seriousness while rejecting supernatural sanctions, developing what Levine terms "secular enchantment" - a capacity for wonder and ethical commitment without metaphysical guarantees. He demonstrates how these writers sought to ground ethics in human sympathy and social bonds rather than divine command, yet often smuggled quasi-religious sentiments into their supposedly naturalistic worldviews. This analysis extends to contemporary debates, where Levine critiques both religious critics who claim secularism inevitably produces moral bankruptcy and secular thinkers who uncritically adopt religious language and concepts.

Levine's method combines literary criticism with philosophical analysis, reading novels alongside moral philosophy to illuminate how aesthetic forms shape ethical possibilities. He engages extensively with critics like Charles Taylor and Terry Eagleton who argue that secularism parasitically depends on religious categories it claims to reject. Against such positions, Levine maintains that secular culture can generate its own sources of meaning through attention to material reality and human relationships, though he acknowledges the difficulty of fully extricating secular thought from its religious inheritance.

The collection contributes to debates about post-secular society by defending a robust secular humanism that neither dismisses religious concerns as primitive nor accepts that ethics requires theological grounding. Levine particularly challenges the assumption that rejecting God necessarily leads to disenchantment, arguing instead for a materialism capable of sustaining wonder and moral commitment. His readings of Victorian literature serve as test cases for how secular culture might affirm life's value without appealing to transcendent purpose.

These essays intervene in contemporary discussions about whether Western secularism represents a neutral public sphere or a particular worldview with its own metaphysical commitments. Levine's nuanced position acknowledges secularism's debts to Christianity while insisting on the coherence and ethical adequacy of naturalistic frameworks. The work demonstrates how literary analysis can illuminate philosophical problems about meaning, morality, and the sacred in supposedly disenchanted modernity.