Introduction: Film and / as Ethics

The relationship between film and philosophy, along with the idea of film as philosophy, has attracted widespread interest over the last decade. Film theorists and philosophers of film have explored not only the philosophical questions raised by cinema as an artform, but also the possibility that cinema might contribute to philosophical understanding or even engage in varieties of “cinematic thinking” that intersect with, without being reducible to, philosophical inquiry. Inspired by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Stanley Cavell, many theorists are now engaged in what has come to be known as “film-philosophy,” developing philosophical insight out of their close engagement with film, and bringing philosophical concepts to bear on the aesthetic experience cinema affords. Despite the flourishing of this encounter between film and philosophy, there has been as yet comparatively little attention given to the relationship between ethics and cinema (see Choi and Frey, Cine-Ethics; Sinnerbrink, Cinematic Ethics; Terman, “Ethics”).