ART & Morality (original) (raw)
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In the nowadays acknowledged moral crisis in/of art, a split has occurred between the public and some artistic manifestations. Stuck in the so called "radical actionism"-as the artistic short and violent movement developed by Fluxus Group during 1960-1970, with origins in the "Viennese Actionism"-, the art segment dealing with contemporaneity, disputing the traditional art as well as social and moral conventions, has created a new area of expression, in which art and life converge, arising questions that go beyond the aesthetic experience, and managing to introduce an ethical dimension in artistic expression. In a plurality of theoretical and practical concerns, the contemporary art has produced repeated attacks on human dignity or animal life. So, the present art manifestations may include people, animals, corps/thereof parts (human or animal), explicit sexual images, psychological abuses as well as references to self-harm. A balance between art and morality, a ...
Mrs. Digby told me that when she lived in London with her sister, Mrs. Brooke, they were every now and then honoured by the visits of Dr. Johnson. He called on them one day soon after the publication of his immortal dictionary. The two ladies paid him due compliments on the occasion. Amongst other topics of praise they very much commended the omission of all naughty words. ‘What! my dears! then you have been looking for them?’ said the moralist. The ladies, confused at being thus caught, dropped the subject of the dictionary. (H.D. Best, Personal and Literary Memorials, London, 1829, printed in Johnsonian Miscellanies Vol. 2, G. Birkbeck Hill (ed.) (London: Constable & Co.,1897))
MORALITY, SOCIETY, AND THE LOVE OF ART
The principal focus of the essay is the idea of artistic value, understood as the value of a work of art as the work of art it is, and the essay explores the connections, if any, between artistic value and a variety of other values (social, moral, educational, and character-building) in human life. I start with a series of observations about social values and then turn to moral values. Beginning from Goethe's claim that 'music cannot affect morality, nor can the other arts, and it would be wrong to expect them to do so' , I proceed from music through the other arts; I distinguish different conceptions of morality; I highlight what I call a work of art's positive moral value (its power for moral improvement); and I distinguish three kinds of moral improvement, one taking pride of place. My conclusion is that the positive moral value of works of art has been greatly overrated. I then return to the social values of art, looking at the situation from a very different point of view and reaching new conclusions, some of them positive. I end by explaining why my observations and arguments about the positive moral value of a work of art in no way diminishes the importance of art in human life, the true end of art having an importance in human life not guaranteed by morality.
In this chapter, we examine Iris Murdoch’s views about art. We highlight continuities and differences between her views on art and aesthetics, and those of Plato, Kant, and Freud. We argue that Murdoch’s views about art, though traditionally linked to Plato, are more compatible with Kant’s thought than has been acknowledged—though with his ethics rather than his aesthetics. Murdoch shows Plato’s influence in her idea that beauty is the good in a different guise. However, Murdoch shows a more Kantian than Platonic influence in her suggestion that the experience of beauty can be conducive to virtue, and distances herself from Plato in her claim that the enjoyment, as well as the production, of certain kinds of art can be virtuous. We also argue that her view of bad art as self-consoling fantasy is consonant with Freudian thought. Lastly, we question her view of bad art, specifically concerning her identification of bad art as self-consoling fantasy or entertainment, and her separation...
Artists and Morality: Toward an Ethics of Art
Leonardo, 1977
Leonardo, Vol. 10, pp. 195-202. Pergamon Press 1977. Printed in Great Britain ... Abstract-The author distinguishes and explores a number of moral questions raised by the social influence of artistic activity. He begins by claiming that the moral discussion of art actually centres ...
Ethics and the Arts: A Critical Review of the New Moralisms
Paul Macneill (ed.) Ethics and the Arts. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, New York, and London: Springer, 2014
This chapter explores the nature of any relationship between ethics and the arts. At one time, the dominant position in the philosophy of art was that there was no relationship. Aesthetics and ethics were seen as autonomous spheres. The various ‘new moralists’ argue that, in some circumstances, there is a relationship. Noël Carroll and Berys Gaut, for example, argue that moral ‘flaws’ in some works of art may detract from the work’s aesthetic value, while others, such as Daniel Jacobson and Matthew Kieran, counter that a morally reprehensible quality in a work may contribute positively to its aesthetic value. Although the polarities are reversed, both of these positions accept that there is—or may be—a relationship between morality and aesthetics. Others however take a less theoretically based view in acknowledging that there may be a relationship in which a moral quality is seen to add to, or detract, from the aesthetic value a work of art, but that this can only be maintained by a critical assessment of a particular work of art and not by rigid application of theory. This chapter sides with those who are resistant to applying prior moral standards in judging art and puts the view that ethics and aesthetics are independent discourses, although they potentially illuminate one another. The chapter also explores whether moral repugnance, in responding to particular works of art, such as any of Michel Houellebecq’s novels, can be indicative of aesthetic merit or deficiency. It is argued however that no one aspect (moral, affective, or cognitive) can be assumed, in advance, to trump another, and the relative weight given to any of these, is itself a part of a reflection on the aesthetic merit of a particular artwork.
2016
This chapter reviews the two primary ways in which moral issues pertaining to literature are discussed in Anglophone philosophy of art. The first half of this essay looks at the morally relevant influences that literature is thought to have on its audiences, while the second half considers various positions on the question of whether a literary work's moral character affects its artistic value. Since several extensive and incisive surveys of this terrain are already available (Carroll 2000; Gaut 2009, chapter 7), this chapter focuses on points of contention and subsequent developments. Part One: Literature's Morally Relevant Influences Moral judgment is a common feature of interpreting, appreciating, and evaluating literary works. For example, we often attribute virtues or vices to characters and praise or condemn their actions on explicitly moral grounds. Moral judgment is even written into many of the concepts we use to understand literary works: just think, for instance, of the very notion of villain. A skeptic about the moral criticism of literature might point out that the moral judgments just mentioned pertain to diegetic elements of literary works-that is, to things within the world that a literary work describes-and that these judgments may diverge starkly from moral judgments we might make about the work itself. While a literary work might, for instance, tell the story of a mean and nasty person who deliberately hurts others, this does not make the work itself mean and nasty; the moral valence of diegetic elements, our skeptic is quick to point out, is conceptually distinct from the moral valence of the work itself. Further, our skeptic persists, while it is not difficult to acknowledge the moral valence of diegetic elements-after all, persons and their conduct are paradigmatic objects of moral assessment-it is far from obvious how a literary work itself-which is inanimate-can be the proper object of moral judgment.1 By what right, if any, do we make moral judgments about literary works themselves? Although few Anglophone philosophers of art directly attend to this question, the tradition does implicitly offer a compelling answer: namely that a literary work's moral valence lies in its influence on its audience. To be more specific, most philosophers working in this tradition appear to implicitly hold that a literary work is mmally meritorious or mmally flawed insofar as it has, or aims to have, a morally salutary or mmally deleterious influence,