The ethical criticism of art: A new mapping of the territory

Philosophia 35 (2):117-127 (2007)
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Abstract

The goal of this paper is methodological. It offers a comprehensive mapping of the theoretical positions on the ethical criticism of art, correcting omissions and inadequacies in the conceptual framework adopted in the current debate. Three principles are recommended as general guidelines: ethical amenability, basic value pluralism, and relativity to ethical dimension. Hence a taxonomy distinguishing between different versions of autonomism, moralism, and immoralism is established, by reference to criteria that are different from what emerging in the current literature. The mapping is then proved capable of (1) locating the various theories that have been proposed so far and clarifying such theories’ real commitments, (2) having the correct relationship with actual art making and art criticism practices, and (3) showing the real weight of the alleged counter-example to a moralist position of a work that succeeds artistically because of its immorality.

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Author's Profile

Alessandro Giovannelli
Lafayette College

Citations of this work

Moral Persuasion and the Diversity of Fictions.Shen-yi Liao - 2013 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 94 (3):269-289.
Fatal Prescription.Nils-Hennes Stear - 2020 - British Journal of Aesthetics 60 (2):151-163.
Morality and Aesthetics of Food.Shen-yi Liao & Aaron Meskin - 2017 - In Anne Barnhill, Mark Budolfson & Tyler Doggett (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics. Oxford University Press. pp. 658-679.
Two Dogmas of the Artistic-Ethical Interaction Debate.Louise Hanson - 2020 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (2):209-222.

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References found in this work

The Picture of Dorian Gray.Oscar Wilde - 2021 - New York, NY: Chartwell.
The ethical criticism of art.Berys Gaut - 1998 - In Jerrold Levinson (ed.), Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection. Cambridge University Press. pp. 182--203.
Moderate moralism.Noël Carroll - 1996 - British Journal of Aesthetics 36 (3):223-238.
The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction.Wayne C. Booth - 1988 - University of California Press.
In Praise of Immoral Art.Daniel Jacobson - 1997 - Philosophical Topics 25 (1):155-199.

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