Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and the Arts)

This major collection of essays stands at the border of aesthetics and ethics and deals with charged issues of practical import: art and morality, the ethics of taste, and censorship. As such its potential interest is by no means confined to professional philosophers; it should also appeal to art historians and critics, literary theorists, and students of film. Prominent philosophers in both aesthetics and ethics tackle a wide array of issues. Some of the questions explored in the volume include: Can art be morally enlightening and, if so, how? If a work of art is morally better does that make it better as art? Is morally deficient art to be shunned, or even censored? Do subjects of artworks have rights as to how they are represented? Do artists have duties as artists and duties as human beings, and if so, to whom? How much tension is there between the demands of art and the demands of life? This major collection of new essays stands at the border of aesthetics and ethics and deals with charged issues of practical import: art and morality, the ethics of taste, censorship, and the objectivity of aesthetic judgments. As such its potential interest is by no means confined to professional philosophers; it should also appeal to art historians and critics, literary theorists, and students of film and the media. Prominent philosophers in both aesthetics and ethics tackle a wide array of issues. Some of the questions explored include: Can art be morally enlightening and, if so, how? If a work of art is morally better, does that make it better as art? Is morally deficient art to be shunned or even censored? Do subjects of artworks have rights as to how they are represented? Do artists have duties as artists and duties as human beings and, if so, to whom? How much tension is there between the demands of art and the demands of life? Is there such a thing as a personal aesthetic and, if so, what justification does it stand in need of? How much agreement can we reasonably expect to achieve in ethical and aesthetic matters as compared with scientific ones? How does the objective validity of aesthetic judgments compare with the objective validity of moral judgments and scientific beliefs?