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What grounds a judgment that a work of art is immoral? This book argues that we cannot judge artworks morally in the same way that we judge people. What's more, there is no direct influence from moral judgments to aesthetic judgments: it is possible for artworks to be both immoral and beautiful.
List of contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Morality and art: a little history
- I. Music in classical China
- II. Poetry in ancient Greece
- III. Art and propaganda in the Harlem Renaissance
- IV. Conclusions
- Chapter 2: Does art change us?
- I. The prima facie case that art can change us morally
- II. Evaluating art, but not its effects
- III. Further considerations
- Chapter 3: Wicked artists
- I. Objections
- II. Moral taint
- III. Artworks and moral communities
- IV. Related questions: virtuous artists, immoral production, and identity injustice
- Chapter 4: Art and moral understanding
- I. Propositional moral knowledge
- II. Going to art and seeking knowledge
- III. Non-propositional accounts of moral learning
- IV. Corrupting our moral understanding
- V. Conclusions
- Chapter 5: Artworks and persons
- Chapter 6: From relativism to expressivism
- I. Value scheme relativism
- II. Locke's value theory
- III. Feeling and value
- IV. The expressivist's answer to the relativist
- Chapter 7: An expressivist account of the differences between aesthetic and moral judgments
- I. Candidate differences between aesthetics and morality
- II. Two further differences
- III. Moral particularism
- IV. Conclusion
- Chapter 8: Should moral judgments affect aesthetic judgments (or the other way around)?
- I. Defining autonomism
- II. The no-error argument
- III. Four objections
- IV. Conclusion
- Chapter 9: Conclusions and illustrations
- I. Moral criticisms of groups of works
- II. Moral criticisms of individual works
- III. A little history, revisited
About the author
James Harold is Professor of Philosophy at Mount Holyoke College.
Summary
What grounds a judgment that a work of art is immoral? This book argues that we cannot judge artworks morally in the same way that we judge people. What’s more, there is no direct influence from moral judgments to aesthetic judgments: it is possible for artworks to be both immoral and beautiful.
Additional text
...Harold's book is essential reading for anyone interested in the moral criticism of art. Harold's approach to the issue is notable...
