What is art and how does it interact with our understanding of morality?

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SOME ATTACHMENTS HAVE UPLOADED TWICE. BE AWARE THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT CARROL ARTICLES, ONE FROM 1996 AND ANOTHER FROM 1998. This essay must address the question ‘what is art?’ in relation to morality. John Hospers material gives good introduction in the vein of this essay. To quote: “We could spend a great deal of time at the outset trying to define the words “art” and “morality”. Instead, however, we shall evade these trying questions, and assume that we already attach some common meaning to these terms. Paintings, sculptures, musical compositions, poems, plays, and novels can all be works of art; we shall not stop to argue which works in these media succeed in being works of art. We shall be concerned to discover what the effect of these works is on the moral conduct of the persons who see, hear, or read them -whether, for example, it leads them to violate any of the Ten Commandments or other rules that would generally be called moral; and what is to be done when aesthetic values, which we experience primarily through works of art, conflict with moral values.” Hospers also explores classical understandings of art and morality using Plato’s Republic: Therefore poetic mimêsis corrupts the soul, weakening the rational impulse’s control over the person’s other drives and desires. (602c–608b). The argument prestented here: Plato observed an important affinity between art an morality. For him, the arts (such as music and poetry) can have a seductive, corruptive influence. He argues that the foundation of any moral society requires censorship: “It should therefore be banned from the good city.” Hospers then uses Tolystoy’s condemnation of art to explore another moralistic approach: that works of art should serve to unify mankind into one great Christian community. Like Plato, Tolstoy was concerned with the moral influence of art. All art that proliferated anti-Christian teachings was simultaneously proliferating anti-Christian moralities. The consequence (as explored in point 1) of such would be the eventual complete collapse of Christian society. This question of representation directs the arguement into a discussion concerning the necessary association between art and morality. Is a truly ‘aesthetic’ approach one that is entirely disengaged with the ethical concerns of the artwork? How can different ethical approaches enable different aesthetic judgements? – To address this question the powerpoint presentation has all the different approaches between slides 13-20. Here are some more questions to guide the discussion: 1. Explore the intersection of morality and art: a) Consequence (the behaviour that might occur as a result of art) b) Content (moral practices/valuations of the work) c) Context (of employment, performance, display) d) Consciousness or attention (the transformation of consciousness an individual experiences as a result) 2. how is art defined by its depictions of morality? a) Hegel: if “Life itself becomes more explicitly rational and self-determining when it becomes conscious and self-conscious—that is, life that can imagine, use language, think and exercise freedom”, how can we understand art and the moral systems that exist within art as an expression of the Geist (the spirit?) b) does art have a responsibility to be ethical? c) can we measure the qualiagnty of art by its ethical systems?SHOW MORE