The Production-Oriented Approach to the Ethical Criticism of Art

2020 ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Ted Nannicelli
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Ethical Criticism ◽  
General Argument ◽  
Ethical Evaluation ◽  
Conceptual Space ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Oriented Approach

This chapter sketches the general argument for the production-oriented approach to the ethical criticism of art. It begins by noting that at least some artworks (of performance art, for example) are isomorphic with the actions by which they are created. Such artworks are open to ethical evaluation in the same way that any action of a moral agent is open to ethical appraisal. This clears the conceptual space for the production-oriented approach. The chapter goes on to show that the production-oriented approach has an advantage over the interpretation-oriented approaches advocated by Booth, Devereaux, and Gaut in virtue of its ability to assign praise or blame to real moral agents who are responsible for their artworks. The chapter then bolsters the rationale for the production-oriented approach by appealing to anti-empiricist arguments in the aesthetics literature before drawing upon an analogy to similar arguments in virtue ethics and virtue epistemology.

Environmental Art and the Interaction of Ethical and Aesthetic Value

2020 ◽  
pp. 127-150
Author(s):  
Ted Nannicelli
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Environmental Art ◽  
Ethical Criticism ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Oriented Approach

This chapter argues that (1) in contrast to the art forms already discussed, the ethical criticism of which sometimes invites the perspectivist approach and sometimes demands the production-oriented approach, the proper ethical criticism of environmental art requires the production-oriented approach; (2) the production-oriented approach to the ethical criticism of environmental artworks lends support to the moderate moralist’s claim about the interaction of ethical and aesthetic value: the presences of ethical defects in environmental artworks sometimes diminishes their aesthetic value; (3) because environmental artworks appropriate part of the natural environment as an aspect of their identity, an aesthetic flaw in an environmental artwork necessarily also creates aesthetic disvalue in the natural environment—disvalue that exists in virtue of the creation of the artwork. Insofar as the diminishment of the aesthetic value of the natural environment is ethically wrong, the aesthetic flaws of an environmental artwork necessarily constitute ethical flaws.

Photography

2020 ◽  
pp. 71-102
Author(s):  
Ted Nannicelli
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Criticism ◽  
Ethical Evaluation ◽  
Medium Specificity ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Oriented Approach

This chapter uses photography to advance the argument that the medium of an art form partly determines the sorts of features that are relevant to an ethical evaluation of an artwork within it. The chapter outlines current debates about medium-specificity and endorses a moderate view regarding the nature of medium-specific features and the plausibility of medium-specific claims. Building upon this discussion, this chapter proceeds to show that perspectivism accounts for some but not all of the ethically relevant features of photographs. In some cases, the most ethically pressing questions about photographs can only be addressed by the production-oriented approach to the ethical criticism of art.

Artistic Creation and Ethical Criticism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Nannicelli
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Criticism ◽  
New Production ◽  
Artistic Creation ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
Oriented Approach ◽  
Made In

Artistic Creation and Ethical Criticism advances a new, production-oriented approach to the ethical criticism of art. Its overarching arguments are these: (1) Judgments of an artwork’s ethical value are often made in terms of how it was created, and, furthermore, this is in part because some art forms more readily lend themselves to this form of ethical appraisal. (2) Among the ways in which art is ethically criticized, this production-oriented approach more often leads to practical consequences (censure, dismissal, prosecution, shifts in policy, legislation) because its claim to objectivity is less contested than that of other sorts of ethical criticism. (3) Together, (1) and (2) constitute an approach to the ethical criticism of art that is not only tacit in many art appreciative practices, but which is rationally warranted and defensible. In short, there are many cases in which one should ethically critique artworks in terms of how they are created because this approach encompasses cases that other approaches cannot and results in plausible judgments about the works’ ethical merits and flaws.

scholarly journals Does False Consciousness Necessarily Preclude Moral Blameworthiness?: The Refusal of the Women Antisuffragists

Hypatia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Lee Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Victim Blaming ◽  
False Consciousness ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Structural Distortions ◽  
In Virtue Of

Abstract Social philosophers often invoke the concept of false consciousness in their analyses, referring to a set of evidence-resistant, ignorant attitudes held by otherwise sound epistemic agents, systematically occurring in virtue of, and motivating them to perpetuate, structural oppression. But there is a worry that appealing to the notion in questions of responsibility for the harm suffered by members of oppressed groups is victim-blaming. Individuals under false consciousness allegedly systematically fail the relevant rationality and epistemic conditions due to structural distortions of reasoning or knowledge practices, undermining their status as responsible moral agents. But attending to the constitutive mechanisms and heterogeneity of false consciousness enables us to see how having it does not in itself render someone an inappropriate target of blame. I focus here on the 1889 antisuffragist manifesto “An Appeal against Female Suffrage,” arguing that its signatories, despite false consciousness, satisfy both conditions for ordinary blameworthiness. I consider three prominent signatories, observing that the irrationality characterization is unsustainable beyond group-level diagnoses, and that their capacity to respond appropriately to reasons was not compromised. Following recent work on epistemic injustice, I also argue that culpable mechanisms constituted their false consciousness, rendering them blameworthy for the Appeal.

Virtue Ethics and/or Virtue Epistemology: A Response to Anton Froeyman

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 432-446
Author(s):  
Herman Paul
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Intellectual Courage ◽  
Virtuous Behavior ◽  
Moral Dimensions ◽  
Ethical Approaches

Abstract In response to Anton Froeyman’s paper, “Virtues of Historiography,” this article argues that philosophers of history interested in why historians cherish such virtues as carefulness, impartiality, and intellectual courage would do wise not to classify these virtues unequivocally as either epistemic or moral virtues. Likewise, in trying to grasp the roles that virtues play in the historian’s professional practice, philosophers of history would be best advised to avoid adopting either an epistemological or an ethical perspective. Assuming that the historian’s virtuous behavior has epistemic and moral dimensions (as well as aesthetic, political, and other dimensions), this article advocates a non-reductionist account of historical scholarship, which acknowledges that the virtues cherished by historians usually play a variety of roles, depending on the goals they are supposed to serve. Given that not the least important of these goals are epistemic ones, the articles concludes that virtue ethical approaches, to the extent that they are focused on the acquisition of moral instead of epistemic goods, insufficiently recognize the role of virtue in the pursuit of such epistemic aims as knowledge and understanding.

scholarly journals Concepts of Ethics and Their Application to AI

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Bernd Carsten Stahl
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Ethical Evaluation ◽  
Ai Ethics ◽  
Profit Maximisation

AbstractAny discussion of the ethics of AI needs to be based on a sound understanding of the concept of ethics. This chapter therefore provides a brief overview of some of the key approaches to ethics with a particular emphasis on virtue ethics and the idea of human flourishing. The chapter reviews the purposes for which AI can be used, as these have a bearing on an ethical evaluation. Three main purposes are distinguished: AI forefficiency, optimisation and profit maximisation, AI forsocial control and AI for human flourishing. Given the focus on human flourishing in this book, several theoretical positions are introduced that provide insights into different aspects and ways of promoting human flourishing. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the currently widespread principle-based approach to AI ethics.

Philosophical Aesthetics and the Ethical Criticism of Art

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-46
Author(s):  
Ted Nannicelli
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Civil Liability ◽  
Ethical Criticism ◽  
The Real ◽  
Oriented Approach

This chapter critically reviews an approach to the ethical criticism of art that has dominated attention in philosophical aesthetics. The author calls it the “interpretation-oriented approach” and “perspectivism.” On this approach, art is ethically evaluated in terms of its meanings—in particular, in terms of the attitudes or perspectives the work embodies, endorses, expresses, or prescribes. The author raises two central objections to perspectivism: it does not carry much force in the real world (i.e., it tends not to result in criminal or civil liability, fines, censorship, and so forth), and it depends upon the contentious task of interpreting the work.

Moral agents

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinit Haksar
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Strong Version ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Moral Understanding ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Concern For Others

Moral agents are those agents expected to meet the demands of morality. Not all agents are moral agents. Young children and animals, being capable of performing actions, may be agents in the way that stones, plants and cars are not. But though they are agents they are not automatically considered moral agents. For a moral agent must also be capable of conforming to at least some of the demands of morality. This requirement can be interpreted in different ways. On the weakest interpretation it will suffice if the agent has the capacity to conform to some of the external requirements of morality. So if certain agents can obey moral laws such as ‘Murder is wrong’ or ‘Stealing is wrong’, then they are moral agents, even if they respond only to prudential reasons such as fear of punishment and even if they are incapable of acting for the sake of moral considerations. According to the strong version, the Kantian version, it is also essential that the agents should have the capacity to rise above their feelings and passions and act for the sake of the moral law. There is also a position in between which claims that it will suffice if the agent can perform the relevant act out of altruistic impulses. Other suggested conditions of moral agency are that agents should have: an enduring self with free will and an inner life; understanding of the relevant facts as well as moral understanding; and moral sentiments, such as capacity for remorse and concern for others. Philosophers often disagree about which of these and other conditions are vital; the term moral agency is used with different degrees of stringency depending upon what one regards as its qualifying conditions. The Kantian sense is the most stringent. Since there are different senses of moral agency, answers to questions like ‘Are collectives moral agents?’ depend upon which sense is being used. From the Kantian standpoint, agents such as psychopaths, rational egoists, collectives and robots are at best only quasi-moral, for they do not fulfil some of the essential conditions of moral agency.

Moral psychology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Slote
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Psychological Issues ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Weakness ◽  
Moral Requirements ◽  
Wrong Action

Moral psychology as a discipline is centrally concerned with psychological issues that arise in connection with the moral evaluation of actions. It deals with the psychological presuppositions of valid morality, that is, with assumptions it seems necessary for us to make in order for there to be such a thing as objective or binding moral requirements: for example, if we lack free will or are all incapable of unselfishness, then it is not clear how morality can really apply to human beings. Moral psychology also deals with what one might call the psychological accompaniments of actual right, or wrong, action, for example, with questions about the nature and possibility of moral weakness or self-deception, and with questions about the kinds of motives that ought to motivate moral agents. Moreover, in the approach to ethics known as ‘virtue ethics’ questions about right and wrong action merge with questions about the motives, dispositions, and abilities of moral agents, and moral psychology plays a more central role than it does in other forms of ethical theory.

Virtue epistemology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Zagzebski
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Cognitive Structure ◽  
Intellectual Virtue ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
Early Form ◽  
Epistemic Agent ◽  
Epistemic Evaluation ◽  
Theory Of Value

‘Virtue epistemology’ is the name of a class of theories that focus epistemic evaluation on good epistemic properties of persons rather than on properties of beliefs. The former or some interesting subset of the former are called intellectual virtues. Some of these theories propose that the traditional concepts of justification or knowledge can be analysed in terms of intellectual virtue, whereas others maintain that these traditional concepts are defective or uninteresting and it is desirable to replace them with the notion of an intellectual virtue. In all these theories, epistemic evaluation rests on some virtuous quality of persons that enables them to act in a cognitively effective and commendable way. Simple reliabilism may be treated either as a precursor to virtue epistemology or as an early form of it. Later versions add requirements for virtue intended to capture the idea that it is a quality which makes an epistemic agent subjectively responsible as well as objectively reliable. Proponents of virtue epistemology claim a number of advantages. It is said to bypass disputes between foundationalists and coherentists on proper cognitive structure, to avoid sceptical worries, to avoid the impasse between internalism and externalism and to broaden the range of epistemological enquiry to include such neglected epistemic values as understanding and wisdom. Some theorists argue that the real virtue of virtue epistemology is the way it permits us to redefine the central questions of epistemology. In addition, since virtue epistemology can be blended with virtue ethics, it holds out the promise of a unified theory of value.

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