Why do we consider songs by singers who use Auto-Tune (a program that corrects the pitch in their voice) for their music to be of lesser quality than songs by singers who merely use their natural voices? I can see why we might consider the artist to be less talented or worthy of admiration, but isn't a song a song, regardless of how it was made? What about visual artists who produce their art with computer graphics programs, rather than using pencils, pens or brushes? I've heard people say that some of the splendid images on sites like DeviantArt aren't art because the artists "cheated" (i.e. created the images digitally, rather than by hand). Again, what does it matter how the work was produced?

Many people think it's wrong to significantly alter a work of art, not just because the result is aesthetically inferior, but because doing so wrongs the artist or is otherwise offensive. It's easy to see why, say, defacing a painting might be offensive. It's less obvious, though, why altering a work of music of literature might be bad. After all, a painting is a concrete, singular object; but novels and poems and symphonies are not. I can't ruin "Robinson Crusoe" or Beethoven's 5th in the way that I can a Matisse or a Van Gogh. Why should it seem problematic, for instance, to perform a piece of music in a manner deemed inauthentic, given that there's a sense in which "altering" or otherwise degrading the piece in its original, authentic form is just impossible.

Roger Ebert said some time ago that there are no video games that can compare with the great works of art in other mediums, such as poetry or literature or film. What kind of comparison is he talking about? Looking at more established art forms, it seems clearly nonsense to compare something like Beethoven's Ninth to Shakespeare's Hamlet, being so radically different mediums - yet we don't say that no play has yet matched any of the great musical compositions of our culture, or that no poem can compare with the great sculptures of the past. On what level, then, are two works from different mediums (like the Ninth Symphony and Hamlet) comparable? Is it just in there overall quality, and if so, how does one judge the overall quality of a work of art, independent from those features that set it apart from other art forms? It doesn't seem fair to say that Hamlet has more psychological depth than the Ninth, or that the Ninth is more harmonious and evocative than Hamlet. Is it, rather, a question of...

Beauty seems to be the main quality of concern in philosophy, when it comes to aesthetic judgements. But do philosophers also busy themselves with questions of the appreciation of the cute, the cool, or the funny? What about other qualities, ones that are also, in a sense, aesthetic?

Are video games art? Many people claim that it's not, but video games seem very similar to story telling mediums such as film and literature, the only difference is that in some games, the player decides the story.

Dear philosophers, I have a question concerning politics and movies. Do people who boycott movies involving a certain actor/director/producer simply on the basis of the political views of that actor/director/producer acting reasonably? I wouldn't think so because a large part of how people decide whether to watch a movie or not is the history of the quality of the actor/director/producer's work and not that actor/director/producer's political views. What do you philosophers think?

Is one of the key features of "good art" that its production was deliberate? For example, the degree to which an artist is deliberate with every stroke correlates to the amount of "responsibility" he has over every brush stroke and thus the more that he deserves any praise.

Should we enjoy high quality forms of art that depict an immoral situation? And should we even consider morality when evaluating art? I find myself constantly bringing this issue up whenever I watch a movie for example. Let's say there is a very well done movie that tells how great Suharto is? It's obviously a lie, what effect can this fact have on the value of the movie, as a piece of art.

Is it immoral to produce a work of fiction where the main antagonist is also the only representative of a disadvantaged minority? For example, a film where the psychopathic killer is also the only gay man, or where the terrorist is the only black man. Does producing such a work contribute to discrimination? What are the responsibilities of the authors/artists?

What are the arguments for aesthetics? A friend of mine believes that "all Art is subjective" - in other words, it's all a matter of personal taste and culture/society. According to him, there is nothing "special" about Mozart any more than Britney Spears. Yet to me it seems obvious that Mozart's works are much more beautiful, in an objective sense. This issue came from a debate we had earlier: if a man bought the Mona Lisa and decided to burn it, I would do everything in my power to take it away from him. My friend believes I'm imposing my ideals of what art/beauty is and that's it's elitist of me. What can/should I answer?