Question I was listening to some rap music, and I was impressed by the artist's skillful use of rhyme, metaphor, imagery, allusion, and general wit. The artist is clearly skilled with the same tools of good poets and authors. Unfortunately, the music was also degrading; as it celebrated misogyny, violence, homophobia and elitism. It's a crying shame the artist wasted such talent to create something so hateful and unedifying. Would this artist's work be considered good art? Certainly there have been artists who have created disturbing, ugly pieces. However, it seemed to me such pieces were always meant to challenge the viewer, and ultimately aid in our growth and understanding. Is it possible for a great work of art to be degenerative, to make us more bigoted instead of enlightened?

Accepted:
July 3, 2010

Comments

Your question is about the relation between aesthetic value and moral value. Must something with great aesthetic value also have moral value (or, at least, not be morally harmful)? Some traditions of thought (within art criticism as well as within philosophy) insist on a sharp separation between aesthetic value and moral value -- allowing the rap music you mention to be aesthetically great but morally despicable. Other traditions consider aesthetic value and moral value to be inextricably linked -- treating the moral failures of a piece as aesthetic failures as well. Within either tradition, you may be right to praise the rhythms and sounds and creative imagery of a piece while denouncing the values it espouses, but according to the first tradition its moral failures has no bearing on its aesthetic worth, while according to the second its moral failures will always detract from its aesthetic worth. Likewise, within either tradition, you may say that a work that has moral value is a better work than a work without moral value, but according to the first tradition the addition of moral value does not add to its aesthetic value.

Here are are some (brief) arguments in favor of the first tradition:

A1. Things are aesthetically valuable insofar as they create sensual pleasure. Things are morally valuable insofar as they promote or preserve respect towards others. Pleasurable sensations and respectful relations are two different things, often at odds with one another, so judgments concerning the two ought to be kept separate (even if we want to consider both in judging the overall worth of a particular piece).

A2. The aesthetic qualities of a thing (beauty or ugliness, balance or imbalance, grace or stiffness, simplicity or complexity) are intrinsic to that thing while the moral qualities of a thing (kindness or cruelty, respect or disrespect, honesty or dishonesty) are qualities that it has in virtue of its relations to other things. There is no correlation between such intrinsic properties and such relational properties (ugly people are just as likely to be kind, graceful people are just as likely to be dishonest), nor is there any correlation between those who appreciate these intrinsic properties and those who appreciate these relational properties (art experts are no more, and no less, likely to be moral). So the presence or absence of morally valuable qualities is irrelevant to the presence or absence of aesthetically valuable qualities.

A3. One of the great things about art is the way that it enables us to explore and extend our imaginations without concern for the moral constraints of social life. Such imaginative play is psychologically healthy insofar as it is freeing, and it can be socially beneficial insofar as it reveals possibilities that would not have been discovered if we hadn't bracketed morality. If moral considerations enter into our judgments about what is or is not good art, they will also constrain on our imaginations in ways that detract from these important functions of art.

Now, here are some (equally brief) counterarguments in favor of the second tradition:

C1. Aesthetic value is not only about sensual pleasure; it is also about ideas and attitudes. (Otherwise, it is mere titillation, not art.) And moral respect includes respect for the sensual pleasures of others. So aesthetic value and moral value cannot be sharply distinguished on the grounds that one concerns pleasure and the other respect.

C2. Judging aesthetic qualities such as beauty (or ugliness), balance (or imbalance), and simplicity (or complexity) depends on attentiveness to extrinsic as well as intrinsic features: the historic significance of certain words or figures, the cultural associations that accompany certain sounds, the setting in which a work is performed, and so on. Equally, judging moral qualities such as kindness (or cruelty), respect (or disrespect), and honesty (or dishonesty) depends on attentiveness to intrinsic as well as extrinsic features: the style in which help is extended, the coherence of one's overall self-conception, and so on. Although there is no correlation between beautiful people and kind people, or between art experts and moral experts, there is an important overlap between the abilities that enable one to appreciate a satisfying play of opposites in art and a satisfying play of opposites in morality, for example, or the abilities that enable one to find the thread that unites a series of images and the thread that unites a series of people. Thus, it would be wrong to try to isolate aesthetic valuation from moral valuation.

C3. The limits of our imagination have an important bearing on the limits of our understanding and the limits of our action. Exploring and expanding our imaginations in some directions rather than others is bound to point our understanding and our action in some directions rather than others. In freeing ourselves from some constraints, we introduce others. Imagining morally unacceptable violence, for example, can normalize violence and obscure nonviolent alternatives, for example. Thus, it is important to include moral considerations in our aesthetic judgments.

I expect that you will find some of these arguments more compelling than others, and that you will think of various revisions and additions. What I have done here is give you a start on thinking things through for yourself.