3 Goodness
Moving from truth to goodness, what is the relationship between art and goodness? Is there a moral value of art? Does the artist have a moral responsibility? Should an artist moralize? Should art be censored? These are important questions dealing with the relationship between art and morality. Kant states that
“the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good, and only in this light . . . does it give us pleasure with an attendant claim to the agreement of everyone else, whereupon the mind becomes conscious of a certain ennoblement and elevation above mere sensibility to pleasure from impressions of sense, and also appraises the worth of others on the score of a like maxim of their judgment.” Kant is saying that beauty is connected to goodness and this goodness justifies universal acceptance. In addition, beauty should ennoble the person. Kant goes on to say that the “freedom of the imagination . . . is, in estimating the beautiful, represented as in accord with the understanding’s conformity to law (in moral judgments the freedom of the will is thought as the harmony of the latter with itself according to universal laws of reason).”
Kant thinks that aesthetic judgments should be in conformity with the moral law. Art should not debase the person. It seems he would argue that art must agree with natural law and the law of reason.
The movement of art for art’s sake rose up during the nineteenth century. This view believed that if “art is to be valued for its own sake then it must be detached from all purposes, including those of the moral life. A work of art that moralizes, that strives to improve the audience, that descends from the pinnacle of pure beauty to take up some social or didactic cause, offends against the autonomy of the aesthetic experience, exchanging intrinsic for instrumental values and losing whatever claim it might have had to beauty.” This seems to be an extreme view. It completely divorces art from morality. On the other hand, Plato forbids the poets from entering his city in the Republic, but allows for the philosopher, who knows the truth, to be a poet. In addition, Plato uses poetic devices in the Republic: allegory, analogy, metaphor, simile, etc.. Then, there are religious people who actively censor different kinds of art. Is there no middle ground?
Scruton thinks that it is a “failing in a work of art that it should be more concerned to convey a message than to delight its audience.” There are works of art that use art as a propaganda tool. “The lessons urged upon us are neither compelled by the story nor illustrated in the exaggerated figures and characters; the propaganda message is not part of aesthetic meaning but extraneous to it.” An example of using art for political propaganda is Mikhail Sholokhov’s Quiet Flows the Don. There are works of art that integrate their moral message “in an aesthetically integrated frame.” John Bunyan’s Pilgrims’s Progress presents a work in which both the form and the content are aesthetically integrated.
Hegel states that the idea is the content of art. The first attribute of art requires that the content, “which is to be offered to artistic representation, shall show itself to be worthy of representation.” Hegel is saying that not just any ideas should be represented in art. He thinks both the content and the form should be good. Second, the idea should not be represented in abstract form. The idea must be manifested concretely. Hegel states that the imagination is the “proper medium” and that the imagination “is essential to every product that belongs to the beautiful, whatever type it may be.” Hegel is saying that works of art are communicated through the imagination, not the reason. Art communicates truth differently than science. He is also stating that both the content and the form must be closely intertwined. In other words, the content cannot be extraneous to the form. Both content and form communicate truth through the imagination.
Scruton does think that art should have moral value. He thinks it is morally wrong when art presents vice in such a way that makes it attractive. There are different kinds of ways that evil can be presented in art. First, it can be presented in such a way that the reader must make a moral judgment about it. Second, it can be presented in such a way that the reader is shown how an action is evil. Finally, evil can be presented in such a way that attracts the reader to it. For example, it influences the reader to think of evil as good. Scruton thinks art can be moral, but should not be moralizing. Scruton writes, “Works of art are forbidden to moralize, only because moralizing destroys the true moral value, which lies in the ability to open our eyes to others, and to discipline our sympathies towards life as it is. Art is not morally neutral, but it has its own way of making and justifying moral claims.”
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