Ethicism contra Immoralism - by Jack Nicastro
This post is a response to the following question posted by Prof. Walden in Ethics and the Arts (Phil 23.01): Explain how someone might argue that Goodfellas is a good film in part because of its immorality. What do you think of this argument? Assuming that Goodfellas is itself immoral, and that an artwork’s moral valence is related to its success formally, i.e., aesthetically, one could still argue that it is good qua work-of-art. An aside: It is worth noting that the interrelation of moral and aesthetic value is not trivial. Autonomists deny that such a relationship exists (in the extreme), or that it is irrelevant (moderate). Ethicists/moderate moralists argue that art succeeds aesthetically when it elicits a merited response from its audience. A work of art either fails to elicit its intended immoral response from its moral audience or, in the case that it succeeds, it ultimately fails because such a response can never be merited. But back to the immoralists! The immoralists argue
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