Art And Ethical Criticism

Through a series of essays, Art and Ethical Criticism explores the complex relationship between the arts and morality.

• Reflects the importance of a moral life of engagement with works of art
• Forms part of the prestigious New Directions in Aesthetics series, which confronts the most intriguing problems in aesthetics and the philosophy of art today

Garry L. Hagberg is the James H. Ottaway Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Bard College, and in recent years has held a Chair in the School of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and a visiting fellowship at Cambridge University. He has published and lectured widely; his books include Describing Ourselves: Wittgenstein and Autobiographical Consciousness, Art as Language, and Meaning and Interpretation. He is co-editor of The Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Literature (with Walter Jost) and of the journal Philosophy and Literature.

Notes on Contributors.

Foreword (Garry L. Hagberg, University of East Anglia).

Part I: Historical Foundations.

1. Is Ethical Criticism a Problem? A Historical Perspective (Paul Guyer, University of Pennsylvania).

Part II: Conceptions of Ethical Content.

2. Narrative and the Ethical Life (Noël Carroll, Temple University).

3. A Nation of Madame Bovarys: On the Possibility and Desirability of Moral Improvement through Fiction (Joshua Landy, Stanford University).

4. Empathy, Expression, and What Artworks Have to Teach (Mitchell Green, University of Virginia).

Part III: Literature and Moral Responsibility.

5. “Solid Objects,” Solid Objections: On Virginia Woolf and Philosophy (Paisley Livingston, Lingnan University).

6. Disgrace: Bernard Williams and J. M. Coetzee (Catherine Wilson, City University of New York).

7. Facing Death Together: Camus’s The Plague (Robert C. Solomon).

Part IV: Visual Art, Artifacts, and the Ethical Response.

8. Staying in Touch (Carolyn Korsmeyer, University at Buffalo, State University of New York).

9. Susan Sontag, Diane Arbus, and the Ethical Dimensions of Photography (David Davies, McGill University).

10. Ethical Judgments in Museums (Ivan Gaskell, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University).

Part V: Music and Moral Relations.

11. Così’s Canon Quartet (Stephen Davies, University of Auckland).

12. Jazz Improvisation and Ethical Interaction: A Sketch of the Connections (Garry L. Hagberg, University of East Anglia).

Index.