The Ethical Question asks whether ethical values in artworks determine their aesthetic value and, if so, how. I argue that the question is ambiguous between a direct and an indirect reading. I show how the indirect reading is philosophically uninteresting because it has an obvious answer: a view called ‘immoralism’. I also show how most of the significant figures in the relevant literature address the indirect form of the question anyway—needlessly, if I am right. Finally, I consider whether some version (...) of the indirect question is more philosophically interesting, connecting it to the so-called ‘qua problem’. I attempt to give clarity to the discussion by applying work on the virtues and vices of explanations. (shrink)

The position of immoralism in analytic aesthetics and the philosophy of art holds that a work's moral defects can sometimes contribute to its artistic value. This position has suffered massive criticism in recent years. In support of immoralism, I present in this paper a new argument by examining immorality in the artistic genre of transgressive art. I argue that in the category of transgressive art, due to the nature of immorality that is a transgressive and liberating force against morality's authority, (...) being immoral can contribute directly to an artwork's artistic value by contributing to the realization of its artistic aim. (shrink)

This essay aims to elucidate the so-called 'qua problem' often invoked in the debate on the interaction between moral and artistic values. The qua problem is currently understood as the failure to establish a direct value interaction. I argue that this way of understanding the qua problem is flawed because it does not make the qua problem a real problem, that is, a problem that makes an interactionist argument unsuccessful in virtue of having the problem. Instead, I propose that the (...) qua problem should be understood as the failure to show that the fact that an artwork is (im)moral (as opposed to other related facts, such as those that ground this fact) explains, whether directly or indirectly, the work’s artistic value (as opposed to being connected to the artistic value in some other way). (shrink)