Art and Ethical Criticism

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.

"Hagberg draws together some of the top thinkers in aesthetics to consider the cross-impacts between these philosophical disciplines. The selections are widely representative of approaches to ethical criticism of artworks, and the ethical/aesthetic dimensions of the literary, visual, and auditory arts." (CHOICE)"Garry Hagberg's new anthology Art and Ethical Criticism consists of twelve new essays—ten by philosophers, one each by an art historian and a professor of French—together with a short foreword. The overall argument that emerges from these essays is that the first, broader topic (the powers and interest of art for human subjects) is more important than the second, narrower topic (the relation between artistic and moral value), and the essays are strongest exactly when they illuminate the powers and interest of art, precisely by not separating the artistic and ethical features of a work sharply from each other." (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews)

• Notes on Contributors viiForeword xiGarry L. HagbergPart I: Historical Foundations 11 Is Ethical Criticism a Problem? A Historical Perspective 3Paul GuyerPart II: Conceptions of Ethical Content 332 Narrative and the Ethical Life 35Noel Carroll3 A Nation of Madame Bovarys: On the Possibility and Desirability of Moral Improvement through Fiction 63Joshua Landy4 Empathy, Expression, and What Artworks Have to Teach 95Mitchell GreenPart III: Literature and Moral Responsibility 1235 "Solid Objects," Solid Objections: On Virginia Woolf and Philosophy 125Paisley Livingston6 Disgrace: Bernard Williams and J. M. Coetzee 144Catherine Wilson7 Facing Death Together: Camus's The Plague 163Robert C. SolomonPart IV: Visual Art, Artifacts, and the Ethical Response 1858 Staying in Touch 187Carolyn Korsmeyer9 Susan Sontag, Diane Arbus, and the Ethical Dimensions of Photography 211David Davies10 Ethical Judgments in Museums 229Ivan GaskellPart V: Music and Moral Relations 24311 Cosi's Canon Quartet 245Stephen Davies12 Jazz Improvisation and Ethical Interaction: A Sketch of the Connections 259Garry L. HagbergIndex 286