The Aesthetic Expression Of Moral Character

Can a person be morally beautiful? Can a character trait, such as honesty, be beautiful and sneakiness ugly or disgusting? Or are such expressions merely metaphorical? Talk of moral beauty has been commonplace since antiquity; and especially 18th-century philosophers used the notion. Yet, a literal meaning quickly leads to Moral judgements based on mere physical appearance, as physiognomists such as Lavater have endorsed. This book assesses influential 18th-century theories of moral beauty and proposes two conditions for a safe literal conception of moral beauty that not only helps justify many moral judgements based on aesthetic Quality but also shows how beauty and moral virtue can be based on the same principles. First, we need an account of why moral beauty and non-moral physical beauty are distinct kinds of beauty; and second, we need an account of how moral beauty can be expressive of moral virtue without identifying the one with the other. The reasons why Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Reid only meet the first condition and why Kant and Schiller meet both conditions are extremely illuminating for current debates on the interactions between aesthetics and moral theory.

Discussion of John Stuart Mill's ethics has been dominated by concern with right and wrong action as determined by the principle of utility. Colin Heydt's book unearths the rich context of moral and socio-political debate that Mill did not have to make explicit to his Victorian readers, in order to enrich the philosophical analysis of his ethics and to show a famous and misunderstood moralist in a new light.

Yuriko Saito explores the nature and significance of the aesthetic dimensions of people's everyday life. Everyday aesthetics has the recognized value of enriching one's life experiences and sharpening one's attentiveness and sensibility. Saito draws out its broader importance for how we make our worlds, environmentally, morally, as citizens and consumers. Saito urges that we have a social responsibility to encourage cultivation of aesthetic literacy and vigilance against aesthetic manipulation. Yuriko Saito argues that ultimately, everyday aesthetics can be an effective instrument for directing the humanity's collective and cumulative world-making project for the betterment of all its inhabitants. Everyday aesthetics has been seen as a challenge to contemporary Anglo-American aesthetics discourse, which is dominated by the discussion of art and beauty. Saito responds to controversies about the nature, boundary, and status of everyday aesthetics and argues for its legitimacy. She highlights the multi-faceted aesthetic dimensions of everyday life that are not fully accounted for by the commonly-held account of defamiliarizing the familiar.

Featuring contributions from Matthew Kieran, Aaron Ridley, Roger Scruton and Mary Mothersill to name but a few, this collection of groundbreaking new papers on aesthetics and ethics, highlights the link between the two subjects. These leading figures tackle the important questions that arise when one thinks about the moral dimensions of art and the aesthetic dimension of moral life. The volume is a significant contribution to philosophical literature, opening up unexplored questions and shedding new light on more traditional debates in aesthetics. The topics explored include: the relation of aesthetic to ethical judgment the relation of artistic experience to moral consciousness the moral status of fiction the concepts of sentimentality and decadence the moral dimension of critical practice, pictorial art and music the moral significance of tragedy the connections between artistic and moral issues elaborated in the writings of central figures in modern philosophy, such as Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The contributors share the view that progress in aesthetics requires detailed study of the practice of criticism. This volume will appeal to both the philosophical community and to researchers in areas such as literary theory, musicology and the theory of art.

The body is a rich object for aesthetic inquiry. We aesthetically assess both our own bodies and those of others, and our felt bodily experiences—as we eat, have sex, and engage in other everyday activities—have aesthetic qualities. The body, whether depicted or actively performing, features centrally in aesthetic experiences of visual art, theatre, dance and sports. Body aesthetics can be a source of delight for both the subject and the object of the gaze. But aesthetic consideration of bodies also raises acute ethical questions: the body is deeply intertwined with one's identity and sense of self, and aesthetic assessment of bodies can perpetuate oppression based on race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, size, and disability. Artistic and media representations shape how we see and engage with bodies, with consequences both personal and political. This volume contains sixteen original essays by contributors in philosophy, sociology, dance, disability theory, critical race studies, feminist theory, medicine, and law. Contributors take on bodily beauty, sexual attractiveness, the role of images in power relations, the distinct aesthetics of disabled bodies, the construction of national identity, the creation of compassion through bodily presence, the role of bodily style in moral comportment, and the somatic aesthetics of racialized police violence.

‘This is an extremely important book. Wonderfully well researched and written, it develops a powerful argument about how we should conceive of the aims of education and design curricula. It should define the field for a very considerable period of time.’ - Professor Michael J Reiss, Institute of Education, University of London, UK Many philosophers of education believe that the main aim of education is to endow students with personal autonomy, producing citizens who are reflective, make rational choices, and submit their values and beliefs to critical scrutiny. This book argues that the ‘good life’ need not be the life of the philosopher, politician or critical thinker, but that an ordinary ‘unexamined’ life is also worth living. Central to this ethical life is the engagement in worthwhile activities or ‘practices’, and the best way to prepare pupils for their engagement in these practices is to cultivate a range of moral and intellectual virtues. In this book, Alistair Miller brings together a range of philosophical and historical perspectives to argue for a new vision of liberal education: liberal in the sense that it forms a moral and cultural inheritance, new in the sense that it would enable all pupils to lead flourishing lives. Divided into two sections, the first part of the book seeks to establish the justified aims of education in a liberal democratic society; the second part explores the nature of the school curriculum that might realise these aims. A New Vision of Liberal Education will appeal to researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, moral and values education, liberal education, and curriculum studies.

This major collection of essays examines issues surrounding aesthetics and ethics.

Can a good work of art be evil? 'Art, Ethics, and Emotion' explores this issue, arguing that artworks are always aesthetically flawed insofar as they have a moral defect that is aesthetically relevant. This book will be of interest to anyone who wants to understand the relation of art to morality.