Aesthetic Preferences Reveal One's Moral Nature

Teacher: To determine the value of a thing, we must first discern its aim. Just as a doctor is judged by how closely their patient resembles the perfectly healthy human, and just as an archer is judged by how closely their arrow lands to the target, so too an artist is judged by how closely their work comes to the ideal. Once the end that all artists attempt to reach is specified, determining how well they’ve done will become trivial. Is it not true that “good” means “good in relation to a goal”? Student: It can be no other way, since asserting the goodness of a thing presupposes that one has a standard by which one can judge such a quality. Something can only be good assuming a certain framework of values, since what a madman believes to be good is obviously different than what a pious man believes to be good. Teacher: And is it not the case that the aim of an art is unique to that art, meaning that the aim can be understood as the best utilization of the unique traits of the art? Student: This can be seen in the fact that doctors are unique in that they heal ailments, and their aim is, therefore, to heal ailments to the greatest degree possible. Teacher: So should we not discover the unique qualities of artists first? Student: That seems like the best place to start. Teacher: To discover what sets artists apart from all others, a question must be asked: what restraints must artists recognize when working? What chains keep the pen, brush, or string from freely moving? Student: Surely an artist must make only that which their audience approves of, else they’d be left without any praise or payment for their work. Teacher: While it is true that a starving artist will not be an artist for long, this is a merely circumstantial fact. Doing art doesn’t inherently require the artist to gain any benefit from the act; there is nothing logically contradictory in, for instance, a writer who writes to their own detriment. Student: Even accepting this, the writer must still adhere to the conventions of language. How can it be said that a writer whose works cannot be read is a writer at all? One cannot discard all notions of syntax and grammar as a whole and still be intelligible, so writers are without choice when it comes to following such things. Teacher: On what grounds can you say that a writer must be able to be understood? Understood by who? Does Proust become something other than a writer to those who are unable to read French? Likewise, is a lunatic incapable of being a writer if their journals are incoherent to all but the person in question? Such a requirement is totally arbitrary. Student: It seems that it is. What, then, are the defining qualities of art? Teacher: Artists have but one requirement: they must create. There are no further conditions. Art is, in this way, an expression of freedom. One scene could have been painted, but the fact that another could have easily took its place is unchanging. Nothing in art is a given. It is by conscious choice that the artist follows a certain form, style, or general aesthetic. It is by choice that they portray scum or heroes. It is by choice that they invoke nausea or overwhelming admiration. This is what it means to be a artist: having the power to create and erase at one’s whim. Never let a artist trick you into believing, even subconsciously, that they could not have written differently and that they deserve to be shielded from judgement for that which they did against their will. The most common form this deception takes is the claim that the art “reflects reality as it is” and that this accounts for whatever array of garbage the writer chose to focus on. Imagine the psychological implications of such an idea: reality is, at its core, nothing more than a procession of terrors, and no moral person can do anything about it, being crushed into the dirt whenever they even so much as try. Not only is belief in the inherent animosity of the cosmos indicative of philosophical bankruptcy, the idea that, even if such a belief were correct, writing must reflect it is absurd. No such requirement exists. For every scene of misery, a writer could have substituted a scene of virtue, regardless of how things are “in reality.” Followers of the so-called “Realist” school are not just confused about the nature of reality – they prefer and give moral precedence to the hell that is their vision of the world both in everyday life and in the realm of art. My point can be seen here: every stroke of the artist must carry significance. Every word the writer lays down reflects their deepest convictions. Making art is the act of asserting that one vision is more worthy of existence than another. It is simultaneously creation and destruction. A piece of art is, at its heart, the result of the values the writer holds. Aesthetics, therefore, cannot be separated from systems of value – the artist creates with a full explication of his values as his aim. For this reason, works of art can be judged in the same way that all people can be judged: based on their moral merit.A morally disgusting work is incompatible with a paragon of virtue on the grounds that the moral frameworks in question conflict, and, since it is always preferable to be virtuous instead of a lout, the ideal man will always value writings which reflect his worldview higher than any others, and these judgements hold more credibility than the judgements of any morally empty person. For the arguments given to establish the artist's responsibility when it comes to the moral content of his art apply too to the consumer of the art: it is a choice to value one piece over another, and any abnegation of this choice is, in itself, a statement of cowardliness.Hence ends the eclaircissement.