Some have wished to exempt artists from the common morality, arguing that their misprint lives are the price they pay to produce enduring work. Yeats conveys this in his poem The Choice . Of course, this is Romantic rot. Tell it to Dante. Tell it to Dr. Johnson.
Moral sensibility comes at various letters.
We can admire what we do not do, even though we should. There is an aesthetic grasp of nobility that does not ennoble. Still, it might dispose us for virtue. After all, wallowing in pornography disposes one for the acts depicted. I have been reading a life of Cyril Connolly of late, and it has tried my high estimate of his writing severely.