Art and Ethics: Philosophical Perspectives on Beauty, Morality, and Happiness

Art and Ethics

Art is a production-oriented activity that creates objects. It is a type of intervention, an enduring symbolic action, and a domain where techniques are highly refined and intuition plays a major role. Art has seven aspects:

1. Creativity

Creativity is the first activity, and it is the first to involve personal involvement.

2. Classes of art

Painting, sculpture, literature, architecture, dance, music, and cinema.

3. Technique and inspiration

Technique and inspiration, especially technique.

4. Existence of two aspects

There are two aspects: Art and Art. Both can be recognized as artistic, but the second is not. Art is an artist's creation.

5. Art and measure

Art and measure are closely linked, because art must have harmony, proportion, order, and so on.

6. Functions of art

Art expresses, entertains, and provides liberation (catharsis) of emotions and feelings, which is beneficial.

7. Art imitates nature

Plato said art imitates nature, and that art is not a very good concept. Art is something greater than nature, because what art does is greater than nature. Nature imitates art, because what nature does is greater than art.

Ethics is the first branch of philosophy and deals with moral objects. Fundamentally, ethics determines what is good and what is wrong. Ethics has seven aspects:

1. Kantian ethics

The central question of Kantian ethics is: what ought I to do? It asks us to think about good and bad.

2. Conflicts and problems

The question includes the first, because conflicts and problems arise. The Greek word ppito represents moral consciousness.

3. Freedom

Freedom is the fundamental basis of ethics. Freedom can be chosen. Sartre said: "We are condemned to be free."

4. Heteronomy and autonomy

Heteronomy (depending on someone else) versus autonomy (independence).

5. Values

The values of ethics are: life, freedom, justice, truth, and health. Many values produce conflicts, for example abortion: the freedom to choose and life.

6. Moral consciousness

Moral consciousness is a social construction, and it is constructed socially. Social constructionism holds that each person is autonomous. Freud places moral consciousness in the superego.

7. Ethical proposals

There exist several ethical proposals (Kant, Sartre, and others), and you can choose the one you consider best.

8. Utopia

Ethics is related to utopia, since both serve to project impossible things, hopefully.

Aristotle and Epicurus

Eudaimonism. Aristotle: Ethics is the art of living, and the end of ethics is happiness, achieved through moderation. Happiness is also related to true social well-being. Good conduct and the greater social good depend on harmony, justice, and civic life. Actions shape our character: if actions are consistent with virtue, they produce good habits; if not, they produce bad habits. The practice of virtue is what makes a human being happy.

Hedonism. Epicurus held that the good and happiness consist in seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Pleasures are balanced with suffering, so we must rationally calculate which are more intense and more lasting. For example, if happiness during a drinking binge brings much pain the next day, you will have suffering.

Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is identified with the utility of actions. The moral value of an action lies in its practical effects, and the maximum good is achieved when the greatest number of people are happy. Society is a free exchange of self-regulation according to self-interest.

Kant and Sartre

Kantian formalism. Kant argued that ethics must be universal and necessary; it cannot be based on experience. The goodness of an action lies in its intention, not its results. Otherwise, an action without regard for duty is not moral. Compliance with duty can be done for self-interest, and such an action is not moral. This is the categorical imperative.

Sartre represents existentialist formalism. Existence precedes essence: a human being is not determined by any value, end, or reference prior to their decisions. There is no fixed human nature, and no absolute value defines what a person must do. Goodness consists in free and radical action.

Apel and discourse ethics. Discourse ethics, in the form proposed by Apel and Habermas, reformulates Kantian ethics by replacing the individual with a collective subject. It also corrects the emptiness of excessively formal ethics by investigating the possibility of a minimum of universalizable content through consensus.