The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Art

This volume is about how and whether art can be morally bad (or morally good). Politicians, media pundits, and others frequently complain that particular works of art are morally dangerous, or, sometimes, that particular works are morally edifying (the "great works" of literature, for example). But little attention is often given to the question of what makes art morally good in the first place. This comprehensive volume of forty-five new essays explores a wide variety of historical and theoretical perspectives, looking at different art forms and different problems. Each section of the volume samples a mix of topics that have been widely discussed alongside those that have been less noticed by philosophers. What emerges is a sense of the great variety of different problems and approaches as well as some recurring and overlapping themes. The essays in this volume put forth a deliberate effort to stretch beyond some of the debates and problems most familiar to Anglophone