Art and Ethical Criticism

"Hagberg draws together some of the top thinkers in aesthetics to consider the cross-impacts between these philosophical disciplines. The selections are widely representative of approaches to ethical criticism of artworks, and the ethical/aesthetic dimensions of the literary, visual, and auditory arts.” (CHOICE, March 2009)

“Garry Hagberg's new anthology Art and Ethical Criticism consists of twelve new essays—ten by philosophers, one each by an art historian and a professor of French—together with a short foreword. The overall argument that emerges from these essays is that the first, broader topic (the powers and interest of art for human subjects) is more important than the second, narrower topic (the relation between artistic and moral value), and the essays are strongest exactly when they illuminate the powers and interest of art, precisely by not separating the artistic and ethical features of a work sharply from each other.” (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, January 2009)

"This is an excellent and genuinely useful collection of essays on a very important topic that is just beginning to receive wide attention from analytical philosophers."
–Ted Cohen, University of Chicago