Jennifer A. McMahon, “Art and Ethics in a Material World: Kant’s Pragmatist Legacy” (Routledge, 2013) - a podcast by Marshall Poe

Art and ethics are linked philosophically by the fact that they are both fall under value theory; and some aestheticians, notably Berys Gaut, have argued for a direct connection between aesthetic and moral values, in that the moral values that an artwork may embody can raise or lower its aesthetic value. In Art and Ethics in a Material World: Kant’s Pragmatist Legacy (Routledge 2013), Jennifer A. McMahon argues that aesthetic and moral judgments are intrinsically linked by the fact that they contain a common element of community-calibrated subjective responses, and that as a result by reflecting on art we also exercise this element of moral judgment. McMahon, who is associate professor in philosophy at the University of Adelaide, South Australia, draws on Kant, pragmatist philosophers such as John Dewey, contemporary philosophers of mind such as Susanna Siegel, and interviews with contemporary artists, including Olafur Eliasson and Doris Salcedo, to argue for and illustrate her view.
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