extent from the political incursions of limiting moralisms, and this is, on the
whole, a good thing. Controversies about the value of artistically experimen-
tal works that function as vehicles of moral experimentalism are likely to
persist, with competing remonstrations, persuasions, and entreaties on all
sides, within an institutional setting of political openness, and properly so.
Against extreme autonomism, extreme aestheticism, or“art for art’s
sake,”Carroll notes that historically“art is impure”in mixing“freely and
naturally with other realms of human practice,”^30 such as religion, educa-
tion, the cultivation of social solidarity, and the display of wealth and power.
Attempts to specify an essence of art as a matter of having“purely aesthetic
interest”have foundered, Carroll argues, in the face of works such as John
Cage’s 4 ’ 33 ”that have little formal interest but perhaps substantial intellec-
tual or ethical interest,^31 while talk of art as intended to afford an experience
“valuable for its own sake”is countered by artistically successful and import-
ant works that have liturgical, devotional, political, or utilitarian uses, such
as altarpieces, tribal masks, and drinking bowls.^32 Making and responding to
art have, as Richard Shusterman puts it,“deep roots in life’s needs and
interests,”^33 and it would be a mistake to regard art as either only or
primarily a matter of the enjoyment of forms isolated from functions and
effects.
One might, then, revert to moderate autonomism–the position of Posner
and Gass–and hold that artistic value is independent of any other uses and
values a work may have. While any bowl may be intended for drinking,
whether it is a work of art will depend only on its shaping and decoration,
say. While any hymn may be intended for use as a vehicle of devotion,
whether it is art will depend only on its melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic
structure and on the skill employed in setting its text. As Gass puts it, the
artistic value of a work depends on its“internal, formal, organic character”
alone. But this too cannot be right, Carroll argues, for“sometimes a moral
defect in an artwork can figure in a negativeaestheticevaluation”of it;“there
are some cases where a moral defect in a work amounts to an aesthetic
(^30) Carroll,“Morality and Aesthetics,”p. 281A.
(^31) Carroll,“Art and Ethical Criticism,”p. 358.
(^32) Ibid., p. 359.
(^33) Richard Shusterman,Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life(New York:
Routledge, 1997), p. 6.
Art and morality 233