FAF is a new dedicated forum to reflect on art and ethics in contemporary society. Every month we will invite an esteemed philosopher of art, curator, or artist to critically think about the urgent and sometimes challenging questions surrounding art today. For example: Can we experience art through digital means? Is it wrong to enjoy the work of immoral artists? What should happen with public sculptures that glorify a colonial or racist past? FAF will take place every last Thursday of the month during term time at FUMA, the Flinders Museum of Art.
Join us on Thursday 25 November 2021 for the fourth instalment of FAF with Ted Nannicelli (University of Queensland) on 'The Ethical Criticism of Art and the Relativism of Distance'
This paper argues that our intuitions about ethically problematic works tend to vary according to our perceived distance (temporal and cultural) from the generative context. The greater our distance from the generative context, the less clear it is that we can (or should) judge artworks from that context against our ethical norms. The lesser the distance to the generative context, the clearer it seems to be that we can (and should). In developing these claims, Nannicelli will draw upon Bernard Williams’s discussion of ‘the relativism of distance' making use of recent empirical work in folk moral psychology that supports the descriptive version of Williams’s thesis. Building on Williams, Nannicelli will develop a more robust normative account of how the ethical criticism of artworks from other societies should proceed.
Parking on university campus is free after 5pm.
More info, please contact Dr Tom Cochrane a:: flindersaestheticsforum@gmail.com
