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Arnold Berleant, Leonardo, the Journal of the Contemporary Artist, l0 (Summer l977), l95-202.
MORALITY AND THE ARTIST: TOWARD AN ETHICS OF ART
For all that is distinctive about the world of art, there is little doubt that a web of threads
binds it to the rest of the social fabric. Certainly, views of the unique and separate character of
art which originated in the late 18th century had a great deal to do with the development of a
distinctive identity for the artist and the important and unique place of his profession in the
human community. In accomplishing this, however, the past two centuries have tended to
obscure the social character of artistic activity, and it is only in recent decades, but particularly
since the early sixties, that the western world has begun to reaffirm these ties. Indeed, it is the
artist himself who has insisted most on this, both in his art and in his life. Realism in the novel
and the film, functionalism in arch- itecture and design, the use of objets trouvees. Happenings,
and pop art are some of the more obvious examples that come to mind.
While ethical queries are being raised with greater frequency, to the extent that they
become at times a ruling concern for certain artists who find themselves embroiled in
controversies involving foreign policy, economic affairs, and social justice, they are not posed
now for the first time. Indeed, the glorious autonomy of art since the eighteenth century is rather
an aberration in its history, for moral questions have recurred throughout most of its long past,
and have often exercised dominance over the free play of the creative impulse. It is, in fact,
probably this very constraint that led to the exaggerated claims for the complete independence of
artistic activity. Yet it may be that a judicious balancing of the factors of artistic independence
and social influence will allow us to achieve a more realistic assessment of what each recognizes
about the activity of art, and can suggest the direction for achieving a productive reconciliation.
Concern over the social effects of art has a long history. The most famous example of
this continues to be Plato, who recognized the powerful influence the arts have on the formation
of character, and whose expulsion from the Republic of the poet who could make anything
attractive set the pattern for censorship that has continued to the present day. He was followed
by Aristotle, who believed that the statesman could use the pleasurable effects of music and
dancing, poetry, and painting to mold character, 1 leading to the practice of the Middle Ages, in
which aesthetics was crushed out by "the Christian moral resistance." 2 The Renaissance was
more conciliatory, with Albert! and Leonardo proposing that the moral and the aesthetic be
joined in the painter. For them "the painter must be a kind of priest, and piety and virtue were
regularly thought of as a part of the necessary equipment of the would-be painter." 3 Later, in
the eighteenth century, Reynolds regarded right moral purpose as one of the maxims of the
artist. 4 More recent recognition of the moral significance of the artist is considerable, and
examples could easily multiply themselves into a full length study.
Yet while it is clear that this is no new concern, it is also true that the condition of the
contemporary artist raises these questions in a wider and more acute fashion than in the past.
The proliferation of movements and styles in the arts has coincided with the dissolution of
widely supported social norms, and the dominance of commercial culture and political
ideologies in developing and advanced societies has placed the artist in a milieu in which the
range of possibilities for the social appropriation of art has charged an already ambiguous
domain with new complexities. Thus moral demands are placed on the artist of a scope,
intricacy, and difficulty not found before, and there are no longer special categories or
convenient divisions to separate and insulate the realm of the artist and thus circumscribe the
range of discussion.
It is important for us to recognize that the ethical discussion of art actually circles around
two distinct but related axes. One is the moral status of the art object, an object challenged for
its formative influence on those who are exposed to it, and as a consequence subjected to the
restrictive hand of the censor. The other is the moral stature of the artist himself, pursued,
tempted, co-opted, perhaps exploited by a social order that encompasses many interests, but
seldom those that his own. The first of these focal points involves the moral judgment of the
object of art, and raises its attending questions, empirical and philosophical: What effect does
art have on its viewer, and how tightly can the causal connection be drawn? What would be the
results of a policy of censorship on the creative capabilities of the artist and on the vitality of the
artistic culture? What would be the consequences of social controls on artistic activity to a
society as a whole and to the life of its larger culture? What are the social goals of artistic
activity and what special contribution can it make? Where do the principal values of art reside?
These are large and important issues, and have been the principal subject of scholarly and
scientific concern, with differing and not yet conclusive results.
Less pondered but no less puzzling, however, are those issues which center upon the
artist himself. Do the moral constraints that prevail as part of the social code apply equally to
him, or is his activity so distinctive that it requires him to occupy a privileged place, uniquely
immune to the rules that guide other actors in the social drama? How is the artist bound
morally to those with whom he comes into contact, both through his profession and apart from
it? Does the artist's influence on his society justify social concern and control over his activity?
Does the artist's contribution to the life of the community justify his being subsidized or
supported by society and, if it does, what droits du seigneur does society acquire as his patron?
These are general questions, to be sure, but each raises specific kinds of cases with which an
artist cannot avoid being confronted and that concern the moral stature of the person rather than
the art. It is an inquiry into such matters as these that we shall initiate here.
Let me proceed by a division of the question, as it were, into three distinguishable types
of moral demand that can be placedon the artist: first, those which apply to everyone as a moral
being and therefore apply equally to the artist; second, those which apply particularly but not
exclusively to the artist as a social participant by virtue of the distinctiveness of his profession
and its influence; and third, those which apply uniquely to the artist since they derive from the
peculiar nature of his task and powers. While these may be joined with one another in practice,
they actually involve different moral conditions, and it will illuminate the question to consider
them separately.
Many of the moral problems of artists are not problems of artistic morality at all. On
examination they instead turn out to be versions of standard moral situations in which the
instantiation is simply what follows from the particular but not peculiar circumstances of the
artist's profession. Whatever else he may be, the artist is a person who shares with all other
persons a common humanity. Thus those demands which are held to apply to everyone as a
moral being apply equally to him. Questions that are raised about the honorableness of his
motives or the undue influence of ego or ambition are not peculiar to the artist at all but may be
asked of every human being who performs actions that affect others. Similarly, to judge the
honesty of the artist is to consider his candor and openness in treating others without
dissembling or deceit, and to ask about his trustworthiness is to wonder whether he will be
responsible and keep his promises. There is nothing to differentiate the morality of such conduct
in the artist from that of anyone else.
The way in which a painter treats his model, then, is no different in kind from how a
teacher handles his student, a researcher his assistant, a doctor his patient, an employer his
worker, a politician his constituent, a businessman his customer. The durability or reliability of
a painting or a kinetic sculpture reflects the commercial integrity of the artist no less than does
the dependability of any other commercial object the integrity of its producer. Nor is the pricing
of an artist's work any more immune to judgments of avarice than that of any other marketable
object, and claims that special circumstances justify excessive prices are no more exceptional
than any other special interest. It holds equally true that the demand by visual artists for a
continuing monetary claim in the re-sale of their work should be governed by the same business
principles that justify royalties on the sales of a novel or the performances of a piece of music.
And the bribing of a critic is no different from the bribing of a politician or a judge. By
becoming an artist one does not cease being a person.
In all these circumstances and relationships there is a pattern of obligation and
expectation, of reciprocal services and rights which the conventions of the situation lead
everyone to expect, and considerations of honesty, fairness, trustworthiness, and sincerity apply
to all, mutatis mutandis, in essentially the same way. Nor is the artist any less responsible for his
actions than the motorist, the lawyer, or the bricklayer. To the extent that there is a reasonable
expectation of foresight, of competence, of skilled judgment, and of control, the burden of
consequence is the prima facie responsibility of the performerof the act.
In such cases, then, the artist can claim no privileged moral standing, and whatever
ambiguities or theoretical disagreements there may be in the ethical appraisal of the situation, the
same considerations hold equally for all. Thus the composer who agrees to give a lecture
following a performance of his work, but who repeats the performance in lieu of the lecture, is
little different from the merchant who agrees to deliver a bed but sends a sofa. Nor is the writer
who accepts an advance but fails to pro duce the work agreed upon very different from the dentist
who gives an examination but offers neither diagnosis or treatment and yet charges for services
rendered. Similarly the artist who makes an extra print beyond the number in a series to satisfy a
dealer's (or creditor's) demand, or the painter who copies his own painting to satisfy an insistent
request without the knowledge or consent of the owner of the original are engaged in dupery no
different from the salesman who misrepresents the product he is selling. The morality of the
artist is before all else the morality of a person.
Then there are cases involving various kinds of misrepresentation. One instance is the
use of false or misleading advertising done by the artist or sanctioned by him. A form of this is in
recordings which can refashion a performance by the use of splices and variable speed devices
to produce a result so different in tempo and execution from any performance from which the
recording was derived as to make it an original work in its own right. To advertise it as a
performance, then, is to misrepresent the musician's achievement. In such cases, the principal
"performer" may indeed be the chief recording engineer.5
A related situation involves false relationship, in which a work written by one person
appears under the name of another. The case of forgery in painting is similar, for forgeries
falsely representa work's origin, and insofar as the artist, himself, is the source of the
misrepresentation, he occupies a moral status no different from that which applies to any other
instance of outright deceit. 6 In all these instances the involvement of an artist is only incidental
to the moral situation and does not alter its character. As a basically moral being, the artist
stands with the rest of humanity.
There is, however, another sort of moral demand that carries more interest for us here.
The artist does perform a distinctive social role, possesses powers of his own, and produces
work which, by virtue of its uniqueness, stands apart from the contributions of others. To the
extent that there are significant differences, we may ask, does not the artist possess a special
moral status? Thus one may claim that certain moral demands apply particularly (but perhaps
not exclusively) to the artist, as they would to any person acting under the special conditions that
emerge from the distinctive features of his profession, and which give him a certain significant
influence and control over the actions of others through his active participation in the life of his
culture.
This is an appealing situation for the proponents of artisticlicense, for they rightly
recognize the distinctive contribution that art makes in the social order, and reason that the
fulfillment of this possibility requires the unconstrained freedom of the artist to follow in the
direction his talents lead him. 7 Yet there is a certain blithe faith in this doctrine of artistic
laissez faire, for it assumes the automatic benefit of the artistic enterprise to the social welfare
and, as with other such articles of faith, it is not always supported by the facts. Unlike the
products of commerce, whose specific purposes and uses may also have wider social effects and
whose broader effects must qualify their more immediate benefits, the products of the artist do
not only have general social effects; in most cases they consist wholly of those effects. The
position of the artist in this respect resembles that of the teacher, the psychiatrist, and the
physicist, whose work may not shape specific results but yet creates whole modes of awareness
and entire regions of possible action.
To the extent that there are no specific practical tasks which an art object may be
designed to fulfill, its effects are precisely those diffuse and indeterminate consequences which
we indiscriminately call aesthetic experience, enjoyment, or pleasure. Yet these,
undifferentiated though they may be, are not inessential, for the artist cannot be said to produce
anything but that it must have such effects simply to function as art. The painting never seen or
the novel never read are empty of all aesthetic import except potentially, in that they may at
some future time be seen or read, that is, activated and thus made to work as art. Yet this may
not,after all, be so unlike the manufacturer who depends upon the demands of a specific market
to make his business possible. Not only are his products bought in order to fill some need or
satisfy a desire; they may be used by their purchasers for some further purpose. They may, in
fact, be part of a sequence of means rather than ends in themselve, and their indirect
consequences cannot be kept distinct from their proximal effects. At times the law recognizes
this, from banning phosphate detergents to awarding damages for product-related injuries.
Moreover, both enterprises may join one another, for industry is a principal patron of art today,
and it can also make effective use of the artist's skills in persuading the public of the
attractiveness, the efficacy, or the life-enhancing value of its wares. And the artist, by entering
the employ of industry, relinquishes any claim he may have had to autonomy and becomes
subject to whatever moral constraints may apply to the enterprise for which he now works.
Moreover, by generating broad social effects, both art and industry operate within the moral
realm and therefore assume the responsibility that pertains to any moral agent.
This is a subtle and difficult region in which to wander, for the socializing, humanizing
force of art is one of its major capacities, enjoining us not only to consider how it can most
effectively be encouraged to develop, but at the same time requiring us to retain a concern for
those incalculable effects which it has such a delicate power to produce. It is the recognition of
this diffuse but nonetheless intensely moral situation that leads to confused awareness of moral
significance and to acts which express that recognition, without any sure guidance by principle
or doctrine. What do we say of an artist like Toulouse-Lautrec, whose paintings of prostitutes
and brothels led his mother to disapprove on moral grounds, or of a more recent painter who
produces disposable art, which has moral implications both in itself, as a model, and perhaps as
a symbolic criticism of such wastefulness at a time of diminishing world resources? What do
we say of pop art which, like so much art of social criticism in the past such as Hogarth's
paintings and Daumier's satirical sculptures and paintings, attempt to engage our sensibilities
and shape our consciousness of the slick, the false, the vulgar, the mundane dehumanization that
pervades our plastic culture? And what do we say of the cooptation of artists by politics, as
when an artist bends his services in the employ of a totalitarian regime, in glorifying war and
violence, or in ecaLting a policy of racism, as occurred with the pianist Walter Gieseking, the
poet Ezra Pound, the novelist Knut Hamsun, and in the brilliantly fashioned propaganda films of
Leni Riefenstahl? Again, there are more recent instances of artists troubled over participating in
a festival or embarking on a government sponsored tour and sharing with others living under
repressive regimes the common perceptions and elevating experiences which art has the unique
capacity to create. To do so would lend at least implicit personal support and explicit artistic
enhancement to a regime which systematically as a matter of official policy suppresses human
freedoms. Some artists choose to boycott such activities; others claim that the range of artistic
responsibility lies only within the limits of artistic production, within whose bounds alone his
integrity is at stake. 8 Here, too, belong the issues raised by the subtle differences between
eroticism, pornography, and sexual exploitation.
None of these cases can easily be judged and quickly written off, for they all raise
questions about the possible abuse of powers which are peculiar to the artist. Yet while these
are distinctive circumstances, they do not create unique situations. Each profession has its own
spheres, to be sure, but each must respond to the same moral claims that are binding on every
influential actor and action. To propose here what these are would be both presumptious and
unnecessary: this is the larger task of an ethical theory. It is sufficient only to recognize the
continuity of the domain of the artist with that of every other specialized cultural activity, and to
see it joined with all in a common moral realm. As an artist one does not relinquish his
sociality; indeed, as an artist he affirms it the more.
Yet while the artist's responsibilities to society are in some respects common to those of
every man and in other respects peculiar to his art, these modes of social responsibility do not
complete his range of moral possibilities. There is, to be sure, a certain distinctiveness to the
profession of artist, and certain capacities that follow from this. A sensitive portrayal of the
realm of the artist's activities reveals more, however, than a particular ability to influence; it
discloses a task and powers that are exclusively his and which create moral demands that apply
solely to him. Thus not only does an artist retain his social responsibility; he acquires an
additional one as well, a responsibility to his art itself. Indeed, the artist himself often astonishes
us by recognizing and following that unique obligation, at times in a dramatic fashion. There
are, I believe, two forms this obligation takes: one which comes from his singular ability to
reveal and shape reality, and another which derives from the integrity of the artist and of his art.
The first implies a metaphysics of art and the second an ethics of art, the development of which is
clearly beyond the scope of a prolegomenon such as this. Our purpose here, however, is not so
much proof as it is proposal, and it is from the artist as well as the philosopher that it comes.
Unlike Plato, for whom painting and poetry are suspect because they are thrice removed from
what is real and hence can provide nothing but a semblance of their subjects, 9 artists by word
and act have made an opposing claim. What they are doing is intensely serious, offering us not
only opportunities for heightened sensibility, expression, communication, or imaginative
representation, but unique occasions for exposure, discovery, and an intensified awareness of the
world for man. "Art is then the becoming and happening of truth," wrote Heidegger, and "Truth,
as the lighting and unconcealing of what is, happens inasmuch as it is composed or invented." 10
What art does, then, is to reveal or, perhaps more, to bring into being, what is confused,
obscure, but often tentatively groped toward in other, more ordinary, conditions. 11 The
novelist engages us in the trials and pains of human relationships, constantly striving towards
resolution and equilibrium and just as regularly being deflected by movement, growth, and the
thirst for the new. The poet shapes imagination through metaphor and its rich possibilities of
universal relations. The painter opens our perception of people and places or of purely sensory
and formal qualities so that we may enter into communion with them. The film maker
rearranges time, space, and movement to create a world that compels us to forsake our ordinary
surroundings and enter its own realm. The composer encloses us with sounds, at once uniquely
particular and yet intangible, sounds that shape their own order of being out of motion, force,
and intensity. The dancer leads us into a region of the body transcending its limits through vital
movement. Each art in its own peculiar fashion evokes,a region of sense, feeling, and
significance which we are charmed into entering and that carries its own conviction. "The
business of art is to reveal the relation between man and his circumambient universe, at the
living moment," wrote D.H. Lawrence. 12 Whatever else art may be, it lays bare the world and
gives us the vision to see it.
Now to the extent that art has this power, the artist who can wield it possesses a certain
unique responsibility. Unlike the first type of situation in which we described the artist qua
person, we are dealing here with the person qua artist. In this special condition the artist incurs
the obligation to be faithful to the capacities of his art and not succumb to the temptation to
exploit it, to manipulate his perceivers for external ends, or to falsify his realization. When the
artist recognizes these constraints, he achieves the infinite goal of art to continue the endless
fashioning of the real and of the possibilities of the real. When he fails to observe them, he is
not only untruthful, he is immoral. What Lawrence said about the novelist is equally true of
every artist:
And morality is that delicate, for ever trembling and changing balance between
me and my circumambient universe, which precedes and accompanies a true
relatedness....
Morality in the novel is the trembling instability of the balance. When the
novelist puts his thumb in the scale, to pull down the balance to his own
predilection, that is immorality. 13
Such moral responsibility is not decreed by boards of censors, government dominated writer's
unions, judicial standards, or religious codes. It is rather a moral claim that comes from the
practice of the art itself and from the obligation to use it truthfully and well. Art, for Dewey, has
a moral office that makes it "responsible to life, to the enriching and freeing of its meanings."14
Yet from this obligation on the artist comes a claim that he strive for a certain integrity
not only in himself but toward his art as well. There is what we may call a morality of creativity,
one that demands honesty of the artist more than truth, that condemns him for acquiescing in
formulas and other facile solutions, and that denies him respect when he repeats himself without
pursuing the artistic search for new perceptions. It may even occur that the demands of his art
may clash with his own political or religious convictions, or lead to the personal quandary of an
apprentice whose artistic development compels him to reject the style of the master whom he
respects and admires. Such a morality rather urges the artist to follow the demands of his art and
of his own creative impulse. This self-imposed condition is one that many artists have
struggled to observe, sometimes, like Rembrandt and Turner, leaving fashion and easy success
for a path whose destination was unknown. At times this self-honesty has taken the artist into
conflict with his society, but his choice has always seemed clear when art and society are
opposed. A principle of aesthetic priority seems to be at work, in which the integrity of the artist
takes precedence over the comfort of the community. This is not unlike the moral demands on
the scientist for honesty, independence, and clarity of thought, obligations that fuse the
scientific and moral dimensions of the person. 15
Here is where the artist's intent becomes relevant, not to the value of his art, for one can
never tell from his art whether the artist was sincere, but to the integrity of the artist, whatever
influence this may have on his capacity to wield the power of his art. The concern for an artist's
sincerity recognizes this integrity of intent. Indeed, there is a difference between the artist's
sincerity as a person and his sincerity as an artist. Sincerity as a person, together with every
other personal trait, is an instance of the first type of moral demand, and, in fact, does not even
apply here, since it does not have to do with an individual as an artist at all. The fact that Mozart
may have been a person of rather low character and that Wagner was detestable, exploiting and
betraying his friends and benefactors, is irrelevant to their morality as artists. Sincerity as an
artist does concern the person as an artist, and it signifies integrity of intent. Yet insofar as this is
artistic, it follows from the integrity, that is, the honesty and truth, of his work. Thus integrity
for the artist is not just working conscientiously and skillfully and devotedly. This trait would
not distinguish him from any other professional who exhibits those characteristics. Even so, the
degree to which the artist characteristically manifests professional integrity is exemplary to such
an extent that it is commonto call anyone an artist who exhibits a high level of integrity in
hiswork, whatever that work may be. The integrity as an artist, however, is ultimately the artist's
truthfulness to his artistic vision. This is no purely personal trait, however, but is inseparable
from his work. 16
The artist, then, incurs a powerful moral commitment which he more than anyone is
often the clearest in recognizing. Shortly before his death, the cellist Gregor Piatagorsky
observed that "every musician, every artist has a heavy responsibility. Though not all of them
realize this, to be true to the art they must really forget themselves and devote their lives to
something larger in which they believe." 17 Buber, in writing of the origin of art, argues a
similar case: "What is required is a deed that a man does with his whole being....whoever
commits himself may not hold back part of himself; and the work...is imperious: if I do not
serve it properly, it breaks, or it breaks me." 18
The obligation of an artist to his art turns him into its most severe critic. The artistic
process is characteristically one of constant alteration, forcing a work to meet the demands the
artist places on it, and forcing the artist to conform to those that the work places on him. Often
the artist will return to a work, re-shaping sections, touching it up, sometimes revising it
completely, as in the case of Brahms, who completely rewrote his early Piano Trio op. 8 thirty-
seven years later, transforming it into a mature composition. Many artists will not complete a
work which does not satisfy them, and often reject such productions entirely.
There are times when the integrity of the artist to his art is expressed in dramatic ways,
but none more than when it becomes destructive. The history of the arts is repelete with
instances of artists destroying their own works. Sometimes this self-criticism is directed toward
early works which the artist sees as journeyman pieces that do not meet the mature standards of
his later work. It was such a concern for standards that led Brahms to discard many string
quartets before allowing only three to be published, 19 and Brancusi to destroy many of his
early sculptures before ALa Priere,@ with which he achived artistic identity. Yet destruction is a
way of life for many artists, from the printmaker, who routinely selects his prints from the runs
he has made, disposing of the unsatisfactory ones, to painters like Albers who cut up and
discard some of his paintings, and Rouault, who is reputed to have eliminated eighty per cent of
his work. Undoubtedly the most famous instance of this self-critical stance is that of Kafka, who
requested that Max Brod to destroy all his manuscripts after his death. Brod recognized his
greater obligation to his friend's art than to his friend's wish and preserved the manuscripts,
including that of The Trial. 20 Yet this raises the important question of how far the artist should
carry the standards of his artistic integrity. Was Kafka the ultimately moral artist, or did his
criteria overstep the limits of integrity to be self-defeating in their demand for perfection? To the
general question of whether an artist has a moral obligation to destroy work he no longer
approves of, or which he feels dissatisfied with, or which he thinks has failed, the actions of the
artists themselves supply the answer. The difficulty, as is usually the case in moral deliberation,
lies with the specific case.
******
My purpose here has not been to arrive at principles of moral judgment which hold for
the artist and to which he is expected to conform, nor am I concerned with practical questions of
implementation and enforcement. Rather there is a prior need to identify the moral situation of
the artist and to examine its moral standing by exposing the claims that exercise a hold on him.
What seems to emerge is that the romantic view or the rationalist ideal of a morally
autonomous artist is a myth, and even an indulgent and a misleading one. The very
circumstance of being an artist places a person in a moral situation. By his own cognizance and
actions as well as those of others, the artist is an intensely moral being, bound by claims of
responsibility and obligation more complex and subtle than for most.
Moral considerations do then, apply to the artist, but in ways that follow from the
character of the situation. Just what these moral claims are depends on which circumstances
apply. Certainly the three types cannot always be kept separate or even distinct. Often, perhaps
usually, they join and interpenetrate. Yet what is most important is that they are philosophically
distinguishable and carry differing moral statuses.
Being an artist does not exempt one from those moral claims that are binding on any
person. In so far as his circumstances are not different in kind from those of others, there is no
justification for placing the artist in a separate moral territory. As an artist one is not privileged
but stands bound by the same claims that hold on all, in whatever way an ethics enables us to
determine and a code to guide. The judgment of artists as persons does not exempt a Cellini, a
Francois Villon, a Genet, or a Pound from the morality of persons. Promising, truth telling,
honesty, loyalty, responsibility for the lives and property of others and for the consequences of
actionsBthese circumstances and other.slike them impose identical demands on the artist that
they do on others. "For if art is beyond morals, the artist is not, since he is neither beyond nor
this side of it, but under its dominion. Insofar as he is a man, the artist cannot shirk the duties
of man and should consider art itselfBwhich is not and never will be morals--as a mission, to be
practised like a priesthood." 21
The situation in which the distinctiveness of the artist's profession imposes special moral
demands is more difficult, for here lie many of the areas in which conflict occurs between the
artist and common morality, politics, government, and religion. To call for control, however, is
precipitous, for it is unlikely that clear causal connections can ever be established. Censorship is
difficult to impose, self-defeating in its consequences and crudely misguided. Nor is there any
assurance that honest artistic perceptions will necessarily lead to good social results, and that
dishonest ones will produce bad onesCperhaps their very falseness will ensure their
ineffectuality.
Yet there are influences, nonetheless, and for his contribution to the ethos of a culture the
artist does bear a certain responsibility. 22 Just as a high level of competence and knowledge of
current medical developments is an obligation on the physician, as respect for the privacy of
confidence is binding on the teacher and the psychiatrist, as a recognition of the possible
consequences of his research is a moral demand on the nuclear physicist and the molecular
biologist, so the influence of his art in shaping the mentality of a people imposes itself on the
artist. It is the very recognition of this demand, in fact, that compels a Silone to expose the
political manipulation of the Italian peasant, a Rivera and an Orozco the dehumanization of
capitalism and the cry for freedom, a Solzhenitsyn the forced labor camps in Siberia. That there
is a social obligation on the artist seems undeniable, but that this imposes a need for overt
control over his art is not.
Yet the truth of artistic vision and its honest pursuit impose unique demands on the artist,
and it is here in the conflict between artistic morality and social morality that we face a central
issue. The society that chafes under the artist's criticism does so precisely because of its truth. If
the criticisms of art were contrived and far-fetched, the attempt wouldscarcely be made to
suppress them. However, it is the very demand on the artist to be true to his perception that
obligates him to risk the censure of the comfortable in what we called the principle of aesthetic
priority. Moreover there is a certain parallel in the contrary case of the artist whose artistic
perceptions lead him to sincere support for communism, for Christianity, for democracy, or for
any view which others may consider repugnant. Is he a propagandist or does his artistic honesty
uphold him? Here, too, the same principle of priority would apply, supporting the integrity of
the artist's work against hostile criticism, in order that it be enabled to present its perception and
offer its contribution to social consciousness.
This is another instance of the general issue of free speech. For a society that believes in
this as a primary value, the artist makes his unique contribution. For one which does not, the use
of the artist's work will defer to the social values of unity and stability, although the work itself
cannot be molded without the loss of its vision and its artistic emasculation. The question of
whether a society should ever impose its will over the artist and his work in any way whatsoever
involves a more basic issue, namely whether there are fundamental social values that are
grounded in a knowledge to which free discussion, as a device of inquiry, is superfluous,
misleading, and detrimental. This was the stand of philosophers for whom the coherence and
stability of society were a prime objective, although it has been forgotten in the modern age of
social flux.
It is hard, moreover, to untangle the motives of integrity and of dishonesty, for the
unscrupulous artist will masquerade as a staunch defender of artistic freedom. Conflict between
the demands of perception and the demands of security is inevitable at times, and we cannot
legislate an answer. 23 Yet, while direct control may be both unwise and impossible, perhaps a
clearer recognition of the artist=s moral condition will allow moral consideration to occur rather
than dismissing it as irrelevant. Disentangling the artist from his work so that the moral
judgment of the one is not a judgment of the other may clarify the issue and allow debate to
proceed. And perhaps a more thorough recognition of the integrity of the artistic calling will
raise our moral perception of the person who chooses it and develop a moral consciousness in
the artist as well as the public that will help to expose those who abuse it.
Given the condition of this period of the transition of social and cultural institutions that
has become the norm throughout much of the world, transition there is an unqualified claim of
the artist to pursue his vision with honesty and integrity. There is an equally unqualified claim of
society to be concerned about the social effects of any activity, including the artistic. It is the
mark of an enlightened society that it will hear the artist's voice and realize that the diagnosis
does not make the disease, and that if any action is to be taken, it ought to be against the ill and
not against those who identify it. Thus a precarious equilibrium can exist between the two moral
spheres. This is the most one can attainCnot harmony but balance. The artist who affirms the
common view for reasons of its (and his) acceptance has forsaken his vision; the society that
forces that affirmation has suppressed its spirit and lost its vitality. Each needs the other to
achieve its own fulfillment. There is, then, a two-fold standard.
Over those actions which affect its well being, society is justified in exercising control,
no matter who their performer may be. Over those which proceed from the integrity of the artist
to his work, no constraint is ever proper, whether it be exercised by a patron, by the state, by
society in general, or by the artist himself.
The artist's claim to freedom thus has a special force, for without an unhindered range in
which to pursue his perceptions, he would be left with facility but no art. His special
contribution must always be observed, for discomfort is never a reason for suppression but
rather one for support. Until it can be established that a deleterious effect will follow clearly and
specifically from individual works, there is no justification for a society to impose constraints on
the art. Control over the artist, however, has no moral justification. Indeed, for the artist, the
authority of social morality ceases when confronted by the demands of his art. Over the integrity
of the artist's vision no screen should ever be placed.
Such deep conflicts are a sign of social disequilibrium, but they are not the only moral
force at work. Most art depicts the artist's world, shapes its sensory dimensions, and portrays its
people, events, feelings, confusions, and ideals. In doing so it illuminates the wider world of
social man, and by sharing that vision and shaping the aesthetic awareness of others, acquires a
profoundly moral stature. Artists, however, unless they are political in their perspective, are
bound by a much sterner law than that of social morality, and it is the insistence of its demand
that is the source of both the agony and the glory of his calling.
FOOTNOTES
1 Aristotle, Politics, 1340 a-b.
2 F.B. Chambers, Cycles of Taste (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1928), pp. 108-
116.
3 K.E. Gilbert and H. Kuhn, A History of Esthetics (rev. ed.) (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1954), p. 170.
4 Ibid.. p. 222.
5 In the case of Glenn Gould, who now only records, the functions of performer and engineer are
combined in the same person. Here there is no ambiguity about the recording's being the
original performance and not the record of one.
6 The issue of forgery arises in a somewhat different and ambiguous form in the recent case of
the British painter Tom Keating. It is complicated by the fact that the forgeries followed
apparently from the acceptance by the purchasers of their false origins, and not from
misrepresentation by the painter. Moral culpability would apply here to the originator of the
deception, if not the painter, then perhaps the dealer, and if not explicitly, then perhaps
implicitly. Keating's case is further confused by the circumstance that the purported forgeries
were coupled with the artist's written criticism of the art establishment hidden beneath the
painted surface. Cf. The Times (London), 10 August 1976, p. 1; 20 August 1976, pp. i, 13; 29
August, pp. 1, 8.
7 R.B. Perry, Realms of Value (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 346.
8 The British director Peter Brook expressed this view as clearly as any in defending his
participation in the Shiraz (Iran) festival: "The responsibility of each person only exists within
the field over which he has some degree of control. In the arts, the relationship with money
rests entirely on what one controls: that is, whether having received facilities, one uses them
honestly to further whatever purposes one has set oneself, or whether one accepts to distort one's
aim to suit the purposes of the people who have given the money or to please the box office."
Similarly, the British playwright Arnold Wesker, after originally supporting the anti-apartheid
boycott of South Africa, has written, "If, as I've always maintained, I really believe art to be the
most powerful expression by man for man of his attempt to understand and illuminate his
condition, then it is foolish to participate in a campaign that deprives people of the
consciousness art can bring." Quoted in Victor S. Navasky, "Art, Politics and Torture
Chambers," The New York Times Magazine, August 15, 1976, pp. 10, 20. This article offers a
good discussion of recent protests and their efficacy.
9 Republic, X, 600.
10 Martin Heidegger, "The Origin of the Work of Art," in Philosophies of Art and Beauty, ed. A.
Hofstadter and R. Kuhns (New York: Modern Library, 1964), p. 693. It should be clear that I
am not endorsing Heidegger's philosophy of art here but am rather citing his recognition of the
metaphysical underpinning of art.
11 Albert Hofstadter, Truth and Art (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1965),
pp. 212, 190.
12 D.H. Lawrence, Phoenix (New York: Viking, 1936), p. 527.
13 Ibid.. p. 528.
14 John Dewey, Human Nature and Conduct (New York: Modern Library, 1950), p. 163.
15 "The demands of honesty, independence, and clarity of thought, the energy and dedication,
and the profound and reverend sense for the harmony of the universeCall these are not accidental
characteristics of scientists such as Curie and Einstein. The scientific and moral aspects of their
beings are not by any means separate, but are different views of the same thing." Gerald Holton,
"Notes on Proposed Study Programs of Ethical Problems Arising from the Development of
Science and Technology," UNESCO Symposium on Science. Ethics, Aesthetics,
SHC/74/CONF/811/15, Paris, 10 June 1974, p. 7.
16 A typical instance of the failure to distinguish the morality of the artist from the morality of
the man was made by one music critic in writing about Wagner. After describing the composer's
cruelty to his opponents, his misuse and betrayal of his friends, his tantrums, infidelities,
dishonesty, .-and insolent egotism, the writer proceeds to state that in the light of the quantity
and stature of Wagner's art, this does not matter in the least. "The miracle is that what he did in
the little space of seventy years couldhave been done at all, even by a great genius. Is it any
wonder that he had no time to be a man?" Cf. D. Taylor, Of Men and Music (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1937), p. 8. Beethoven's artlessness and unscrupulousness in dealing with
the publisher of his Missa Solemnis provides another interesting case where these moralities
begin to be distinguished: "But that a certain unscrupulousness in relation to publishers is not
incompatible with such heights is proved by the existence of the Missa Solemnis. It is obvious
that whatever moral canons Beethoven violated he did not violate his own, and that they were of
a sufficiently lofty character to give us the music we have." J.W.N. Sullivan, Beethoven, His
Spiritual Development (New York: Vintage, 1927), p. 128.
17 The New York Times, Sunday, September 19, 1976, Section D, p. 22.
18 Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Scribner's, 1970), Kaufmann trans., pp. 60,61.
19 Paul Henry Lang, Music in Western Civilization (New York: Norton, 1941), p. 898.
20 Cf. Brod's account in the "Epilogue" to Franz Kafka, The Trial (New York: Knopf, 1953),
pp. 291-297.
21 Benedetto Croce, Guide to Aesthetics (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. 14.
22 The decision of the artist to participate in a government sponsored program cannot help but
engage him morally in a variety of ways. It is not a matter of principle but rather a complex
factual question of effects against effects: the aesthetic effects of the art on the people who
come in contact with it, the consequences of the uses of his art by government for political ends,
the effects of his example in participating or refusing to participate on government policy on
other artists, and on public opinion, and the effects of the decision on the artist's opinion of
himself and his art.
23 The judicial "clear and present danger" criterion may serve as
a standard for determining that point at which social contact over art, but not over the artist, may
be justified. This standard clearly confines control to special circumstances and extreme
conditions, and cannot be used to sanction a general policy of constraint. In specific situations,
art that directly and deliberately incites riotCbut not the prediction of an ensuing
disturbanceCcarries the same justification for social control as non-artistic activity of similar
intent.
I should like to express my thanks to Professors Marjorie C. Miller, Rolf-Dieter Herrmann,
and Morris Grossman, each of whom gave this paper a careful reading and made many
valuable suggestions.
