Black Bucket Essays
Volume 1, Issue 5
"Ethics and aesthetics are one"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Eileen Wold
Is ethics anything more than assigning arbitrary value to things based on contemporary moral holdings? Every decision is a moral and political one. You can not escape it. Especially your aesthetic sensibility. You can see this as we assign value to changes in the arts and our collective aesthetic preferences as they move along within any given culture throughout time.
True or False?
This work of art moved me.
I found it aesthetically satisfying.
This work of art is valuable.
I helped define what my contemporary culture deems valuable.
This is in direct conversation with what else I find valuable.
Yes or No.
Do I know the conditions that lead me to find that artwork satisfying?
Will it do this every time I experience it?
Will others value it in the same way?
Will that assigned value change it?
And what defines our collective truths are not different from what constitutes a singular moral choice in your every day. And those choices will define our agreed upon cultural norms in which certain aesthetic systems will be valued over others.
Another way to go about this would be to ask yourself what is not an ethical decision?
The fashion you follow.
The businesses you support.
The place you live, or the job you do.
The books you read.
The beliefs you hold.
The banks that manage your debt and investments.
The art you buy. And the art you do not buy.
How and if you participate in governing bodies.
I can help define what is beautiful, moral, good, and valuable based on the choices I make.
The more privilege one holds within a system, the more these things will feel like choices. For some, it does not feel as free as a choice but rather actions out of necessity. So are ideas of ethics and aesthetics only matters for those who have enough resources and education to choose one thing over another? And if so, can only the privileged can participate in defining aesthetics? Or can aesthetics be separate from ethics? You need not be of privilege to experience what Wittgenstein would describe as aesthetic satisfaction.
And what about the ethical ties to art as a producer rather than consumer? What artists create and how they create it can engage in ethical questions as well.
Wittgenstein had an unusual amount of privilege and resources. He had the ultimate freedom to decide what was ethical. What was moral. What had value. Even in the giving away of his wealth, he still had the freedom to make that choice. He had the option to think and write. To decide if that was a valuable and ethical way to live. His choice to teach, write, and practice the discipline of philosophy changed culture to define aesthetic investigations as a philosophical one. Giving him the very opportunity to link ethics and aesthetics in the first place.
Volume 1, Issue 5
"Ethics and aesthetics are one"
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
Eileen Wold
Is ethics anything more than assigning arbitrary value to things based on contemporary moral holdings? Every decision is a moral and political one. You can not escape it. Especially your aesthetic sensibility. You can see this as we assign value to changes in the arts and our collective aesthetic preferences as they move along within any given culture throughout time.
True or False?
This work of art moved me.
I found it aesthetically satisfying.
This work of art is valuable.
I helped define what my contemporary culture deems valuable.
This is in direct conversation with what else I find valuable.
Yes or No.
Do I know the conditions that lead me to find that artwork satisfying?
Will it do this every time I experience it?
Will others value it in the same way?
Will that assigned value change it?
And what defines our collective truths are not different from what constitutes a singular moral choice in your every day. And those choices will define our agreed upon cultural norms in which certain aesthetic systems will be valued over others.
Another way to go about this would be to ask yourself what is not an ethical decision?
The fashion you follow.
The businesses you support.
The place you live, or the job you do.
The books you read.
The beliefs you hold.
The banks that manage your debt and investments.
The art you buy. And the art you do not buy.
How and if you participate in governing bodies.
I can help define what is beautiful, moral, good, and valuable based on the choices I make.
The more privilege one holds within a system, the more these things will feel like choices. For some, it does not feel as free as a choice but rather actions out of necessity. So are ideas of ethics and aesthetics only matters for those who have enough resources and education to choose one thing over another? And if so, can only the privileged can participate in defining aesthetics? Or can aesthetics be separate from ethics? You need not be of privilege to experience what Wittgenstein would describe as aesthetic satisfaction.
And what about the ethical ties to art as a producer rather than consumer? What artists create and how they create it can engage in ethical questions as well.
Wittgenstein had an unusual amount of privilege and resources. He had the ultimate freedom to decide what was ethical. What was moral. What had value. Even in the giving away of his wealth, he still had the freedom to make that choice. He had the option to think and write. To decide if that was a valuable and ethical way to live. His choice to teach, write, and practice the discipline of philosophy changed culture to define aesthetic investigations as a philosophical one. Giving him the very opportunity to link ethics and aesthetics in the first place.
