Aesthetic Sins of Commission and Omission

Abstract

Drawing the Line asks whether and how we should engage with immoral artists and their work. I will begin with some observations about the book as a whole. I will then turn to that part of it dealing with aesthetic value and offer some critical reflections.1 The book might easily have been called ‘Walking the Line’ for two reasons. First, it speaks, as few philosophical works do, to both academic and lay audiences. Balancing exposition and argument, it draws from both popular and academic sources and gives each of these two muses an equal voice. While ostensibly an introductory work mapping out several prominent controversies in the public discourse, it also stakes out its own positions on these topics. Matthes carefully explains which parts of the philosophical topography are less hospitable than others. Second, Matthes embraces intellectual compromise, especially where his own positions get most political, as he notes in the foreword (2). He distances himself from the strident positions that seem to dominate public discussion, or at least public attention, on these topics. Caricaturing a bit, but just a bit, there are the moral purists on the one hand, who would eradicate all morally compromised artists and their work. On the other are the apologists, happy to tolerate any crime, however vile, in the name of aesthetic value or free expression. Between these discursive flanks, scorched bare by relentless hot takes, Matthes treads a shaded path, availing himself of only as much warmth as reason requires.