Exclusivism and Evaluation: Art, Erotica and Pornography

Abstract

Exclusivists maintain that art cannot be pornography. For example, Jerrold Levinson claims that ‘the extension of the term “pornographic art” is by definition the null set’ and that ‘pornographic art is indeed the oxymoron it appears to be’ (2005: 233). Similarly Christy Mag Uidhir says that it is ‘impossible for something to be both pornography and art’ (2009: 193). Such exclusivist claims are puzzling given that the art world appears to be full of examples of pornographic art. So, one might be tempted to refute exclusivists ‘by illustrations, examples, and instances rather than by serious argument and philosophy’ (Hume 1998 [1779]: 23). As it turns out, however, we should resist this strategy. This is so because, as both Levinson and Mag Uidhir point out, there are distinct, legitimate uses (or senses) of adjectival forms and determining which use is operant in a particular assertion, such as ‘that art is pornographic’ is important for determining what ontological conclusions we are licensed to draw. For example, Levinson explains, we can legitimately say of a painting that it is photographic without thereby committing ourselves to the claim that it is an instance of photography. The same goes for the term ‘artistic’. We might rightly say of a cake that it is decorated artistically, or even that it is artistic, without indicating that the cake is a work of art, at least not in the strict sense.1