Elvio Baccarini

This paper is about the notions of the artistic, aesthetic, cognitive and moral value of art and their interconnectedness. The main concern is to try to advocate the cognitivist claim about the artistic value of artworks’ contribution to the advance of knowledge, as well as for the relevance of the moral dimension for artistic value. This is a discussion of the intersection of the debate about moral and aesthetic value. The central part of the paper is focused on a debate with Peter Lamarque. The problem of immoral art-works and their cognitive value is discussed at the end of this paper in order to show that they are counterexamples of the thesis of artistic relevance of the moral dimension.

Pitanje ovoga članka jest treba li nacionalnu pripadnost uvrstiti na popis primarnih dobara, odnosno, postoji li snažna veza između nacionalne pripadnosti i primarnih dobara o kojima se govori u klasičnoj liberalnoj formulaciji do mjere da njezina zaštita zaslužuje uvrštenje među njih. O ovom pitanju, na izravan ili manje izravan način, raspravljaju vodeći autori liberalne nacionalističke paradigme. U ovom tekstu posebno se raspravlja pretpostavljena veza između zaštite nacionalne pripadnosti i primarnog dobra društvenih osnova samopoštovanja. Unatoč određenoj potrebi javnog priznanja nacionalne pripadnosti, utemeljenje njezine zaštite na razini primarnih dobara, barem kada je riječ o argumentu koji se poziva na društvene osnove samopoštovanja, nije uvjerljivo.The issue regarded in this article is whether we have to include national belonging in the list of primary goods, i.e., whether there is a strong connection between national belonging and primary goods about which the classical liberal theory speaks, such that the protection of national belonging must be included in the list of primary goods. Leading authors in the liberal nationalist paradigm, more or less directly, discuss about this issue. In this paper, the supposed connection between the protection of national belonging and the social bases of selfrespect is specifically discussed. Despite the reasons for some public protection of national belonging, its foundation at the level of primary goods, at least as far as it concerns the argument that relies on the social bases of selfrespect, is not plausible

In the first part of the paper, Gaus’ ground for the ideal of persons as free and equal is described. Doubts are raised about the appropriateness of the use of his account of this ideal as endogenous to our moral practice. Th e worries are related to the use of the concept of having a reason that Gaus makes in his book, as well as to the aptness of his account of our moral practice from the viewpoint of our moral phenomenology. Some doubts are raised in relation to the pertinence of Gaus’ concept of having a reason from the perspective of the motivation of the public reason project. In the second part of the paper, a summary is off ered of Gaus’ model of public justification and some of its consequences are discussed. Th e primary intention here is to show that, contrary to Gaus’ view, egalitarian liberalism, and not classical liberalism, is the most appropriate result of such a model of justification.