University of Maryland, College Park
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2004
Easton, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Aesthetics
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics
  •  11
    Pour une critique éthique des moyens de production des œuvres
    Nouvelle Revue d'Esthétique 6 (2): 39-50. 2010.
    Résumé La critique éthique considère que la valeur éthique d’une œuvre d’art affecte sa valeur artistique. Elle s’intéresse ordinairement à la valeur éthique du point de vue que l’œuvre adopte, ou à celui des effets qu’elles produisent, mais ne considère guère celle du processus de production de l’œuvre. Or celui-ci peut intéresser l’éthique comme lorsqu’une toile est réalisée en laissant des poissons rouges enduits de peinture agoniser et s’agiter sur une toile. C’est précisément de la valeur é…Read more
  •  7
    Art and Morality
    Mind 114 (453): 119-124. 2005.
  • Book Review (review)
    Journal of Value Inquiry 40 (4): 497-503. 2006.
  •  7
    In and Out: The Dynamics of Imagination in the Engagement with Narratives
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (1): 11-24. 2008.
  •  63
    Aesthetics: The Key Thinkers (edited book)
    Continuum. 2012.
    Offers a comprehensive historical overview of the field of aesthetics. Eighteen specially commissioned essays introduce and explore the contributions of those philosophers who have shaped the subject, from its origins in the work of the ancient Greeks to contemporary developments in the 21st Century. The book reconstructs the history of aesthetics, clearly illustrating the most important attempts to address such crucial issues as the nature of aesthetic judgment, the status of art, and the place…Read more
  •  3
    Immaginare storie e personaggi
    Annali Del Dipartimento di Filosofia 9 281-297
    Recent literature on emotional participation in narratives witnesses a contrast between those who emphasize the role of readers and spectators of narratives as participants and those who emphasize their role as mere onlookers. The former refer to notions like identification, empathy, and what Richard Wollheim calls «central imagining». The latter criticize the idea of identification, and use notions like sympathy and Wollheim’s «acentral imagining». I claim this debate to be vitiated by simplist…Read more
  •  1
    Artistic and Ethical Values in the Experience of Narratives
    Dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park. 2004.
    The ethical criticism of art has received increasing attention in contemporary aesthetics, especially with respect to the evaluation of narratives. The most prominent philosophical defenses of this art-critical practice concentrate on the notion of response , specifically on the emotional responses a narrative requires for it to be correctly apprehended and appreciated. I first investigate the mechanisms of emotional participation in narratives ; then, I address the question of the legitimacy of…Read more
  •  47
    Ethicism, Particularism, and Artistic Categorization
    Ethical Perspectives 20 (3): 375-401. 2013.
    In this paper, I critically examine Berys Gaut’s proposals regarding ethical criticism, that is, regarding the question of whether, and if so how, an ethical evaluation of a work of art can be considered amongst the determinants of the work’s value as art. I critically examine Gaut’s proposed taxonomy on the possible positions on the ethical criticism question as well as his own influential answer to such question: ethicism. My critique focuses on one missing element, I argue, in Gaut’s overal…Read more
  •  46
    In Sympathy with Narrative Characters
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67 (1): 83-95. 2009.
  •  30
    Art, Emotion and Ethics, by Berys Gaut
    Mind 119 (474): 481-487. 2010.
    (No abstract is available for this citation)
  •  74
    Ethical Criticism in Perspective: A Defense of Radical Moralism
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 71 (4): 335-348. 2013.
    I defend the ethical fittingness theory (EFT), the thesis that whenever it is legitimate ethically to evaluate a representational artwork for the perspective it embodies, such evaluation systematically bears on the work's artistic value. EFT is a form of radical moralism, claiming that the systematic relationship between the selected type of ethical evaluation and artistic evaluation always obtains, for works of any kind. The argument for EFT spells out the implications of ethically judging an a…Read more
  •  59
    Review: Art and Morality (review)
    Mind 114 (453): 119-124. 2005.
  • Pour une critique éthique des moyens de production des œuvres
    Nouvelle Revue d'Esthétique 6 (2): 39-50. 2010.
    Résumé La critique éthique considère que la valeur éthique d’une œuvre d’art affecte sa valeur artistique. Elle s’intéresse ordinairement à la valeur éthique du point de vue que l’œuvre adopte, ou à celui des effets qu’elles produisent, mais ne considère guère celle du processus de production de l’œuvre. Or celui-ci peut intéresser l’éthique comme lorsqu’une toile est réalisée en laissant des poissons rouges enduits de peinture agoniser et s’agiter sur une toile. C’est précisément de la valeur é…Read more
  •  9
    Book review (review)
    Journal of Value Inquiry 40 (4): 497-503. 2006.
  •  43
  •  226
    The ethical criticism of art: A new mapping of the territory
    Philosophia 35 (2): 117-127. 2007.
    The goal of this paper is methodological. It offers a comprehensive mapping of the theoretical positions on the ethical criticism of art, correcting omissions and inadequacies in the conceptual framework adopted in the current debate. Three principles are recommended as general guidelines: ethical amenability, basic value pluralism, and relativity to ethical dimension. Hence a taxonomy distinguishing between different versions of autonomism, moralism, and immoralism is established, by reference …Read more