Against Moral-Aesthetic Prescriptivism: Rejecting the Foundations of the Moralism Versus Immoralism Debate

Abstract Moralists and immoralists debate over whether it is possible for immoral artworks to have their aesthetic value enhanced in virtue of their immorality. Roughly, moralists answer in the negative, immoralists in the affirmative. However, both sides of the debate share a characterization of what it means for an artwork to have moral value. They hold a position I call moral-aesthetic prescriptivism. According to moral-aesthetic prescriptivism, artworks have moral value when they prescribe their audiences to adopt moral or immoral attitudes towards their subject matter. Moral-aesthetic prescriptivists also believe audiences are required to adopt the attitudes prescribed by artworks if they are to engage with artworks appropriately. In this paper, I argue that moral-aesthetic prescriptivism is false. Artworks with moral content do not necessarily prescribe audiences to take moral or immoral attitudes towards their contents, and even if they did, audiences are not required to adopt them. Thus, the basis on which moralists and immoralists have taken artworks to have moral value needs to be rethought.