Artistic Honesty <i>BSA Prize Essay</i> , 2024

Abstract We use the terms ‘honest’ and ‘dishonest’ in many ways in the artistic domain. One use of the term ‘honest’ is honorific and constitutes a positive artistic evaluation of artworks. In this paper, I explore the highest form of honesty in art. I establish a set of four desiderata on accounts of it and assess three accounts in relation to them. The first is a cousin of orthodox ‘privativist’ accounts of moral honesty. The second I call the ‘authentic self-expression view’. It says that an artwork is honest when it authentically and adequately expresses the (emotional) perspective of its author. After raising worries for both of these accounts and motivating the development of a different approach, I introduce the ‘communicative theory’ of artistic honesty. I formulate this view—on which artworks are honest when they confront and clarify difficult truths—and defend it against the four desiderata.