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  • At a museum in Denmark in 2000, artist Marco Evaristti debuted a work of art that involved live goldfish swimming around in vessels full of water.

  • Sound pretty boring until I tell you that those vessels were electric blenders.

  • Evaristti named his displayHelenaand he invited museum patrons to turn on the blenders if they so desired.

  • Eventually, at least one person so desired, fish were blended, and before long police arrived, ordering that the blenders be unplugged.

  • The museum was charged with animal cruelty, although those charges were later dropped.

  • For his part, Evaristti said that his work was designed to sort people into three categories:

  • If you want to push the button, he said, you're a sadist;

  • if the exhibit makes you feel upset, you're a moralist;

  • and if you enjoy watching the reactions of others, you're a voyeur.

  • But many people argued that Evaristti's goldfish blenders weren't art at all.

  • You probably have your own opinions about that.

  • But no matter what you think, works like Evaristti's raise a lot of questionsabout art and morality, and what standards we should use to evaluate art.

  • And from there, new questions follow: like, what does art tell us about ourselves?

  • What does it do to us, and what purpose does art serve in our lives?

  • [Theme Music]

  • You know who was super anti-art? Plato.

  • He believed that art plays to our emotions rather than to our reason.

  • And, if you recall Plato's idea of the tripartite soul, he thought the rational part of the soul should always be in charge.

  • So, art was problematic for him, because it encourages us to think with the spirited, or emotional, part of our souls.

  • He also had a beef with art because, he said, it depicts the imaginary as if it were real.

  • And for a guy who was as concerned with Truth as he was, you can see why this might have been a problem.

  • Plato was so concerned about the dangers of art that he actually advocated its widespread censorship.

  • And, while you might disagree with him on that, you can probably at least agree with his sentiment that art is powerful.

  • Butwhat is it good for?

  • Well, let's fast forward about 2400 years for that.

  • 20th century British philosopher R.G. Collingwood acknowledged that art is frequently used as an escape from life – a simple amusement, a distraction.

  • But he also said that the best art, the art that really matters, is the stuff that changes the way we interact with the world.

  • So Collingwood drew a distinction between what he called amusement art and magic art.

  • Amusement art helps the audience escape from reality, he saiddiving into a no-stakes fictional world after a stressful day.

  • But magic art is the stuff that helps the audience learn how better to interact with this world's reality.

  • A great example of this is Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

  • Beecher Stowe's story helped change our national mindset about slavery,

  • by making white readers see African Americans as human beings with whom they had a lot in common,

  • rather than as a nameless Other who should be thought of as property.

  • Collingwood felt we should spend our time on magic art like thatthe stuff that helps us live better, rather than simply running away from the world.

  • But some people feel that his distinction breaks down pretty quickly.

  • A book or a movie that could be little more than an amusing escape for one person could spur another person to change their lives for the better.

  • Think about your favorite fandom.

  • Like, for some people, Harry Potter is pure escapism – a way to disappear into a fantasy where your troubles can be addressed with the flick of a wand.

  • But for others, Harry Potter can help you learn how to live.

  • Lessons on the value of friendship, teamwork, loyalty, and stick-with-it-ness can be found among the horcruxes and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

  • So, art can help you be moral, or maybe encourage immorality, but there are plenty of other ways in which morality can intersect with art.

  • Like in nasty, legal, copyright-y ways.

  • For more on this, let's head to the Thought Bubble for some Flash Philosophy.

  • In 2011, wildlife photographer David Slater was on a photo shoot in Indonesia, when a monkey named Naruto got a hold of his camera.

  • There are disputes as to how, exactly.

  • But in the process, that monkey took some pretty sweet selfies.

  • Slater later tried to claim copyright of the images, but was denied, because he was not the one who took the picturesNaruto did.

  • The photos are currently in the public domain, but the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Naruto,

  • arguing that the monkey owns the rights, and any profits ought to go to him.

  • Slater, on the other hand, says he should own the rights, because he was ultimately responsible for Naruto getting his camera and taking the pictures with it.

  • By that logic, Slater claims, he was the artist, and Naruto was simply part of the medium used to create the art.

  • Slater's reasoning might resonate with those of you who, in our last episode, were in the camp that believed art required an intentional artist.

  • In that view, Naruto can't claim the pics, because he probably didn't understand himself as deliberately taking self-portraits.

  • But, arguably, Slater's intention didn't shape the pictures either.

  • He didn't decide how to position the camera or when to click the shutter.

  • But he did decide to go to that particular location, knowing it was full of curious little primates with opposable thumbs that would make working a camera possible.

  • So what do you think?

  • Is there any artist behind these pictures?

  • And if there is, who is it?

  • Maybe it's a collaboration, and Slater and Naruto should split the profit.

  • I bet one of them would be willing to take his cut in chom choms!

  • Thanks, Thought Bubble!

  • One of the first people to really consider the philosophical questions of art was Aristotle.

  • Unlike his teacher, Plato, Aristotle was generally pro-art, because he saw it as useful.

  • He believed our bodies need to experience a full range of emotions in order to stay in balance.

  • He argued that, if we haven't been sad in a while, or had a good adrenaline rush, we can start to crave those feelings.

  • And when we don't – or can't – experience the full range of emotions in our actual livesart can step in and do the job for us.

  • When we finally do experience these sensations we've been yearning for, we feel a pleasurable release that Aristotle called catharsis.

  • And while John has often insisted that Aristotle was spectacularly wrong about everything,

  • Aristotle's theory of catharsis does a beautiful job of resolving a little conundrum in aesthetics that's known as the Problem of Tragedy.

  • This is the weird puzzle of why people voluntarily walk into a theatre, clutching a box of tissues,

  • fully prepared to bawl their eyes out for two hours, having paid for the privilege.

  • I mean, really, why is the tearjerker even a thing?

  • According to Aristotle: catharsis.

  • A scary movie or a tearjerker can allow us to express strong negative emotions in a safe context, and the emotional purge that comes with the experience feels really, really good.

  • No doubt, when it comes to evoking emotions in us, art can be extremely effective.

  • But how does it manage to do that?

  • Why is art so good at making us feel?

  • When you think about it, it's actually pretty weird that we get so emotionally invested in characters that we know to be fictional.

  • Why do we cry real tears over the deaths of our beloved characters?

  • Why do invest time and energy inshipping”?

  • These questions fall under another problem that art poses for us, one that aestheticians call the Paradox of Fiction.

  • Contemporary American philosopher Kendall Walton explains why we can be moved by things that aren't real, by arguing that the emotional responses we have to fictional events aren't real either.

  • Instead, he says, we experience what he callsquasi-emotions,” basically emotion-like responses that can be triggered by fiction, but don't exist or function on the level of true emotions.

  • Now, as evidence for this, Walton points out that people don't respond to scary movies as they would to real-life terror.

  • Like, when we're watching a scary movie, we don't run out of the theatre and call 911 like we would if we saw a real person in danger.

  • But other thinkers, like American philosopher Noel Carroll, disagree.

  • Carroll argues that we can have real emotional responses to fictional characters and situations.

  • Our emotions don't have to correspond to external reality, in order for the emotions themselves to be real, he says.

  • So we can feel just as strongly for the loves and losses of our favorite characters as we can for the plights of our friends and family.

  • Now, it's time to think back to Helena, and the goldfish in the blenders.

  • Helena raises questions about the relationship between morality and art.

  • And here, there are two main schools of thought.

  • Some people, called autonomists, maintain that art and morality are entirely separate.

  • So if something is done in the name of art, it's basically immune from moral scrutiny.

  • It's almost like artists live and work in some kind of protective morality-bubble.

  • So, in the autonomist view, Evaristti did nothing wrong in putting goldfish in a situation where they were likely to be pulverized, because he was doing it in the name of artistic expression.

  • But, there are others, known as aesthetic moralists, who argue that morality and art are interconnected,

  • so any moral stain connected with a work makes a work aesthetically flawed.

  • In this view, even if Evaristti's aesthetic concept was superb, the fact that he expressed that concept through immoral means

  • in this case, the wanton destruction of goldfish lifethat counts against the overall aesthetic value of his work.

  • Art is often designed to challenge our beliefs and our values.

  • And most of us agree that this can be a good thing.

  • But, are there limits?

  • We often give artists credit for amazing works of art that inspire positive change in the world, like Uncle Tom's Cabin.

  • But if a work inspires bad actions or bad attitudes, is the artist to blame for that too?

  • As in most areas of philosophy, there's plenty more about aesthetics that we could explore if we had time.

  • But as we move onto the next segment of our course, I hope you've found that aestheticsone of the less well-known areas of philosophy

  • is worth your attention, as you continue to interact with art in your lives.

  • Today we learned about R. G. Collingwood's view that art is best when it helps us live better lives.

  • We learned how Aristotle's concept of catharsis can resolve the problem of tragedy, and we studied the paradox of fiction.

  • We also thought about the debate between autonomism and moralism.

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