Kendall Walton, "Morals in Fiction and Fictional Morality"

Disagree with the content (moral or factual) of a work and this ruins our pleasure and we take it as grounds for judging the work negatively
**We tolerate subversion of facts to a much greater extent than we do the subversions of morality
- A main point of article
David Hume (18th century empiricist) claims this

Says we are happy to overlook factual mistakes (in fiction)
But should not tolerate repugnant ideas of morality and decency
"Were vicious manners are described w/o being marked with proper characters of blame and disapprobation, this must be allowed to disfigure the poem and be a real deformity"

Morally reprehensible ideas constitute deformities in the work (says Hume)
- Are these deformities moral and/or aesthetic (and are they aesthetic defects because they are moral defects?)
Note: To describe/portray morally evil things is not necessarily to condone or advocate them
- Art may "deal with" evil/immoral subjects and not itself be evil or immoral
  - E.g., A movie that depicts rape, need not be a bad movie because its subject is an evil act
- Hume thinks that the immoral material must be "marked with the proper charaters of blame and disapprobation" or the work is bad (morally? aesthetically?)
- But one might argue that portraying evil things "neutrally" is not the same as condoning or advocating them
Three positions (at least) about relation of morality and aesthetics

One: Apartheid--One may not judge artworks with moral criteria
Two: Autonomy--One may judge artworks as moral or immoral, but this does not affect the aesthetic value of the work:

Moral defects are not aesthetic defects

Three: Integration-interaction--The immorality (or morality) of an artwork can affect its aesthetic value

Moral defects can be aesthetic defects

Object to immorality in and out of art:

We object (and perhaps respond with disgust) when

Someone advocates a moral position that is reprehensible

Tries to get us to feel or act in ways that violate our morals

This (immoral) assertion or request can come in a friend's statement, lecture, sermon, newspaper editorial

And also in art

Can make reprehensible claim or requests by writing poems or telling stories, or creating fiction

Example:
- Story where the practice of genocide or slavery is deemed morally acceptable, or we are asked to accept that it is evil to associate with other races
- Whether in a newspaper editorial or a novel or a movie
- This will arouse disgust and we will judge them negatively

An argument against "apartheid": If we object to advocacy of morally obnoxious ideas outside of art, we should be able to object to their advocacy inside art.

Most would agree that this is a moral defect in the work

Not Oscar Wilde ("There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. that is all." From Preface to "The Picture of Dorian Gray")

Advocates for apartheid:

Only some think it is an aesthetic defect (as well as--and because it is--a moral defect)

Morally repugnant ideas may so distract or upset us that we are unable to appreciate whatever aesthetic value the work possesses

This seems like the idea that the object may have aesthetic value (and that the immorality does not detract from it), but the immorality makes aesthetic appreciation of the aesthetic value not possible
But if this is the case and one of the goals of a work is to make appreciation of artwork possible, or to create a positive aesthetic response to it, then the immorality would be a defect in this dimension of its artistic/aesthetic value
Stecker defines aesthetic value as the capacity to deliver aesthetic experience to those who understand the artwork
- Thus an artwork that is so immoral that it loses this capacity, has as aesthetic defect

Pyramids example: Realization that pyramids were built by slave labor may ruin one's enjoyment of them?

Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will

Documentary; one of the most important films in cinematic history
Propaganda for immoral cause
A celebration of the Nazi Party and its values

Associates Hitler and Nazis with power, virility and purity

"Beautiful" "cinematic or formal beauty" shots of Hitler's airplane flying though the clouds

Our disgust may prevent us from appreciating or even noticing film's cinematic "beauty"

Maybe the beauty is there nonetheless and the work's moral failings merely interfere with enjoyment of the beauty

If aesthetic and moral value can be put on same scale, perhaps its negative moral value outweighs its aesthetic value

Or perhaps not; here moral and aesthetic value are still distinct
"Independent interaction" view from above

Should we ignore immorality to get at aesthetic value?

Should we think it unfortunate that we are psychologically unable to bracket our moral concerns in order to appreciate the work aesthetically?

Too bad awareness of one interferes with awareness of other?
Morally unfortunate (no), aesthetically unfortunate yes, perhaps
Issue is whether or not our aesthetic reactions should be governed, constrained or influenced by our moral reactions

Is this a moral should? Or aesthetic should?

Moral should: how one should act, what one should do

Aesthetic should: ?What serves the goals of proper aesthetic appreciation

We often don't take this attitude

"Too bad I can't get past the obnoxious moral views and appreciate the great value of the work"

We don't want to appreciate the immoral art
Unwilling to look beyond moral concerns to enjoy work's beauty, as though the beauty is itself tainted
We may not want to profit (aesthetically) from work's moral depravity

The more the depravity contributes to our aesthetic enjoyment, the more we may not want to embrace it.

Notice that beauty of Hitler's plane flying in the clouds may be entirely independent of film's moral depravity?

There are cases where still regard work as possessing aesthetic value, despite moral depravity

But did the depravity decrease its aesthetic value?

But also cases were we deny a work possesses aesthetic value because of its moral failings

Racist joke example: we insist is not funny, precisely because its message is offensive

To laugh at it is to endorse the message, so we refuse to laugh
Even judging it to be funny may seem like expressing agreement

Does embracing the aesthetic value involve embracing the moral value?

To allow ourselves to enjoy the aesthetic value of Triumph of the Will may be to endorse its message and enter into the pro Nazis sentiments of the film

Might express unwillingness to do this by saying film is not beautiful

Sounds like it really is beautiful, but we refuse to appreciate it and perhaps even acknowledge that it is

But can't we say it is beautiful and we are unwilling (though perhaps able) to aesthetic appreciate it but refuse to do so.
So not just that our disgust at message makes us unable to appreciate it aesthetic
Could hold racist joke and pro-Nazi film are funny/beautiful, and also that admitting this and allowing ourselves to enjoy the beauty/humor involves subscribing to its evil message

So we don't admit it.

Is the view here that we think it is beautiful, but refuse to acknowledge it? Is this self-deception?

There is a closer connection between moral and aesthetic value than some allow

No amount of squinting or compartmentalization could make appreciation of the aesthetic value MORALLY acceptable
If work's obnoxious message does not destroy or lessen its aesthetic value, it renders this value morally inaccessible
- Actually inaccessible or normatively inaccessible (should be unable or unwilling to appreciate it)
This may count as an aesthetic defect as well as moral one
- Because works value should be accessible?

Artist has failed if he want the audience to sympathetically take up his world and the audience can't because of immoral character

Might it be the case that aesthetically one should (an aesthetic should) ignore the immoral character so as to better appreciate the work?

Are there aesthetic shoulds?
One (aesthetically/artistically) should pay attention to the work if one wants to properly appreciate it (aesthetically).
If the focus on aesthetically appreciate is to ignore all other dimensions of the work, then yes moral concerns should be left out.

Describing "vicious manners" in a story need not always to condone them, but sometimes in certain stories it is.

Many works contain morally repugnant ideas without going so far as to assert or advocate them
A story might encourage appreciator to imagine taking up a certain moral perspective (by sympathetically portraying a character who accepts the immoral perspective)
But this story might at same time encourage readers to disagree with the character; author makes it clear in story she rejects the moral views of her character
But if we find the perspective immoral enough, we object even to imagining taking it up.

Imagine what it is like to be a enjoy molesting children?

Why resist imagining believing in a moral perspective we consider offensive?

One reason: Because doing so might encourage one to actually subscribe to it.

Rooting for a team example: Start rooting for a team you don't care about and eventually you will start caring about them

Imagining believing, desiring, feeling immoral things will over time lead to the real thing
This, if true, could be part of a justification for censorship.
Advertisers and political propagandists know getting people to imagine believing facts can nudge them toward believing them

Two: Might encourage one to unthinkingly act that way

Even when we have firm beliefs/convictions and not danger of having them overturned, we may strenuously resist imagining beliefs we think are mistaken.
While not changing our beliefs, such imaginings can change our orientation, instincts and how we would act when we have to act w/o thinking

Asymmetry in our reactions to getting the morals wrong in an artwork and getting factual matters wrong.

While we sometimes do object to falsehood in fiction

Complain if a historical novel gets facts wrong
Assertion of factual falsehoods in a story may distract us from appreciating the work aesthetically

Can imagine lots about fairies, goblins and time travel w/o worrying about factual orientation

We are less willing to allow a work's fictional world to deviate from the real world in moral respects than in nonmoral one

Walton claims that:

Narrators and artists can stipulate what goes on factually in a fictional world, but not what is morally the case in a fictional world

Authors just do not have the same freedom to manipulate moral characteristics of their fictional world that they have to alter other aspects

Of course, the narrator can indicate that she thinks interracial marriage is wrong and the artist can describe a character who believes it is wrong

But neither of these is the same as making it be the case that it is fictionally the case that interracial marriage is wrong.

This is a hard concept to get; What does it mean that there is a truth about morality in the fictional world, beyond what artists intends?
Reply: Intention does not constitute entire nature of the work

We are free to use our own judgment on the matter.

Can't make immoral things moral in fiction; can make factually untrue things true in fiction

While we will go with a medieval storyteller's (false) belief that bloodletting cured character

We will stick to our guns in moral matters

Judge characters by moral standards one accepts in real world

Condemn characters who abandon their children
Don't change mind if learn the author considered this morally acceptable and expected readers to think this is so in the world of the story
We still say that "in the story, so and so was a jerk" even if the author is trying to get us to accept this evil character as good

If the author gets the morals wrong, then the author is wrong about the morals of his story (while it is not true if he gets the facts wrong)

In contrast, we are willing to accept a medieval author's dictate that in the world of the story bloodletting cures the disease.

Walton thinks that fictional worlds cannot differ morally from the real world (or if they can, this does not happen easily or often)

Walton thinks that while there can be science fiction, there can't be morality fiction

Example: Author writes that in killing her baby, Giselda did the right thing, or the village elders did their duty by forcing the widow onto her husband's funeral pyre

Readers are not obliged to accept it as fictional that these are proper ways of acting

So it being fictional-how things go in the story-is not the same as how the author thinks or intends them to go, or how the narrator thinks they go, at least about moral matters.

This becomes much less of a puzzle when one rejects intentionalism about work meaning

If it was fictional that immorality was good (that infanticide for sexual selection was praiseworthy)

Readers would be asked to imagine that she did the right thing
They would be barred from imaginatively condemning either her or the narrator
Just as we are barred from rejecting that someone time traveled in fiction, because we know this is not possible

Can accept narrator's authority that there are fairies or witches in this fictional world but not that in that world it is right to kill babies for their sex or race.

Example

Title of a painting of an interracial couple walking holding hands is '"Shame!"
Fictionally there is nothing shameful in what the couple is doing
The title amounts to an interpretation of the picture which we are free to disagree with, not an authoritative pronouncement establishing a feature of the fictional world

This is a great example of anti-intentionalism:

Where the meaning of the artwork is not a function of the author's intention.

Fictional statements = true in the world of the story = statements the readers of the story are to imagine

Why can't we recognize that the story calls on us to imagine that Hitler was a great and good man
And we refuse to do the imagining

**Humor like morality can't be stipulated in fiction in a way radically divergent from the real world

Dumb jokes

like: Knock, Knock, Whose there? Robin. Robin who? Robbin you, stick'em up!

Can't be hilariously funny in fictional worlds

Just as a none-joke "a maple leaf fell from the tree" can't be funny

If author or narrator suggests it is funny in the fictional world, we judge she as a juvenile sense of humor or is crazy

This is not to say that author can't stipulate that fictional characters thought it was hilariously funny
Funny for them, yes, but theirs is an inappropriate reaction

Explanation of this peculiar fact

What is funny or moral depends on natural characteristics/relations

Certain properties determine other properties and one can't violate this in fiction
For example, evil attaches to slavery

How refusal to accept that immoral ideas are moral in a fictional story can indicate an aesthetic defect in the work

If author meant this to be fictional
Her failure to bring this about may be a defect in the work

She tried to do something she can't bring off and it is clear from the work she tried and failed

If other things in work depend on belief that immoral things are moral, she fails in this too

May not be able to regard the character as heroic or him downfall tragic, if we (contrary to author's intention) judge him to be morally despicable
Can destroy the story's excitement and dull our interest and ruin the plot

All these are aesthetic defects in the work

Walton's guess about why we refuse to allow immoral or foolish jokes to be moral/funny in fictional worlds

Because we can't imagine this.
Inability to fully understand what it would be like.
In contrast we can imagine wands and invisibility cloaks

If we abhor slavery we can't imagine it to be right

We can imagine believing this
We can't imagine it being the case

MISCELLANEOUS

Reality principle: We should construe fictional worlds as being as much like real world as possible, consistent with what the work directly indicates about them

This principle often does not apply