"...If morality is so understood-as one of the achievements of Human
will,dictating to itself a mode of acting and being in the world-it
becomes clear that no generic antagonism exists between the form of
conciousness,aimed at action,which is morality,and the nourishment of
conciousness,which is aesthetic experiance.Only when works of art are
reduced to statements which propose a specific content,and when
morality is identified with a paticular morality(and any morality has
it's dross,those elements which are no more then a defence of limited
social interests and class values)-only then can a work of art be
thought to undermine morality.Indeed,only then can the fuul
distinction between the aesthetic and the ethical be made.
But if we understand morality in the singular,as a generic
decision on the part of conciousness,then it appears that our response
to art is "moral" insofar as it is,precisely,the enlivening of our
sensibility and conciousness.For it is sensibility that nourishes our
capacity for moral choice,and prompts our reafiness to act,assuming
that we do choose,which is a prerequisite for calling an act moral,and
not just blindly and unreflectively obeying.Art performs this "moral"
task because the qualities which are intrinsic to the aesthetic
experiance(disinterestedness,contemplativeness,attenttiveness,the
awakening of the feelings) and to the aesthetic
object(grace,intelligence,expressiveness,energy,sensuousness) are also
fundamental constituents of a moral response to life"
Susan Sontag (from Essay-"On Style")
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