Art, Emotion and Ethics is a systematic investigation of the relation of art to morality, a topic that has been of central and recurring interest to the philosophy of art since Plato. Berys Gaut explores the various positions that have been taken in this debate, and argues that an artwork is always aesthetically flawed insofar as it possesses a moral defect that is aesthetically relevant. Three main arguments are developed for this view; these involve showing how moral goodness is itself a kind of beauty, that artworks can teach us about morality and that this is under certain conditions an aesthetic merit in them, and that our emotional responses to works of art are properly guided in part by moral considerations.
Covering everything from fossilised dinosaurs to intelligent apes, this is an accessible guide to one of the most important scientific theories of all time. Burt Guttman assumes no prior scientific knowledge on the part of the reader, and explains each of the key ideas and concepts, including natural selection, genetics and the evolution of animal behaviour, in a lively and informative way. Looking ahead to the future of evolutionary theory, and assessing its possible implications for the way we understand morality, human nature and our place in the world, this book provides the perfect starting point for understanding what evolution is and why it matters.
