Capstone Seminar: When Bad People Create Beautiful Things

Capstone seminar for undergrad majors. Much of the art we love was created by people who did awful things. We are left to contend with whether we can separate our moral judgement of the artist from our aesthetic appreciation of their work. Can artists' moral transgressions render their creations inconsumable? Does the terribleness of someone's beliefs or actions diminish the greatness of their work? Or, to the contrary, can genius attenuate monstrousness? Is creating great art worth harming people for? We will also consider our moral and political responsibility as consumers of art. Is it wrong to like art by bad people? When, if ever, ought we to boycott someone's art, and does it matter whether withholding our money or our attention makes a difference? What does consistency require? More generally, is there anything wrong with judging people from the past by standards of the present? And, broadening our vision, what should we think about some of those giants who defined our field, who expressed views we find abhorrent - and on whose shoulders we stand?