First Source: Crash Course Philosophy 

The question of morality is one that comes up often in almost every sector of philosophy. In episode 31 of Crash Course Philosophy, Hank Green introduces the intersections of morality and art by explaining a peculiar exhibition where the artist chose to put fish in a blender and participants could blend the fish. He explains that a sadist would want to push the button while a moralist would feel uncomfortable and upset with the exhibition. He also explains the position of a voyeur, someone who enjoys watching the reactions of others. I found this idea interesting in the context of photography because I’ve done projects in the past where I photographed homeless people in New York. You could argue that those projects were immoral or disrespectful to the person, which I wouldn’t disagree with, but when you take the perspective of the voyeur, the question of the artistic value becomes less about morality and more about the reactions of others and the aesthetics and ideas around others reactions. From the perspective of the voyeur, my taking pictures of homeless people becomes less about the moral issue and more about how others react to the images. In this way, my photography could be used to spread awareness of the issue in NYC. This relates directly to my essential question as my question is focused on how philosophical ideas around art and aesthetics may change how I approach complicated topics of humans and society through photography.

Second Source: Philosophies of Art and Beauty (Selected Readings in Aesthetics from Plato to Heidegger) 

My second source is from the introduction to this book. The introduction gives a brief overview of the history of philosophical thinking around Aesthetics and highlights the impact of religion on early aesthetic works. When religion dominated western thought the question of art became subsidiary to the concerns of religious problems. Art became more about the work of God than the beautiful, which in turn became a sign of God’s handiwork. From this perspective, art and therefore beauty (in the context of art) becomes the mark of a well made imitation by “the creator”. Art becomes something very powerful in the face of religion but it was hard for me to resonate with this idea of the given creator because I’m not religious. The chapter goes on to explain that St.Augustine used this thinking and his uncertainty about philosophical contributions to the culture of our world to show a justification for the human longing for the beautiful. It was here that I realized I did not need to confine myself to the idea of a special creator, someone designed to create beautiful things, but rather I needed to find my own version of the beautiful and use that to express my own artistic vision. This passage helped me a lot when navigating these complex western philosophical texts because I had previously been under the impression that they had no real value for art or beauty unless it related directly to God or the Creator. Plato mentions this in ‘The Republic’ where the idea of the special creator is translated to that of the divine maker (The demiurgos) and the statesman (the most exalted of human makers). This brought up more questions for me, particularly when it comes to the identification and qualification of the statesman.