Obligations to Artworks as Duties of Love

• Authors: Anthony Cross
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

It is uncontroversial that our engagement with artworks is constrained by obligations; most commonly, these consist in obligations to other persons, such as artists, audiences, and owners of artworks. A more controversial claim is that we have genuine obligations to artworks themselves. I defend a qualified version of this claim. However, I argue that such obligations do not derive from the supposed moral rights of artworks – for no such rights exist. Rather, I argue that these obligations are instances of duties of love: obligations that one incurs in virtue of loving some object, be it a person or, in this case, an artwork.

Keywords

EN

aesthetic judgement; aesthetic reasons; aesthetic value; aesthetic obligations; work of art

Discipline

• PHILOSOPHY: PHILOSOPHY

• Publisher: Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Estetika: The Central European Journal of Aesthetics
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 54 (New Series 10)
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 85-101
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Anthony Cross

• Estetika, redakce, Katedra estetiky, Filozofická fakulta UK, Celená 20, 116 42 Praha 1, Czech Republic