Ki Joo Choi: Art and Moral Change
Art and Moral Change by Ki Joo Choi intertwines philosophy and the arts by proposing that we view morality through the lens of the art we create and critique. Using aesthetics and ethics, he focuses on differing moral opinions and discusses why we see art as an extension of ourselves and our conflicts. Read on for a Q&A with the author to learn more about his research process, decisions about the book’s framework, and advice for readers.
Did you face any unexpected challenges when conducting interdisciplinary research in the fields of art and morality?
Yes! Generally speaking, interdisciplinary research is always a struggle partly because you’re trying to understand the lingo of a discipline that is not your own. Why are they concerned with the kinds of questions they’re asking, what is the history behind them, their motivations? At [a] more specific level, this means that theologians/ethicists can’t just assume that how we talk about aesthetics will necessarily map onto the things that non-theologians/ethicists (e.g., art historians and art critics) talk about. We have to make sure we’re being faithful to what those outside of our own discipline are saying, not [just] making them say what we want them to say.
What interests you the most about the branch of aesthetics? What about ethics?
How we react to and talk about aesthetics in daily life—how we “debate” with one another about whether a particular style or work of art is good or not, beautiful or ugly—is what I find intriguing. Sometimes our debates are just “polite” differences of opinion, but they can also get rather contentious, even violent, and function to demarcate our identities. How do we make sense of this? What’s going on? (Aren’t we just talking about art? Isn’t a song just a song?) In the book, I’m trying to grapple with why aesthetics incites so much debate, and specifically political difference and conflict. It’s this aspect of aesthetics-talk that I think scrambles how theologians typically think about the morally transformative power of art. That aesthetics and moral disagreement often go hand in hand puts a renewed spotlight on how moral change actually happens, on what needs to be in place for people’s minds, and lives, to be transformed: aesthetics can help, but other variables need to be in play first.
When you were considering which art installations/pieces to use as examples, what was your selection process like?
The selection process wasn’t too difficult, actually. One of the motivations for writing the book was my amazement with how many media stories about art underscored, intentionally or not, art’s morally ambivalent effects. I felt that these kinds of stories, and the art that these stories focused on, were often overlooked in theological engagements with aesthetics and needed more theoretical attention. That led me to wonder if the ways in which scholars in theology and beyond talked about aesthetics and specific art objects were conceptually underdeveloped. So, I wanted to take a fresh look at how they talked about specific art objects, and the kind of assumptions and premises they were operating with but not necessarily being explicit about them.
Why did you choose to focus on theorists Jonathan Edwards and Thomas Aquinas in particular?
One argument of the book is that we need a more nuanced account of the emotions if we’re to adequately account for why our aesthetics-talk is often morally cacophonous and contentious. Jonathan Edwards is an unappreciated thinker within the Christian tradition when it comes to the question of the emotions (he used the term affections, which is an important substitution, I argue), and I wanted to demonstrate his crucial and unique relevance to our contemporary thinking on aesthetics and ethics, both within theology and beyond. But to make this case, I needed distinctions that Edwards did not necessarily make explicitly. Thomas Aquinas on the other hand did, which made his way of thinking about the emotions an important template for interpreting Edwards’s account of the emotions.
Through your research, did you discover anything surprising that changed the trajectory of your book?
My main thesis worried me a bit, to be honest. I was concerned that my emphasis on moral disagreement would ultimately be deflating. We live in a time where moral disagreement and conflict defines so much of our politics and social life. Part of what I’m suggesting is that art does not allow us to escape such conflict! That is an argument that many of us don’t want to hear. I’m not sure if I want to hear it either. But as I kept working out this argument, I came to realize that disagreement can be a morally good thing, and in that sense, we can find a good deal of hope in art. I wasn’t necessarily thinking of that as the ultimate trajectory of the book, but as my research and writing progressed, I became more convinced that we need to be less anxious about disagreement and more worried about our incapacity to learn from those with whom we disagree. The last third of the book is my attempt at trying to make a theological case for this position.
What do you hope readers take away from this book?
Art is not a magic bullet, if you will. It’s not going to make persons and communities “better” in the ways that we would like them to be. There is no straight-line from art, beauty, and creativity to virtue, justice, solidarity, moral decency, or common humanity. That line is more of a really messy, convoluted zigzag. We should want art (and more of it in all kinds of forms) in our lives and communities, and especially in our civic spaces, because art will necessarily lead to all sorts of diverging and conflictual points of view, attitudes, and preferences. Such disagreement, our capacity to live with such disagreement, and ultimately our ability to take such disagreement seriously are what make democracies great. It’s art’s capacity to generate disagreement that makes art morally and politically indispensable.
What does living a life based on a "selfless respect for reality" mean to you?
I think you’re referencing a line I appropriate from Iris Murdoch? All I’m trying to convey is that it’s hard for us to admit that we are wrong. This is one of the reasons why I think we have an uncomfortable relationship with moral disagreement. We don’t like disagreement (we’re afraid of it!) because it might mean that the other person might actually be right, or at least have something to say that is worth listening to. But we’re often so caught up in our own selves—our allegiances, preferences, insecurities, and desires—that we’re unwilling to give an inch. Humility is not a virtue that we like to extol; it’s really not a part of our American DNA. But truth is something that requires work, so to speak; it’s a process, a task, a discovery, and we can only obtain it if we’re willing to seek it together, by paying attention to what others might have to say. That is the value of moral disagreement (and thus art)—it reminds us that humility is an essential ingredient to living a truthful life.