Obligations to Artworks as Duties of Love

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 q...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Anthony Cross
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Helsinki University Press 2017-03-01
Series:Estetika
Online Access:https://estetikajournal.org/articles/157
Description
Summary: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.
ISSN:2571-0915