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points on this topic with reference to a schematic, imaginary example, the stipulated features of which are not subject to empirical dispute.
Imagine, then, a case where a spectator realizes that a particular cinematographic device has been employed in a film, and this in a way that is “fresh” or pleasantly innovative. Imagine, then, that this is a positively valenced property having “aesthetic” merit in the sense articulated above; imagine as well that it is also a fine-artistic merit because the viewer’s pleasure is based partly on an admiration of the filmmakers’ skillful employment of the medium. Let us suppose as well that the same cinematic work manifests many other particular attributes, such as moral and epistemic merits and demerits directly related to the manner in which the film’s historical subject matter is depicted. For example, the various complex elements of the film’s production design achieve a high level of historical verisimilitude, as is fitting to the genre and story. Even spectators having considerable expertise regarding the historical context in question find these aspects of the film remarkable and praiseworthy. Yet, suppose as well that these same spectators rightly find other features of the work highly criticizable. Important aspects of the characterizations lack verisimilitude. Moreover, other features of the story and characterization are objectionable because they were patently designed to elicit admiration for what our spectators identify as reprehensible behavior and attitudes. As a result of these divergent qualities and the conflicting responses they occasion, the tension between positively valenced aesthetic merits and negatively valenced moral and epistemic flaws becomes central to the appreciator’s experience of the film. The properties and relations in the work that ground this tension may be counted as an aesthetic and fine-artistic shortcoming, on the assumption that coherence, or unity in diversity, is a relevant desideratum.
In such a case, in assessing the film, competent appreciators may be capable of distinguishing clearly between many of the determinate valenced qualities they have experienced in attending to the work: such-and-such qualities were aesthetically pleasing and artistically meritorious; such-and-such qualities had epistemic or pedagogical value; others still were ethically dubious or objectionable. There is, however, no way to arrive at a simple summation of these disparate valences. One cannot, for example, assign a score of -x units of value to the film’s dubious moral content and a score of + y units of value to its aesthetic qualities, and so on, so that when added up, these units of value would jointly be indicative of the overall merit of the work as a whole. And yet a report and verdict regarding the work’s overall merit is what the appreciator is often expected to provide. One is asked for an overall recommendation (or condemnation) of the film; in some institutional contexts, the work is to be ranked in relation to other works and awarded or denied some prize or other distinction.
One solution to this problem is to reject such demands and expectations on the grounds that the plurality of valenced properties in the work is irreducible. Given that fact, the best an evaluator can do is to enumerate the diverse features of the work, which in some cases turns out to be a matter of describing a striking contrast between merits and demerits of various sorts. Another approach is to settle on some manner of assigning relative priorities to the different values attributed to the film. This often involves granting a kind of “lexical” priority to one kind of value, or it may be a matter of erecting some more elaborate ordering or hierarchy of types of value. For example, it is assumed that unless some threshold of ethical (or hedonic, or epistemic, or other) merit has been crossed, a work cannot be positively recommended as a whole. In such a case there is still no mathematical summation of the work’s varied and conflicting valences, but there is an overall verdict based on the axiological priorities the appreciator brings to the making of an evaluative assessment of the work as a whole. It should be noted, however, that even if this general solution to the problem is endorsed, there may still be problems arising from its application to particular cases. Evaluators may diverge with regard to where the value threshold should lie. It is one thing, for example, to hold that grievous moral flaws disqualify a work taken as a whole, in spite of whatever artistic or other merits might be spotted along the way; it is something else again to require that a high degree of moral merit must have been attained if other kinds of merit are to be recognized within an overall assessment of the work. Those who advocate the latter sort of strong moralism clearly have a greater argumentative burden to shoulder.1
Note
1 1 I thank Mette Hjort and Ted Nannicelli for the invitation to take up this topic for the purposes of their collection, and for helpful editorial comments on a draft of the chapter.
References
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22 Sextus