Moral Purpose? 

The moral purpose of things; the moral purpose of life; the moral purpose of this and that. What is it, really, that gives abstract ideas and objects a moral dimesnion? This question is obviously quite broad. To try to address it, I shall pursue a rather specific domain: Does art have a moral purpose? In adopting this narrower scope, I will develop a fairly general approach that we can apply more abstractly.

Firstly, one should ask: What is art? A formalist would answer that question by asking another question, namely: what type of art are you demanding a definition for? I would say, for the sake of discussion, that I mean art as in paintings. Then the formalist shall reply with that art is a human output that is characterized through its form and the static relationship between its elements. Formalists, by definition, describe art through its apparent physical patterns and structure that reflect mastery of certain technical abilities. I am no formalist, as I see that their approach to the philosophy of art diminishes art into a mere systematic arrangement and cannot account for intentionality. I see that one can define art mainly through what art necessarily and reliably does, i.e. through art’s purpose, and not through a superficial pattern-recognition algorithm. Our methodology is in a sense more democratic, as we shall be observing what art does, if it does anything, and then define it through what we notice. In this way, we are giving art the chance to express itself dynamically, which is completely prohibited if we were to follow the static, human-centric formalists’ approach. For our purposes, we will initially define art in a neutral, historical manner: an artwork is considered art if it was created to be regarded as previous works of art were regarded (Levinson). This allows us to regard whatever labeled as “art” as being actual art. We will then examine this taken-for-granted “art” and continue our purpose-based methodology to arrive at a constructive definition. As we identify the purpose, we will then be able to answer our main question through addressing a simpler question: is this identified purpose “moral”? However, there will be an additional terminology gap to address: what do we mean by “moral” purpose?

Morality is a very philosophical topic. In our context, when we say something is “moral” we mean that it promotes higher “goodness” in a way or another. But what gives something the characteristic of being “good” (or equivalently, what makes something morally “bad” )? To avoid further philosophical complexity, we will adopt three definitions for “goodness”: based on deontology, virtue ethics, and utilitarianism.  All three moral structures are, for obvious reasons, centered on answering how to act in general ethical contexts and assigning the “goodness” label either axiomatically or algorithmically to specific qualities. Deontology , for us, is the Kantian theory of how humans should behave (i.e. duty). It focuses on answering what the right actions is, and defines what is right based on what is known as the “categorical imperative”, which simply means that there are certain unconditional laws that determine what sort of action is morally right. These laws are structured upon the Kantian universal principle: not to use people as mere means. That is, if a sort of action involves people in a context that they would naturally not consent to, that action uses people as mere means, and is thus prohibited by deontological morality (Rawling). In this sense, certain actions are always morally wrong, like lying to a person or giving a false promise. On the other hand, we have a moral theory where we can never tell whether an action is right or wrong by itself, as we should first observe its consequences: utilitarianism. Utilitarianism, by definition, as a subset of consequentialism; which is the broad moral scheme based on the famous slogan: “the ends justify the means”. In utilitarianism, “the ends” is about producing the maximum happiness in the human population. Consequentially, actions are “right when they promote happiness and wrong when they produce the opposite” . So, no action is universally moral or immoral in utilitarian morality, unless we are talking about a specific context on which we can decide based on the outcomes (Mill). Aristotle, however, defines morality in a completely different manner. He saw morality as equivalent to exercising the virtues.  Virtues for Aristotle where the “golden means” between the two extremes of all traits, like a balance point; for example, courage is the golden mean between being reckless and being a coward. In this virtue ethics structure, one cannot be morally right or wrong by performing a certain virtue once, but it is more about embracing the virtues as natural habits. Thus, the virtue ethics version of morality is concerned with the character of the human (Aristotle). Now that we have briefly introduced our moral schemes, we have a more concrete idea about what we mean by a “moral purpose”: It is a purpose, which we shall seek, that exhibits the characteristics of moral actions as described by the moral schemes. Our three moral schemes are obviously independent and certainly are mutually exclusive in some cases (e.g. lying is deontologically immoral, but not automatically immoral in a utilitarian sense); so, one may ask how can we use all three at once. We shall use all three as we are not going to address whether the purpose of art is morally good or morally bad, but we will only show that, given a work of art, it has a moral purpose as per the definition of morality in the schemes; thus we are not concerned with a particular domain of effects of art on humans and whether these effects are morally good or bad, but rather on the nature of the effects themselves and whether we can discuss them as equivalent to moral actions or not, all in consistency with all the three moral structures. Essentially, we shall show that art is not amoral. And thus, as we are unquestionably moral agents, something with a moral effect must then have a moral purpose. 

Then, what is the purpose of art? As we discussed earlier, the purpose of art is what art reliably and necessarily does. However, not all art is equal. To choose a representative piece of art to examine, we must choose one that is reliable. We could say that the representative of art should be beautiful. Indeed, beauty is a main characteristic that we unconsciously associate with art. However, here we may fall victims to the spectrum of subjective beauty, which would contradict our desire for an objective stance. For this reason, we shall introduce some ideas on what makes art beautiful. Two famous art critics, Oscar Wilde and John Ruskin, would agree that a representative piece of art should be beautiful. However, the agreement is rather superficial. In his Modern Painters, Ruskin states that, speaking about paintings: “Every herb and flower of the field has its specific, distinct, and perfect beauty; it has its peculiar habitation, expression, and function. The highest art is that which seizes this specific character, which develops and illustrates it, which assigns to it its proper position in the landscape, and which, by means of it, enhances and enforces the great impression which the picture is intended to convey”. In that sense, to Ruskin, nature is the absolute beauty, and art should express that supreme beauty as accurately as possible. To Wilde, similarly, the artist is “the creator of beautiful things” (Wilde). However, beauty to Wilde has nothing to do with nature. In fact, to Wilde, the beauty of art is in the “perfect use of the imperfect medium”. So, his definition of beautiful art is looser in the sense that he does not demand particular conditions for his art to be beautiful. Moreover, to Wilde, art only means beauty, as he stated in the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray: “Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.” To him, art has no purpose at all, as he regards all art as being “quite useless”. Ruskin, however, assigns a great responsibility to art, as he regards artists as effective moral preachers, with art as their moral tool.  To Ruskin, true beauty doesn’t mean only beauty, but it also necessarily “exalts” and “purifies” the soul. So, the two critics directly associate the quality of art to its beauty, and the beauty of art to its morality; for Ruskin, he refers to morality in a virtue-ethical sense, as he demands truth to nature and argues that beauty elevates the soul, while also referring to artists as preachers; to Wilde, art has no moral dimension, no utility, and no effect beyond its emotional effect and aesthetic appeal. So, now we have actually arrived at the conclusion that, following the arguments of Wilde and Ruskin, that the quality of art is profoundly connected to our question of whether art has a moral purpose or not. If one is to adopt the Wildean notion, all art will have no purpose at all, let alone moral purpose; and thus, the question will be trivially answered with a definite “No”. From a Ruskinian point of view, however, art serves a greater moral rule, as it reflects the purity of the soul, which makes art a moral-gauge from a virtue ethical perspective, and thus it will indeed have a moral purpose. But who of the two critics is more reasonable in this regard?

At this point, no further abstract philosophy will be employed, as we will rely only on scientific data in trying to identify the effects of art and whether they show evidence of morality or not. Firstly, we elaborate on the fact that the effects of art are scientifically measurable. In fact, there are certain scientific areas that are concerned with the exact topic of measuring the neurological effects of the aesthetic experience, namely “Neuroaesthetics” (Weir). Through the aesthetic experience of exposure to music, theater, visual arts, literature, scientists gathered neurological data and compared them to known patterns to identify the effects of art on the human brain.  A study on literary fiction, for example, demonstrated extensive evidence that reading fiction improves the “Theory of Mind ” (Kidd et al.) Improving the theory of mind is directly related to understanding fellow human beings and promoting empathy, which is morally consistent with virtue ethics (as it is a virtuous, intellectual characteristic) and deontology (as one needs to understand the other people’s mental state to avoid using them as “mere means”). Additionally, this effect is also coherent with utilitarianism in the sense that we need to understand the societies’ mental state to label “happiness” correctly first and then be able to maximize it.  Other studies showed empirically how the mere exposure to visual art and the ongoing thoughts and feelings associated with it promote the cognitive abilities of the observer, thus providing further evidence that art effectively stimulates knowledge and understanding, what is known as “Aesthetic Cognitivism” (Christensen et al.) Such an effect is “moral” in consistency with all the moral schemes that we introduced. We further noted that not only passive moral effects of art are evident, as some findings discuss the ability of art as an effective therapy. The source discusses how art can aid in the treatment of mental illnesses, help control psychologically challenging behaviors, decelerate cognitive decay, and “improve the quality of life.” Art therapy is used in treating schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety, and dementia. (Shukla et al.) Improving the quality of life is a sufficient condition to argue that art has a “moral” effect consistent with the three moral schemes: with a better quality of life through treating their psychological conditions, humans can be better at employing their intellectual faculty and exercising the virtues (virtue-ethically moral); the action of treating humans manifests the notion of humans as the end itself, and not the mean (deontology); in the utilitarian paradigm, treating humans almost always maximizes their happiness. Further, some studies discuss Stendhal's Syndrome, which is a psychosomatic syndrome involving irregular heartbeat, hallucinations, fainting, and physical exhaustion upon exposure to great works of art (Bamforth). Such an effect, I believe we can agree, is moral per the three schemes (not in the sense that it is morally good, but rather in the sense that it is an action that we can analyze and decide whether it is morally good/bad through the schemes). In virtue ethics, illness will lead to diminished cognitive ability, rendering this particular effect of art as morally wrong. Deontologically, no one would agree to be ill in return to exposure to art, making it again a morally negative effect. In a utilitarian sense, however, one must weigh the previous positive effects that lead to happiness against the possibility of experiencing the syndrome, and then arrive at a final conclusion regarding whether the effect is morally right or wrong. Generally, we have arrived at multiple scientifically evident effects of art that we were able to classify as subjects of the moral schemes.

In retrospect, we have introduced art as whatever we historically labeled as art. We then continued to discuss whether this art performs a necessary and reliable action. Our pursuit aimed to identify that action in order to discuss whether its effects are moral. We then defined morality in terms of the notion of good and bad in the three philosophical paradigms (virtue ethics, deontology, and utilitarianism). While trying to determine what art shall we begin to examine, we said that whatever we regard as art should be beautiful, and as a result we went through the Ruskin vs. Wilde notions of beauty, which led to realizing that beauty of art and moral purpose are connected (almost causal) for Ruskin while that they are totally different notions for Wilde. We then employed empirical evidence to solve the philosophical debate, arriving at that certain passive and active effects of arts are explicitly moral (as per the three schemes). One should notice that the effects we discussed are mainly based on the aesthetic experience or the mere exposure to art. It thus defines an independent effect that characterizes the human-art relationship. As we have seen, such effect is ultimately moral. Thus, following this trail of thought, art becomes inescapably an ethical influencer; and because we are axiomatically introducing morality, if something unavoidably has an ethical effect, it necessarily has a moral purpose. Thus, we arrive at our conclusion: art indeed has a moral purpose. Now the hanging question: who of the two critics is more reasonable in their definition of art and its relation to beauty? Well, we obviously arrived at that art has a purpose, but we should be careful here as we cannot directly dismiss Wilde’s “all art is useless”. We should firstly say that Wilde does indeed know that art can produce moral effects on humans. As he said in preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray, art can “express everything”, and thus can have all possible effects on the human character. The distinction, however, is that we do not arrive at only that art has a moral purpose, but also at that this purpose is an inherent property of art itself. Upon exposure to art, we cannot control how our nervous system would behave (otherwise the Stendhal's Syndrome would not exist), and thus the moral effect, independently of whether it is good or bad, is inevitable. Wilde, however, sees that the “elect” should only see “beauty” in art as it is, nothing more; but if such an elect exists, they would be able to eliminate the scientifically-proven effects of the exposure to art, which is neurologically impossible. Ruskin, on the other hand, saw that art is effectively a moral tool. We agree with Ruskin on the fact that art is inherently moral and cannot be separated from its moral nature. While we did not arrive at the exact conclusion that truth-to-nature is a scientifically valid definition of beauty (in the sense that beauty in art is equivalent to reflecting moral righteousness and purity of the soul, as Ruskin argued), we did not disprove his claim on beauty either. However, we must declare that if we believe art to be beautiful, and we know it necessarily has a moral purpose, then our moral faculty dictate that the beauty of art, being a quality that we demand in a representative  piece of art, is equivalent to exhibiting a morally-righteous property. Thus, we arrive, finally, at that art is all that is beautiful, and that beauty here is not sensual, but as Ruskin put it: "I wholly deny that the impressions of beauty are in any way sensual, they are neither sensual nor intellectual, but moral."

One can notice that our approach is fairly general. The undeniable effects of physical things, actions, or abstract ideas on humans is a fundamental property of the human experience. We can then replicate our approach to cover any subject that comes to mind. It thus follows that whatever the topic in question is, it necessarily has an ethical dimension. Everything has a moral purpose. "Everything got a moral. If only you can find it." (Lewis Carrol)

Works Cited

1- Levinson, Jerrold. "Defining Art Historically." The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 19, no. 3, 1979, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjaesthetics/19.3.232.

2- Rawling, Piers. Deontology. Cambridge UP, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108581196.

3- Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by David Ross, edited by Lesley Brown, Oxford UP, 2009., global.oup.com/academic/product/the-nicomachean-ethics-9780199213610?cc=bg&lang=en&

4- Mill, John. Utilitarianism. 1861. Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11224.

5- Ruskin, John. Modern Painters. Vol. 2, Smith, Elder, 1846. Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/files/29906/29906-h/29906-h.htm

6- Ruskin, John. Modern Painters. Vol. 1, Smith, Elder, 1843. Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/files/29907/29907-h/29907-h.htm.

7- Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Edited by James Gifford, McPherson Library Special Collections, University of Victoria, 2011. omeka.library.uvic.ca/~gifford/dorian/dorian.pdf

8- Kidd, David Comer, and Emanuele Castano. “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind.” Science, vol. 342, no. 6156, Oct. 2013. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239918.

9- Bamforth, Iain. “Stendhal’s Syndrome.” British Journal of General Practice, vol. 60, no. 581, Dec. 2010. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp10x544780.

10- Christensen, Alexander P., et al. “Can Art Promote Understanding? A Review of the Psychology and Neuroscience of Aesthetic Cognitivism.” Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts, vol. 19, no. 1, Jan. 2023, pp. 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000541.

11- Weir, Kirsten. “What Happens in the Brain When We Experience Art.” Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association, Sep. 2025 www.apa.org/monitor/2025/09/art-mind-brain 

12- Shukla, Apoorva, et al. “Role of Art Therapy in the Promotion of Mental Health: A Critical Review.” Cureus, vol. 14, no. 8, Aug. 2022, https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.28026