A crash course in ethics and aesthetics (discussion worksheet)

After watching the video lecture Links to an external site. be able to answer the following:

What does Kant mean by autonomy? What does this have to do with rationality? Describe this in terms of "positive freedom" and "negative freedom."

Why does Kant think autonomy is crucial for ethics to be possible? Why does this require us to treat other people as ends in themselves?

What does autonomy have to do with aesthetic experience? Describe this in terms of (self-)interest and purpose.

What is the difference between intrinsic value and instrumental value?

What does aesthetic experience have to do with ethics, according to Kant? Describe this in terms of the difference between "determinate" and "reflective" judgments.

How is this related to the idea of organic unity? Why does Kant say that organisms (organized beings) seem to display a sort of autonomy?

How is this related to the idea of organic unity in music, for instance in a Beethoven Symphony? How is this related to later ideas about historical progress? What about progressive politics?

After our discussion on Wednesday 10/7, read the New York Times article (paywall | Links to an external site. free version) Links to an external site. and discuss the quote (given below) from the  article in relation to the ideas from the lecture (post a c. 150-word response and respond to at least one post from another student).

You can frame your response as answers to these questions (use concepts from the lecture):

What do you think about these arguments about the value of art and its relationship to ethics? Are the arguments persuasive to you? Why (not)? Do they leave out any important considerations?

"Apologies for going all Kantian, but what’s revealed in the Covid-era museum is that art’s political power still derives, above all, from having no pragmatic application. It can’t fix the world. It doesn’t function as a slower, more elite communication medium. It stands for itself, it confronts our imagination and our intellect, and so it shapes our capacities as free citizens. Which means there’s as much relevance in an Ingres drawing or Bonnard painting as in Mr. De Saint Croix’s ecological installations or Ms. Rasheed’s textual collages, insofar as each offers us just a glimpse of human freedom — that promise that every day now we feel slipping away from us, and that we still cannot do without.

If I seek out art in a time of national catastrophe, it’s not because I need that catastrophe explained to me. And it’s not because I want to block that catastrophe out with a veil of pretty pictures. It’s simpler than that. It’s because I need to be reminded what to live for."