Art & Morality A Bittersweet Symphony

Jessica Logue conducts an investigation into their relationship.

- Jessica Logue

For a number of years I have been interested in the question, ‘Does a life’s work make up for a life?’ Initially, what I had in mind is the idea that there’s a line between one’s public and personal life, that those two lives can be separated, and that somehow you could weigh them against one another, as though professional success might make up for various personal, in particular, ethical, failures. So for instance, could the artistic achievements of a talented painter or writer make up for their being a terrible spouse?

It has struck me as an important but difficult question to answer. Although it’s true that everyone makes poor choices, when those poor choices are made by public figures, gauging the appropriate response on the part of an admiring public seems useful. While some may take the stance that it’s easy to separate ethical choices from the rest of a person’s life, and therefore still support their projects or successes although they’re a bad person, I am not so certain. For the sake of narrowing the playing field, I am going to discuss examples that have to do with art and entertainment, although there are plenty in other areas as well.

In his book Moral Luck (1981), the philosopher Bernard Williams raised issues of this kind in his discussion of the artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). Gauguin abandoned his wife and children to go to paint in Tahiti. Williams framed the issue in terms of the titular ‘moral luck’ – the notion that sometimes ethical outcomes are due to factors beyond our control. And to an extent Williams is right about Gauguin’s moral luck: had he not succeeded in making renowned art, we might judge his life choices more harshly – if we remembered him at all.