Exploring the Spiritual and Moral Light and Dark Sides of Musical Experience and Appreciation

Moral significance has been attributed to music from antiquity: for example, both Plato and Aristotle made much of the power of music to influence and shape moral character. However, it would also seem often assumed that music and musical experience have some kind of spiritual significance or value for human development. The present paper sets out to explore this possibility further by asking: first, whether it is possible to make sense of spiritual development in a non-reductive way—in a way, that is, which might distinguish such growth from moral or aesthetic development; and second, what sort of qualities, capacities, or dispositions might distinctively spiritual qualities be? However, having identified a range of candidate spiritual virtues, the essay proceeds to explore the further possibility that some works or genres of music may—by much the same token—be conducive to the promotion of less spiritually desirable attitudes or values.