Art and Moral Motivation: Why Art Fails to Move Us

My aim in this article is to defend the view that art is a relevant source of knowledge, including moral knowledge, in the absence of empirical evidence corroborating this view. In the first part, I discuss what is known as the causal question, that is, the question regarding art’s impact on spectators. I argue that the alleged failure of art to impact us may be a matter of moral motivation and the particular circumstances of moral reasoning more than the cognitive and ethical character of a work. To support my claim, I rely on contemporary research on moral reasoning. I conclude by sketching a wider context within which we should consider art’s impact, stressing the relevance of cognitive sciences and moral psychology.