November 7, 2024 at 4:15 pm in Pardee 321
From jazz to pop, songs can carry ethical meanings. How is that fact
best understood? This paper discusses the “personal-qualities view,
for which songs have ethical qualities in ways that are similar to how
people have their personal qualities. To it, the paper contrasts the
“ethical perspective view,” which better cashes out the central way
in which songs are ethically evaluated. The discussion of musical
examples (including songs by Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby McFerrin, Bob
Marley, EMINƎM, Lady Gaga, and more) becomes an opportunity to
address some of the norms that guide art interpretation, as well as
the place that songs have in our lives.