Art

[Daktoria]

Simple question, if you know philosophers who have considered this, I'm fine with simple links to their material instead of paraphrasing what they said.

From a pragmatist's standpoint, is there a point where aesthetic enjoyment becomes morally objectionable? I'm thinking of this from my father's perspective of how too much goofing off makes productivity more difficult due to a decay in work ethic, discipline, direction, etc.

Also, as a matter of administering justice, does this moral objection ever come in conflict with positive liberalism? For example, if a system of redistributive justice is administered in order to cater to cultural relativism for the sake of inspiring oppressed people, does there come a point where the positive liberal's duty of care has to be reeled in because in reality, he's sabotaging the character of those being assisted? Even if rectification is in order, shouldn't the positive liberal withhold such damages due to the diminishing marginal returns that result from hasty nurturing over short periods of time (similarly to how when a plant is given too much water, it drowns instead of being cultivated)?

My opinion is yes, there is a point, but unfortunately, it is a point that can only be acknowledged in its entirety in an intuitive fashion. Explicit modelling makes aesthetic restraint vulnerable to deconstruction as well as general inefficiencies because of the diverted focus towards modelling itself. Instead, this point can only be realized via individuals' character, and when such individuals come across incommensurable personalities and behavior, they have to preempt corruption by testing the reformability of such personalities as quickly as possible within an acceptable degree of confidence. If the tested personalities fail, they (unfortunately) have to be ignored, quarantined, or (in the worst case scenarios where benefit of the doubt cannot be afforded at all), eradicated. The proof for this is in how without such discipline, corruption will be tolerated to spread no matter what such that goodwilling individuals will become undermined by the neglectful behavior of the naively innocent. There are only so many natural resources to go around, so if they are dedicated towards gluttonous pleasure, the responsible will suffer.

[Musaeus]

If you are still around.....

I cannot think of many references in philosophy, but this is a very interesting question. Plato certainly thought that aesthetic enjoyment should be controlled and monitored (v little 'goofing off' in his Republic), and he is presumably building on and analysing people's instinctive sense that excessive aesthetic pleasure is self-indulgent.

I think that Nietzsche is interesting in this regard. His entire philosophy is influenced by art, but clearly he does not take a Platonic view.