ABSTRACT
It would be useful to sketch out here a tentative view of the territories-a cluster of ideas about art and aspects of social life-I aim to explore in this chapter. To think of these areas-artistic quality, the uniqueness of individual artworks, the ethical significance of art, the social value of individuality-as somehow related is not new, but the context in which these notions now appear is. Many old convictions, some of which have sustained more than a century of often brilliant modernist experiment, have been questioned and eroded to an extent that would have been difficult to comprehend even 20 years ago. To many theorists and practitioners ideas about quality, uniqueness, ethics and individuality now mean very little. In this critical climate revisiting these ideas and values may be not only interesting but also problematic.
