ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies some ethically charged discourses on music. Music is able to work in this capacity by encouraging strong feelings of demands and that most justice is done when agents take responsibility. It focuses on material drawn from two academic areas that have, in recent years, offered ethical criticisms of music analytical philosophy and musicology. The chapter proposes a methodology that will be applicable to music philosophical approaches to ethics. It explains the gap between subject and object remains wide open, neglecting any connection between music and the rest of the world. We hope that the reflections developed here will inspire further thoughts on the limitations and potentials for ethical engagement within musical discourse. Finally, the chapter draws on one recent argument from philosophy to suggest that the ethics at play in these debates can be adequately described as an ethics of commitment, and that music in particular invites us to take up the challenge.
