Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explains possible connection between music and ethics and examines how music can be regarded ethical through a theoretical framework focusing on voice. It explores recent attempts to carry out ethical criticisms of music and identifies some of the ethically charged layers within discourses on music. We assess approaches from both philosophy and musicology, and point to those avenues which we believe are likely to take us furthest for the area of music and ethics. The book explains the engagement that demonstrates the possibility to relate music productively and creatively to ethics has to start from the only way humans can encounter music and sounds: by listening to it. It is a listening engagement and a resulting sonic sensibility.