ABSTRACT
Many philosophers have tried to vindicate the view that there is some kind of connection between virtue and human happiness, the idea usually being that the exercise of virtue itself involves, or otherwise leads to, happiness. This kind of connection between art and morality is clearly, however, not the thing, indeed, not the kind of thing, that those who claim that art can contribute to the moral life are usually after. Those philosophers who wish to insist that art is crucial to a moral education tend to make a related claim concerning the work of art itself, one also made by other philosophers. If we are properly to understand what it is to explore, through art, the meaning of one's moral beliefs, then, a central issue will be that of coming to know who one is, what kind of person one is.
