ABSTRACT
This chapter intends to explore the interaction and consequent effect of art and morality on each other and on others. The discussion proceeds with the moralist conception of art where art at its best remains an elude from or an interlude to life’s serious business and at its worst a menace to the society as it does away with morality. The chapter discusses another polarized view on art – aestheticism, in which art is above all the other things of significance and nothing is allowed to interfere with its freedom to express. It further argues that to confront or ignore the depressing modern scene and lifestyle, one might need art at the level of consciousness. It argues that no subject is worthy of censorship if it is taken in the way the artist intends it to be – the “right way” – while also making a case that an artwork has aesthetic powers that makes it immune from adverse moral effects and effectively tends to paralyze ‘immoral’ tendencies.
