ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses ethics as a philosophical discipline and systematic thinking about moral problems and contexts while linking these ideas to a musical discourse. Music and ethics elucidate through some influential and selected scholars ranging from Antiquity via modern philosophy to contemporary voices. They all investigate ethical aspects relevant to a musical-philosophical discourse, sensible to the human condition of life. Central to the text is an elaboration on what are music and ethics. How to acquire knowledge of music and ethics? What criteria of value and value judgements, that is, what hidden and open values and functions comprise the foundation when exploring music and ethics? Embedded in these broad and overarching philosophical topics are questions about music’s beauty, values, and principles for interpreting and evaluating music as an art form.
