Can moral flaws make a work artistically worse—and why do we seek out horror if it’s supposed to scare and disgust us?
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1. Guest
Noël Carroll is distinguished professor of philosophy at the graduate centre of the City University of New York, and his work has focused on the philosophy of aesthetics, art, film, and more.
2. Interview Summary
The interview opens with a discussion of Noel Carroll’s ‘moderate moralism’: the idea that (at least sometimes) a moral defect in a work can count as an artistic defect, because artworks are designed to elicit certain responses, and moral flaws can make the intended response unavailable (or “misfired”). Along the way, Carroll situates the view against ‘autonomism’—the thought that moral criticism is irrelevant to artistic assessment—invoking Oscar Wilde as a familiar inspiration for stronger autonomy claims and noting how debates like the controversies around Robert Mapplethorpe often prompt “separate-realms” replies. Carroll’s own strategy is to treat the moral dimension as sometimes internal to artistic success or failure (a “design error”), and he addresses worries about audience-relativity by appealing to an idealized morally sensitive audience while acknowledging that complexity can cause audiences to miss morally salient elements (his example is the rapid, easily-overlooked moment in Hamilton involving Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings).
They then turn to Carroll’s well-known treatment of the “paradox of horror”: why people seek out art that aims to frighten and disgust them. Carroll argues that horror centrally involves both fear and disgust, and while fear can be “fun” when it’s safely simulated, disgust is harder to explain away because it has its own felt cost. His proposal is a trade-off: we tolerate the unpleasantness because horror promises fascination—especially fascination with “categorical violations” that jam our ordinary categories (the living/dead mixtures of Frankenstein or the undead of The Walking Dead). Importantly, the promise doesn’t always pay off: some horror turns ridiculous rather than riveting, and he uses Robot Monster as a childhood example of a would-be monster movie that becomes laughable. He also connects this to evaluative practice by noting how exemplary horror (here The Bride of Frankenstein, highlighted via Anne Rice’s praise) can combine multiple virtues that help explain its enduring status.
In the final stretch, Carroll focuses on criticism and evaluation: he insists on separating liking from assessing, emphasizing that you can judge a work excellent without enjoying it—and enjoy things you readily admit are not that good (“guilty pleasures,” illustrated with a philosopher who loved The Three Stooges). He also distinguishes two senses of “appreciation”: casual approval (“I appreciate your garden”) versus a more analytic sizing-up (like a chess or military “appreciation”), and argues that criticism should explain how a work achieves (or fails to achieve) its aims rather than functioning merely as consumer guidance. This framework supports a larger point about the contingency between popularity and value: critical consensus can shift dramatically over time, as with Vertigo being elevated in Sight and Sound’s 2012 poll above Citizen Kane. The conversation closes on a deliberately conversational stance about “greatest films”: Carroll prefers to answer boldly—naming The Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir—because giving reasons invites a better argument than refusing the question.
3. Interview Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
01:03 - Moderate moralism
10:18 - Audience dependence
13:57 - Weakness of thesis
15:10 - Paradox of horror
22:48 - Individuality of horror
31:10 - Liking vs. assessing
36:15 - Appreciation
39:02 - Relationship between liking and assessing
45:14 - Great films
49:46 - Appreciation from an outside perspective
58:52 - Aesthetic experience
1:02:13 - Criticism: too narrow
1:09:11 - Criticism: too broad
1:16:17 - Criticism: doesn’t account for finer distinctions
1:25:56 - Criticism: too simple
1:33:45 - Philosophy of humor
1:40:17 - Value of philosophy of aesthetics
1:43:23 - Conclusion
