On the moral criticism of art

From Daniel Jacobson (1997), “In Praise of Immoral Art” (Philosophical Topics, Vol. 25, No. 1), pp. 163-5:

Teaching on the relationship between aesthetic and moral value, I am often reminded of Tumblr antis… and also just standard Tumblr social justice-oriented evaluations of media. Jacobson does not spare the moralist Left (p. 160):

Now, I’m not saying that a work’s moral content is irrelevant to its value, including its aesthetic value, and neither is Jacobson. But let’s not make that all we care about; and let’s also pay attention to the implicit stance of the work, which may not endorse everything it depicts… including who fares well and badly in the end. Let’s not force creators, even creators of pop culture, to tailor their work to the worst interpreters in the audience.