Aesthetic Neutrality as a Social Construction: Autonomy, Amoralism, and Recognition in Contemporary Aesthetic Conflict

This thesis argues that aesthetic neutrality is not a natural feature of art but a social construction sustained by the doctrines of autonomy and amoralism. Contemporary aesthetic conflicts, often labelled as cancel culture, serve as a diagnostic lens, revealing the tension between the idea of art as insulated from consequences and the social effects artworks produce. The first chapter reconstructs exemplary controversies to define the phenomenon under analysis. It identifies a recurring configuration in which public critique is reframed through appeals to artistic freedom and censorship, from which the two guiding dogmas emerge. The second chapter shows that autonomy is not intrinsic to artworks but produced by interpretive and institutional structures. The third examines amoralism, arguing that it does not eliminate morality but functions as a hidden form of moral regulation. The fourth chapter reinterprets these conflicts as struggles for recognition and as moments that reveal art’s social agency, including a feminist case study that exposes the mechanisms behind claims of neutrality. The conclusion argues that politicising and socialising art do not weaken it. If art acts, autonomy cannot mean immunity but the capacity to intervene in a shared social world.