Philosophy Compass 4/1 (2009): 3955, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00199.

Art and Negative Affect

Aaron Smuts*
Temple University

Abstract

Why do people seemingly want to be scared by movies and feel pity for fictional
characters when they avoid situations in real life that arouse these same negative
emotions? Although the domain of relevant artworks encompasses far more than
just tragedy, the general problem is typically called the paradox of tragedy. The
paradox boils down to a simple question: If people avoid pain then why do
people want to experience art that is painful? I discuss six popular solutions to
the paradox: conversion, control, compensatory, meta-response, catharsis, and
rich experience theories.

Introduction
Few sane people spend their evenings rummaging through the biohazard
boxes sitting outside doctors offices to arouse heightened disgust, but a
great deal of people go to horror movies where they will experience
similar feelings.1 None but the most twisted villains would spread false
rumors about a friends infidelity to feel sadness at the pointless breakup
of their marriage, but people pack theaters to see melodramas that are
designed to jerk tears from audiences via similar scenarios. No one, at least
no one we would like to know, spends their lunch hour in the ER or their
afternoons at funerals simply to get a chance to witness the heart-wrenching
scene of premature death, but we buy books that arouse similar feelings.2
It is clear that one could produce examples indefinitely. This reveals a
pronounced, apparent dissimilarity between the types of experiences we
seek out in our daily lives and those we pursue in response to artworks.
It certainly seems that people are far more willing to experience negative
emotions in response to artworks than in their daily lives. This difference
begs for an explanation. Why do people desire to see horror films or
watch tragedies? More specifically, we might ask, why do people seemingly
want to be scared by a movie or feel pity for a character when they avoid
situations in real life that arouse the same emotions? This question is often
referred to as the paradox of tragedy.
There are a variety of answers to the paradox in the philosophical
literature. Control theorists argue that the putative painfulness of some
artworks is mitigated by our ability to stop experiencing them at will
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40 Art and Negative Affect

(Morreall). Compensation theorists typically argue that any painful reactions

must be compensated for by other pleasures, either in the craft of the
narrative (Hume) or in the awareness that we are sympathetic creatures
responsive to the suffering of others (Feagin, Pleasures of Tragedy).
Conversion theorists argue that the overall experience of painful artworks
is not one of pain but of pleasure, as the pain is converted into a larger,
more pleasurable experience (Hume). Power theorists argue that we enjoy
the feeling of power that arises from either the realization of the endurance
of humanity (Price), or through the overcoming of our fear (Shaw, Power).
Rich experience theorists argue that there are many reasons why people do
things other than to feel pleasure. The overall experience of painful art
may be one of pain, but the experience can still be seen as valuable, and,
as such, motivating (Smuts 2007, Painful).
This article will examine six solutions to the paradox of tragedy. But
before looking at the solutions, we first need to clarify the nature of
the problem.
Whats the Paradox?
The paradox of tragedy is neither a paradox nor a single problem; rather,
it is a diverse set of issues that are often referred to by the same name.
The result is that one persons idea of just what the paradox of tragedy
amounts to may vary significantly from some elses. For instance, one
might think that tragedies invite audiences to feel pleasure in the suffering
of others. This raises pressing moral questions, such as: Is it ethically
suspect to take pleasure in the suffering of characters? Is it morally
corrupting to watch tragedies? Hence, one may think that the paradox of
tragedy is principally a moral problem. Although the moral issues are
interesting, we will not be exploring them further, since the bulk of the
literature is concerned with a far different question.
Most of the literature on the paradox of tragedy has been concerned
with a motivational question: What motivates audiences to pursue artworks
that arouse negative emotional responses? The problem is that the motivational
question is seldom stated in the same way, and it is rarely shown to be a
formal paradox. And depending on how one asks the question, different
solutions drop out. As it is typically stated, the paradox of tragedy asks
how it is possible for audiences to feel pleasure in response to the fictional
portrayal of events in a tragedy. But this formulation of the issue begs a
central question, namely, whether or not tragedies afford pleasurable
experiences. And even if they do, there are certainly works in other
genres, such as melodrama, that are not clear sources of audience pleasure.
Surely, the lovelorn do not always, or even typically, listen to sad songs
to feel better!
The motivational problem encompasses far more than mere tragedy. In
fact, the breadth of negative emotional experiences to which audiences
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willingly submit themselves is staggering. For example, the religious bio-pic

Passion of Christ (Mel Gibson, 2004), designed specifically to disgust and
outrage viewers, became a box-office hit. This is not an isolated case. A
tremendous amount of religious-themed art in the Western tradition seeks
to provoke painful emotional reactions via depictions of the suffering of
Christ and the martyrdom of saints.
Of course audience motivations for viewing religious works are complicated, but there are other clearer cases. For instance, melodramas have
become an extremely popular genre of movies. A popular melodrama
based on an Alice Munro story, Away from Her (Sarah Polley, 2006),
features a couple torn apart by past infidelity, uncovered paradoxically by
the loss of recent memories from Alzheimers. After a month in the
nursing home, Fiona falls in love with another resident and all but forgets
her husband; audiences weep and weep. This is far from an isolated case.
Another exemplary melodrama, Plenty (Schepisi, 1985) ends with a flashback
scene, where on a good day in her youth, the main character projects
forward saying that There will be days and days like this, but after two
hours of watching the heroine go insane from boredom in a stultifying
marriage, the audience knows better. For viewers susceptible to having
their heart-strings pulled by a frequently visible hand, melodramas can
elicit visceral sorrow.
Likewise, the horror genre primarily attempts to arouse a combination
of two aversive responses, fear and disgust, yet many people routinely
attend horror moves where such responses are almost guaranteed. Some
works in the horror genre inspire dread and profound sadness. Nicolas
Roegs beautiful and profoundly depressing masterpiece Dont Look Now
(1973) denies audiences and its main character hope that the universe is
anything but indifferent. Conspiratorial fictions such as The Parallax View
(Pakula, 1974) often leave audiences without clear explanations of the
events other than that the world is a malevolent and corrupt place, where
almost anyone could become an expendable tool of powerful interests.
Melancholy music can arouse remorse at past wrongs or missed opportunities
and painfully felt nostalgia, where listeners come to desire to return
to previous times and suffer from the realization that this desire can never
be satisfied.
When one looks beyond tragedy and notices the array of artworks that
arouse negative emotions, the puzzle becomes more pronounced. In
response to art people seem far more willing to experience emotions that
we think of as negative. We describe an emotion as negative when it is
typically accompanied by an aversive reaction that is, we typically avoid
situations that arouse the emotion. Such emotions are often described as
having a negative affect; they feel bad. We might say that they have a
negative hedonic tone.3 As such, the emotions themselves are thought to
be the source of aversion. In some cases, such as those of profound
sadness, we would go so far as to say that the emotions are painful.4 In
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fact, the more general issue under consideration could be called the
paradox of painful art. The paradox of painful art can be stated as follows:
1. People avoid things that provide painful experiences and only pursue
things that provide pleasurable experiences.
2. People have painful experiences in response to putatively painful art
(e.g., tragedies, melodramas, religious works, sad songs, and horror).
3. People pursue putatively painful art.
The paradox boils down to a simple question: If people avoid pain then
why do people want to experience art that is painful?
Before discussing the details of the particular solutions to the paradox,
it will be helpful to look a bit more carefully at each claim of the paradox.
The third claim, that people pursue putatively painful art, is beyond
reasonable doubt. It is clear that audiences are not typically forced to the
movies against their will. There is no Hollywood secret police force
gathering people from their homes, forcing them into buses, only to be
made to sit in crowded theaters while eating buckets of popcorn. And it
is clear that audiences know what they are getting into. Rare is it that
people go to movies without first reading reviews, seeing a preview, or
talking to friends. And theaters do not have to employ bait and switch
tactics to get audiences to watch melodramas. There is no need to advertise
a comedy to get audiences to buy tickets to a tear jerker. Hence, no one
has taken issue with the third claim of the paradox: Audiences willingly
seek out putatively painful art with largely accurate expectations about
what they will experience.
In contrast, nearly every solution to the paradox has rejected the second
claim, as I have formulated it that people have painful experiences in
response to putatively painful art. There are two broad options here. One
might simply deny that putatively painful art provides any noteworthy
painful experiences. Alternatively, one might deny that the experiences
are on the whole painful. As we will see, conversion theories and control
theories take the first option, whereas, most compensatory theories typically
take the second, more popular route. Most, but not all, compensatory
solutions to the paradox claim that there is hedonic compensation that
is, they admit that audiences feel pain in response to putatively painful art,
but they claim that the artworks provide adequate compensation in the
form of other pleasures.
The second claim of the paradox has been a popular target for a variety of
reasons. First, if people do indeed feel pleasure in response to representations
of the suffering of others, then a significant moral problem presents itself.
Surely it is morally suspect to take pleasure in the suffering of others, and
likewise, the representation of the suffering of others. This moral problem
has motivated a search for alternate sources of pleasure, such as selfcongratulatory meta-responses we are pleased to be the kind of people
that feel sorry for such suffering. Second, people have failed to adequately
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consider the phenomenology of painful art experiences, phenomenology

that provides a great deal of data in support of the second premise. This
is likely the case because, third, an implicit assumption of a relatively
strong form of motivational hedonism lies in the background, making it
difficult to see that some artworks might not be on the whole pleasurable.
As to the first claim, my formulation of the paradox makes explicit the
underlying assumption of motivational hedonism. The first claim is simply
a statement of motivational, or psychological, hedonism the theory that
the sole source of motivation is pleasure and the avoidance of pain. And
it is fairly easy to see that motivational hedonism is false. A soldier may
throw himself on a grenade to save his friends, sacrificing his pleasure for
the good of others. The morally motivated may pursue what they consider
to be the right course of action instead of what would bring them the
most pleasure. Similarly, one may occasionally promote the happiness of
ones friend or lover at the expense of ones own pleasure. But not all
ahedonic motivations are benevolent. As the existentialists take pains to
note, one may sacrifice ones own happiness for the pursuit of a meaningful
project, knowing that it will likely bring more frustration and less pleasure
than going to the beach. Although pleasure undeniably plays a significant
role, it is only one among many of our sources of motivation. Anyone
who was motivated exclusively by the pursuit of pleasure would be a
pathetic creature indeed, perhaps not fully human.
Since motivational hedonism is clearly false, the paradox of painful art
quickly dissolves. A more plausible motivational theory, predominant
motivational hedonism the theory that people are predominantly motivated
by the prospect of pleasure does not create a paradox; but it does raise
two important questions: the motivational question and the difference question.
The motivational question asks: Why is it that people want to see putatively
painful art? And, the difference question asks: Why are people more willing
to experience painful affect in response to art than in their normal lives?
What we informally call a paradox is essentially just these two questions.
Although we do not have a formal paradox worth worrying about, we
do have two very difficult questions. Although the difference question is
addressed by some solutions such as the control theory, the bulk of the
literature on the paradox of tragedy is concerned with answering
the motivational question. I turn now to briefly survey some of the
important answers.
Six Solutions to the Paradox
I conversion theory

There are two variants of the conversion theory. The first type of conversion
theory holds that painful emotions had in response to art are converted
into pleasure through some more prominent emotion. The second variant
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holds that the entire art-going experience, as a whole, feels pleasurable in

retrospect, and, as such, the pain felt is more or less forgotten. As we shall
see, the second position starts to veer off into the compensation theory. The
first position is more popular, but the mechanism behind the conversion
of pain into pleasure is often thought to be utterly mysterious.
In Of Tragedy, David Hume attempts to resolve the paradox of tragedy
by a conversion theory. He bases his argument on the assumption that
audiences do feel pleasure in response to tragedy. Hume argues that the
same object of distress, which pleases in a tragedy, were it really set before
us, would give the most unfeigned uneasiness (218). Working with this
assumption, he attempts to account for the possibility of having pleasure
from what appear to be distressful emotions had in response to art. Humes
solution to the paradox is that the unpleasant emotions are converted or
transformed into pleasure by the eloquence of a narrative. He thinks that
the predominant emotion, beauty, alters the nature of the painful
responses, such that the overall response becomes one of pleasure.
Hume fails to give a satisfying account of this process of conversion,
and his view has been rightly criticized for leaving the basis of his explanation
a mystery. However, at root, Humes explanation is not altogether implausible.
Any complex experience will be made up of disparate parts. In many
experiences, especially those had from well-crafted narrative structures,
there will be certain aspects that bring coherence and unification. Unifying
elements are often what come to typify an experience for us, giving us a
shorthand way to reflect on overall more complicated phenomena.
Feelings of beauty had from narrative eloquence are often the predominant, unifying elements of art experiences, whereas, such feelings are
typically absent from real-life experiences. Hence, the experience of a
tragedy may be overall one of pleasure for reasons not available to non art
experiences of tragic events.
This explanation is very close to a compensation theory, except that on
the conversion account, the overall experience is treated as a complex
whole without clearly discernible parts. The absence of a clear mechanism
of conversion is not the primary weakness of Humes theory, as most have
supposed; rather, the theory does not mesh with how we describe our
own art experiences. The central problem with the conversion theory, as
I have presented it, is that it does not describe the way we typify our
experiences of painful art. Reviewers and ordinary viewers often describe
works as utterly depressing, heart-wrenching, terrifying, and disgusting.
The distinguishing, or unifying element, is often not a beautifully crafted
narrative, but the overall emotional affect, which is frequently painful. If
the overall experience of an artwork is best described as painful, then the
conversion theory is simply not applicable to that work.
Certainly, Dont Look Now contains a highly integrated narrative and
beautiful compositions, but they serve a profoundly depressing purpose:
We learn that the protagonist is indeed prescient, but this gift only allows
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him to foresee his own death, where his hope of reuniting with the ghost
of his recently deceased daughter is dashed by the blade of a dwarf s
carving knife. Although an exemplary horror movie, it does not provide
a pleasurable experience. Not even close. Since there seem to be plenty
of heart-wrenching, depressing, disgusting, terrifying, and dread-inspiring
artworks, the conversion theory cannot serve as a general solution to the
paradox of painful art.
II control theories

Control theories attempt to answer the question of why it is that we seek

out negative emotions from art when we avoid them in real life that is,
they focus on the difference question. John Morreall, a control theorist,
argues that art experiences are far less painful than those had in real life,
because in regards to art our powers of control are far greater than in real
life. Specifically, our control over narratives comes from our choosing
whether or not to have these responses and our ability to walk away if we
cannot take it anymore.
Experiments on pain thresholds support this conjecture. When subjects
are able to say when the pressure on their finger should stop, they can
take far more than if the experimenter does not give them the option.
Subjects also report feeling greater amounts of pain when they are unable
to control the experiment. Likewise, we might argue that our experiences
of art are less painful since we can usually control whether or not they
happen or when they should stop. We can decide to leave a theater or
put down a book whenever it gets to be too much to handle, and we are
aware that we possess this power.
Robert Yanal criticizes control theories, arguing that according to the
control account if a spectator is trapped in a theater then the fiction
should seem more painful, however this clearly is not the case. Perhaps
such a result would be absurd, but it does not damage the control theory.
If the subject is strapped to a chair with their eyelids pried open, like
Alex in A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, 1971), they might feel more
pain than a normal viewer, as the control theory predicts. If we are
trapped in a theater this does not mean that we are unable to stop
watching a movie, except in bizarre circumstances that would probably be
extremely distressing.
Imagine taking a roller coaster ride at an amusement park. After the
train pulls into the docking station, it immediately begins again, without
letting anyone off. Over the loud speaker, you hear that something is
wrong and the operators cannot stop the ride or, even worse, you discover
that the ride has been taken over by a gang of sadists who say that they
will release the passengers as soon as we feel like it and not a moment
sooner. After hearing such news, it is hard to image that the ride would
remain very fun for much longer.
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In Man, Play, and Games, Roger Caillois argues, convincingly, that play
must be voluntary, that is one must be able to step out of the game
whenever one wishes, or the activity will cease to be playful.5 Similarly,
an effective horror motif is the doll that comes to life or the ventriloquists
dummy that gains control of its puppeteer. Such examples are instances of
games that will not stop. In so far as experiencing a fiction is analogous to
play, it suggests that the control we have over our fictional engagements
makes them less painful, or at least that if we loose control the nature of
the experience may become far more painful.
Although control theorists offer a partial explanation for why in response
to art we are willing to experience emotional responses that we shun in
real life (the difference question), they do not have a plausible answer for
why we want to experience such emotions at all. Our experiences of
negative emotions in response to fictional events may be less painful or
more tolerable because we have some degree of control over their
occurrence, but this does not mean that they are not painful at all. Perhaps
the central insight of the control theory can help one develop an answer
to the difference question, but, as to the basic motivational question, it is
not illuminating.
The general problem is further amplified if we consider that our emotional
responses to fictions are not completely, or even to a high degree, controllable. Although we decide to see a movie and can walk out of the
theater whenever we wish, we cannot just decide to end our depression
when we walk out of a melodrama, or to not feel tense and nervous after
watching a horror movie. If we feel any pain at all, then the question why
we desire such experiences, why we seek out painful art, is still open. The
control theory can supplement a further account, but it cannot answer the
motivational question on its own.
III compensation theories

Unlike conversion theories, compensation theories acknowledge that we

do experience pain in response to art. Most compensation theories offer
particular accounts of why we choose to see a work in a particular genre
when we know that it will arouse negative emotions. There are two
general forms that a compensatory theory might take: hedonic and ahedonic.
All compensation theories are of this structure: artworks in genre X provide
compensatory values Y that outweigh any pain the artworks cause. The
traditionally more popular hedonic form of the compensatory theory claims
that the compensatory value Y is pleasure. That is, hedonic compensatory
explanations argue that the best answer to the question why do we see
works of genre X? is that such works provide certain compensatory
pleasures that audiences expect to be greater than any feelings of pain.
The central problem for hedonic compensatory theories is that they
must provide a non-question-begging reason for us to think that the
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pleasures had from works of a genre outweigh the pain. It will be instructive
to briefly consider how hedonic compensatory theories attempt to account
for the appeal of a particular genre, horror. Nol Carroll presents a
hedonic compensatory theory of the appeal of horror, arguing that the
reason why audiences seek out horror fictions, knowing full well that they
will experience fear and disgust, is for the compensatory cognitive pleasures.
Audiences, on Carrolls account, enjoy thinking about how one should
go about confronting categorically interstitial monsters. The experience
of horror is the price we are willing to pay for the pleasures of discovery
(186). This would explain why so many horror plots are structured in
a four stage onset, discovery, confirmation, confrontation model.
Carrolls explanation is intended to explain the appeal of narrative horror,
but he also offers a similar curiosity-based account of non-narrative works
of horrific art.
Although there are certainly forms of pleasure available from the discovery
plot structure, some would argue that Carrolls explanation leaves too
much out, namely, the pleasures of identification with monsters (Shaw,
Humean Definition of Horror). Daniel Shaw argues that horror fictions
are often enjoyable because they allows audiences to both identify with a
powerful monster as it dispatches the more annoying teenagers, and with
the victims who often ultimately triumphant (Shaw 2001, Power). Since
the notion of character identification is suspect (Carroll; Gaut), we might
want to revise the claim to state that audiences sympathize with or admire
the monster. Shaws principal example is Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the
Lambs, whose cunning and wit bring him into sympathy with the audience.
Elsewhere, Shaw argues that typical monster movies can encourage similar
responses from audiences enamored of a killers immense powers of
destruction (Shaw, Humean Definition of Horror).
Although Shaws theory is intriguing and highlights an extremely
important feature of the appeal of horror, it has yet to be worked out
across a broad spectrum of the genre. But, yes, we can agree that some
horror fictions are enjoyable because we like to see monsters vanquish
their prey. Carrolls general reply to this line of argument (Hallie), is that
it has only limited applicability (Carroll 1678). Perhaps the ferocity of
the zombies in 28 Days Later (Boyle, 2002) might arouse such reactions,
but the slow masses of dumb walking corpses in Night of the Living Dead
(Romero, 1968) certainly do not. In either case, the general compensatory
solution cannot be hedonic, since the overall effect of many horror movies
again, take Dont Look Now is not one of pleasure.
Most hedonic compensatory theories, of horror and painful art in
general, assume a predominant hedonic theory of motivation and then try
to point out which pleasure must be doing the work. And the hedonic
assumption is not altogether unwarranted. It is reasonable to grant the
compensation theorist the bootstrapping assumption that there is probably
more pleasure involved than pain, so that they may engage in a search for
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the pleasure involved. Then, if the compensatory theorist can give us a

convincing account of the kind of pleasure involved, pleasure which is
sufficient to offset the pain, the initial assumption is justified. However, to
justify the hedonic assumption, we need a largely convincing story of how
the pleasures could outweigh the pain. In comedy, any negative emotions
we may feel are often offset by other pleasures. But the situation is not so
clear when we look at melancholy music, melodrama, tragedy, or any of
the other types of painful art.
The extreme ambiguity that plagues any comparison of pleasures and
pains aggravates the problem for hedonic compensation theories. It is
especially difficult to get a clear understanding of what it means for a
pleasure to outweigh a pain in these contexts. Consider the case of horror:
How many intellectual exploratory units does it take to equal a unit of
fear or disgust? The compensatory theorist might argue that they are not
committed to the notion that viewers make such calculations consciously.
An unconscious hedonic calculation could take place based on our previous
experiences with the genre. Further, the hedonic compensatory theorist
need not be committed to the idea that we are always correct in our
assessments; however, for the most part, the past experiences would have
to be more pleasurable than painful, else audiences would gradually
be turned off of the genre. Of course, meeting the burden of proof for
the compensation theorists requires showing that audiences do report
overall pleasurable experiences in genres and artworks to which they
return. In the case of painful art, I doubt that this burden can be met. It
does not accord with the phenomenology.
Although hedonic compensatory solutions are highly problematic, ahedonic
variations are far more promising. Certainly, the ahedonic compensatory
theorist argues, audiences seek some value from artworks. We do not
merely seek out most tragedies, or even horror movies, for emotional
responses. Although affect certainly plays a role, we also seek sources of
value such as insight into the human condition or into ways of being in
the world. Audiences are significantly motivated to pursue these kinds of
values. Unfortunately, sometimes the insights, for example, are profoundly
depressing. But if an artwork were nothing but depressing, no one would
care to see it.
Again, this line of development is far more promising than the hedonic
variant, but it rings false in an important way. It would be very odd to
explain the source of value in, say a depressing work of art, as making
up for the unfortunate sadness it causes. But this is what compensatory
theories are committed to saying. Certainly, it would be plausible to say
that the negative affect was instrumental to or even constitutive of, for
instance, larger cognitive values. However, the compensatory theorists go
beyond any such suggestion. They claim that the negative affect is a
liability of the work, one that requires compensation. That is just what it
means to compensate, or to make reparations to offset a defect. You do
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not have to make reparations for something desirable. But this does not
accord with the way we talk about painful art. No, we celebrate powers
of emotional devastation as virtues of works such as Dont Look Now.
IV meta-response theories

Susan Feagin offers an intriguing compensatory solution to the paradox

of tragedy. She argues that the reason people want to experience tragedy
is because they take pleasure in the experience, or more exactly, they take
pleasure in the reactions they have to such fictions. The pleasure is in the
meta-response, the response we have to our direct responses to the fiction.
The particular meta-response that she thinks we find pleasurable is something
of a self-congratulatory feeling we are glad that we are the kind of
person that can feel pity at the suffering of others. We do not feel pleasure
when Oedipus gauges out his eyes; no, we feel pity for Oedipus and are
pleased that we are the kind of creature that is capable of such a response.
The meta-response theory should be considered a species of the family of
hedonic compensatory theories, because it holds that the pleasure had
from our meta-responses compensates for any pain felt. But this compensatory
theory fails to provide a general solution to the paradox of painful art,
since, at best, it is only applicable to a limited set of exemplary artworks.
The meta-response theory is designed to handle fictions that are akin
to tragedy; however, unsurprisingly, it does not cover horror cases such as
the film Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997), where pity is not a major component of the response. Cure is not sadistic, and it does arouse some pity,
but this is not the predominant emotion, rather horror and dread are more
prominent. It makes audiences fear the irrational impulses that can dominate
our lives and blanket our will. In addition, installation works such as Paul
McCarthys Bossy Burger do not arouse pity, but pure visceral disgust.
Nevertheless, since the suffering of others is found in most of the painful
artforms we are discussing, if Feagin is right, the meta-response theory
will have broad explanatory scope.
However, the meta-response theory is also inadequate as a general
explanation of the appeal of pity-arousing fiction in particular. Although
important when they occur, the meta-responses Feagin describes are
extremely uncommon. Indeed meta-responses are the most effective tools
for arousing compassionate responses, but vicious, malevolent, and indifferent characters seldom prompt an awareness of ones own kinder, gentler
nature. As such, I am hesitant to attribute the prideful meta-response to
others, or myself except in very rare cases where an artwork is able to
highlight the contrast between our pity and the callousness of others in
the audience.
For example, In the Company of Men (Neil LaBute, 1997) is designed in
such a way that the audience will be polarized from the beginning. In the
film, the antagonist, Chad, devises a plot to devastate an attractive but
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lonely deaf woman by inexplicably, abandoning her after leading her on

for a couple of months. Throughout the film, Chad periodically tells
sexist jokes, and frequently humiliates subordinates. Those who refuse to
laugh at Chads sexist jokes will sit in fear of the rest of the audience for
the duration of the picture. Seemingly, those laughing are in danger of
gradually being sucked into a sympathetic complicity with the evil Chad,
whereas the rest of us may feel glad that we are the kind of people that
can feel pity for the butt of Chads cruel practical joke. In the Company of
Men is brilliant for setting callous audience reactions in relief, thereby
prompting such meta-responses as Feagin discusses.6 However, the ingenuity of this film is that it figures out a way to use humor to make the
reactions of others salient (Smuts, Joke is the Thing). The film would not
be worth mentioning if it were not for the fact that the meta-responses
it engenders are uncommon. As such, atypical meta-responses cannot
account for why we generally want to see tragedies, much less other
painful art.
Although it highlights prized examples of painful art, the meta-response
theory seems to gain support from only a very limited pool of artworks
and a small number of communal viewing experiences. Otherwise it has
limited phenomenological support and cannot serve as a general explanation
for the limited domain of tragedy, much less all painful art. As such, the metaresponse theory has a limited application to the paradox of painful art.
V catharsis

Since the most popular explanation (outside of philosophical aesthetics) of

the appeal of painful art is that such works have a cathartic effect, one is
forced to address the issue. In fact, one still finds contemporary philosophers,
such as Colin McGinn, appealing to extremely crude versions of the
theory. Rather than develop an interpretation of Aristotles extremely
cursory and maddeningly vague comments on catharsis, I will simply
explain the two main types of theories and quickly note their problems.
Roughly, there are two general theories of catharsis, those that describe
the process as one of purification and those that describe it as a form of
purgation. First, the experience of feeling pity and fear for the reversal of
a tragic hero might be said to be cathartic in the sense that it purifies theses
emotions. By purification, one might mean that the process immunizes
or that it refines. Watching tragedies might be said to refine our emotions
in the sense that it helps us understand their nature and trains us to direct
them to the appropriate object in the appropriate intensity. Perhaps Aristotle had something similar in mind; in fact, the refinement version of
catharsis would allow us to place him in dialogue with Platos complaints
about the dangers of arousing pity and fear, but it does not provide a
solution to the paradox of painful art. It does not provide a satisfactory
hedonic compensatory theory, since the pleasures of learning about what
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it is like to feel pity and fear do not out way the typically painful affect
of these emotions. The phenomenology simply does not support a
hedonic compensatory solution. And neither does the theory provide an
adequate ahedonic compensatory solution, at least not one that answers
the motivational question. Assuming that we could make sense of the
theory of emotional training, this would clearly be a valuable outcome of
viewing tragedy, but this is not why audiences go to the theater. No one
says, not even after a good amount of reflection, that they go to tragedies
for emotional training. So, why should we think that this plays a prominent
role in audience motivation?
Second, the purgation-style theory of catharsis holds that experiencing
pity and fear in response to tragedies, for example, expels these emotions.
Painful art helps drive out painful emotions in a flood of tears. We leave
the theater feeling cleansed, flushed of negative affect by an emotional
enema. Indeed, sometimes one might feel cleansed by painful art, but this
response is far from ubiquitous. Often one leaves the theater weeping
and depressed.
An additional problem is that it is not entirely clear what the supposed
purgatory mechanism involves. Why would audiences go to artworks to
have painful emotions aroused, simply to have them expelled? Why not
stay home and avoid the pain altogether? Again, if one claims that the
overall experience is pleasurable, then one owes us an explanation for
the works that we do not describe as ultimately pleasurable those where
we sob in our seats as the credits role by, but that we think of as good
works of art, not failed vehicles of catharsis. Further, the purgation theory
fails to account for cases where we seek out painful art in order to
heighten painful emotional responses, not purge them. Some sufferers of
lovesickness or a broken heart might try to expel sorrow by listening
to sad songs, but the rest of us seem to desire to intensify our pain
through music. We may have motivations beyond the pain, such as
focusing our attention in a process of reflection, but these motives do not
involve a desire for purgation. Rather, they require the opposite. So much
for catharsis.7,8
VI rich experience

Pleasure can only be part of the story for why people go to the movies,
the theater, read novels, or listen to music. If pleasure were the sole
motivating force, we could not explain the reason why, for instance,
audiences choose to see movies in any one particular genre. Why horror?
Why melodrama? Why suspense-thriller? These cannot have the same
answer, since audiences show preferences; we do not simply flip a coin to
decide what ticket to buy at the multiplex. Not just any type of movie
will do on just any occasion. If all we really want from a movie is pleasure,
then genre preferences could amount to nothing more than a hedonic
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52 Art and Negative Affect

calculus. But our preferences appear to be grounded in a wide variety

of factors. Hence, pleasure cannot be the entire explanation of viewer
motivation.
My worry is not just that pleasure is not the entire story, but that
pleasure plays only a bit part. Perhaps sometimes pleasure plays no role
whatsoever. One might argue that movies offer multiple sources of pleasure,
but if the goal is pleasure, what does the source matter?9 If it is the
particular experience that we are after that is, if it is the source of the
pleasure that entices viewers then it is not simply pleasure that viewers
are after. They want the source the experience.
So, what is it about the experience of putatively painful art that audiences
desire? Near the beginning of Humes essay Of Tragedy, he dismisses
Duboss relief from boredom solution to the paradox. As Hume summarizes,
Dubos position is the theory that no matter what the passion is: Let it
be disagreeable, afflicting, melancholy, disordered; it is still better than that
insipid languor, which arises from perfect tranquility and repose. As
stated, this view is untenable; we seldom are willing to experience just
anything to relieve ourselves from boredom. Nevertheless, Hume provides
little in the way of a refutation of this view other than arguing that since
we do feel pleasure from tragedies and we do not when confronted
with similar events in our daily lives, Dubos has failed to account for
the dissimilarity.
Duboss explanation is incomplete, but not for the reasons Hume gives.
Although Dubos does not explain the dissimilarity between the kinds of
events we seek representations of and the kind of events we seek in real
life, his account is significant in suggesting that we do desire painful
emotions. Rather than countering this suggestion, Hume begs the question
against Dubos, assuming that our response to tragedy and other painful art
is predominantly one of pleasure. Indeed, almost all subsequent discussions
of the paradox of tragedy make the same mistake. As noted earlier, part
of the problem is due to a mixing of moral and motivational questions.
The paradox of tragedy is driven by a need to provide a moral justification
for the derivation of pleasure from the misfortune of the characters. This
quest for moral justification has overshadowed the motivational question,
leading commentators to assume that the pleasure we derive from tragedy
must be the most significant motivational factor, since it is the most
significant moral factor.
If we do not let the prominence of the role of pleasure in the moral
question blind us to the full range of our reactions to painful art, something
similar to Duboss explanation becomes more attractive. If one briefly
reflects on the phenomenology of painful art experiences and notices how
common such experiences are, it becomes plausible that viewers desire
painful emotional responses.10 In 1998, Saturday Night Live featured a
skit that portrayed the following scenario: A family sits down to dinner
around a large table. A boy at the end of the table takes a sip of milk from
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his glass and spits it out, saying Ugh! This is rotten. The person to his
left replies, Let me try, and has the same response. This repeats until
everyone at the table has confirmed first-hand how bad the sour milk
tastes. The skit is funny, not because it shows a particularly stupid family
that would not take someones word about the state of a glass of milk and
thereby avoid a disgusting experience, but for exposing our desire for first
hand, experiential knowledge of the world. If Dubos is right, if people
do desire painful emotional responses, we also require answers to the
motivational question and difference questions.
Duboss relief from boredom explanation gives us a partial answer to
the motivational question why we might seek out such experiences, but
it does not account for why we usually choose to have them in response
to art. One suspects that the answer to the first question why we desire
such experiences at all is more complicated than simply relief from
boredom, and it may be easier to get at an explanation via the second
question. The rich experience theorist proposes that the reason we usually
seek out these experiences from art rather than real life, is prudence and
sometimes cowardice. Art provides a certain degree of safety not present
from situations that arouse extreme distress, disgust, anger, fear, horror,
misery, paranoia, and a host of other responses. Simply put, most of these
reactions cannot be had in real life without incurring significant risks to
ourselves and to our loved ones, risks that we typically do not take
because they far outweigh the rewards.
A painful art experience is largely more desirable and easier to have
than the painful emotional, real-life experience. Also, as the control theory
suggests, since we can usually control when such experiences take place
and often have the power to walk away when they get to be too much,
the pain involved usually does not pass a certain toleration threshold. The
safety garnered from our powers of control over art experiences also
allows for some reflection on the experiences themselves, which can
provide certain cognitive pleasures as we learn about our emotional capacities.
Further, our ability to endure certain emotional extremes can provide
enjoyment from feelings of power that result from a certain kind of selfovercoming and from the awareness of our own capacities.
For many of us, our richest aesthetic experiences come from encounters
with painful art, since one is seldom as fully engaged intellectually,
perceptually, and affectively as when experiencing painful emotional
responses in response to art. Few, if any, pleasurable experiences match the
intensity of our reactions to painful art. Hence, it is not hard to see why,
as Alan Goldman suggests, our involvement in such experiences is its own
reward (63).11 Painful affect is typically constitutive of large sources of
value; it needs no compensation or conversion. Hence, the rich experience
theory could also be called the constitutive theory. Overall, the reasons
why we desire painful experiences are multifaceted and complex, but why
we would rather have them in response to art rather than real life is clear.
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54 Art and Negative Affect

Short Biography
Aaron Smuts earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of WisconsinMadison, where he also studied film. He works in a variety of areas in
the philosophy of art and ethics, widely construed. Aaron is interested in
horror, humor, pleasure, love, the philosophy of film, analytic existentialism, and
well-being. He has written articles for American Philosophical Quarterly,
Asian Cinema Journal, Contemporary Aesthetics, Kinoeye, Film and Philosophy,
Film-Philosophy, the Journal of Aesthetic Education, the Journal of Aesthetics
and Art Criticism, Philosophy and Literature, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department
of Philosophy at Temple University.
Notes
* Correspondence address: Department of Philosophy, Temple University, 728 Anderson Hall,
Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, United States. Email: asmuts@gmail.com.
1

Noel Carroll uses a similar example in his discussion of the paradox of horror.
I am assuming that our emotional responses to fiction are genuine emotions. There is some
controversy surrounding this claim. Kendall Walton, for instance, argues that we only experience quasi-emotions from fictions. But since the phenomenology of putative quasi-emotions
and real emotions are highly similar, I will assume that audiences do not shed mere crocodile
tears. Regardless, it is enough to get the paradox off the ground if we can agree that some
audience responses to fiction are negative unpleasant or even down-right painful.
3
C. D. Broad develops a sophisticated version of the hedonic tone theory of pleasure. But
hedonic tone theories of pleasure have gone out of fashion. The heterogeneity problem is
thought to provide a decisive refutation of this general family of theories. See Alston and
Feldman.
4
There is some debate as to whether non sensation-based pain should be thought of as literally
or only metaphorically painful. One might propose that psychological pain be called suffering.
The analog for pleasure would be to call psychological pleasure joy. L. W. Sumner makes this
distinction. But I do think that suffering and joy are apt descriptions of second order attitudes
that one might hold towards their condition, but I cannot find a clear line between psychological
and sensual pain and pleasure. Psychological pains typically feel bad, just as cuts and scrapes. And
psychological pleasures often feel good, as does a sweet snack. This should be clear as long as one
does not try to call all states where one is pleased that such and such is the case pleasure. Clearly,
most are not. I can be pleased that lots of things are the case without feeling any pleasure.
5
Caillois argues that play must be free (or voluntary), separate, uncertain, unproductive, governed by rules, and involve make-believe.
6
See Smuts for an examination of the use of sexist humor in LaButes.
7
The general class of theories that Im calling attitudinal theories of pleasure is not to be
confused with a notable member of the class, the Attitudenal Theory of Pleasure (ATP) offered
by Fred Feldman.
8
On page 41, Brandt offers a more technical notion of pleasure in functionalist terms.
9
Plantinga ch. 2, throughout.
10
Stephen Davies develops a similar explanation for painful musical experience. Rather than
try to account for why we are so constituted to desire painful affect, at least in response to art,
he simply notes that this is just how we are.
11
Goldman explicitly avoids tying his notion of aesthetic experience to pleasure. Following
along the lines of Dewey, he adopts a view of aesthetic experience that involves a thorough
exercise of our various capacities. Deweys description of aesthetic experiences as involving
doings and sufferings is well-equipped to incorporate our experiences of painful art.
2

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Art and Negative Affect 55

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Journal Compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd