Q: Curt: Is The Occupation of Artist a Moral One?

Objective Morality consists of prohibitions on the impositions of costs upon others that would provide a disincentive for cooperation.

We produce many norms that we treat as morality, just as we produce political commands that we treat as law.

But norms are not necessarily moral, and legislation is rarely law.

We also conflate heroism with morality. Which despite being two sides of the same coin, are opposites.

Heroism consists in contributing to the commons. Morality in not privatizing the commons (parasitism).

So an artist can be heroic or not, and an artist can be moral or not.

He can be heroic and moral.

He can be moral but not heroic.

It is quite hard to be heroic and immoral. They tend to cancel each other out.

So if an artist is not living parasitically, is producing art that is not immoral, and attempting to contribute to the commons, he is moral and heroic.