Full Idea
Our having reason not to respond in the way prescribed (because it is unethical) is a failure of the work …so that is an aesthetic failure, which is an aesthetic defect.
Gist of Idea
If we don't respond ethically in the way a work prescribes, that is an aesthetic failure
Source
Berys Gaut (The Ethical Criticism of Art [1998], 'Merited')
Book Reference
'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art (Analytic trad)', ed/tr. Lamarque,P/Olsen,SH [Blackwell 2004], p.290
A Reaction
A key argument for Gaut's theory of 'ethicism' about literature. If 'Triumph of the Will' gets the right response from Nazi sympathisers, that is probably all aesthetic success. Jane Austen hasn't failed if she is rejected as bourgeois.