Preview Response

Justice / Fine & Performing Arts

Daniel Chua

Mr & Mrs Hung Hing-ying Professor in the Arts, Professor and Chair of Music, University of Hong Kong

President, International Musicological Society

Beethoven and the question of human freedom is not (as is often thought) about will and power (heroic and Promethean) but also about relations and therefore ‘first order’ justice. We could consider Beethoven’s humanism as an expression of ‘first order’ justice, even in something as seemingly simple as the expression mark in his Opus 110 sonata: con amibilità.

What does it mean for NASA to ‘come in peace’? Does sending music on the Voyager space probes say something about this peace which surely resonates with the question of ‘first order’ justice (but now extended beyond our species)!