Karma Police, Arrest This Artist! On Cancel Culture and "Deplatforming"

Abstract

This paper was originally written for Dr. Alexandra King’s PHIL 321 course Topics in Moral Philosophy: Ethical Issues in Art. The assignment asked students to write a 2,500 word paper engaging with the course texts which were on various ethical issues in art. The paper uses MLA citation style.

In this paper, I argue that cancellation is an effective method for “punishing” immoral artists when we aim at “deplatforming” them, or in other words, removing their ability to influence and reach individuals on a widescale. I first describe my conception of cancellation, platforms, and immoral artists before explaining why it is untrue that cancellation fails to accomplish our goals and why “deplatforming” will result in a precedent for future artists, decreasing harms caused by those in the public eye.