another interesting background find in my digging around the Chicago School.

The trouble with this argument is that the aesthetic is simply evaporated or absorbed by the ethical.

Sure, criticism should investigate & evaluate the ethical aspect of works of art - no doubt about that! But a work of art sheds light on moral issues by means which are aesthetic. Our response, & its purpose, are an indivisible synthesis of the two (aesthetics & ethics). Yet, by the same token, the aesthetic criteria of beauty are not measurable using ethical categories (wouldn't 'Arrystotle agree?).