Ethics and aesthetics are both spheres in which judgements of value (good and bad) and action (right and wrong) are made. This raises the question of how if at all they are aligned or interact. Is a morally repugnant film or novel aesthetically worse that a morally admirable one? Is a virtuous action beautiful, and a vicious one ugly? There are several views on these issues. According to moralism the moral character of an artwork is relevant to its aesthetic quality. According to autonomism they are entirely distinct. According to aestheticism the ethical character of an action may make it ‘fine’ or ‘beautiful’, (or ‘unfitting’ or ‘ugly’), while in opposition to this is another version of autonomism again separating the moral and the aesthetic. These matters have come to be discussed and debated because we do sometimes criticize art from a moral perspective and also describe virtue and vice in aesthetic terms. On the other hand, the two domains can seem to stand apart, as in the case of people of refined artistic capacity or aesthetic sensibility who may nevertheless be moral monsters, and people devoid of artistic sense and aesthetic feeling yet being models of moral goodness. A middle way through these positions may lie in saying that aesthetic or moral characteristics are relevant to but do not determine judgements in the other category.
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— Swarthmore College Works Philosophy Faculty Works 2003 Aesthetics And Ethics Richard Thomas Eldridge Swarthmore College, reldrid1 @swarthmore.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-philosophy Part of the Philosophy Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits you Philosophy Recommended Citation Richard Thomas Eldridge. (2003). "Aesthetics And Ethics". Oxford Handbook Of Aesthetics. 722-732. https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-philosophy/96 This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CHAPTER 43 AESTHETICS AND ETHICS RICHARD ELDRIDGE IT has never been easy to locate and identify values in relation to nature. The Greeks were already aware of the distinction between nomos, or variable custom, and physis, or the way things are. This sense of an opposition between what is culturally local and variable and what is fixed and given in nature has only grown sharper with the advent of modernity and the increasing credibility of materialist meta- physics. That birds lay eggs or that water quenches fire seem to be matters of fact, while that Bach's French Suites are beautiful or that Socrates is virtuous seem to be more problematic matters of value. At the same time, however, there is a great temptation to see such matters of value as at bottom matters of a special kind of fact. Making judgements of value is important to the conduct of cultural life, and there is enough consensus and argu- ment about them at least to suggest that such judgements indeed track something, rather than being reflexes of what one might call mere taste or idiosyncrasy. The disciplines of aesthetics and ethics have consisted largely of various strategies for locating and identifying the relevant special facts that are tracked by judgements of value, pre-eminently judgements of beauty and artistic goodness, and judgements of duty and goodness of character. Perhaps because of the shared contrast with judgements about the natural world or the putatively materially given, these discip- lines have often developed parallel stances and strategies in addressing the natures of values. This chapter will explore these parallels, emphasizing the side of aesthet- ics, and culminating in an assessment of a family of recent expressivist-holist views that dwell on continuities among aesthetic, ethical, and philosophical expression. AESTHETICS AND ETHICS 723 Value realism supposes value properties to be real and discernible features of objects. Both the beauties of nature and art and the goodnesses of characters and actions are held to be in the objects that are judged valuable, though it may take special discernment to see them. Trained visual perception of single objects pro- vides the model for the discernment of value properties. Plato notoriously accepts this model, and he equates beauty and moral goodness under the more general heading of to kalon: the fine. Value realism drifts towards intuitionism when the primary focus is on the objects of judgement. In ethics, intuitionist views have been held by the early twentieth- century philosophers W. D. Ross and H. A. Prichard. In aesthetics, Mary Mothersill has claimed that certain assumptions of Plato's 'that beauty is (i) a kind of good (ii) which can be possessed by items of any kind and (iii) which is linked with pleas- ure and inspires love... [are] basic in the sense that every theory has to take account of them and that they commend themselves to common sense... as fundamental truths' (Mothersill 1984: 262). Philip Pettit has similarly argued that aesthetic char- acterizations of objects as beautiful or grotesque, fine or flawed, dainty or dumpy, are genuine assertions about the properties of objects. Such characterizations are all at once essentially perceptual (one must look and see for oneself whether an object has an aesthetic feature), perceptually elusive (mere seeing of the object, without dis- cernment, will not suffice to determine its aesthetic properties), and dependent on positioning of the object in an unstable reference class of comparable objects. These features might suggest anti-realism. But because there are reasonable histor- ical and hermeneutic constraints on the positioning of an object in a reference class, aesthetic properties are real enough, and 'aesthetic characterizations... are... asser- toric in the strictest and most genuine sense of that term' (Pettit 1983: 38). The advantage of insisting that aesthetic or ethical properties are real and quasi- perceptually discernible is that the normativity of judgements of value is upheld. There is something in the object-whether a character, an action, or a work-that a judgement about the object gets right or wrong. The disadvantage of such insis- tence is that it risks under-appreciating dramatic historical and cultural shifts both in the vehicles of beauty and goodness and in the qualities needed to discern them. Subjectivity seems more present in both the production and the estimation of good characters and successful works than intuitionist views seem quite to allow. The beauty of a Greek temple seems different in kind from that of a Bartok quartet; the goodness of character of a Greek aristocrat seems different from that of a contem- porary democrat. To concede that aesthetic and ethical characterizations are con- text-relative, but to insist that they are about real features of things, seems like a defensive manoeuvre in the face of historical and cultural variability, an insistent but empty claim that correctness and incorrectness genuinely attach to judgements of value. Such views may not be wrong, but it is unclear how far their illumination penetrates into the details of our aesthetic and ethical practices and our critical judgements within them. 724 RICHARD ELDRIDGE A second, but closely related, form of value realism focuses more sharply on the special qualities of discernment possessed by apt aesthetic and ethical perceivers. The historical inspiration here is generally Aristotle rather than Plato, and attention is directed less towards fixed ideal qualities in objects than towards specific contex- tual judgements of the goodness or badness of individual things in art and in life. The significant revival of virtue ethics over the last forty years or so, by such figures as Philippa Foot, Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, Michael Stocker, Lawrence Blum, Michael Slote, and Martha Nussbaum, has been driven in large measure by particularism, or resistance to universal principles, coupled with a realist sense that the value properties of particulars can be discerned. (Both MacIntyre and Nussbaum have also articulated quite distinctive multi-dimensional general accounts of good human functioning.) On this view, our reasons for our specific judgements about value are enough to indicate that those judgements track some- thing real, at least when those reasons survive wide-ranging critical scrutiny. We need not accept that only what is physically measurable is real. As John McDowell puts it, 'What emerges here is the possibility that the explanation of [our] percep- tions as reflecting ways of life might not amount to an explaining away of what the perceptions purport to discover in reality' (McDowell 1983: 4, n. 5), however con- textually specific such perceptions might be. Hilary Putnam's internal realism sup- ports a similar stance about judgements of both aesthetic and ethical value. We need not and should not, Putnam remarks, eliminate 'the normative in favor of something else' (Putnam 1992: 79), in favour of judgements about matter that are 'really' objective. The costs for cultural life would be too high, and such judgements are metaphysically respectable. Among contemporary neo-Aristotelians, Martha Nussbaum has dealt in most detail with specific judgements about the values of both particular works of literature and particular actions in highly specific contexts. Though a general theory of the good and reference to principle are necessary as part of the background to such judgements, one must also be ""Finely Aware and Richly Responsible" (Nussbaum 1990: 148), in the manner of Henry James, in order to make genuinely discerning eth- ical judgements. The texture of the novelist's attention to details of motivation, char- acter, circumstance, tone, and style is what underwrites specific ethical assessment, against a background of principle. We seek, in ethical assessment, 'the best overall fit between a view and what is deepest in human lives' (p. 26), and Nussbaum's critical procedure extends this search for a fit to the evaluation of specific literary works. To the extent that these neo-Aristotelian value realisms offer multi-dimensional accounts of the good and very flexible appreciations of different virtues (of both character and art) in different contexts, they account well for the varieties of char- acters, actions, and works of art that we value. But it is not always easy to see exactly how the particularism fits with the objectivism. When there is that much variety in judgements of value, often indexed to local cultural or historical circumstance, then, even if it need not be true, the thought that such judgements are mere expressions of > AESTHETICS AND ETHICS 725 individual or social preference looms. When, in contrast, the overall theory of the good or the beautiful is given more shape and content, so that common features of beauty or goodness in different particulars are discernible, then the particularism lapses. The middle way, of course, is to weave together the ongoing articulation of the general theory with specific value assessments, as the meanings of the general terms of the theory are explored in the specific, partly improvisatory work of aes- thetic or ethical criticism. This is surely what Nussbaum has in mind when she remarks that the neo-Aristotelian style she practises will have to be 'self-conscious about its own lack of completeness, gesturing toward experience and toward the literary texts, as spheres in which a greater completeness should be sought' (Nussbaum 1990: 49). When this lack of completeness is emphasized, then the view verges more closely on the expressivist-holist views discussed below. One peculiarity of modern strategies in aesthetics, in contrast with ethics, is the emphasis on the role of feeling in the apprehension of art and beauty. We seem less inclined than the Greeks to talk of beauties of the character, action, or person that we love or are moved by, perhaps because we are shyer than the Greeks about erotic attractions and wish to keep them separate from either ethical or aesthetic assess- ments. Talk of being moved by art comes more naturally. The exact way, however, in which feelings matter for the identification and appre- ciation of art has been the subject of dispute. Most straightforwardly, feelings are sometimes regarded as means for both identifying and engaging with works of art. Judgements about art are here regarded, in Jerrold Levinson's apt phrase, as 'human- sensibility-indexed' (Levinson 1998a: 8). How we feel in apprehending an object is part of how we figure out what it is and how we rightly make use of it. Echoing Plato, but eschewing his comprehensive account of to kalon, Richard Miller argues that aesthetic judgements, involving feelings, are objective when and only when they are 'learning-like enough', yet without serving any 'interest in acquiring truths' or in making decisions (Miller 1998: 54). His idea is that by engaging with works of art we explore our capacities for feeling, and so learn something about ourselves, in particu- lar about our capacities and about the objects we might enjoy in the future. As Peter Railton puts it, 'we wish to create and surround ourselves with objects that can be rich sources of rich, perceptually based pleasure, objects moreover that will provide the occasion for shared pleasures among family and friends, that will call forth the admiration of others, and that will afford deeper satisfaction the better we know them' (Railton 1998: 78). Alan Goldman similarly argues that moral and aesthetic judgments refer to relations between nonevaluative properties (them- selves relational) of their objects and responses of ideally situated evaluators.... Attention to paradigm works educates one as to the sorts of aesthetic properties or relations to seek in other works themselves unique. Argument on a set of paradigms also establishes a reference class of critics who share taste.... Aesthetic education of this sort, while not as vital to the continuation of society as is moral education, is vital to the continuation of its culture. (Goldman 1990: 718, 730)
— Ethics, Aesthetics and Practical Philosophy John Haldane Abstract The development of interest among academic philosophers in the aesthetics of everyday life is somewhat analogous to the broader development in moral philosophy of 'applied' or practical ethics. This fact is sometimes mentioned but rarely examined and it may be useful, therefore, explore something of the course and causes of these two developments, in part better to understand them, but also to note blindspots and limitations in certain ways of thinking. In each case (though in different ways) these limitations are related to ignorance of past theory and practice. Exploring the parallels will also serve as a basis for suggesting how the two lines may now be brought together in a form of practical philosophy. I English-language moral philosophy in the broadly analytic mode might be said to have had two beginnings: both in Cambridge and in close succession. The first was with Sidgwick's Method of Ethics which John Rawls praised as the first truly academic work in moral philosophy (in English), modern both in its methods and in the spirit of its approach. ... It undertakes to provide a systematic 1 comparative study of moral conceptions ... 1 For Sidgwick, Ethics was moral theory, i.e., the attempt to find a systematic account of the justification of first order moral judgements, what Kant and Mill had both termed the foundations of morality. Within two years of the posthumous publication of its 6th edition, however, moral philosophy began a second new phase with the appearance of G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica in which attention was shifted from justification to semantic analysis: the question, how good is to be defined, is the most fundamental question in all Ethics the main object of Ethics, as a systematic science, is to give correct reasons for thinking that this or that is good; [but] unless this question be answered, such reasons cannot be given 2 While Sidgwick has since been recovered by Rawls, Derek Parfit, Peter Singer and others, he, and moral theory, were eclipsed for over half a century by the rapid rise and expansion of metaethics deriving from Moore's enquiry into the meaning of the predicate ‘good’. Insofar as moral theorizing continued to be done it also tended to be abstract, considering the merits of rival accounts of moral justification by reference to general principles of one kind or another, and its use of first order examples was limited and unimaginative. It was also unreflective of the possibility that its appeal to them was naïve in failing to consider that how they were to be described might itself raise philosophical questions about, on the one hand contextual significance and on the other theory-ladenness. Both issues came to be pressed by Alasdair MacIntyre, the first in his Short History of Ethics: 2 Moral philosophy is often written as though the history of the subject were only of secondary and incidental importance. This attitude seems to be the outcome of a belief that moral concepts can be examined and understood apart from their history. Some philosophers have even written as if moral concepts were a timeless, limited, unchanging, determinate species of concept, necessarily having the same features throughout their history ... In fact, of course, moral concepts change as social life changes. I deliberately do not write 'because social life changes,' for this might suggest that social life is one thing, morality another, and that there is merely an external, contingent causal relationship between them. This is obviously false. Moral concepts are embodied in and are partially constitutive of forms of social life.³ Dissatisfaction with the way in which moral philosophy was proceeding, disengaged from complex ethical, social and cultural issues of sorts that by the 1960s were challenging Western societies' conventional values, principles and practices, led some to begin to think about how philosophical ethics could help address questions that had become urgent in everyday life. Thus, began the practical turn. Here it is important, however, to distinguish two factors. First, awareness of, and often personal (non-academic) engagement with ethical controversies, and the feeling that philosophy ought to have something to contribute to these; and second, views about the ways in which it could and should do so. The latter is more than a matter of methodology for it bears on the nature of philosophy itself. The favoured move involved the idea of applied philosophy understood in terms of preexisting distinctions in other fields. This is clearly expressed in an essay by Leslie 3 Stevenson, contemporaneous with the practical turn in moral philosophy which may also have been one of the first occurrences, certainly as a title, of the expression 'Applied Philosophy'. He writes: I want to suggest that, although the popular demand for quick or simple answers is misconceived, there is a clear and important sense in which philosophy can be relevant to "the important questions of everyday life". I also want to suggest how, in these days [1970] of burgeoning universities, the vital need for the application of philosophy can be better met. That phrase, “the application of philosophy', already suggests the basis of my approach, namely a distinction between pure philosophy and applied philosophy, analogous in some ways to that between pure and applied mathematics, and in other ways to that between science and technology. . . . why should there not be a somewhat loosely defined discipline of applied philosophy, with a fuzzy borderline with pure philosophy on one side, and branching out into multifarious everyday problems on the other? 4 Two related points should be noted: First, the suggestion is presented as if there were not already a history of philosophical engagement with everyday issues, when in fact this was common from antiquity through until the nineteenth century: from Socrates to Mill. Indeed, it was the rise in the early twentieth century of a certain view of philosophy as disengaged conceptual and logical analysis, to which Moore's Principia gave encouragement, which broke that tradition, thereby leading to feelings mentioned above and to the complaint which Stevenson is addressing. 4 Second, the response presupposes a conception of the relation of philosophical reflection to everyday issues that retains, in the contrast between the pure and the applied, a notion of what philosophy primarily is that is questionable, arguably problematic and which constrains the understanding of how it might relate to everyday issues. To find an alternative we need only look to the earlier history of engagement and to the distinction drawn there between speculative or theoretical, and practical philosophy. That has its first conscious application in the work of Aristotle and it is in relation to this that the earliest uses of the expression ‘practical philosophy' occur. In the preface to his Commentary on Aristotle's Politics (c. 1270) Aquinas writes Since the whole that is the political community is subject to the judgment of reason, it was necessary for a complete philosophy to give instruction about the political community, instruction called politics or political science [civilis scientia]. We can understand what kind of science this is. For we distinguish practical from theoretical sciences in that the latter are directed only to the knowledge of truth, while the former are directed to action. Therefore, politics is necessarily included in practical philosophy [sub practica philosophia] since the political community is a whole, and human reason both knows it and acts regarding it.5 The theoretical/practical distinction is not merely an alternative classification to the pure/applied one; rather it involves a different way of thinking about how thought and practice are related. For the latter, philosophy's essential ('pure') work is complete in the formulation of theories, and the 5
— Can a work of art be defective aesthetically as art because it is defective morally? Étienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain both develop Thomistic accounts of the arts based on Aquinas’s distinction between the virtues of art and prudence, but they answer this question differently. Although their answers diverge, I will argue that both accounts make a crucial assumption about the metaphysics of goodness that Aquinas denies: that moral and aesthetic goodness are distinct species, not inseparable modes, of metaphysical goodness. I propose a new way to develop a Thomistic account of the arts that begins with Aquinas’s treatment of the three inseparable modes of metaphysical goodness: the virtuous, the useful, and the pleasant. This foundation seems metaphysically, methodologically, and explanatorily prior to the accounts of Gilson and Maritain, because art is a virtue, and virtue is related to goodness, and goodness is “divided” into three inseparable modes.
— Art and Morality: An Interview with Dr. Noël Carroll on Moderate Moralism In this episode I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Noel Carroll. Noël Carroll is a distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY (City University of New York) Graduate Center. He is known as one of the most important contemporary figures in Philosophy of Art. Dr. Carroll has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from New York University. In this episode, Dr. Carroll and I discussed the relationship between art and morality.
— Apostolic Letter Candor lucis aeternae of the Holy Father on the Seventh Centenary of the Death of Dante Alighieri, 25 March 2021
— Roger Scruton with D.C. Schindler and John F. Crosby on "Beauty in a World of Ugliness." October 10, 2018, at the Catholic University of America.
— Are music and morals connected? If so, what is the nature of that connection? Are certain musical sounds morally bad or good in themselves, or are they neutral? Could the influence of music on morality be of an indirect kind? Is there such a thing as a virtuous way of listening to music? Can music prepare us for the spiritual life? Do you have to be a good person to make beautiful music? I discuss these questions and more with theologian Fr. Basil Cole, O.P., an amateur jazz pianist who wrote his dissertation on the moral effects of music (not to be confused with another Fr. Basil who has also commented on the same subject!). Links Basil Cole, O.P. bio https://www.dominicanajournal.org/preacher-professor-and-author-extraordinaire/ Read Fr. Basil's dissertation https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=11968 Fr. Basil articles at CC https://www.catholicculture.org/search/resultslist.cfm?requesttype=docbrowseauth&resourcetype=1&catlabel=author&catid=85 Further recommended reading (not mentioned in episode): Elisabeth-Paule Labat, O.S.B., The Song That I Am: On the Mystery of Music https://amzn.to/2LemFYY Timestamps 3:16 Fr. Basil Cole interview 4:05 Fr. Basil’s musical background 10:01 Refuting the claim that certain musical sounds are intrinsically morally bad or good 12:20 Common misapplication of Plato’s theory of music 18:28 Does music imitate or express emotions? 20:05 Why certain personalities might feel threatened by musical creativity; the necessity of risk in art and the spiritual life 25:31 Why the philosophers have not understood music: it goes beyond reason and concepts 31:32 How good music teaches us to “rejoice rightly” 37:34 Music as school of contemplation 44:34 Beauty and morality: an indirect relationship; can music promote morality through happiness? 48:31 Temperance in listening to music 51:17 Is mediocre music morally degrading? 55:08 Using music to foster false identity and narcissistic sentimentality vs. true self-knowledge through contemplation 59:16 The vice of curiositas in music: music streaming tempts us to superficial musical gluttony 1:01:05 Curiositas: Over-analysis and musical snobbery 1:03:28 What Frank Serpico can teach us about music and integrity 1:06:38 Do you have to be a good person to make beautiful music? 1:10:50 What virtues does an artist need? 1:13:02 How to begin listening to music more deeply 1:15:47 This week’s excerpt: Sirach 32:5
— Fr. Basil Cole returns to discuss what he has been teaching the student brothers at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., in a course on the arts, contemplation and virtue. Links Episode 11: Music and Morals—Fr. Basil Cole, O.P. https://www.catholicculture.org/podcast/index.cfm?id=11 Fr. Basil’s dissertation, The Moral and Psychological Effects of Music: A Theological Appraisal https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=11968 Fr. Basil’s articles at Catholic Culture https://www.catholicculture.org/search/resultslist.cfm?requesttype=docbrowseauth&resourcetype=1&catlabel=author&catid=85 Readings mentioned: Jacques Maritain, Art and Scholasticism https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/art.htm Josef Pieper, Only the Lover Sings https://www.ignatius.com/Only-the-Lover-Sings-P1873.aspx Pope St. John Paul II, Letter to Artists https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=988&repos=1&subrepos=0&searchid=1905529 Pope Benedict XVI, Address to Artists https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=9187&repos=1&subrepos=0&searchid=1905530 Pope St. Paul VI, Address to Artists http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651208_epilogo-concilio-artisti.html Francis J. Kovach, Philosophy of Beauty https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Beauty-Frances-J-Kovach/dp/0806113634
— Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Menu Browse Table of Contents What's New Random Entry Chronological Archives About Editorial Information About the SEP Editorial Board How to Cite the SEP Special Characters Advanced Tools Contact Support SEP Support the SEP PDFs for SEP Friends Make a Donation SEPIA for Libraries Entry Navigation Entry Contents Bibliography Academic Tools Friends PDF Preview Author and Citation Info Back to Top Aesthetic Judgment First published Fri Feb 28, 2003; substantive revision Thu Feb 16, 2023 Beauty is an important part of our lives. Ugliness too. It is no surprise then that philosophers since antiquity have been interested in our experiences of and judgments about beauty and ugliness. They have tried to understand the nature of these experiences and judgments, and they have also wanted to know whether these experiences and judgments were legitimate. Both these projects took a sharpened form in the twentieth century, when this part of our lives came under a sustained attack in both European and North American intellectual circles. Much of the discourse about beauty since the eighteenth century had deployed a notion of the “aesthetic”, and so that notion in particular came in for criticism. This disdain for the aesthetic may have roots in a broader cultural Puritanism, which fears the connection between the aesthetic and pleasure. At one time, from the 1960s to the 1990s, even to suggest that an artwork might be good because it is pleasurable, as opposed to cognitively, morally or politically beneficial, was to court derision. (This is less true now.) The twentieth century was not kind to the notions of beauty or the aesthetic. Nevertheless, there were always some thinkers—philosophers, as well as others in the study of particular arts—who persisted in thinking seriously about beauty and the aesthetic. In the first part of this essay, we will look at the particularly rich account of judgments of beauty given to us by Immanuel Kant. The notion of a “judgment of taste” is central to Kant’s account and also to virtually everyone working in traditional aesthetics; so we begin by examining Kant’s characterization of the judgment of taste. In the second part, we look at the issues that twentieth century thinkers raised. In the third part, we consider disinterestedness, which is taken by Kant to be part of the judgment of taste. We end, in the fourth part, by drawing on Kant’s account of the judgment of taste to consider whether the notion of the aesthetic is viable. 1. The Judgment of Taste 1.1 Subjectivity 1.2 Normativity 1.3 Recasting Normativity 1.4 Normativity and Pleasure 1.5 Judgments of Taste and the Big Question 2. Other Features of Aesthetic Judgments 2.1 Aesthetic Truth 2.2 Mind-dependence and Nonaesthetic Dependence 2.3 On Which Non-aesthetic Properties Do Aesthetic Properties Depend? 2.4 Dependence and Lawlessness 2.5 The Primacy of Correctness 3. Disinterestedness 3.1 Disinterestedness: More and Less Ambitious 3.2 Problems with Disinterestedness 4. The Notion of the Aesthetic 4.1 Some Terminological Remarks 4.2 The Problem 4.3 A Hierarchical Proposal 4.4 Beauty and Sublimity 4.5 Aesthetic Morals Bibliography References Further Reading Academic Tools Other Internet Resources Related Entries 1. The Judgment of Taste What is a judgment of taste? Kant isolated two fundamental necessary conditions for a judgment to be a judgment of taste—subjectivity and universality (Kant 1790/2000). Other conditions may also contribute to what it is to be a judgment of taste, but they are consequential on, or predicated on, the two fundamental conditions. In this respect Kant followed the lead of Hume and other writers in the British sentimentalist tradition (Hume 1757/1985). 1.1 Subjectivity The first necessary condition of a judgment of taste is that it is essentially subjective. What this means is that the judgment of taste is based on a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. This distinguishes judgments of taste from empirical judgments. Central examples of judgments of taste are judgments of beauty and ugliness. Judgments of taste can be about art or nature. This subjectivist thesis would be over-strict if it were interpreted in an “atomistic” fashion, so that some subjective response corresponds to every judgment of taste, and vice versa. Sometimes one makes a judgment of taste on inductive grounds or on the basis of authority. But these cases indirectly rely on judgements made on the basis of subjective responses. A more holistic picture of the relation between response and judgment would preserve the spirit of the subjectivist doctrine while fitting our actual lives more accurately. The subjectivist doctrine needs to be refined in order to deal with the cases of induction and authority. But it must not be abandoned. The doctrine is basically right. However, it is not obvious what to make of the subjectivity of the judgment of taste. We need an account of the nature of the pleasure on which judgments of beauty are based. Beyond a certain point, this issue cannot be pursued independently of metaphysical issues about realism, for the metaphysics we favor is bound to affect our view of the nature of the pleasure we take in beauty. In particular, we need to know whether or not pleasure in beauty represents properties of beauty and ugliness that things possess. If not, does it involve the cognitive faculties that we deploy in understanding the world, as Kant thought? Or is it not a matter of the cognitive faculties, but a matter of sentimental reactions, which are schooled in various ways, as Hume and others thought? These are very hard questions. But there are some things we can say about the pleasure involved in finding something beautiful without raising the temperature too high. Kant makes various points about pleasure in the beautiful, which fall short of what we might call his “deep” account of the nature of pleasure in beauty, according to which it is the harmonious free play of the cognitive faculties, of imagination and understanding. According to Kant’s “surface” account of pleasure in beauty, it is not mere sensuous gratification, as in the pleasure of sensation, or of eating and drinking. Unlike such pleasures, pleasure in beauty is occasioned by the perceptual representation of a thing. (In contemporary terms, we would put this by saying that pleasure in beauty has an intentional content.) Moreover, unlike other sorts of intentional pleasures, pleasure in beauty is “disinterested”. This means, roughly, that it is a pleasure that does not involve desire—pleasure in beauty is desire-free. That is, the pleasure is neither based on desire nor does it produce one by itself. In this respect, pleasure in beauty is unlike pleasure in the agreeable, unlike pleasure in what is good for me, and unlike pleasure in what is morally good. According to Kant, all such pleasures are “interested”—they are bound up with desire. This is discussed in section 3 below. This is all important as far as it goes, but it is all negative. We need to know what pleasure in beauty is, as well as what it is not. What can be said of a more positive nature? 1.2 Normativity In order to see what is special about pleasure in beauty, we must shift the focus back to consider what is special about the judgment of taste. For Kant, the judgment of taste claims “universal validity”, which he describes as follows: … … if [someone] pronounces that something is beautiful, then he expects the very same satisfaction of others: he judges not merely for himself, but for everyone, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things. Hence he says that the thing is beautiful, and does not count on the agreement of others with his judgment of satisfaction because he has frequently found them to the agreeable with his own, but rather demands it from them. He rebukes them if they judge otherwise, and denies that they have taste, for he nevertheless requires that they ought to have it; and to this extent one cannot say, “Everyone has his special taste”. This would be as much as to say that there is no taste at all, i.e. no aesthetic judgment that could make a rightful claim to the assent of everyone. (Kant 1790, 5: 212–213 [2000: 98]; see also 2000: 164–166–139) Kant’s idea is that in a judgment of taste, we demand or require agreement from other human beings in a way we do not in our judgments about the niceness of Canary-wine, which is just a question of individual preference. In many cases, in matters of taste and beauty, we think that others ought to share our judgment, and we blame them if they don’t. This is because the judgment of taste has this aspiration to universal validity that it seems “as if [beauty] were a property of things”. Now, if the above quotation were all that Kant had to say by way of elucidating the judgment of taste, then he would not have said enough. For the following question is left hanging: why do we require that others share our judgment? We might want others to share our judgment for all sorts of strange reasons. Maybe we will feel more comfortable. Maybe we will win a bet. And if we say that they ought to judge a certain way, we need to say more. In what sense is this true? What if someone cannot appreciate some excellent work of art because they are grief-stricken? What if it would distract someone from some socially worthy project? Of what nature is this “ought”? We can recast the point about how we ought to judge in austere terms by saying that there is a certain normative constraint on our judgments of taste, which is absent in our judgments about the niceness of Canary-wine. The most primitive expression of this normativity is this: some are correct, others incorrect. Or perhaps, even more cautiously: some judgments are better than others. We do not think that something is beautiful merely to me, in the way that we might say that some things just happen to give me sensuous pleasure. Of course, we might well say “I think X is beautiful”, because we wish to express uncertainty, but where we judge confidently, we think of our judgment as being correct. And that means that we think that the opposite judgment would be incorrect. We assume that not all judgments of beauty are equally appropriate. “Each to their own taste” only applies to judgments of niceness and nastiness, which Kant calls “judgments of agreeableness” (see Kant 1790, 5: 212–213, 291–292 [2000: 97–98, 171–172]). Of course, some people just know about food. There are experts and authorities on making delicious food and in knowing what will taste good (Kant 1790, 5: 213 [2000: 98]). But what these people know is what will taste pleasurable to a certain kind of palate. In a sense, some things just do taste better than others, and some judgments of excellence in food are better than others. There is even a sense in which some are correct and others incorrect. Still, this is only relative to “normal” human beings. There is no idea of correctness according to which someone with very unusual pleasures and displeasure is at fault, or according to which the majority of human beings can be wrong. (Kant says that judgments of agreeableness have “general” but not “universal” validity; 1790, 5: 213 [2000: 213].) But in the case of judgments of taste or beauty, correctness is not hostage to what most people like or judge. We may say that it is a mistake to use much salt or sugar but that is only because it swamps the flavors that are enjoyed by most people. To say that a judgment of taste makes a claim to correctness might seem merely to shift from the problematic “ought” that is involved in a judgment of taste to a problematic “correctness” or “betterness”. This may be inevitable. We are dealing with a normative notion, and while some normative notions may be explainable in terms of others, we cannot express normative notions in non-normative terms. In some cases, the correctness of a judgment of taste may be impossibly difficult to decide. We may even think that there is no right answer to be had if we are asked to compare two very different things. But in many other cases, we think that there is a right and a wrong answer at which we are aiming, and that our judgments can be erroneous. If we do not think this, in at least some cases, then we are not making a judgment of taste—we are doing something else. It is true that there is a popular idea that is sometimes expressed by saying that no judgments of taste are really better than others. People sometimes say, “There is no right and wrong about matters of taste”. Others express a related thought by saying that beauty is “relative” to individual judgment or preference, or that it is “socially relative”. Such skeptical views have some following outside the academy, as well as in certain of the humanities. Many even express distaste for the idea that judgments of taste have a normative claim, as if that would be uncouth or oppressive. However, if we are describing our thought as it is, not how it ought to be, then there is no getting away from the fact that normativity is a necessary condition of judgments of taste or beauty. Two points should embarrass the skeptic: firstly, people who express anti-normativist skeptical views are merely theorizing. In the case of judgments of beauty, anti-normativist skepticism is out of step with practice, especially their own practice. As with moral relativism, one can almost always catch a professed skeptic about judgments of beauty making and acting on non-skeptical judgments of beauty—for example, in their judgments about music, nature and everyday household objects around them. Skeptics do not practice what they preach. Secondly, one thing that drives people to this implausible skepticism, which is so out of line with their own practice, is a perceived connection with tolerance or anti-authoritarianism. This is what they see as attractive in it. But this is upside-down. For if “it is all relative” and no judgment is better than any other, then relativists put their own judgments beyond criticism, and they cannot get it wrong. Only those who think that there is a right and wrong in judgment can modestly admit that they might be wrong. What looks like an ideology of tolerance is, in fact, the opposite. Some so-called “experimental philosophers” have questioned the thesis that judgments of taste aspire to correctness on the basis of empirical evidence about those who make judgments of taste (Cova & Pain 2012). But it is not clear that the empirical evidence cited supports that skeptical thesis. For the evidence is just that that the experimental subjects tick boxes that ask directly about correctness in judgment. But in psychological experiments there is a requirement of opacity of the point of an experiment to the experimental subjects (Hughes 2016). Furthermore, people often wax philosophical in a way that is out of step with their actual conceptual practice. For example, some beginners in introductory moral philosophy classes inconsistently claim that all moral views are equally correct, and that it is very bad to think otherwise. People who think in a certain way may be defective in self-knowledge, just as those who take part in social rituals may not be able to describe those rituals (see Zangwill 2019 for critical discussion). We should also bear in mind that the skeptical thesis would also be very surprising given that it departs from not just centuries but millennia of reflection on our aesthetic lives. The answers to questionnaires about correctness in judgment do not reveal the deep nature of people’s thoughts. 1.3 Recasting Normativity In the normative claim of judgments of taste, as formulated above, other people do not figure in the account. This is an austere explanation of what Kant meant, or perhaps of what he ought to have meant, when he said that the judgment of taste claims “universal validity”, by contrast with judgments about the niceness of Canary-wine. Given this account, we can explain the fact that we think that others ought to share our judgment. They ought to share it on pain of making a judgment which is incorrect or inappropriate. And this would be why we do in fact look to others to share our judgment; we do not want them to make incorrect judgments. It seems that Kant’s reference to other people in characterizing the normativity of judgments of taste has dropped out of the picture as inessential. However, it is not clear whether Kant would go along with this, for he characterizes normativity in a way that ties in with his eventual explanation of its possibility. Kant expresses the normative idea in a very particular way. He writes: [we] demand such assent universally (Kant 1790, 5: 214 [2000: 99]) And Kant says that the judgment of taste involves its validity for everyone. (Kant 1790, 5: 212 [2000: 97]) By contrast, Kant thinks that although we sometimes speak as if our judgments of the agreeable are universally valid (“Lamb tastes better with garlic”), in fact they are not: judgments of the agreeable appeal only to most but not to all people (Kant 1790, 5: 213 [2000: 98]). However, the austere characterization attempts to catch a more basic idea of normativity—one that might serve as the target of rival explanations. In order to explain how subjectively universal judgments are possible, Kant has a complicated story about the harmonious interplay of the cognitive faculties—imagination and understanding—which he thinks constitutes pleasure in beauty (Kant 1790, 5: 219 [2000: 104]). This “deep” account of pleasure in beauty is highly controversial and not particularly plausible (see Budd 2001). But we can see why Kant gives it. For Kant, the normative claim of the judgment of taste has its roots in the more general workings of our cognitive faculties, which Kant thinks we can assume others share. Thus, we have the beginnings of an explanation of how such a pleasure can ground a judgment that makes a universal claim. However, Kant does not have much to say about the nature of the “universality” or normativity that is being explained by such a speculative account of pleasure in beauty. It is no accident that Kant phrases the obligation in interpersonal terms, considering where he is going. And it is no great fault on his part that he does so. But for our purposes, we need to separate what is being explained from its explanation. For if Kant’s explanation does not work, we want to be left with a characterization of the normativity he was trying to explain. We need to separate Kant’s problem from his solution, so that the former is left if the latter fails. There may be alternative solutions to his problem. 1.4 Normativity and Pleasure As described, normativity attaches to judgments of taste themselves. What does this imply for pleasure in beauty? Since judgments of taste are based on responses of pleasure, it would make little sense if our judgments were more or less appropriate but our responses were not. The normative claim of our judgments of taste must derive from the fact that we think that some responses are better or more appropriate to their object than others. Responses only license judgments which can be more or less appropriate because responses themselves can be more or less appropriate. If I get pleasure from drinking Canary-wine and you do not, neither of us will think of the other as being mistaken. But if you don’t get pleasure from Shakespeare’s Sonnets, I will think of you as being in error—not just your judgment, but your liking. I think that I am right to have my response, and that your response is defective. Someone who thinks that there is, in Hume’s words, “an equality of genius” between some inferior composer, on the one hand, and J. S. Bach, on the other, has a defective sensibility (Hume 1757 [1985: 230]). Roger Scruton puts the point well when he says: When we study [the Einstein Tower and the Giotto campanile] … our attitude is not simply one of curiosity, accompanied by some indefinable pleasure or satisfaction. Inwardly, we affirm our preference as valid…. (Scruton 1979: 105) This is the reason why we demand the same feeling from others, even if we do not expect it. We think that our response is more appropriate to its object than its opposite. And, in turn, this is why we think that our judgment about that object is more correct than its opposite. The normativity of judgment derives from the normativity of feeling. But how can some feelings be better or worse than others? To answer this question, we need to ask: how far does the normativity of judgments of taste inhere in the feeling itself? The realist about beauty will say that the feeling has normativity built into it in virtue of its representational content; the feelings themselves can be more or less veridical. Pleasure in beauty, for example, has as its object the property of beauty; we find the beauty pleasurable. A Humean sentimentalist will probably say that normativity is something we somehow construct or foist upon our pleasures and displeasures, which have no such content. And Kant has his own account, which appeals to cognitive states that are not beliefs. The issue is controversial. However, what we can say for sure is that it is definitive of pleasure in beauty that it licenses judgments that make claim to correctness. Beyond this, there will be theoretical divergence. This normativity is definitive of the judgment of taste, and is its second defining characteristic, which we should add to the fact that it is based on subjective grounds of pleasure or displeasure. 1.5 Judgments of Taste and the Big Question We can sum things up like this: judgments of taste occupy a mid-point between judgments of niceness and nastiness, and empirical judgments about the external world. Judgments of taste are like empirical judgments in that they have universal validity, but they are unlike empirical judgment in that they are made on the basis of an inner subjective response. Conversely, judgments of taste are like judgments of niceness or nastiness in that they are made on the basis of an inner subjective response, but they are unlike judgments of niceness and nastiness, which make no claim to universal validity. To cut the distinctions the other way: in respect of normativity, judgments of taste are like empirical judgments and unlike judgments of niceness or nastiness, but in respect of subjectivity, judgments of taste are unlike empirical judgments and like judgments of niceness or nastiness. So, we have a three-fold division: empirical judgments, judgments of taste, and judgments of niceness or nastiness. And judgments of taste have the two points of similarity and dissimilarity on each side just noted. As Kant recognized (more or less following Hume), all this is a point from which to theorize. The hard question is whether, and if so how, such a subjectively universal judgment is possible. On the face of it, the two characteristics are in tension with each other. Our puzzle is this: what must be the nature of pleasure in beauty if the judgments we base on it can make claim to correctness? This is the Big Question in aesthetics. Kant’s problem was the right one, even if his solution was not. However, our hope thus far has been to get clearer about what it is that is under scrutiny in this debate. Once we are armed with a modest account of what a judgment of taste is, we can then proceed to more ambitious questions about whether or not judgments of taste represent real properties of beauty and ugliness, and if not, how else the normativity of aesthetic judgment is to be explained. We can even consider whether or not our whole practice of making judgments of taste is defective and should be jettisoned. But first things first. 2. Other Features of Aesthetic Judgments There is more to aesthetic judgment than just subjectivity and normativity, and this should be described more fully. The following is a survey of a number of other candidate features of aesthetic judgments: truth, mind-independence, nonaesthetic dependence, and lawlessness. 2.1 Aesthetic Truth The normativity of aesthetic judgments can be recast in terms of a particular conception of aesthetic truth. For some purposes, it is useful to do this. It might be thought that deploying the idea of aesthetic truth commits us to the existence of an aesthetic reality. But this springs from the assumption that a strong correspondence conception of truth is all there ever is to truth in any area where we might employ the notion. In many areas—scientific and psychological thought, for example—a strong correspondence conception of truth is likely to be in question. However, the conception of truth applicable in aesthetics might be one according to which truth only implies the sort of normativity described above, according to which there are correct and incorrect judgments of taste, or at least that some judgments are better than others. If we deploy the notion of truth, we might express the normative idea by saying if a judgment is true then its opposite is false. Or we might say that the law of non-contradiction applies to aesthetic judgments: there are some aesthetic judgments such that they and their negations cannot both be true. This principle need not hold of all judgments of taste, so long as it holds of a significant proportion of them. Such a normative conception of truth is stronger than a notion of truth which is merely a device for “semantic assent”; that is, normative truth is more than thin “disquotational” truth, according to which the notion of truth is merely a device for semantic ascent. Thus we can say “x is beautiful’ is true if and only if x is beautiful. Even judgments of the agreeable, about the niceness of Canary-wine, can have access to an inconsequential disquotational conception of truth. We can say “Canary-wine is nice’ is true if and only if Canary-wine is nice” without raising the temperature. However, judgments about the niceness of Canary-wine do not aspire to a normative conception of truth. There are no right and wrong answers to the question of whether Canary-wine really is nice. And so, of neither the judgment that it is nice nor the judgment that it is not nice can it be said that if it is true then its opposite is false. But this is what we do say of some aesthetic judgments. However, although we can cast aesthetic normativity in terms of truth, we need not do so. Aesthetic “truth”, in fact, adds little to the notion of correctness that we have already encountered. We can do without the word “true”. We can say that something cannot both be beautiful and ugly (in the same respect at the same time), and that if something is beautiful then it is not ugly (in the same respect at the same time).[1] 2.2 Mind-dependence and Nonaesthetic Dependence Given an understanding of the normativity of judgments of taste—which we might or might not express in terms of aesthetic truth—we can and should add some further normative features. One such feature is mind-independence. Mind-independence is best expressed as a negative thesis: whether something is beautiful does not depend on my judgment. Thinking it so does not make it so. This can be re-expressed in conditional terms: it is not the case that if I think something is beautiful then it is beautiful. This is common sense. For example, most of us think that our judgments have improved since we were younger. We think that some of our past judgments were in error. Thinking it so, at that time, did not make it so. Perhaps some more complicated, sophisticated mind-dependence thesis holds; but a simple mind-dependence claim flouts common sense. We also think that beauty, ugliness and other aesthetic properties depend on nonaesthetic properties. Dependence contrasts with mind-independence in that it says what aesthetic properties do depend on, as opposed to what they do not depend on: the aesthetic properties of a thing depend on its nonaesthetic properties. This dependence relation implies (but is not identical with) the supervenience relation or relations: (a) two aesthetically unlike things must also be nonaesthetically unlike; (b) something could not change aesthetically unless it also changed nonaesthetically; and (c) something could not have been aesthetically different unless it were also nonaesthetically different. These are, respectively: cross-object supervenience, cross-time supervenience, and cross-world supervenience. (“Supervenience” has often been discussed under the heading of “dependence” but they are distinct relations, related in a complex way.) Sibley’s papers “Aesthetic Concepts” and “Aesthetic/Nonaesthetic” were pioneering discussions of the dependence of the aesthetic on the nonaesthetic (Sibley 1959, 1965). (It is interesting that he never described the dependence in modal terms.) This claim is very intuitive, but let us try to say something more in support of it. It seems to be a deep fact about beauty and other aesthetic properties that they are inherently “sociable”; beauty cannot be lonely. Something cannot be barely beautiful; if something is beautiful then it must be in virtue of its nonaesthetic properties. Furthermore, knowing this is a constraint on our judgments about beauty and other aesthetic properties. We cannot just judge that something is beautiful; we must judge that it is beautiful in virtue of its nonaesthetic properties. We usually do so, and not to do so is bizarre. (Even in cases of testimony, we think that the aesthetic properties of a thing hold in virtue of nonaesthetic properties that the aesthetic expert knows.) Of course, we might not have in mind every single nonaesthetic property of the thing, nor know exactly how the nonaesthetic properties produce their aesthetic effects. But we think that certain nonaesthetic properties are responsible for the aesthetic properties and that without those nonaesthetic properties, the aesthetic properties would not have been instantiated. Beauty does not float free, and recognizing this is constitutive of aesthetic thought. Our aesthetic thought, therefore, is fundamentally different from our thought about colors, with which it is often compared. Perhaps colors are tied in some intimate way to intrinsic or extrinsic physical properties of the surfaces of things, such as reflectance properties. But color thought does not presuppose this. Someone might even think that colors are bare properties of things. But one cannot think that beauty is bare; it is essential to aesthetic thought to realize that the aesthetic properties of a thing arise from its nonaesthetic properties. The principles of correctness, mind-independence and dependence can be phrased in the property mode or in terms of truth. We can cast them either way. We can say that whether something is beautiful does not depend on what we think about it, but it does depend on its nonaesthetic features. Or we can equally well say that the truth of aesthetic judgments is independent of our aesthetic judgments but it is dependent on nonaesthetic truths. Semantic ascent changes little. 2.3 On Which Non-aesthetic Properties Do Aesthetic Properties Depend? Some have argued that what aesthetic properties depend on (their “dependence base”) extends beyond the intrinsic physical and sensory features of the object of aesthetic assessment (for example Walton 1970), who follows Gombrich 1959, especially p. 313). On this view, the nonaesthetic dependence base always includes “contextual properties”—matters to do with the origin of the work of art, or other works of art. Others dispute this (Zangwill 1999). This is one aspect of debates over formalism in many domains. These issues are both central theoretical commitments as well as reflecting substantive aesthetic differences in the approach to making and appreciating various arts, as well as the aesthetics of nature. But such debates all presuppose that some dependence thesis holds. The controversial questions are about the extent of the dependence base of aesthetic properties, not whether aesthetic properties have some nonaesthetic dependence base. One view is that aesthetic properties depend on the appearances of things—the way things look or sound, for example (see Mitrović 2013, 2018). If so, there is a sense in which aesthetic properties are mind-dependent, since appearances are appearances to some observer. However, some say that there can be aesthetic properties of abstract objects such as mathematical or logical proofs or structures. Others say that ideas or concepts in conceptual art may be the bearers of aesthetic properties. (Schellekens 2007). Those aesthetic properties would be mind-independent. The question of the aesthetic properties of abstract objects is a controversial one (Kivy 1991, Barker 2009). 2.4 Dependence and Lawlessness Thus far we have been making positive claims about features of aesthetic judgments. Let us now consider the claim that there are no interesting nonaesthetic-to-aesthetic laws or principles, and the claim that an aesthetic/nonaesthetic dependence relation can obtain, even though there are no such interesting laws or principles. Here “interesting” laws or principles means generalizations to the effect that anything of such and such a nonaesthetic kind is of such and such aesthetic kind, and these generalizations can be used to predict aesthetic properties on the basis of knowledge of nonaesthetic properties. In this sense, many find it plausible that there are no laws of taste and aesthetic properties are anomalous. The problem of the source of correctness in aesthetic judgment is independent of the question of whether there are laws, rules or principles of taste. There is no reason to think that the possibility of correct or true judgments depends on the existence of laws, rules or principles from which we can deduce our correct or true judgments.[2] Nevertheless, the anomalousness of aesthetics is worth thinking about in its own right. Many aestheticians agree that the aesthetic is anomalous in the above sense. But they are not agreed on the explanation of anomalousness. A notable exception to this consensus is Monroe Beardsley, who claims—heroically and extraordinarily—that there are exactly three aesthetic principles: things are aesthetically excellent either by being unified or intense or complex (Beardsley 1958: chapter XI). However, Beardsley’s “trinitarian” position faces difficulties similar to those faced by moral philosophers who appeal to “thick” concepts. If Beardsley insists on a lawlike connection between his three thick substantive aesthetic properties (unity, intensity and complexity) and aesthetic value, he can only do so at the cost of conceding anomalousness between the three thick substantive aesthetic properties and nonaesthetic properties. There are three layers and one can hold onto laws between the top and middle layers only by losing laws between the middle and bottom layers. Maybe intensity is always aesthetically good, but there are no laws about what makes things intense. Granting the anomalousness of aesthetic properties, then, we need to explain it. There is much plausibility in Hume and Kant’s suggestion that what explains the anomalousness of the aesthetic is the first feature of judgments of taste—that judgments of taste are essentially subjective, unlike ordinary empirical judgments about physical, sensory, or semantic properties (Hume 1757 [1985: 231–232]; Kant 1790, 5: 213–216, 281–286 [2000: 99–101, 136–142, 162–167]). This is why the two sorts of concepts are not “nomologically made for each other” (as Donald Davidson [1970] says about mental and physical concepts). How can we bring an essentially subjective range of judgments nomologically into line with a range of empirical judgments? The two kinds of judgments answer to quite different sets of constraints. Frank Sibley observed that aesthetic concepts are not positively “condition-governed” (Sibley 1959). And Mary Mothersill claimed that there are no laws of taste. But neither did much to explain those facts. The appeal to subjectivity explains what Sibley and Mothersill notice and describe. Indeed, Mothersill writes of her “First Thesis” (FT) that there are no genuine principles or laws of taste: “…FT is central to aesthetics, and there is nothing more fundamental from which it could be derived” (Mothersill 1984: 143). But it seems that it can be derived from the subjectivity of judgments of taste. This kind of anomalousness is one thing, dependence or supervenience another. Even though aesthetic properties are anomalous, they depend and supervene on nonaesthetic properties. Many find such a combination of relations uncomfortable outside aesthetics, such as in moral philosophy and the philosophy of mind. Yet there seem to be good reasons to embrace both principles in aesthetics. Both are firmly rooted in ordinary aesthetic thought. 2.5 The Primacy of Correctness Aesthetic judgments have certain essential features, and corresponding to those features are certain principles. We can group correctness, mind-independence, and nonaesthetic dependence together. However, it does no harm to focus on the feature of correctness or universal validity for this is the most basic of the features. If aesthetic judgments did not claim correctness or universal validity, they could not claim the other features. If explaining correctness or universal validity is a problem, then so is explaining mind-independence and dependence. But clearly there is a problem about explaining all three features. Why does our aesthetic thought have these three features and thus operate according to these three principles? And what is the source of the right of aesthetic judgments to them? Hume and Kant spend much mental effort on these questions. These presuppositions of aesthetic judgments need to be explained and justified. Given that our aesthetic judgments have these commitments, we need to know how such judgments are possible, how they are actual, and how they are legitimate. Having described and analyzed, as we have done here, we need to explain and justify. But, as noted earlier, we first need a good description of what we are trying to explain and justify. 3. Disinterestedness 3.1 Disinterestedness: More and Less Ambitious An idea that plays a large role in Kant’s discussion of the subjective universality of the judgment of taste is that of disinterestedness; and the idea has appealed to many. Kant makes two claims: (a) that pleasure in the beautiful is “disinterested”; and (b) that only pleasure in the beautiful is “disinterested” (Kant 1790, 5: 204–210 [2000: 90–96: 42–50]). These claims are important for Kant’s project, for Kant connects disinterestedness with the claim to universal validity of the judgment of taste. Before we go any further, it is important to recognize that the German word “interesse” has a special meaning in eighteenth century German, and it should not be confused with similar sounding English words or contemporary German words. For Kant, an interesse means a kind of pleasure that is not connected with desire; it is neither grounded in desire, nor does it produce it. We should distinguish Kant’s more ambitious thesis that only pleasure in the beautiful is disinterested from his less ambitious claim simply that pleasure in the beautiful is disinterested—for it seems that there could in principle be other disinterested pleasures. The less ambitious claim, however, is controversial enough. A relatively uncontroversial part of the less ambitious claim is that pleasure in the beautiful is not grounded in the satisfaction of
— Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P., Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Dominican House of Studies 2018 Napa Institute Conference #Evangelization #Clergy #TheChurch #Tradition
Ethics and aesthetics are both spheres in which judgements of value (good and bad) and action (right and wrong) are made. This raises the question of how if at all they are aligned or interact. Is a morally repugnant film or novel aesthetically worse that a morally admirable one? Is a virtuous action beautiful, and a vicious one ugly? There are several views on these issues. According to moralism the moral character of an artwork is relevant to its aesthetic quality. According to autonomism they are entirely distinct. According to aestheticism the ethical character of an action may make it ‘fine’ or ‘beautiful’, (or ‘unfitting’ or ‘ugly’), while in opposition to this is another version of autonomism again separating the moral and the aesthetic. These matters have come to be discussed and debated because we do sometimes criticize art from a moral perspective and also describe virtue and vice in aesthetic terms. On the other hand, the two domains can seem to stand apart, as in the case of people of refined artistic capacity or aesthetic sensibility who may nevertheless be moral monsters, and people devoid of artistic sense and aesthetic feeling yet being models of moral goodness. A middle way through these positions may lie in saying that aesthetic or moral characteristics are relevant to but do not determine judgements in the other category.