Overview
In this final part of the book we turn to three areas of aesthetic practice that raise unavoidable ethical as well as aesthetic issues. If we are to do justice to both the aesthetics and ethics of scenting bodies, places, and foods, we will need an understanding of aesthetic experience and judgment that goes beyond views of aesthetics based primarily on the appreciation of the fine arts. On the one hand, not even all fine artworks have been meant to be experienced purely aesthetically, but also to engage us morally, religiously, or politically. On the other hand, aesthetic experience itself has always been concerned with nature, design, and everyday life in addition to the arts. Although Kant’s aesthetic was framed with nature as well as the arts in mind, from Hegel down into the late twentieth century philosophical aesthetics focused most of its attention on the fine arts. But thanks to the pioneering work of Ronald Hepburn, Arnold Berleant, Allen Carlson, and others, the aesthetics of nature has received increased attention in recent decades. We will consider some of this work in a later interlude on smell in nature. In the case of design and everyday life, which will be the main concern of ...