Why Artistic Value is not Aesthetic Value

This chapter argues that artistic value is a distinct kind of value from aesthetic value. Artistic value is a function of, and derived from, a plurality of more basic values, including, but not confined to, aesthetic value. Artworks are also valued as artworks for their cognitive value, ethical value, art-historical value, interpretation-centered value, and in other ways as well. To understand the artistic value of particular works requires understanding what the artist who makes the work is intending to do in it—what functions it is intended to fulfill or what it is intended to achieve. In order to defend this view, the chapter will show that artistic value is not reducible to aesthetic value.

Moral Norms and Nature Appreciation

This chapter asks whether there are moral norms that constrain aesthetic judgments about nature. There are two arguments for this view. The first appeals to the idea that degraded states of nature detract from their aesthetic value. This is an example of interaction. The other argues that aesthetic judgments can manifest disrespect for nature, which makes them defective or inappropriate. Call this idea respect for nature. I will consider each approach and show that arguments for such constraints have not been successful. I will then use elements from these approaches to make a case for the existence of a moral norm that bears on aesthetic judgments about nature. However, I conclude by arguing that this is only one of at least two competing potential moral norms that bear on these judgments, and it is equally reasonable to adopt either one in the face of degraded natural environments.

The Fundamental Problem of Environmental Aesthetics

The central issue in environmental aesthetics is whether there are norms that constrain aesthetic judgments about nature. This chapter will first explain why the search for constraints on aesthetic judgments about natural objects plays such a central role in environmental aesthetics. It will then try to figure out what kinds of norms might be invoked, and what principles or assumptions explain the choice of norms. The chapter considers two aspects of aesthetic judgment about which one might attempt to lay down some norms. One concerns the objects of aesthetic judgment. The other covers the background knowledge one needs to make appropriate or correct judgments. The chapter concludes by considering what role, if any, imagination and emotion play in such judgments.

Literature as Thought

This chapter has three main aims. The first is to argue for a modest view of the cognitive value of fiction in the context of the arts. This view asserts that we acquire from such works new conceptions or hypotheses that we then can test in the actual world. The second aim concerns the interaction of values. The claim we will make is that the kind of cognitive value typically possessed by representational art arises through the aesthetic experience of the work. The third aim is to argue against both more ambitious and more skeptical views about the cognitive value of fiction in art.

Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the book. It includes a chapter-by-chapter summary, a sketch of its central concepts, especially aesthetic value and artistic value, and an explanation of the importance of studying these concepts. It identifies the sense in which both the values mentioned above are universal human values. The chapter concludes with a discussion of value as a general notion. Aesthetic value is universal in the sense that most people are motivated to seek it out and that this desire can be fulfilled by a wide array of types of human experience. Art is universal because one will find painting, sculpting, ceramics, poetry, storytelling, music, dance in every culture that exists or has existed. If there are exceptions, there are very few. It is important to study these values because their universality indicates their great significance in our lives. But an equally important theme explores the way the aesthetic intersects with other values—especially ethical, cognitive, and functional ones. No important appreciative context or practice is completely centered on a single value, and such contexts can only be fully understood in terms of a plurality of values.

Artifacts

This chapter is about the aesthetics of everyday artifacts, in particular, on the role of an artifact’s function in aesthetically appreciating and evaluating it. First, I will argue that several distinguishable functions are relevant to the aesthetic appreciation of artifacts. Second, I will claim that, while we can identify something we might call functional aesthetic value or functional beauty, the aesthetic properties that contribute to this value neither need enhance the object’s performance of its primary function nor manifest that function. There are broader criteria for what properties are relevant to functional beauty. Finally, I suggest that the aesthetic appreciation of artifacts may contribute to a larger appreciative project: the understanding and evaluation of a way of life, or social, or cultural practices in which the artifact plays a role.

Aesthetic Value, Inversion, and the Ethical Properties of Artworks

This chapter investigates two phenomena where values plausibly interact within artworks. One is the case of purported aesthetic value ‘inversions’ within artworks. The other is the case of purported ethical-artistic value inversions within artworks. I hypothesize that one gets inversion in the valuable properties of artworks, when the properties in question are aesthetic properties. I will look for principles for evaluating artworks that best accommodate that fact of inversion. I will argue that there is a good candidate for such a principle, but it is neither a pro tanto nor a prima facie principle as they are ordinarily conceived. I will finally argue that some proponents of ethical-artistic inversion do indeed treat it as a species of aesthetic inversion.

Two Definitions of Artistic Value

This chapter compares two definitions of artistic value that accommodate its second order, pluralistic nature. The first, the composite view, defines this value in terms of the evolving functions of central art forms. The second, the buck-passing view, defines artistic value in terms of art forms (‘arts’) but instead of doing so by appealing the functions of artworks, it does so more directly in terms of ‘value of work as a k,’ for example, value of a work as a painting. The chapter argues that the chief objections to each definition can be answered. It concludes by assessing the comparative strengths and liabilities of each approach, but the main message is that there are multiple resources for sustaining a pluralistic approach to artistic value.

What is Aesthetic Value?

This chapter offers an answer to the question: what is aesthetic value? It defends aesthetic empiricism: the view that the primary bearer of aesthetic value are experiences and that other things have aesthetic value in virtue of their capacity to provide aesthetically valuable experiences. By way of answering criticisms of this conception of aesthetic value, it argues that it is coherent, that it is grounded in the history of thought about the aesthetic, and that it does not succumb to counterexamples. The chapter concludes by looking at the idea that aesthetic value should be defined instead in terms of aesthetic properties and argues that defensible versions of such an approach are consistent with a definition in terms of aesthetic experience.

Concluding Remarks

This chapter contains an overview of the main theses of the book. It concludes by hypothesizing that abundant aesthetic experience is an important aspect of well-being that has been little studied by psychologists. I urge more experimental work on this topic.