Autonomy and Aesthetic Engagement

Abstract

There seems to be a deep tension between two aspects of aesthetic appreciation. On the one hand, we care about getting things right. Our attempts at aesthetic judgments aim at correctness. On the other hand, we demand autonomy. We want appreciators to arrive at their aesthetic judgments through their own cognitive efforts, rather than through deferring to experts. These two demands seem to be in tension; after all, if we want to get the right judgments, we should defer to the judgments of experts. How can we resolve this tension? The best explanation, I suggest, is that aesthetic appreciation is something like a game. When we play a game, we try to win. But often, winning isn’t the point; playing is. Aesthetic appreciation involves the same flipped motivational structure: we aim at the goal of correctness, but having correct judgments isn’t the point. The point is the engaged process of interpreting, investigating, and exploring the aesthetic object. When one defers to aesthetic testimony, then, one makes the same mistake as when one looks up the answer to a puzzle, rather than solving it for oneself. The shortcut defeats the whole point. This suggests a new account of aesthetic value: the engagement account. The primary value of the activity of aesthetic appreciation lies in the process of trying to generate correct judgments, and not in having correct judgments.

Aesthetic hedonism and its critics

“…83–86), who notes that some (perhaps many!) aesthetic pleasures are “essential byproducts” of activities motivated by non‐hedonic considerations (see also Elster, , p. 77; Nguyen, ). I join the local Sunday evening drum circle on Vancouver's Spanish Banks; assume that I play as I have aesthetic reason to—my acute focus on coordinating with the group's beat is responsive to aesthetic values in the performance.…”

“…Goldie (, ) and Kieran () both advocate for an approach on which aesthetic normativity is cashed out on the model of a virtue‐based conception of aesthetic character. Nguyen () gestures towards a practice‐centered view in which the norms of aesthetic practices are contingently constructed around the value of active and effortful engagement with aesthetic goods, while the final value of such engagement accrues in turn from its expression of individual autonomy. Riggle (, pp.…”

Aesthetic Autonomy and Norms of Exposure

“…298–329, esp. 308–311; and C. Thi Nguyen (2020), ‘Autonomy and Aesthetic Engagement,’ Mind 129(516), pp. 1127–1156.…”

Aesthetic practices and normativity

“…Thus I deny that aesthetic value properties have a necessary connection to sensory perception. 9 Others who are happy to theorize aesthetic normativity without a full account of what makes aesthetic value aesthetic include McGonigal (2018) and Nguyen (2019). There are, admittedly, limits to this approach, limits that become particularly pressing for the hybrid-source account that I will go on to endorse, because some demarcation of the aesthetic will be necessary in order to unify the multiple sources as sources of aesthetic normativity.…”