Social Aesthetic Goods and Aesthetic Alienation

Philosophers' Imprint 24 (2024)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The aesthetic domain is a social one. We coordinate our individual acts of creation, appreciation, and performance with those of others in the context of social aesthetic practices. More strongly, many of the richest goods of our aesthetic lives are constitutively social; their value lies in the fact that individuals are engaged in joint aesthetic agency, participating in cooperative and collaborative project that outstrips what can be realized alone. I provide an account of nature and value of two such social aesthetic goods—aesthetic communities and aesthetic traditions—and further argue that such goods are a core constituent of an aesthetically good life. At the same time, I argue that the ideals of the dominant theory of aesthetic value, aesthetic value hedonism, are incompatible with a full commitment to these social aesthetic goods; the hedonist is thereby alienated from the other participants within aesthetic communities and traditions. This sets up a dilemma for the hedonist: either the hedonist must bite the bullet, accepting that the theory leads to a problematic form of aesthetic alienation; or, we must reject aesthetic value hedonism and adopt a different theory of aesthetic value which accommodates the value of social aesthetic goods. I argue that we should take the second horn of the dilemma.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Aesthetic Value and the Practice of Aesthetic Valuing.Nick Riggle - 2024 - The Philosophical Review 133 (2):113–149.
Précis of Being for Beauty: Aesthetic Agency and Value.Dominic McIver Lopes - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (1):209-213.
Experts in Aesthetic Value Practices.Dominic McIver Lopes - 2024 - In Mirko Farina, Andrea Lavazza & Duncan Pritchard (eds.), Expertise: Philosophical Perspectives. Oxford University Press. pp. 213-231.
Autonomy and aesthetic valuing.Nick Riggle - 2024 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (I):391-409.
Knowledge of things and aesthetic testimony.Chris Ranalli - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
Two Dogmas of Aesthetic Empiricism.Dominic McIver Lopes - 2021 - Metaphilosophy 52 (5):583-592.
Essays on Aesthetic Cognitivism.Jeremy Page - 2024 - Dissertation, Uppsala University
The Interactions of Function and Aesthetic Value in Artifacts.Robert Stecker - 2019 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 96 (1):19-36.

Analytics

Added to PP
2023-03-22

Downloads
866 (#26,653)

6 months
327 (#6,309)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Anthony Cross
Texas State University

Citations of this work

Varieties of Aesthetic Autonomy.Irene Martínez Marín - 2024 - Philosophy Compass 19 (12):e70012.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Alienation, consequentialism, and the demands of morality.Peter Railton - 1984 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 13 (2):134-171.
Being for Beauty: Aesthetic Agency and Value.Dominic Lopes - 2018 - Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Toward a Communitarian Theory of Aesthetic Value.Nick Riggle - 2022 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 80 (1):16-30.
Aesthetic practices and normativity.Robbie Kubala - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (2):408–425.

View all 30 references / Add more references