Aestheticism

Abstract

Abstract This chapter treats aestheticism, according to which moral evaluations sometimes depend wholly or partially on aesthetic evaluations. Because the view does not yet have many self-professed adherents, much of the taxonomizing in this chapter is somewhat speculative. The chapter classifies existing and possible variants of the view with reference to two questions: the relation question, which asks after the nature of the relation between the moral and the aesthetic, and the relata question, which asks after the nature of the entities in the relevant relation. While strong aestheticists answer the relation question by maintaining that aesthetic value gives rise to ethical value, weak aestheticists hold that aesthetic evaluations imply ethical evaluations. When it comes to the relata question, though aestheticism is most often formulated as a thesis about the aesthetic and ethical value of artworks in particular, it is sometimes formulated as a thesis about aesthetic value and ethical value more generally.