On Liking Aesthetic Value

Abstract

According to tradition, aesthetic value is non‐contingently connected to a certain feeling of liking or pleasure. Is that true? Two answers are on offer in the field of aesthetics today: 1. The Hedonist answers: Yes, aesthetic value is non‐contingently connected to pleasure insofar as this value is constituted and explained by the power of its possessors to please (under standard conditions). 2. The Non‐Affectivist answers: No. At best, pleasure is contingently related to aesthetic value. The aim of this paper is to point to a blind spot in the dialectic between these two standard positions by defending a third neglected answer to the question above, the answer of the Value‐Meriting‐Pleasure [VMP] advocate. According to this answer, a certain kind of (cognitive and responsive) pleasure is connected to aesthetic value non‐contingently, but also non‐hedonically. VMP is the view that objects of aesthetic value are non‐contingently related to pleasure insofar as they merit a certain kind of pleasure. But, pace the hedonist, those objects are valuable (those that are to be engaged with etc.) neither on account of their capacity to give pleasure nor on account of the hedonic value of the attitude they merit.