Aesthetics and Ethics: Basic Concepts
Aesthetics and Ethics: Basic Concepts
This chapter clarifies the concepts of the aesthetic and ethical. It asks what aesthetic concepts, as listed in Sibley's account, have in common. It criticizes aesthetic attitude theories, such as those by Scruton and Stolnitz, which are inspired by Kant; and it also rejects theories of the aesthetic due to Beardsley and Alan Goldman. Instead, it develops an artistic theory of the aesthetic, which holds that the aesthetic properties of artworks are their evaluative properties that give them their value qua artworks. It also distinguishes two notions of the ethical, and the narrower one is understood in terms of a subset of character virtues, distinguished by the nature of the concern they manifest towards other people.
Keywords: aesthetic attitude, artistic value, Beardsley, ethical, Kant, Scruton, Sibley, virtues
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