Aesthetics in Philosophy: Art, Beauty & the Sublime Explained

This lecture explores the philosophical debate between autonomism and moralism regarding the relationship between art and morality. Autonomism argues that aesthetic value is independent of moral considerations, while moralism holds that moral value should determine artistic worth. The lecture examines radical and moderate versions of both positions, using examples like Oscar Wilde's 'Art for Art's Sake' and Leo Tolstoy's views to illustrate how different philosophical frameworks approach evaluating art's value.

Art does not have to be moral, ethical, or beautiful. Art is not a quality that exists to educate or transmit good values. An immoral work does not cease to be art, though its aesthetic quality can still be criticized. The question of whether aesthetic value should be determined by moral value has generated debates between moralism (art's value must be reduced to its moral value) and autonomism (art should be evaluated only with aesthetic criteria). Both positions are problematic. Historical examples like Inca child sacrifices (capacocha) demonstrate that ethical perceptions change over time, and since art is connected to culture, it is also subject to change.

Two main schools of thought exist regarding art and morality. Autonomists maintain that art and morality are entirely separate spheres; if something is done in the name of art, it's immune from moral scrutiny. In this view, artists work in a protective 'morality-bubble.' Conversely, aesthetic moralists argue that morality and art are interconnected—any moral stain connected with a work makes it aesthetically flawed. Even superb aesthetic concepts expressed through immoral means count against the work's overall aesthetic value.

The debate over whether art should be moral centers on two main philosophical positions: autonomism, which argues that art and ethics are separate realms and that aesthetic value should not be judged by moral criteria, and moralism, which contends that immoral content compromises a work's aesthetic worth; however, a third perspective suggests that art's primary moral obligation is truth-telling about the world, meaning that depicting immorality can itself be morally justified when it reveals uncomfortable truths about society.

Art criticism has historically oscillated between two approaches: the autonomist view (valuing only aesthetic quality and originality) and the moralist view (evaluating art based on the messages it conveys). The autonomist approach, associated with critics like Oscar Wilde, focuses on artistic merit regardless of content. The moralist approach, common in religious contexts, judges art by whether it promotes 'correct' values.

Everyday aesthetics encompasses objects, environments, and situations from daily life, contrasting with Western fine arts-focused aesthetics. The speaker, a philosophy professor at Rhode Island School of Design, argues this field is more comprehensive because aesthetic life extends far beyond art. Working with design students revealed how aesthetic considerations shape world-making. The power of everyday aesthetics lies in forming attitudes that guide actions; cumulative individual choices determine quality of life and global state. Philosophers from Confucius to Schiller recognized this power, with David Orr noting people act more profoundly on beauty experiences than abstract arguments or fear. Aesthetic preferences significantly impact environmental outcomes: wildlife conservation suffers as unattractive species and habitats are neglected; consumer goods reflect aesthetic standards with one-third of produce discarded for cosmetics; lawn maintenance consumes 30-60% of regional water use. The Cape Wind project faced 15-20 years of aesthetic objections despite environmental benefits.

Environmental aesthetics emerged in the 20th century, driven by environmental awareness and concern, particularly following the 1960s recognition of environmental degradation. While aesthetics traditionally focused on human-made objects, environmental aesthetics expanded to include natural environments. The field encompasses psychological, philosophical, architectural, landscape architecture, urban planning, and urban design dimensions. It initially evaluated pristine natural environments but evolved to include human-made environments and everyday life aesthetics. This multidisciplinary approach recognizes that humans evolved in natural settings, developing innate aesthetic preferences shaped by evolutionary adaptation.

Environmental aesthetics explores why we feel attracted to landscapes and natural spectacles. Three approaches exist: The evolutionist approach suggests preferences result from our 300,000-year evolutionary history, with the savannah hypothesis showing young people prefer savannah landscapes for survival benefits. However, this approach fails to distinguish between pleasant and beautiful—deserts can be beautiful despite being unpleasant. The culturalist approach, exemplified by Alan Carlson, argues aesthetic appreciation is shaped by culture and requires knowledge of natural sciences, social sciences, and history. The metaphysical approach argues landscapes connect us to mystery and the animality of life in ways artwork cannot.

Aesthetics extends far beyond traditional art to encompass environments, social interactions, and everyday objects. Environmental aesthetics recognizes we are participants within environments rather than external observers. Social relationships become aesthetic situations where others are part of our environment, connecting aesthetic and ethical dimensions. A complete aesthetic theory must acknowledge both positive beauty and negative experiences including ugliness and harm. Everyday objects contain aesthetic presence, transforming how we understand our world and our capacity for rich, fulfilling experience.

Aesthetic choices determine consequential actions affecting the environment, yet traditional art appreciation models separate us from daily aesthetic experiences. Saito argues we must focus on everyday aesthetics—green lawns, personal grooming, property appearance, consumer choices, and land aesthetics—rather than museum art or headphones. This approach connects to Confucian virtue theory, emphasizing that aesthetic considerations in daily practices contribute to ethical development. However, viewing high art as removed from daily life risks demoting everyday environments to trivial status, disconnecting us from meaningful environmental engagement.

Philosophy is a transversal field encompassing science, art, information, and mind. Aesthetics, emerging in the 16th century, became influential from the late 19th century onward. It studies sensibility—how we perceive through our five senses and how we sensibly rationalize the world. Where one lives affects how they perceive their city, which organizes their political conception. Political thinking depends on sensitivity toward problems, which varies by location. Throughout the 20th century, aesthetics and politics became intertwined, with some authors treating them as synonymous. Marxism largely marginalized aesthetics, with few significant Marxist aesthetic theorists after Lukács.

The beautiful and sublime serve as essential dimensions of political ideology. The beautiful provides prelapsarian happiness where the subject nestles into the world, reconciling it as if in order. The sublime removes us from our position as center of creation, revealing transcendence through overwhelming power. This experience throws us back to rational powers, revealing moral autonomy. Together, they serve ideology by providing both comfort and recognition of necessary submission to normative order, addressing the fundamental tension between humanistic ideology's central position and required submission.

The Critique of Judgment was primarily read in philosophy and literature contexts as establishing the initial grounds of modern aesthetics, with an assumption of detachment from politics. The idea was that one thinks about forms not made by force, with harmony itself being the key concept. However, more recent thinking has restored the political dimension by reading Kant alongside his other works, including the anthropology and work on race. This poses the challenge of relating these two kinds of dimensions in Kant's thought.

The sublime differs from beauty by involving conflict between faculties rather than harmony. It occurs when subjects confront overwhelming magnitude (like massive ocean waves) while safe to contemplate. Unlike beauty's pleasure, the sublime produces a mixture of respectful fear that makes one feel small. The faculties are violated - imagination cannot handle it, understanding cannot process it. The protagonist faculty becomes reason, which provides resolution. Both beauty and sublime refer to the subject's capacities, with universal validity rooted in shared human faculties. Walter Benjamin criticized Carl Schmitt's romanticization of technology and mass mobilization as aestheticizing politics - applying 'art for art's sake' to war. This involves seeing beauty in fascist mobilized masses, armies, and weapons, making ethical questions about war's purpose irrelevant. Benjamin opposed this with politization of aesthetics. Oscar Wilde's quote about Cellini's crucifixion exemplifies art for art's sake - the death of an individual matters only if it creates immortal art. The Futurist Manifesto glorifies 'beautiful things that kill,' representing dangerous application of aesthetic principles to violence.

Political aesthetics examines how aesthetic attitudes shape political ideology. Edmund Burke established this field through his 'Reflections on the Revolution in France,' connecting aesthetic principles to political behavior. The sublime produces the strongest emotions—reverence, awe, terror, pain, dread, and horror—while the beautiful produces love, pleasantry, joy, and restfulness. The desire for the sublime emerges from boredom and lack of work in society, creating a near-masochistic lust where painful experiences become delightful. Because humans are fundamentally hierarchical, the desire for egalitarianism is a byproduct of the masochistic sublime. People submit to dictatorial politics—left or right—which moves them away from genuine egalitarianism toward hierarchy. Despotic governments are founded on the passions of men, energized by irrational passion. All great totalitarian movements—communist and fascist alike—mastered the aesthetics of the sublime, including Soviet propaganda, fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Red China, North Korea, and North Vietnam.