Aesthetics Makes Nothing Happen.pdf

´ JOSE ´ ALCARAZ LEON ´ MARIA

Aesthetics Makes Nothing Happen? The Role of Aesthetic Properties in the Constitution of Non-aesthetic Value

abstract The relationship between aesthetic value and other moral and cognitive values has been a key theme within contemporary aesthetic discussion. In this article, I explore once again the implications of this relationship, but from what I think might be a different angle. With few exceptions, notably Dominic Lopes, most of the contributions to this issue have dealt with the impact that moral or cognitive values could possibly have on the overall aesthetic value of a work of art. In this article, I explore instead how aesthetic properties or merits could play a role in explaining moral and cognitive properties. To do so, I first offer some examples that I think may reasonably exemplify the phenomenon we are considering. Second, I argue that a proper account of interactionism should meet at least two constraints: the relevance constraint and the autonomy constraint. Finally, I try to clarify how it is possible that aesthetic properties substantially contribute to other values by appealing to the notions of expression and the affective character of aesthetic properties.

The relationship between aesthetic value and other moral and cognitive values has been a key theme within contemporary aesthetic debates. In particular, there has been a rich discussion about how, if at all, moral or cognitive values of artworks can impinge upon their aesthetic or artistic value. Different positions have entered the frame ranging from Radical Autonomism to Radical Moralism or Ethicism.1 In this sense, the relationship between aesthetic and non-aesthetic value has been understood mostly as a one-way relationship. While moral and cognitive values have been regarded as partly responsible for the aesthetic greatness of a particular work, little attention has been paid to the way in which some cognitive or moral values can be partly determined by aesthetic aspects. A significant exception to this approach is Dominic Lopes’s (2005) defense of interactionism, which pays attention to the way in which aesthetic merits can have an impact on pictorial artworks’ moral or cognitive properties.

In tune with Lopes’s proposal, I explore the possibility that aesthetic properties or merits play a significant role in explaining moral and cognitive value. Thus, I am sympathetic to Lopes’s attempt to defend interactionism, but I expand its scope to other artifacts and show that interactionism is compatible with Particularism.2 In this sense, I concentrate upon the various ways in which aesthetic properties may partly explain our attribution of moral or cognitive value to artworks as well to nonartistic artifacts and human behavior. To illuminate the sort of contribution that aesthetic properties can make to the emergence of other non-aesthetic features, I appeal to the affective character of aesthetic properties. I argue that the role that aesthetics properties may play in explaining other non-aesthetic properties is not a matter of chance or coincidence. Rather, aesthetic properties play this role—or at least it is possible that they play it—because their

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 76:1 Winter 2018  C 2018 The American Society for Aesthetics

22 affective character provides an explanation for such a role. Finally, if the analysis is cogent, it could be shown that, in some evaluative judgments, aesthetic properties partly explain the presence of moral and cognitive value. But, before addressing the main issue of this article, some clarifications could be required. Since the main problem concerns what role, if any, aesthetic properties or values may have in the explanation of other non-aesthetic properties or values, we need to specify which aspects exactly are to be the focus of attention in order to clarify this relationship. What kind of items are exactly the items that enter into this relation: do we talk about aesthetic properties, values, or merits? To what do these elements contribute? To moral and cognitive properties, values, or merits? Although there are important distinctions between, for example, aesthetic properties and aesthetic values, I address the problem without entering into these distinctions. The main issue here is whether an object’s aesthetic aspects can have a role in explaining other non-aesthetic features. The phenomenon will be characterized, then, as broadly as possible. And I offer examples involving aesthetic properties, values, and merits. To which of these we refer will be determined by the particular case under examination. While in some cases the relationship will be better exemplified by the contribution that aesthetic properties make to other non-aesthetic aspects, in others the moral worth, or merit, we attribute to a particular work can be grounded upon the aesthetic merit we also find in it. My aim is to show that, whatever the differences between properties and values, the issue of how the aesthetic contributes to the non-aesthetic can be addressed consistently. Although elucidating this contribution will in some cases require evaluative discourse and in others descriptive one, the key issue is, I believe, that the aesthetic dimension of a work, object, or action can play a particular role in the emergence of other non-aesthetic properties.

i. varieties of interactionism

Interactionism has been mostly discussed in the context of art appreciation. More narrowly, Lopes’s proposal is in principle limited to the field of pictorial appreciation and evaluation. Likewise, most of the authors who have paid some attention

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism to this relationship have looked at the representational arts, notably literature.3 In this section, I would like to show that interactionism may apply to a wider scope of objects and phenomena—such as nonartistic artifacts, pieces of behavior, or character traits—and that the focus upon artworks might narrow our understanding of this phenomenon. Second, I explore the different kinds of contributions that aesthetic (de)merits can make to other moral or cognitive values. Finally, I also defend, partly relying on the variety of cases displayed, that interactionism is not only compatible with the view called Particularism, but that it requires it. Before introducing some examples that I think might illustrate this kind of relation and since moral and cognitive merits will be mentioned continuously, I should say how to understand these nonaesthetic properties whose emergence is, at least in the cases I am interested in, partly explained by the aesthetic dimension of the work. Since I think interactionism applies not only to artworks but to a wider range of representations, artifacts, actions, and so on, it seems the notion of a moral or cognitive (de)merit must be wide enough to find its home in all these different kinds of objects. Nevertheless, I take for granted that what makes for a moral value in a representational work might be different from what makes it that a piece of music is sentimental or a building aggressive. My aim is not to offer a precise characterization of what constitutes a moral or cognitive (de)merit or property in each case. Rather, I assume these kinds of attributions are part of our current characterization of artworks, representations, actions, and so on. And I explain the extent to which these attributions are partly explained by the aesthetic dimension of the items in question. Now, if we try to illustrate interactionism with some examples, it seems that the natural realm to begin with is representational arts. At least, if we pay attention to the literature on this subject, the typical examples are works of art. However, as I have mentioned above, I think we can often find examples of interactionism that fall outside artistic media and that, therefore, indicate that this relation has a wider scope. Artifacts such as mathematical proofs or diagrams can be good examples of the contribution that aesthetic properties can make to cognitive value.4 Although it is not completely uncontroversial, there is a certain agreement on the idea

´ Aesthetics Makes Nothing Happen? Alcaraz Leon that the cognitive value of a mathematical proof might be partly improved by its formal beauty. For some recent work on this issue, see especially McAllister (2005). Mathematicians and philosophers alike have remarked that the elegance and beauty of a mathematical proof may increase its cognitive value insofar as it presents mathematical relations in a way that makes them clearer and more graspable. In this sense, two equally right mathematical proofs will possess the same truthvalue in terms of the content afforded but different cognitive values in terms of the availability or clarity with which the content is delivered. Hence, the alleged cognitive value that simple, but elegant and clear, mathematical proofs possess seems to be strongly connected to these aesthetic properties. Moreover, this could probably be true in the case of scientific theories as well. The simplicity and elegance with which a theory is formulated usually contributes to its cognitive value not in the sense of making the content of the theory true but in the sense of providing a better grasp of the facts and relationships described within the theory. A different scenario in which we can identify this role that aesthetic properties may play in an explanation of other cognitive and moral properties pertains to the way we perceive and judge people’s behavior. Thus, aesthetic features of the way an action is performed or the aesthetic aspects of personality and character may also be significant here. Our moral judgments usually go beyond assessing the moral value of particular actions. They also assess character traits or features of personality that may, in turn, also be grounded on an aesthetic dimension. An edgy character can be linked to restless, unpurposive behavior; a friendly and honest approach is usually seen in spontaneous, graceful, bodily movements. In fact, sometimes, the moral worth of an action can be manifested by what we could identify as the aesthetic or expressive aspects of the action. Consider two agents performing a similar action, which, considering the situation, amounts to the right thing to do. However, while one of the subject’s performances is dry and mechanical, the other seems to be delicate and well adjusted. Even if the outcome of these two actions is the same, we could have some reasons to praise the latter in a way that will not be possible with the former. That is, the aesthetic character with which the agent performs the action can improve an action’s overall value.5

23 These examples show, in my view, that interactionism has a wider scope than most thinkers have assumed.6 If we turn now to the arts, we can also see that interactionism, although clearly exemplified within the representational arts, is not limited to them. Examining examples from different artistic media can provide some initial support to approaching this issue as broadly as possible. I begin with a clear example of representational painting, and I offer examples of different artistic media, both representational and nonrepresentational. Chardin’s still life paintings have been frequently described as possessing a moral grandeur, which other works belonging to the same genre lack. This aspect of Chardin’s work is related to his characteristic pictorial display of objects. Although most of the elements that feature in Chardin’s still lifes are inanimate beings, they often look as if they were something alive—as if the objects were almost on the verge of moving. Often, this quality has been described by saying that the objects of Chardin’s paintings look more like people moving on a stage than like mere inert objects. This dramatic quality explains why Chardin’s still life paintings, in spite of belonging to an undervalued genre, were so much cherished in his time. In a sense, he endowed the depicted objects with a human quality that, in turn, elevated the subject matter to another better-considered genre. But, how do we move from noticing this aspect of Chardin’s still lifes to the claim about the moral depth made visible in his paintings? How can simple, domestic objects invite thoughts usually associated with higher pictorial motives, such as human action or human presence? It seems that this moral depth or quality cannot be simply explained by the fact that Chardin rendered ordinary objects with a human-like appearance—albeit, as I argue, this is important, too. What makes for the moral depth in Chardin is how his endowing of these objects with a human appearance serves as a kind of visual metaphor for human dignity. His paintings show a kind of dignity that, because it is instantiated in humble, ordinary objects, achieves a deeper sense for the viewer. Chardin’s mode of depicting the objects in the pictorial space is one of the main resources for achieving this effect. In fact, one of the features that seems to contribute to this overall effect is the way Chardin typically

24 arranged the pictorial space; he rendered it as if it were a theatrical stage where action could take place. In doing so, a simple vase, a bunch of fruit, or a dead ray—whose abdominal side seems to be looking at us—acquired a dramatic presence that became a personal mark of Chardin’s work. For a salient interpretation of Chardin’s work in terms of the notions of absorption and theatricality see Fried (1980). Similarly, the delicacy of Chardin’s brushstroke and the atmospheric treatment of light and color are partly responsible for the profoundness of his still lifes and for the peculiar sense of liveliness that Proust (1988) so much praised and which Diderot (1995) found somehow magical. Thus, the moral dimension usually ascribed to Chardin’s paintings is strongly grounded in their aesthetic character; for this dimension depends not on the representation of a clear moral scene but on the aesthetic qualities we experience the ordinary objects depicted as possessing. Commonplace pots and cutlery, ordinary pieces of bread and fruit become—through features such as theatricality, dramatization, atmospheric qualities, and delicate brushstrokes—dignified and morally charged. I think that a significant aspect of Chardin’s achievement has also to do with the fact that the objects in his still lifes become dignified without losing their ordinariness. Chardin’s pots, vases, and goods are dignified without being sublimated or merely transformed into metaphoric devices. If we now look at some examples of nonrepresentational art, we can easily find examples where the relationship between the aesthetic character of the work and its moral or cognitive value seem to be intimately connected. Thus, for example, the authoritarian character7 of a building or an architectural element, such as the fac¸ade of the Palazzo delle Espozisioni on the occasion of the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution that took place in 1932–1934, seems to be noticeably grounded upon its aesthetic appearance. It is the aesthetic dimension of the fac¸ade, its overwhelming solidness and grandeur, which endowed it with such moral quality.8 Its sober color and its location relative to other surrounding buildings also stroke the viewer’s aesthetic sensibility in a way that led to an experience of authority. Finally, its verticality was emphasized by the solidity of the buttresses and made the viewer feel the power the building was designed to embody.

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Other nonrepresentational works, such as absolute or pure music, could similarly be said to possess certain moral properties by virtue of the expressive and aesthetic qualities the composer ´ 2012). endows the piece with (see Alcaraz Leon Thus, for example, Rˆeve d’amour by Liszt, whose excessive sentimental character could be regarded as a moral defect of the piece, could be shown to be dependent upon the expressive resources developed by the composer.9 For example, the increase in intensity in the development of the theme contrasts with the final pianissimo section. This resource allows the exploration of the same melody under different expressive characters: while it is much more extroversive in the development of the melodic theme (thanks to the fast tempo and the forte dynamics), the slowing down of the tempo and the pianissimo in the final bars endows the melody with an intimate character. Finally, the rubatto effect that typically characterizes the interpretation of this piece endows the theme with a hesitant, but longing, character. One could say that Liszt conveys sentimentality right across the musical spectrum. Although I have mostly presented cases where aesthetic qualities seem to contribute positively to the emergence of other values—except the cases from the nonrepresentational arts—I think we can also find examples where an aesthetic merit may be regarded as deterring the cognitive or moral value of a work, artifact, and so on. The beautification of appalling scenes or of depraved characters may just make this sort of contribution. In this sense, the alleged aesthetic merit will not, as in the former examples, lead to other moral and cognitive merits. Rather, it will increase the immoral character of the representation. Thus, the alleged beauty of Leni Riefenstahl’s fascist cinematic propaganda purportedly increases its malevolent effect.10 In this sense, it has been pointed out that some positive aesthetic properties—especially beauty—may be partly responsible for moral and cognitive demerits. Typical examples will be the aesthetization of violence or of crude images of victims of natural disasters.11 Feminist thinkers have also pointed to the way in which the aesthetization of women leads to their objectification and to the promotion of a dominant male perspective. One of the seminal works defending this idea is John Berger’s Ways of Seeing (1972). In this book, he shows how certain pictorial treatments of women’s nudity

´ Aesthetics Makes Nothing Happen? Alcaraz Leon could promote treating it as an object for male desire. In these cases, aesthetic positive features may be put at the service of making palatable what is horrendous or despicable and, hence, of producing some moral harm upon those whose image is perversely misused. Thus, it can be claimed that it is precisely by virtue of the image’s aesthetic properties that it can be morally condemned: its immoral quality relies precisely upon its aesthetic “success.” Finally, we could also try to think of examples in which a negative aesthetic property or an aesthetic demerit could contribute positively or negatively to the moral or cognitive value of an artwork or artifact. Although the latter cases may seem easier to exemplify—for the negative contribution of an aesthetic demerit seems less puzzling than a positive one—we can offer some examples that illustrate how an aesthetic demerit may be partly responsible for a cognitive or moral value. Let us start with the easiest cases first. It seems uncontroversial that a poor or formulaic description in a novel will render the novel’s characters stereotypical and lacking depth. So, the cognitive insight of the novel can be clearly diminished by an aesthetic flaw. Similarly, the moral sentimentality usually ascribed to the pictorial genre of Sentimental Realism is directly grounded upon a formulaic way of drawing human figures, which tend to beautify the hopeless condition of the characters and to give them an attractive and tender appearance that runs against the truthful depiction of misery. But negative aesthetic qualities can also be part of what makes a work cognitively valuable or morally sound. Looking at a specific example, it could be claimed that Goya’s distorted figures in his Dark Paintings (or in Bacon’s portraits) and the corresponding disturbing aesthetic experience that follows from them is what upholds its insightful character; in the sense that it is through the aesthetic distortion of the human figure that the viewer may come to be aware of a range of physical and psychological experiences whose communication would not have been successful if the paintings were aesthetically pleasant. Thus, negative aesthetic qualities can be partly responsible for the revelatory character of some artworks and hence contribute to both their moral and cognitive value. It should be said that the negative qualification here is not meant to indicate that

25 the formal distortions are an aesthetic demerit or that distortion is ethically bad tout court. It is only meant to point out the negative affective character that a distorted form usually implies. The point of this example is to show how some qualities that we would characterize as possessing a negative affective component can, nevertheless, contribute positively to the presence of an insightful and, hence, cognitively valuable representation. These examples do not aim at providing a general claim about the role this kind of aesthetic feature can play in other works of art. The uneasiness with which the viewer may contemplate the human figures depicted in Bacon’s work or in Goya’s paintings and which, I believe, are partly grounded upon the formal and aesthetic resources of these painters’ pictorial style might be exclusive to their work. This is, I think, unproblematic; all that is required is that we can show how the aesthetic dimension of the experience afforded by these paintings is essential to its cognitive value. Other works may use similar devices but in a completely different manner, and, therefore, they may produce other effects in the viewer. But that a particular aesthetic device can play different roles in different artworks does not imply we should give up on the idea that within a particular work—and in virtue of the affective character it endows that particular work with—it can make a significant contribution to the emergence of other non-aesthetic qualities. Having reflected upon the variety of objects, both artistic and nonartistic, and of the relationships between aesthetic (dis)value and other moral and cognitive (dis)values, I think it may be easier to defend the view, at least based upon the examples offered, that we should understand interactionism along Particularist terms. That is, I think that there seems to be no principle we can properly embrace to uphold the fact that aesthetic merits or demerits always contribute in the same way to the presence of other moral or cognitive values. We have seen that a positive aesthetic feature can both support moral (or cognitive) value and disvalue and that negative aesthetic features do not always contribute negatively when they are grounding other moral and cognitive properties. Hence, I think we should embrace a Particularist view about the relationship between aesthetic and other moral and cognitive merits. That is, we should assume that no principles or rules could determine what kind of contribution can be found.

26

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Aesthetic virtues may increase moral depravation and negative aesthetic experiences may contribute to moral or cognitive insight. Also, similar aesthetic devices might play different roles depending on the work in which they appear and their significance given other features they relate to.

ii.

a proper account of interactionism

I think that in order to offer a proper account of interactionism two requirements are to be met. On the one hand, if aesthetic properties are to be able to play the explanatory role we assume they play, we need to show that it is precisely by virtue of possessing a particular aesthetic character that a work, artifact, and so on possesses some other moral or cognitive (de)merit and not merely that these properties are coincidental. On the other hand, a proper account of interactionism should not undermine aesthetic autonomy; that is, it should not involve aesthetic properties no longer being autonomous. In what follows I explain the importance of these two requirements for a sound defense of interactionism. The first one, which I call the ‘relevance constraint,’ neutralizes one possible worry about the philosophical accuracy of the analysis offered. It could be thought that interactionism is trivially true if the moral and cognitive properties of artworks are partly explained by aesthetic qualities simply because they are part of the properties that artworks possess and are, hence, articulated within a particular artistic medium. After all, it is uncontroversial that moral and cognitive properties of artworks, as well as other representational or expressive properties, are the result of the artist’s work.12 Since such an interpretation will render interactionism trivially true and, hence, vacuous, we need to articulate it in a way that lets us distinguish between genuine cases of an aesthetic contribution to other non-aesthetic values and cases where cognitive and moral merits are merely given in an artwork. That is, we need to be able to distinguish cases in which the moral or cognitive properties are truly informed by the aesthetic character of the work and cases where such a contribution is missing. It does not seem difficult, in principle, to identify examples of both types. If we focus on cognitive value, for example, we can easily imagine a case where the knowledge conveyed by an

artwork is not linked to its aesthetic character in any significant way. For example, I may come to know about the usual size and structure of a traditional Japanese house by reading Kokoro ¯ (Soseki 1914). While this may be considered a cognitive value of the work, it is certainly not one the work possesses because of any of its aesthetic properties, for I can easily imagine this property to be possessed by works lacking the aesthetic properties of Kokoro. On the other hand, the insightful character that a literary description may possess can be intimately linked to the words chosen by the narrator and to the descriptive rhythm that determines the mode in which the reader has access to the character’s features. The sort of access and, hence, knowledge we have about the character’s mind in Thomas Bernhard’s novel The Loser (1983) is inextricably linked to the abundance of run-on sentences, obsessive repetitions, and unexpected changes of the verbs’ tenses. In this second case, it seems more evident that the novel’s insightful character strongly depends upon the aesthetic aspects that result from the literary procedure. Our access to the narrative voice’s psychological profile is intimately linked to the formal aspects that build it up. After examining these two examples we can at least offer some resistance to the worry about the trivial contribution of aesthetic properties to cognitive and moral values. The second condition that a proper account of interactionism should meet is what I call the ‘autonomy constraint.’ That is, we should be able to account for the contribution that aesthetic qualities make to other kinds of non-aesthetic value while accommodating the idea of aesthetic autonomy. The autonomous character of aesthetic judgments is related, at least in Kant’s seminal work Critique of Judgement (1790), to two different, but somehow related, ideas. An aesthetic judgment is autonomous in the sense that it is nonconceptual or not governed by any principles or rules; that is to say it is grounded solely on the experience of the object evaluated. In another sense, Kant refers to the autonomy of the judgment of taste when he claims that no one’s opinion may be a determining factor for rectifying one’s judgment, assuming this is rightly grounded in a response of disinterested pleasure. I think that if we focus upon the first of these ideas, endorsing the autonomous character of an aesthetic judgment or experience does not

´ Aesthetics Makes Nothing Happen? Alcaraz Leon necessarily involve the rejection of the central tenet of interactionism. And this is so for two reasons: the first is that, at least within the limited scope of our problem, there is nothing incompatible between, on the one hand, the autonomy of aesthetic properties or values and, on the other, its contribution to reasons supporting attribution of other values. For, insofar as the aesthetic character of the work is not derived from other values, the requirements for the autonomy of aesthetic judgment will be met. But even if I was trying to defend interactionism as Lopes does,13 there is another consideration that can refute the incompatibility between aesthetic autonomism and interactionism. This consideration appeals to a possible interpretation of the a-conceptual character of aesthetic judgments. According to this interpretation, we can acknowledge that concepts may to some extent determine our perceptual experience without fully determining its aesthetic character. That is, there may be conceptual aspects that partly determine our aesthetic experience without threatening the idea that aesthetic value is autonomous in the minimal sense required.14 For example, the fact that I see a particular object as an Abstract Expressionist painting—that is, under the concept, or category, of Abstract Expressionist Painting—rather than as a randomly marked surface that happened to have that appearance by being left on the artist’s studio floor can make a difference to my aesthetic experience; however, the aesthetic value of each work, and the resulting judgment, will still depend on my experience of it; and no prior knowledge of the category under which I should look at it will by itself establish its aesthetic value. Thus, while acknowledging that perceptual experience may be somehow conceptually constrained, we could claim that this is indeed so in a way that does not undermine aesthetic autonomy. Aesthetic autonomy will be undermined if, by the mere application of a concept or, in our case, by the presence of a particular moral value, the resulting aesthetic experience could be fully anticipated. However, that I perceive something in such a way that it conforms to a concept or as exhibiting some moral property still leaves room for the autonomy of aesthetic experience as long as the resulting judgment depends upon the experience of that object and not on the concept by itself. Insofar as the aesthetic value of the work is not determined a priori by its moral

27 value (or independently from the experience it affords), there is room for autonomy within interactionism. Autonomy is thus vindicated in spite of the recognition that some other properties may play some role in how the object is experienced. The minimal condition for the autonomy of taste is preserved. And, thus, the sort of interactionism that I am trying to characterize can meet the autonomy constraint.

iii. expression and the affective character of aesthetic properties

Having these remarks in mind, I offer, in what follows, some flesh to the view defended in this article. In order to meet the first requirement stated above, we should be able to show that some moral or cognitive properties typically experienced in or attributed to artworks are, at least partly, explained by aesthetic properties. How can we show that this relation obtains nontrivially? What aspects of aesthetic properties can help us to explain this role? I think we can focus upon the affective character of aesthetic properties and its role in explaining the expressive dimension of art (artifacts, actions, and so on) in order to offer a cogent answer to these questions. The common view about what it is to ascribe moral properties to artworks or representations in general focuses upon the notion of expression. Moral content can be rightly located in an artwork not by focusing upon its representational content but by examining the attitudes that the artwork embodies, or expresses, toward the content presented. Those moral attitudes can be grasped, in turn, by identifying the responses that the artwork prescribes to the reader, viewer, or listener. (This would not imply that the viewer has to actually feel the emotions prescribed. It suffices that she perceives the work as demanding (or prescribing) those emotions.) It is, then, by focusing upon the expressive aspects of a work that we can come to assess its moral content. Thus, the alleged immoral character of a representation that, for example, glorifies violence hangs not onto the representation of violent acts as such but on the prescribed positive response to something that should be rejected.15 It is by virtue of prescribing an immoral response—for responding positively to violence

28 seems clearly wrong—that the work can be said to be immoral or to possess negative moral value.16 Now, a way to show how this picture of the moral character of an artwork can pave the way for the role of aesthetic properties in the configuration of other moral properties is to make clear the role that aesthetic properties may play in explaining a work’s expressive content and, therefore, in the formation of its moral content.17 To do so, it might be necessary to provide some view of what artistic expression is and in what sense expressive content can be rightly embedded in the aesthetic character of a work. Although, given the scope of this article, such a task may be unaccomplished, I would like to offer some examples that may render the relationship between the aesthetic qualities of a work and its expressive character clearer. That is, I would like to motivate the idea that the expressive character of a work of art, as a work of art, results from the work’s aesthetic character. A simple way to show that there may be a connection between the aesthetic aspects and the expressive character of a work in the way I am suggesting is by underlying how the affective dimension of a work’s aesthetic character contributes to its expressive content and, through this, to its moral character. Since the phenomenon of expression is typically linked to the affective dimension of an object, action, or representation, we can articulate the role that aesthetic properties can play in explaining other values by focusing on their characteristic affective dimension. By the affective dimension of aesthetic properties, I refer to the idea that grasping this kind of property typically has an affective or responsive dimension. For example, to see that something is garish involves affectively responding in a certain way to the work.18 The aesthetic properties of a work can, thus, contribute to its expressive character insofar as they are typically grasped affectively. It is through the affective dimension usually attached to aesthetic properties that their contribution to the expressive character of a work can be intimated. A graceful line or a vacillating melody can elicit affective responses in the viewer or the listener that, in turn, play a role in grasping the work’s particular expressive content. And, since expression is the mode through which a work’s moral content becomes articulated, we can easily show its dependence upon the aesthetic character of the work.

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Thus, for example, Goya’s Disasters’ powerful moral criticism is partly due to the affective response triggered by aesthetic properties such as its chaotic composition, its somber character, or its unsublimating perspective. Its moral character is not primarily due to the represented content but to the affective attitude with which the content is presented—which, in turn, explains the core of the prescribed response to the viewer. And this affective attitude is mainly conveyed through the aesthetic characterization of the subject. This was also the case with the still life paintings we referred to above. The moral dignity of Chardin’s still lifes was, as we pointed out, due to aesthetic qualities such as theatricality or subtle atmospheric effects. The aesthetic presentation of the objects depicted endowed them with a human-like presence without depriving them of their everyday character. The kind of regard projected onto these humble items invites the viewer to adopt a respectful and quiet attitude. It is significant, I think, that some of the most salient commentators of Chardin’s still lifes tend to invoke silence as a way to describe the experience afforded by these pictorial scenes. (See, for example, Diderot 1995.) Expressive failures might, conversely, be responsible for moral attributions such as sentimentality.19 The moral assessment of Ilya Repin’s painting What a Freedom! (1903) is negative precisely because the aesthetic features with which the theme is endowed seem to prescribe an enthusiastic response the viewer may find excessive or forced.20 As a result, a sensitive viewer may find that the affective engagement that the work prescribes is undeserved or inappropriate. And, hence, the sentimental character of the painting—that is, its moral flaw—can be shown to be dependent upon its expressive and aesthetic failure. The affective response that actually results from the aesthetic plainness of the work runs against the intended expressive content of the work and, thus, makes it fail in this respect. Although the examples offered so far are pictorial and, more specifically, depictive, we can speculate that the relationship between the aesthetic dimension of a work and its expressive character may also hold in cases where the work possesses expressive content without representing anything in particular. Architecture or pure music could also provide good examples. Thus, condemning a pompous mansion in the middle of a rather humble but nicely built village can be partly explained

´ Aesthetics Makes Nothing Happen? Alcaraz Leon by the mansion’s assertive and exhibitionist character, which, in turn, results from its aesthetic properties, such as sumptuousness and intended impressiveness. Although it becomes less frequent that we similarly condemn ordinary objects with the same strength as we might condemn Repin’s sentimentalism or a mansion’s presumptuousness, I think one can also make sense of the inadequacy of a certain dress or of a certain form of speech, given a particular context. However, for reasons of space I will not expand more on these examples.21 The possible contribution that aesthetic properties can therefore make to the emergence of other non-aesthetic properties, such as moral or cognitive ones, is then clarified by paying attention to their characteristic affective character and, furthermore, to the way in which this affective character is involved in the expressive dimension of a particular work or representation.

iv.

29 a comprehensive specification of our experience of a work as possessing certain moral or cognitive features may require having grasped its aesthetic dimension and the way in which this aspect informs other properties that are graspable in the work or object. This conclusion also aspires not only to cover artistic examples but also cases in which we could reasonably appeal to an aesthetic property or quality in order to justify our attribution of a cognitive or moral (de)merit. In this sense, the view proposed aims at being as comprehensible as possible and to explain in what sense particular moral judgments about, say, an action may legitimately appeal to aesthetic aspects of the performing of the action. If the notion of expression is robust enough in order to articulate the relationship that I have explored, we could conclude that, in some cases, aesthetic properties partly explain the presence of moral and cognitive value.22

final remarks ´ JOSE ´ ALCARAZ LEON ´ MARIA

In this article I have argued that aesthetic properties can be properly cited in an account of other non-aesthetic properties, such as moral or cognitive ones. To do so, I began by offering some examples of the kind of explanatory contribution that aesthetic properties may make to other non-aesthetic properties. After examining several examples, I argued that we should aspire to an explanation of the phenomenon that is compatible with a Particularist view of the relationship between the aesthetic and the non-aesthetic. Second, I have pointed out two necessary requirements that a cogent account of interactionism should meet: the relevance constraint and the autonomy constraint. In my view, a proper explanation of interactionism should respect the view known as ‘aesthetic autonomy’ and provide an explanation of the fact that grasping aesthetic properties can be a condition for grasping other non-aesthetic properties. Finally, I have appealed to the notion of expression in order to flesh out the idea that aesthetic properties can play a significant role as reasons for the presence of other non-aesthetic properties. As I have shown, the affective character of aesthetic qualities can be appealed to in order to explain how a work’s artistic content, including its expressive character and hence some of its moral or cognitive values, can be explained. Thus,

Department of Philosophy University of Murcia Murcia, Spain internet: [email protected]

references ´ Mar´ıa Jose. ´ 2012. “Music’s Moral Character.” Alcaraz Leon, Teorema 31: 179–191. Berger, John. 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin. Bernhard, Thomas. 1991 [1983].The Loser. Translated by Jack Dawson. New York: Knopf. Bradley, A. C. 1959. “Poetry for Poetry’s Sake.” In Oxford Lectures on Poetry, 2nd edition, 4–32. London: Macmillan. Budd, Malcolm. 2008. “The Pure Judgement of Taste as an Aesthetic Reflective Judgement.” In Aesthetic Essays, 105– 121. Oxford University Press. Dancy, Jonathan. 1999. “Defending Particularism.” Metaphilosophy 30: 25–32. . 2004. Ethics without Principles. Clarendon Press. D’Arms, Justin, and Daniel Jacobson. 2000. “The Moralistic Fallacy: On the ‘Appropriateness’ of Emotions.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61: 65–90. Deveraux, Mary. 1998. “Beauty and Evil: The Case of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will.’’ In Aesthetics and Ethics, edited by Jerrold Levinson, 227–256. Cambridge University Press. Diderot, Denis. 1995. Diderot on Art: The Salon of 1765 and Notes on Painting (Vol. I), and Diderot on Art: The Salon of 1767 (Vol. II). Translated by John Goodman. Yale University Press. Fried, Michael. 1980. Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot. University of Chicago Press.

30 Gaut, Berys. 1998. “The Ethical Criticism of Art.” In Aesthetics and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection, edited by Jerrold Levinson, 182–203. Cambridge University Press. . 2009. “Morality and Art.” In A Companion to Aesthetics, 2nd edition, edited by Stephen Davies, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Robert Hopkins, Robert Stecker, and David E. Cooper, 428–431. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Goldie, Peter, and Elisabeth Schellekens (eds.). 2007. Philosophy and Conceptual Art. Clarendon Press. . 2009. Who’s Afraid of Conceptual Art. London: Routledge. Greenberg, Clement. 1939. “Avant-Garde and Kitsch.” Partisan Review 6(5): 34–49. Kant, Immanuel. 1952 [1790]. Critique of Judgement. Translated by James Creed Meredith. Oxford University Press. Lopes, Dominic McIver. 2005. Sight and Sensibility: Evaluating Pictures. Clarendon Press. McAllister, James W. 2005. “Mathematical Beauty and the Evolution of the Standards of Mathematical Proof.” In The Visual Mind II, edited by Michele Emmer, 15–34. MIT Press. ´ ˜ Francisca. 2014. “Sentimentality as an Ethical Perez Carreno, and Aesthetic Fault.” Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics 6: 286–304. Proust, Marcel. 1988. “Chardin: The Essence of Things.” In Writers on Artists, edited by Daniel Halpern, 102–106. San Francisco: North Point Press. Schiller, Friedrich. 1884 [1796].“The Moral Utility of Aesthetic Manners.” In Aesthetical and Philosophical Essays, translator anonymous, 126–135. Boston: S. E. Cassino. Scruton, Roger. 1980. The Aesthetics of Architecture. Princeton University Press. Shelley, James. 2003. “The Problem of Non-Perceptual Art.” British Journal of Aesthetics 43: 363–378. ¯ Soseki, Natsume. 2010 [1914]. Kokoro. Translated by Meredith McKinney. London: Penguin.

1. For a classical defence of Autonomism, see Bradley (1959). Concerning Ethicism, see Gaut (1998). 2. Although the view called Particularism has its home domain in moral philosophy or meta-ethics and has been prominently defended by Dancy (1999, 2004), I try to defend the view that, if aesthetic properties can contribute to an explanation of other non-aesthetic properties, we need to understand this kind of contribution in a way that rejects the need—and, more strongly, the possibility—of finding principles that articulate this relationship. 3. I think the reason why interactionism has been mostly discussed in relation to literary works has to do with the usual attribution of moral value to literature as opposed to, say, music or architecture. 4. I understand ‘artifact’ here in a very broad sense. For example, I consider that things such as a mathematical proof are artifacts, albeit of an intellectual character. Although there has been some discussion about aesthetic properties that can be attributed to artifacts that we do not become acquainted with through perceptual experience, I assume that, at least within a broader understanding of the notion of aesthetic properties, some conceptual entities such as mathematical proofs may possess aesthetic properties. Significant defenders of a broad view of aesthetic experience are Shelley (2003) and Goldie and Schellekens (2007, 2009). 5. Although my approach to the relationship between moral and aesthetic value is in some crucial aspects distinct from classical approaches to this issue, the proximity

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism between aesthetic sensibility and moral disposition has a long history. Both Kant and Schiller pointed out that aesthetic sensibility contributed to, or disposed us to, good action. In “The Moral Utility of Aesthetic Manners,” Schiller defended “that a strong and pure feeling for the beautiful ought to exercise a salutary influence upon the moral life” (1884, 126). 6. At this stage of the argument, these examples are presented merely as a way to illustrate as widely as possible the phenomenon we are interested in. They are intended, first, to show that the phenomenon can be instantiated in many different kinds of objects, both artistic and nonartistic, and, second, to motivate the case for a role of aesthetic properties in the explanation of other sorts of properties. Since the examples are merely presented but not fully explained, they cannot be considered as conclusive but merely as indicating that the phenomenon might be worth exploring. Some of them will be further developed alongside the following discussion, but others have been presented as mere indications in favor of the idea that the aesthetic aspect of a particular work, object, or action can have an impact upon other of their non-aesthetic properties. 7. Although it could be said that here the authoritative character could be considered as an aesthetic quality, I think the sense in which this quality also has a moral dimension remains in place. In this sense, even if some adjectives may be taken to possess a twofold character in the sense that they may be understood as possessing an aesthetic and a moral dimension, I think there is still room to see in which way the moral character attributed to the building is articulated through other aesthetic features that can be easily identified and that invite no confusion as to their status as aesthetic qualities. 8. For other approaches to the issue of morality in architecture see Architecture-Philosophy (Vol. 2, no. 1, Winter 2016): http://isparchitecture.com/volume-2-number-1/. Also, Scruton (1980). 9. For a defense of the idea that sentimentality can be ´ considered both a moral and an aesthetic defect see Perez ˜ (2014). According to the account offered by Perez ´ Carreno ˜ sentimentality in art can be considered as a moral Carreno, defect because it results from an expressive failure, that is, from a failed attempt to express something truthfully. Thus, sentimentality could be regarded as a form of insincerity at the level of the expressive content of the work. If we consider sentimentality under this light, it is easier to see how the aesthetic resources displayed in Liszt’s composition contribute to this moral flaw of his work. 10. Although I am aware that discussion over this work cannot be covered in a single footnote, I think that the focus of the article can throw some new light upon the puzzlement that Riefenstahl’s work has often produced. In this respect, it should be noticed that much of the literature around this work has focused upon the relationship between the immoral content it conveys and its aesthetic worth. The initial setting of the problem was due to Deveraux (1998), who wondered whether the work could be less aesthetically successful given its immoral character. However, there is no research, at least to my knowledge, that focuses upon whether the immoral character of the work is partly caused by its aesthetic success. This is the alternative I would like to explore. I think that looking at how the work’s aesthetic value can increase its malice can offer some insight into works whose

´ Aesthetics Makes Nothing Happen? Alcaraz Leon puzzling character seem to be related to the fact that they are both aesthetically valuable but morally revolting. The work’s menacing message is even more menacing because the way the message is conveyed, the aesthetic means through which it is presented to the viewer, are good aesthetic means. That is, its malicious character and its dangerous effect are partly supported by the aesthetic success of the work. 11. Aesthetization is usually considered a moral flaw directly caused by the inappropriate use of aesthetic resources. Aesthetization often involves embellishing or making appealing something that should not be shown as pleasant. This is why it is often mentioned when deceitful methods are employed in politics or when political reasoning is substituted for aesthetic appeal. In a sense this phenomenon could be a paradigmatic case of the significant contribution that aesthetic properties or features can make to other nonaesthetic features. It is precisely through the embellishing of a theme that should not be presented under an appealing light that the representation becomes immoral. 12. This worry is referred to by Lopes (2005) as “aesthetic saturation.” Aesthetic saturation is the view that “for any type of non-aesthetic evaluation, V, some aesthetic evaluations imply or are implied by some V-evaluation” (Lopes 2005, 7). Clearly, this view will render interactionism vacuous, and that is why Lopes rejects it. I regard my proposal in this article as related to Lopes’s attempt to defend what he calls interactionism and, in particular, what he terms as “aesthetic articulation,” that is, the view that “there are some types of non-aesthetic evaluations, V, such that some aesthetic evaluations imply or are implied by some V-evaluations” (8). In this sense I attend to the way in which aesthetic evaluations (or, more generally, aesthetic properties) may imply other non-aesthetic values. However, for reasons that will become apparent in this article, I depart from Lopes’s characterization of interactionism. 13. That is, following Lopes’s formulation that aesthetic evaluations may imply other non-aesthetic values but also that some non-aesthetic values may imply aesthetic evaluations. 14. For a similar understanding of aesthetic autonomy see Budd (2008). 15. It could be questioned that prescribing a positive response to violence or other dreadful events generally involves prescribing an immoral response. Maybe the prescribed response is prescribed in a manner that triggers further thoughts about how we usually respond to violence and, therefore, has a further moral insightful character. It might require a case-by-case study to determine whether the prescription of a positive response to dreadful events

31 in a particular work contributes to immorality or not. Once we have assessed the moral character of the prescribed response, however, I think that we can generally assume that the morality or immorality of those responses is what determines the moral character of the work. I owe this clarification to a comment by an anonymous referee. 16. Although I will not enter into the discussion of what counts as a merited or unmerited response toward the represented content of an artwork or representation, I will assume that the moral or immoral character of an artwork or representation is grounded upon the moral or immoral character of the response prescribed toward the events represented. In this sense, I will avoid the discussion about whether all immoral responses are unmerited. That is, whether it might be the case that a particular response might be immoral but merited by the work. For two prominent defenders of the opposing views that articulate this debate, see Gaut (2009) and D’Arms and Jacobson (2000). 17. Although I refer mostly to artworks in this section, I think what it is said about expression in art can also be extended to other expressive devices, including behavior. 18. I would like to clarify that the way in which the characteristic affectivity of aesthetic properties is understood here does not involve endorsing the view that all aesthetic concepts are evaluative or that their canonical use is systematically linked to a positive or negative response. In this sense, while I think that grasping the garishness of a picture may in some cases lead to a negative aesthetic judgment of the picture, there may be cases in which a work’s garishness is a reason for its aesthetic merit. In any case, perceiving something as garish involves responding affectively to that feature. ´ ˜ (2014). 19. See Perez Carreno 20. Following Greenberg’s (1939) assessment of Repin’s work as sentimental and kitsch, we can consider this particular work as an example of an expressive failure in the sense that the response that it effectively triggers in the sensitive viewer is not one of complacency but of despisal. 21. For a consideration of how the moral character of pure music can be grounded in its expressive character see ´ (2012). Alcaraz Leon 22. This article has been funded by the Program ´ ´ de la Fundacion ´ Seneca´ Jovenes L´ıderes en Investigacion ´ de Murcia Agencia de Ciencia y Tecnolog´ıa de la Region ´ ´ con otros (18958/JLI/13) “El valor estetico y su interaccion ´ valores en la practica apreciativa” and (FFI2015-64271´ P) “Experiencia estetica de las artes y complejidad de la ´ percepcion” (Ministerio de Econom´ıa y competitividad) 2016–2020.