Interpersonal Normativity: the sources of ethics and aesthetics
Some of the most important decisions we make in our lives are about who we like, who we trust, who we love – and indeed, who we do not like, trust or love. These decisions are very often made unconsciously and, at least in part, on the basis of the aesthetic impressions that people make on us. Many aspects of interpersonal encounters are fit for aesthetic appraisal: how a person looks, dresses, presents themselves, the way they move, the music of their voice, the firmness of their touch, their fragrance, and so on. But can it ever be legitimate to value, or disvalue, another person on the basis of such aesthetic characteristics? Further, can we possibly be right to choose our friends in the ways that we commonly do? Addressing these questions is a central component of the vindication of our deeds as those of the kind of rational creatures that we typically take ourselves to be. Making that contribution is the primary aim of this project.
There are three shortcomings in the existing philosophical literature that heighten the significance of this project at this time. First, central contemporary debates in ethics – even the debates about love and friendship – neglect to consider the aesthetic character of interpersonal valuing attitudes. This is despite the long pedigree in aesthetics of the idea that moral virtue is connected with beauty, and vice with ugliness – a pedigree that stretches back through Hume and Hutcheson to Aristotle. Second, since the development of far-reaching second-wave feminist critiques of beauty norms, there is a need for a sustained treatment in feminist philosophy of whether aesthetic judgements can play any legitimate role in interpersonal life. Third, and most abstractly, current debates about the metaphysics and epistemology of value often distinguish sharply between the ethical and aesthetic domains of value. Consequently, the possibility that ethical value could exist and that we could know about it is explained quite independently from the possibility that aesthetic value could exist and be known. There is thus a general call for meta-normative accounts of aesthetic value, particularly accounts that find a common basis with ethics. This project will develop just such an account, tracing the common basis of both ethical and aesthetic considerations in the value that people have for one another.
Some of the most important decisions we make in our lives are about who we like, who we trust, who we love – and indeed, who we do not like, trust or love. These decisions are very often made unconsciously and, at least in part, on the basis of the aesthetic impressions that people make on us. Many aspects of interpersonal encounters are fit for aesthetic appraisal: how a person looks, dresses, presents themselves, the way they move, the music of their voice, the firmness of their touch, their fragrance, and so on. But can it ever be legitimate to value, or disvalue, another person on the basis of such aesthetic characteristics? Further, can we possibly be right to choose our friends in the ways that we commonly do? Addressing these questions is a central component of the vindication of our deeds as those of the kind of rational creatures that we typically take ourselves to be. Making that contribution is the primary aim of this project.
There are three shortcomings in the existing philosophical literature that heighten the significance of this project at this time. First, central contemporary debates in ethics – even the debates about love and friendship – neglect to consider the aesthetic character of interpersonal valuing attitudes. This is despite the long pedigree in aesthetics of the idea that moral virtue is connected with beauty, and vice with ugliness – a pedigree that stretches back through Hume and Hutcheson to Aristotle. Second, since the development of far-reaching second-wave feminist critiques of beauty norms, there is a need for a sustained treatment in feminist philosophy of whether aesthetic judgements can play any legitimate role in interpersonal life. Third, and most abstractly, current debates about the metaphysics and epistemology of value often distinguish sharply between the ethical and aesthetic domains of value. Consequently, the possibility that ethical value could exist and that we could know about it is explained quite independently from the possibility that aesthetic value could exist and be known. There is thus a general call for meta-normative accounts of aesthetic value, particularly accounts that find a common basis with ethics. This project will develop just such an account, tracing the common basis of both ethical and aesthetic considerations in the value that people have for one another.
