Goldman - Aesthetic Qualities and Aesthetic Value

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Aesthetic Qualities and Aesthetic ValueAuthor(s): Alan H. GoldmanSource: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 87, No. 1 (Jan., 1990), pp. 23-37Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2026797Accessed: 06/10/2009 07:35

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AESTHETIC QUALITIES AND AESTHETIC VALUE 23

AESTHETIC QUALITIES AND AESTHETIC VALUE

0 say that an object is beautiful or ugly is seemingly to referto a property of the object. But it is also to express a positiveor negative response to it, a set of aesthetic values, and to

suggest that others ought to respond in the same way. Such judg-ments are descriptive, expressive, and normative or prescriptive atonce. These multiple features are captured well by Humean accountsthat analyze the judgments as ascribing relational properties. To saythat an object is beautiful is to say, in part, that it is such as to elicit aresponse expressing pleasure in certain observers. The observers in

question must not be ignorant, biased, insensitive, or of poor taste,and they must not base their evaluations on aesthetically irrelevantproperties of the objects they judge. The reference to the object's"being such . . ." captures the objective side of the relation; refer-ence to the pleasurable response captures the expressive function ofthese judgments; and the ideal properties of the observers suggestthat others ought to judge in the same way.

Beauty is a relatively nonspecific or broadly evaluative relationalproperty, in that its ascription leaves unspecified how the object issuch as to elicit this positive response in suitable observers. This,together with the requirement that critics not base their judgmentson aesthetically irrelevant properties, implies that beauty must su-pervene on other properties. In general, if evaluative properties areto be analyzed in this way which captures the various functions ofevaluative judgments, then they must be supervenient properties.

Before proceeding to a discussion of the base properties on whichbeauty supervenes, I should note that it may not be the most broadly

evaluative aesthetic quality, although it is the quality most oftenmentioned in this light. The beautiful, as we know from Kant andother aestheticians of that age, may be contrasted with the sublime,but also with sets of artworks having other qualities that may conferartistic merit on them. Artistic merit itself is both broader and nar-rower than beauty: broader, in that it may be based on other proper-ties, such as expressiveness (e.g., power) or originality, that may notconfer beauty on their objects; and narrower, in that it is possessedonly by artworks, whereas natural phenomena may be beautiful aswell. The beautiful is pleasurable to observe; artistic merit may notalways give pleasure, although it will elicit a positive response andpresumably attract continued attention. Artistic merit may requirestudy and understanding to be appreciated; beauty may seem moreimmediately accessible, although this is not always the case. It may

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24 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

take some musical education before one can appreciate the beauty ofa Brahms symphony or a Mahler song.

Those qualities on which beauty and artistic merit most immedi-ately supervene are themselves aesthetic and, at least in part, evalua-tive. I have in mind such qualities as being graceful, powerful, bal-anced, original, and so on. Such aesthetic qualities have been de-fined, for example by Sibley, as those whose apprehension requirestaste.' This strikes me not so much as a helpful definition (to behelpful, we would need to know the nature of taste) as an indicationof the evaluative aspect of these properties, again best analyzed asrelations. To take taste to be a special faculty that apprehends specialqualities is no more plausible than was G. E. Moore's intuitionism inethics. Since there are no faculties or organs of taste, appeal to itsignals only that ascription of these aesthetic qualities express partic-ular tastes or sets of aesthetic values.

Appeal to these qualities supports judgments of beauty or artisticmerit in a principled way, in that the presence of the propertiesmentioned always counts at least prima facie positively in evaluatingworks of art. To say that a work is powerful is to suggest that it is

artistically a good work, just as to say that a man is courageous orkind, is to suggest that he is morally a good person. But this isbecause such terms themselves express approval. The same work thatis powerful to one critic may be strident to another; a work that isintense to one may be garish to another. Aesthetic qualities are likemoral properties in this regard: the man who is courageous in theeyes of one observer may be cold-blooded to another. In all thesecases, the opposing evaluative properties and judgments referring tothem may rest on the same nonevaluative bases. The objective sidesof these pairs of relational properties are the same, but they elicitdifferent responses expressed by the opposing terms.

A principle of beauty (or artistic merit) states that an object with acertain property P is prima facie beautiful (artistically good). Thisallows that P may be overridden by negative factors in the artwork,but requires that it always count in the same (positive) direction.Principles that fill in reference to the sort of properties mentionedabove are not so interesting, since their existence once more may

signal only that the properties in question are themselves (positively)evaluative. A far more interesting sort of principle would link evalu-ative to nonevaluative properties in this way. It would say that anobject with nonevaluative property Q an objective property rather

' Frank N. Sibley, "A Contemporary Theory of Aesthetic Qualities: AestheticConcepts," The Philosophical Review, LXVIII (1959): 421-450, p. 421.




than a relation to a positive response) is prima facie beautiful orartistically good.

It might be objected that this distinction could be used to beg thequestion against interesting aesthetic principles, since any propertylinked always positively to evaluation could be interpreted as itselfevaluative and therefore a component of only an uninteresting prin-ciple. But there is an independent way of drawing the distinction thatdoes not beg the question. There is broad agreement on the presenceof objective or nonevaluative properties that ultimately ground eval-uations, and disagreement can be settled by straightforward empiri-cal investigation. By contrast, we have seen that opposing evaluativeproperties and judgments expressing them may rest on the samenonevaluative bases.

If aesthetic qualities such as power, grace, and balance are (partly)evaluative, then they can once more be viewed as relations, in termsof objects being such as to elicit positive responses from suitablecritics. But, unlike in the case of beauty or artistic merit, the objectivesides of these relations are now more specifically indicated. Theseobjective base properties, on which aesthetic evaluations ultimately

supervene, are themselves most often relations among simpler ob-jective elements.

Relations of different sorts form the objective bases for differentevaluative aesthetic properties. 'Graceful' and 'harmonious', for ex-ample, refer to formal relations that elicit positive responses. Agraceful sculpture ordinarily has smooth and flowing lines withoutprotruding, sharply defined parts. 'Powerful' and 'soaring' referwith approval to expressive properties of the works themselves,which in turn depend on certain formal properties, although notalways the same ones. A powerful piece of music, for example, can-not be legato and pianissimo throughout. 'Innovative' and 'daring'refer, again while expressing approval or positive evaluation, to re-lations of the work or its features to features of other works in atradition.

The middle-level evaluative aesthetic qualities that I have beendescribing provide reasons for judgments of artistic merit or beauty.But ascriptions of the former properties can be challenged as well,

and their defense requires further reasons that appeal ultimately tononevaluative properties.2 We may, if we like, follow MonroeBeardsley in defining aesthetic qualities as those which provide rea-sons for aesthetic evaluations (ibid., p. 103); but it is most important

2 Cf. Monroe C. Beardsley, "What Is an Aesthetic Quality?", in The AestheticPoint of View (Ithaca: Cornell, 1982), pp. 104-105.




to distinguish middle-level from ultimate reasons, and thereby rela-tional, evaluative aesthetic qualities from nonevaluative aestheticqualities, which we may now call basic.

This fact/value distinction is (I hope) not naive, at least in so far asone thrust of the previous discussion is that many terms of aestheticdiscourse, and indeed many relational aesthetic properties, cutacross it. All the judgments or ascriptions of qualities so far men-tioned are both evaluative and descriptive. The fact that evaluativeproperties are always supervenient on others, however, implies thatthere must be some nonevaluative properties on which they ulti-

mately supervene, and hence some fact/value distinction that can berecognized. Its recognition generates a constraint on rational evalu-ators-that the presence of all the same nonevaluative properties ondifferent occasions must elicit the same aesthetic evaluations. Butthis minimal constraint leaves it open whether rational evaluators candisagree about the same works (indeed, the notion of taste indicatesthat they can), and whether there are any nonevaluative propertiesthat always count in the same way toward evaluations, that is, anyinteresting principles of taste.

I have agreed with Beardsley that aesthetic qualities are thosewhich provide reasons for aesthetic evaluations, but I have pointedout that many of these properties are themselves evaluative, rela-tional properties that must supervene ultimately on nonevaluative,basic aesthetic qualities. We can characterize basic aesthetic qualitiesin ways that do not explicitly refer to the category of the aesthetic.Such qualities are first of all phenomenal properties, those whichappear in perceptual experiences, and relations among phenomenalproperties. Furthermore, at least in the case of aesthetic propertiesthat ground positive evaluations (those on which I shall concentratebelow), the experiences in which they appear are thereby made morevaluable. In saying this, it is important to emphasize that the valuethat attaches to experiences of aesthetic qualities cannot be detachedfrom the qualities at which they are directed. Aesthetic value doesnot lie in the mere pleasantness of the sensations created when en-joying a work of art, even when there are pleasant sensations in-volved in such enjoyment, as in listening to a beautiful piece of

music. The perceptual experiences of good artworks are valuablebecause of the way they are structured when directed at aestheticfeatures of those objects. Works with artistic merit are such as toelicit positive responses in virtue of the way that their phenomenalproperties and relations among these properties generate experi-ences of them.

Several objections may be raised to the claim that aesthetic quali-




ties are phenomenal properties. One derives from a phenomenonemphasized in the recent literature, most emphatically by Arthur C.

Danto,3 that of two perceptually indistinguishable objects that meritdifferent aesthetic descriptions and evaluations, even from the samecritics. An example of such a pair would be an ordinary urinal versusDuchamp's perceptually indistinguishable work of art. If percep-tually indistinguishable objects can be such that one is a work of art(and of high artistic merit according to at least some critics) andanother is not, then artistic merit cannot be grounded entirely inperceptible, phenomenal properties. Indeed, Danto's examples mayseem to cast doubt also on the minimal constraint on aesthetic evalu-ation proposed above: that repetition of all the same nonevaluativeproperties must elicit the same evaluations from the same rationalcritics. This doubt will be dispelled below as well by defending theanalysis of aesthetic qualities as phenomenal properties and relationsamong them.

A second objection to that analysis notes that representational andexpressive functions of artworks enter into their artistic merit, andthat once more these are not simple phenomenal properties of the

works in themselves. To grasp fully the representational and expres-sive features of certain works may require knowledge of humannature and history far beyond anything directly presented in theworks themselves. In order to appreciate Tchaikovsky's 1812 Over-ture or Picasso's Guernica, one must know something of the gloriesand horrors of war, and something of the histories of the particularwars depicted. In novels, as opposed to visual art and music, it mightplausibly be claimed that phenomenal properties are of minimalsignificance, as opposed to the semantic properties of the languageby means of which it represents and expresses. The structure of anovel is defined not by relations among phenomenal elements, suchas tones or colored patches, but rather by elements of plot andcharacter depiction as these develop and interrelate. In some novels,these relations may be quite subtle, determined, for example, byshifting points of view among narrators and other characters. Thus,even an aesthetician who takes self-contained formal properties ofartworks to be of paramount aesthetic value cannot view these prop-

erties as always phenomenal.What these objections fail to note is the claim that aesthetic quali-ties consist not only in phenomenal properties, but also in relationsamong them, relations that are not always perceivable. In the re-mainder of this paper, I shall attempt to clarify the nature of the

3 The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (Cambridge: Harvard, 1981).




relations that are aesthetically significant, and then suggest whyproperties that constitute them should be a source of aesthetic value.Finally, I shall comment on whether the connections between theserelations and the positive value judgments they elicit can be capturedby a set of aesthetic principles.

IThe first set of aesthetically significant relations hold among phe-nomenal elements within works themselves and define their internalstructures. (At present I limit discussion to visual arts and music; thediscussion of literature will be continued below.) The elements hereconsist in tones in musical pieces, colored patches or lines in paint-ings, surfaces or chunks of sculptures, and so on. The relationsinclude contrasts, variations, repetitions, similarities, blendings, at-tractions, repulsions, tensions, and resolutions, and developmentsbased on various of these other relations. They create structuresreferred to as dynamic, tightly knit, balanced, harmonious, and soon. These structural features are perceivable, and they hold amongelements as phenomenally, not physically, defined. That the tonalprogression from the tonic to the dominant and back to the tonic

chord constitutes a development in terms of tension and its resolu-tion is not inherent in the physics of the vibrations, but in how thetones appear to us and cause us to respond perceptually and emo-tionally. Such formal features can be a source of aesthetic value inthemselves, apart from any representational functions of the worksthat contain them, and even apart from whatever emotions might beexpressed by means of them. Although some formal features inthemselves are expressive, not all that are of aesthetic value need be.The grace, balance, and harmony of an abstract sculpture, for exam-ple a Gabo, can have aesthetic value without expressing anything tothe viewer.

Nevertheless, it is undeniable that a second source of aestheticvalue lies in the representational and/or expressive character ofsome artworks and their properties. Here we must recognize rela-tions of a work's elements and formal properties to perceptual andemotional experiences outside the work. The manner in which anartwork represents may be quite straightforward, especially in de-

scriptive literature and visual art, although even in the latter casethere will be representational conventions at work to supplementresemblances. Such conventions may go unnoticed by audiencestrained to interpret them, and sometimes even by artists who usethem. Representation in music, beyond such devices as imitating birdcalls or other sounds, is more complex, always shading into expres-sion, which is generally subtler in its methods.




I mentioned above terms that refer to evaluative, expressive prop-erties, such as 'powerful' or 'soaring'. Such properties, I suggested,

can be analyzed in terms of their objects' being such as to elicitpositive responses in virtue of certain other expressive properties.We also find, of course, terms that refer nonevaluatively to expres-sive properties themselves, such as 'sad', 'tense', 'somber', 'cheerful'.There is no sharp dividing line between these types of terms, andcontext may determine whether approval or disapproval is beingexpressed by the latter. It is clear, however, that, whichever of theseterms we are using, we refer, at least in part, to expressive qualities inthe works themselves. The expressive qualities referred to relate tohuman emotional states, but not in the simple sense that they expressemotions felt by the artist in creating the work or by the audience inperceiving it. Instead, the audience is to respond to the work in a waysimilar to that in which it responds to the emotion when encounteredelsewhere.4 The proper response to an emotion is not always simplyto feel the same emotion: one responds to sadness, for example, notsimply by feeling sad, but also with sympathy and pity.

The way one responds to emotion in art is only similar to one's

responses in real life, in that one is to react to artistic expressionwithout believing that the emotion expressed is literally present,without acting in a way normally appropriate to such a response, andwithout losing awareness of the elements and formal properties ofthe work which somehow express the emotion in question. How thiseffect is achieved differs from genre to genre and from work to work.In straightforwardly representational art, the method may be equallystraightforward. Representing or describing a sad person, for exam-ple, may capture the person's sadness and so elicit the appropriateresponse. In music and abstract art, the relations are again morecomplex. Emotions may be expressed through representation, in theformal structure of a work, of the structural properties of typicalexpressions of the emotions. Sad music, for example, typically hasslow, flowing lines; cheerful music, more rapid rhythms; whereaspowerful pieces build tension through tonal development and vol-ume. It is more mysterious why minor chords or dark, muted colorsof paintings in themselves appear sad. There seems to be no single

method by which music, let alone other arts, express.The relations that constitute expression and representation in art

are not themselves perceivable. But I think it fair to say that they

Cf. Roger Scruton, Art and Imagination (London: Methuen, 1974), p. 128.




relate phenomenal, or at least experienced, elements. We respond tosadness in music not because we believe that the music is (literally)sad, but because it recalls to us the experience or observation ofanother's sadness or its expression. As mentioned, the other side ofthe relation, the properties in the music which express the emotion,must remain in focus as well. We must respond to these phenomenalproperties as expressive of sadness. If we are to react properly, to sadrepresentational works as well, we must remain aware that the sad-ness is not real, but only expressed in the experienced properties ofthe works. As Danto notes (op. cit., pp. 147-148), when art is repre-

sentational (or expressive), the manner of representation (or expres-sion) always matters aesthetically. And the manner or method alwaysinvolves phenomenal elements and formal properties within theworks. Finally, the emotions expressed or objects represented inartworks are expressed or represented as the artist has experiencedthem. We are to experience them and respond through the eyes ofthe artist, so that our way of experiencing or perceiving may bealtered or expanded.

The third set of aesthetically significant relations consists in rela-

tions of properties in artworks to earlier artworks that define a tra-dition. These relations are referred to by terms such as 'original','innovative', 'conservative', 'daring', and so on. They indicate a his-torical place for an artwork within a developing sequence. Worksmay be aesthetically valuable solely because of the way in which theycontinue, modify, overthrow, or extend a particular tradition withina particular genre. Once more we can consider such relations to holdbetween the phenomenal properties of a present work and those of

earlier (and perhapseven

later)works. Once more, appreciation of

the relevant historical relations informs and affects the way we per-ceive phenomenal properties within the work, upon which attentionmust always remain focused. This effect may be for better or worse.Present audiences probably cannot feel the power of a Haydn finaleas audiences in Haydn's time did, the former having absorbed morethoroughly the symphonies of Beethoven. On the other hand, wehear the development section in the first movement of the EroicaSymphony differently when we recognize that new ground was being

broken in the history of music.This last sort of relation holds between phenomenal properties of

artworks perceived at different times, so that once again the relationsthemselves are not perceivable. The properties related, however, arephenomenal properties of the works themselves, for example formalproperties, as well as expressive properties that I have defined also ascomplex relations.




II

Having included relations that may be themselves unperceivable in

the analysis of aesthetic properties, we are now ready to answer theobjections raised earlier. Reconsider first Danto's examples of per-ceptually indistinguishable objects that are aesthetically different. Anatural object perceptually indistinguishable from an artwork, say asculpture, is not itself a work of art. But then it does not bear thoserelations which we have recognized to be aesthetically significant. Itdoes not express or represent anything, for example, although it mayhave formally pleasing properties and so be beautiful (op. cit., pp.93-94). A copy that is perceptually identical to an original work ofart also differs in its aesthetic relations. It does not express or repre-sent through the eyes or experience of its creator. Nor does it everbear the same relation to the tradition. Whereas the original maycontinue or modify the development of the genre in an interestingway, the copy does not continue or extend the tradition at all (oncewe include the original in that tradition).

Other objections appealed to literature, where the elements thatenter into formal, expressive, and historical relations seem to be

defined according to the semantic content of the writing, rather thanphenomenally. Furthermore, there may be value in what a novelsays-the moral, political, or philosophical truths contained therein.Nevertheless, although content certainly serves to define character,plot development, and hence structure in a novel, the structure,characters, and even moral and philosophical content of a novel haveaesthetic value only when they serve to inform our experience inreading it. The aesthetic qualities of fiction do not lie in the historicalor philosophical truths that it might convey. A novel makes greatliterature not if it describes a true moral theory or historical era, butif the moral beliefs and experiences of the characters, or the histori-cal circumstances in which they find themselves, help to define themand relations between them in an aesthetically fulfilling way.

Even the formal structure of the novel must structure our experi-ence of it, must help us to understand the characters and to experi-ence through their points of view. Just as a bit of philosophical orhistorical exposition cannot substitute for the functions of these

elements in a novel, so a diagram or chart, which may represent thestructure in a novel with perfect accuracy, cannot substitute for theway the structure affects our experience in reading it. All thesepoints supplement appeal to the sensuous nature of the languageitself in a good piece of fiction or poetry, which once more may be ofaesthetic value in the quasi-musical forms it creates and in the way itmay intensify our experience in reading the work.




The analysis of aesthetic qualities as phenomenal properties andcertain relations among them stands against the objections raisedearlier. It remains first to inquire why and how these relations con-stitute sources of aesthetic value. Although I do not deny that iso-lated elements of artworks or natural objects, for example certaincolors or tones, may be so pleasing to the senses as to merit theascription of beauty, certainly the greatest sources of aesthetic valuelie in those relations described above. And whereas the question ofwhy certain colors or tones are found to be so pleasant is one forpsyclhologists to answer (if, indeed, there is an answer here, as op-

posed to a primitive psychological fact), it is of more philosophicalinterest to explain how aesthetic relations create aesthetic value, tosuggest (for further development) a theory of artistic value.

The first thing to note here is the interaction among elementswithin these relations and the interaction among the relations them-selves. Regarding the former, elements of artworks are transformedwhen relating to others in broader structures. We hear a tone, forexample, completely differently when it is part of a chord or melody,and a chord differently depending on the key and modulations in

which it is embedded. And it is well-known that we perceive colorsdifferently depending on the surrounding colors. This is one, butonly one, reason why it is doubtful that we can find nonevaluativeproperties that always contribute in the same way to aesthetic value.If simpler properties are altered by the relations into which theyenter within artworks, then they will not always maintain the samevalues. Only broader relations themselves, then, can be candidatesfor entering interesting aesthetic principles. But the question iswhether we can find anything short of whole artworks that must bejudged in the same way on different occasions of appearance, anyprinciple more interesting than the minimal constraint on rationalevaluation suggested in section I.

I have indicated in passing the many ways in which the relationsdeemed aesthetically significant interact with each other. We evenhave terms of positive evaluation for such interaction, such as 'apt-ness of form to content'. Form determines representation and ex-pression, and any of the three may determine the historical place of a

work within a tradition. In music, expressiveness may be achievedthrough formal qualities of rhythm, pitch, and tonal development; inpainting, representation may elicit emotional responses similar tothose made in reaction to the objects represented. But these inter-actions are not always one-way. I noted that the historical place of awork, for example a Haydn symphony, may influence for better orworse its expressive power for a contemporary audience. Further-




more, expressive qualities can help to determine form; modulationtakes the form of felt tensions and resolutions in many tonal musical

pieces. The variations here seem almost endless and can acquire suchcomplexity and subtlety as to become the controversial topics ofcritical interpretation. Satirical literature, for example, can repre-sent nonsatirical counterparts in the literary tradition, whereas somecontemporary paintings represent their own places within recentmovements in painting. Here self-conscious historical relations helpto determine representation, what the work is about.

Before commenting on how these interactions create values inartworks, we may note why the three sorts of relations in themselvesshould be sources of aesthetic value. Form or structure constitutesorder among distinct elements which allows intellect or perceptionto grasp them in more significant chunks. Since order is sought byboth faculties, we should not be surprised that it is pleasing whenfound, more so when found after a challenge. As other aestheticianshave commented, order within complexity is therefore of particularvalue. Relations of an artwork to its tradition represent a differentkind of order that allows for greater comprehension of the work

as a whole.As form allows for the exercise of intellect and perceptual com-prehension, so representation and expression in art allow for theexercise of imagination and emotional capacities without the per-sonal costs often associated with the latter. Once more, such exer-cise, or "free play," as some aestheticians call it, both pleases in itselfand has instrumental value in helping to develop the faculties or, inmore contemporary terms, the capacities in question. Through ex-posure to art, we can become more perceptually aware, more opento various sensuous enjoyments, and more emotionally sensitive andsensible as well.

The greater value of these relations lies in the way that they affectperceptions of the elements within artworks. I have emphasized thatform, representation, expressiveness, and even originality must im-pregnate our experience of the sensible properties of artworks inorder to be of aesthetic value. We hear notes and chords as elementswithin melodic and harmonic structures, and they have meaning for

us in those terms. These structures are expressive to us, and theemotions they express also imbue the hearing of particular chordswith a deeper significance. We must hear the sadness in the music,for example, rather than simply be caused to dwell on sadness, whichwould have negative, if any, value. The range of emotions expressedin a single symphony may condense those felt over long periods ofnonaesthetic experience. This intensity is even more evident in read-




ing literature, when we can vicariously experience lifetimes in a mat-ter of hours.

Experience of artistic elements which is imbued in these ways byemotion or structure or historical significance is thereby madericher, more meaningful, intense, and condensed. When interactionsamong these different relations inform our perceptions of the ele-ments within artworks, the effects are yet more remarkable, and thevalue to be derived is itself more intense. The value of art, on thisview, lies largely in the richness of the perceptual and emotionalexperiences it affords us, and the theory of aesthetic value explainsthe sources of this richness. I have only indicated the outlines of suchexplanations

here, but we must proceed at this point to our finalquestion.III

If experience richly imbued with meaning through structure, ex-pression, and historical significance is valuable to us, why should wenot be able to capture these sources of value in a set of aestheticprinciples of the sort indicated above (section I)? Interesting princi-ples, we noted, must link nonevaluative to evaluative aesthetic prop-erties; but if structural, expressive, and historical relations can be

described in nonevaluative terms, why should there be any greatdifficulty in specifying these links? If these relations create value inthe experience of elements within artworks, why should they not doso in lawlike ways?

There are at least two reasons, both alluded to briefly above. First,elements are transformed by the relations into which they enter, andso do not themselves always count in the same (lawlike) way towardthe value of works in which they are found. Entire works in all theirhistorical relations must be judged alike on different occasions ofapprehension, but this constraint fails to generate any aesthetic prin-ciples, since entire works in all their relations are never repeated.Given the transformation of elements, it is difficult to imagine whyany part of a work short of the whole could not be altered in its valuewhen placed in a different context. Nevertheless, one might main-tain, although elements may be transformed by relations into whichthey enter, they can still be transformed in lawlike ways. If certainrelations add value to the elements in artworks that they connect,

why can these value creating transformations themselves not be law-like, hence expressed in aesthetic principles? The answer here lies inirreconcilable differences in taste.

Some aesthetic disagreements result from inattention by one ofthe parties to certain phenomenal properties in the works them-selves. These disputes can be resolved simply by calling attention to




the properties in question. Other disputes rest on failure to appreci-ate certain of the value-creating relations that may not be themselvesperceivable. Appreciation may require knowledge of relevant forms,expressive or representational conventions, or traditions, and somedisagreements can be resolved, at least in the long run, by educationof one of the disputants in the relevant relations. There will remain,however, a residue of disagreement that is not resolvable in theseways. The relevant relations may inform the experiences of differentevaluators of a work in different ways, and hence the responseselicited may differ as well, even after exposure to the work andeducation. There is room for differences among educated tastes.

More frequently, different evaluators place emphasis on differentrelations at the expense of others. This may result in distinct inter-pretations or simply in opposed evaluations. For some music critics,for example, the formal and expressive properties of pieces bySaint-Saens give them great aesthetic value; while for others, hisfailure to extend or alter the course of the Romantic tradition in aninteresting way robs his music of aesthetic value and renders it insig-nificant.

These two features of aesthetic qualities-that phenomenal prop-erties are transformed by relations and that the latter affect differentevaluators in different ways-defeat attempts to specify interestingaesthetic principles. The two features themselves are connected, inthat elements take on different significance depending on the em-phasis placed on particular relations they may enter. The result isthat evaluative aesthetic properties seem to supervene on nonevalu-ative properties without being necessitated by them. To say that theysupervene is to repeat the constraint on rational evaluation that we

have noted: there can be no change in a rational critic's evaluation ofa work without some change in its nonevaluative properties. To saythat evaluative properties are not necessitated by nonevaluative onesis to allow for differences in evaluations of the same work by differ-ent critics, to allow for disagreement without error or even insensi-tivity.5

When aestheticians argue in favor of aesthetic principles, theyoften have in mind support for broad judgment of aesthetic merit or

5 Cannot a single rational evaluator change taste and thereby violate the con-straint to judge the same work in the same way on different occasions? Not, I think,without holding her formerjudgment to be mistaken, to have missed some source ofvalue in the work or to have mistaken for a source of value what on more prolongedinspection produces only tedium. But then, must she not hold opposingjudgmentsby others to be equally mistaken, and so fail to allow for disagreement withouterror? I believe that one can recognize irreconcilable differences in taste whileregarding each change in one's own taste as an improvement.




beauty by appeal to what I have called middle-level, evaluative, aes-thetic properties, such as grace or power.6 When they argue against

principles, they may have in mind the absence of necessary connec-tions between basic, nonevaluative, aesthetic qualities and rationalevaluation, which is evidenced by irreconcilable disagreementsamong knowledgeable and sensitive critics. Parties to such disputesin aesthetics obviously can talk past each other. I have granted theexistence of the less interesting sort of aesthetic principle, whiledenying the more interesting kind, and explaining both features ofaesthetic reasons.

The impossibility of specifying interesting aesthetic principles, ei-ther narrow or broad, is well-illustrated by recent attempts of aes-theticians to do so. We may consider first a single example fromDavid Pole.7 He proposes as a case of a nonevaluative descriptionthat entails a (prima facie) evaluation, a character without apparentmotive inserted into a play for the sole purpose of moving the plotalong (ibid., p. 154). In such contexts, the lack of motive is a defect,Pole maintains, and necessarily so. He recognizes, of course, that thisfeature counts in only a prima facie way toward a negative evaluation

of the play, as is obvious from the fact that his example is from awell-known play by Shakespeare. But the problem is instead that thegeneralization is not perfect. In a play such as Waiting for Godot,lack of motive is a virtue, at least in so far as it is part of the point.This is not to say that all critics must approve of that play, but, insofaras they do, they will be unlikely to disapprove of the lack of apparentmotives in the characters. Nor can we find a non-question-beggingrelevant difference between the plays which accounts for the differ-ent effects of this feature and which we can generalize. All we can sayis that Godot is not the sort of play in which lack of motives countsnegatively. Clearly that sort of statement will not do as a way to savethe law or aesthetic principle.

The failure of Pole's principle can be explained by either or bothfeatures of aesthetic qualities to which I have drawn attention. Thelack of motive that may be a defect in the context of one play is notwhen related to the other elements in a different play. Both of theseplays, but certainly Godot, may elicit approval from some rational

critics and disapproval from others; and such differences willtransfer to this particular feature of the play as well.The same factors defeat attempts to find broader aesthetic laws,

6 See, for example, Sibley, "General Criteria and Reasons in Aesthetics," inEssays on Aesthetics, John Fisher, ed. (Philadelphia: Temple, 1983).

7 "Art and Generality," in Aesthetics, Form and Emotion (New York: St. Mar-tin's, 1983).




too. One of the boldest recent attempts at reducing aesthetic tononaesthetic qualities is that of Guy Sircello,8 for whom beauty con-sists in having certain other properties to a high degree. Propertiesthat admit of qualitative degrees relative to objects that have themare beautiful when possessed to a high degree, according to histheory of beauty. His paradigm is vividness in colors. Colors arebeautiful in respect to vividness (but perhaps not in other respects) ifthey are very vivid.

The theory fails to specify a law, let alone a reduction, even in itsparadigm case. On the one hand, a color that is beautifully vivid toone observer may be simply garish to another, not in the sense thatits beauty is overridden or defeated by its garishness, but in

that it issimply garish instead of beautiful. On the other hand, a pastel may bebeautiful without our being tempted to say that it is a vivid pastel(whatever that would mean) (cf. op. cit., p. 31). Then, too, the samecolor that is beautiful in the context of one color scheme may beoffensive in the context of another. In the latter context, there is noreason to say that it remains beautiful in itself; rather, beauty ofcolor, like perception of color, seems to be in part a function ofcontext.

If this theory fails in its paradigm case, then there is no need topress the more obvious objection that qualities like sliminess becomemore rather than less distasteful the greater the degree to which theyare present. Sircello attempts to answer this objection by saying thatwe may not be good judges of beauty in such properties (op. cit., p.70). But then who is to judge such beauty, slugs and catfish? He alsohedges the general thesis by claiming that it holds only of qualitiesthat are not defects in their objects. Once more, however, this seemsto say that the law obtains except where it does not, which, of course,is to admit that it is not a law at all.

Examples could be multiplied. I use these as instances of the waysin which I believe that any attempt to state interesting aestheticprinciples will fail. Those principles which do seem to work, I havemaintained, refer to evaluative aesthetic qualities throughout. Theabsence of laws, however, does not entail that we cannot have aninteresting theory of aesthetic qualities and aesthetic value. I hopethat I have suggested such a theory. We can recognize the ways in

which basic aesthetic qualities constitute sources of value withoutattempting to provide formulas for artists.

ALAN H. GOLDMAN

University of Miami

8 A New Theory of Beauty (Princeton: University Press, 1975).

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Goldman - Aesthetic Qualities and Aesthetic Value