Aesthetic Value: Why Pleasure Counts
Mohan Matthen
Abstract
An object has aesthetic value (henceforth: a-value) because a certain sort of cognitive engagement with it is beneficial. This grounding in mental activity explains why a-valuable objects are so diverse. The Himalayas are descriptively as different as can be from Pythagoras’s proof. Yet both are a-valuable. The commonality rests in our mental attitudes to them. What do the mental attitudes that ground a-value share? In my view, a certain kind of pleasure. Until relatively recently, this approach was thought to be validated by intuition and self-examination. Most philosophers felt they could leave it at that. This is unsatisfactory: aesthetic hedonism needs support and elaboration. I will try to bridge the gap. An inanimate object, o, has value for a subject, s, when s’s relationship (R) to o brings her a benefit (B). In the case of a-value, R is aesthetic engagement. My view is that B is pleasure.