RESPONSE-DEPENDENCE ABOUT AESTHETIC VALUE

Abstract

The dominant view about the nature of aesthetic value holds it to be response-dependent. We believe that the dominance of this view owes largely to some combination of the following prevalent beliefs:

• 1
  The belief that challenges brought against response-dependent accounts in other areas of philosophy are less challenging when applied to response-dependent accounts of aesthetic value.
• 2
  The belief that aesthetic value is instrumental and that response-dependence about aesthetic value alone accommodates this purported fact.
• 3
  The belief that response-dependence about aesthetic value alone accommodates the widely acknowledged anthropocentricity of aesthetic value.
• 4
  The belief that response-dependence about aesthetic value alone accommodates aesthetic normativity.

We argue that each of these beliefs is false, and that the dominance of response-dependent accounts of aesthetic value is therefore largely without foundation.