Irene Martínez Marín’s research while affiliated with Uppsala University and other places

The concept of autonomy is central to many debates in aesthetics. However, exactly what it means to be autonomous in our aesthetic engagements is somewhat unclear in the philosophical literature. The normative significance of autonomy is also unclear and hotly debated. In this essay, I propose a method for clarifying this elusive concept by distinguishing three distinct senses or varieties of aesthetic autonomy: experiential autonomy, competence‐based autonomy, and personal autonomy. On this taxonomy autonomy is a context‐sensitive concept and autonomy applies to several different moments or stages of aesthetic appreciation. Throughout this critical discussion, important issues concerning the nature of aesthetic appreciation are also explored.

By bringing together the perspectives of both philosophers and educationalists, the essays in this volume aim to examine whether or not, and in what ways, artistic engagement contributes to moral education. One will find some comfort in knowing that the answer is broadly optimistic, especially in times of moral chaos. But how exactly can artistic engagement help us become better people? Is it related to the different artistic techniques employed by artists? Or does it have to do with a shared set of skills that we are required to exercise both as art appreciators and moral agents? Furthermore, can non-traditional art forms contribute to character formation? And, how transformative and lasting are the effects of art on one's character? These are the main questions organizing the different contributions. Art has the power to inspire meaningful change within us. Artworks invite us to adopt perspectives that are different, sometimes radically different, from the ones we are familiar with. Art encourages us to be open, to reflect on complex issues challenging our existing values, and even motivates us to take specific actions. For the authors of this volume, these facts signal a connection between artistic and moral value, making art a fertile ground for the cultivation of character. While the connection between character and contemporary aesthetics remains relatively unexplored, the claim that the arts can influence one's moral outlook (for better or worse) has deep philosophical roots. As various of the essays remind us, Plato's famous exclusion of poets from his ideal state is a radical example of the belief that art can be morally corruptive. A more positive perspective is found in Aristotle's Poetics, where artistic creation is not viewed with suspicion; tragedy is recognized for its ability to clarify feelings of pity and fear.

There is a dimension of rationality, known as structural rationality, according to which a paradigmatic example of what it means to be rational is not to be akratic. Although some philosophers claim that aesthetics falls within the scope of rationality, a non-akrasia constraint prohibiting certain combinations of attitudes is yet to be developed in this domain. This essay is concerned with the question of whether such a requirement is plausible and, if so, whether it is an actual requirement of aesthetic rationality. Ultimately, this paper defends the view that aesthetics is no different from other domains in that it requires coherence between a subject’s mental states (in the aesthetic case, between what is judged and what is aesthetically liked).

Winner of the Fabian Dorsch ESA Essay Prize. For cognitivist accounts of aesthetic appreciation, appreciation requires an agent (1) to perceptually respond to the relevant aesthetic features of an object o on good evidential grounds, (2) to have an autonomous grasp of the reasons that make the claim about the aesthetic features of o true by pointing out the connection between non-aesthetic features and the aesthetic features of o, (3) to be able to provide an explanation of why those features contribute to the overall aesthetic value of o. In this framework, aesthetic emotions have traditionally been confined to the level of aesthetic perception (1) and dismissed from the process of reason-giving (2, 3). I argue that this dismissal is due, firstly, to a questionable perceptual reading of the connection between emotional experience and value, and, secondly, to a narrow focus on the basic emotions. My argument will reveal that the non-standard or ‘intellectual’ emotions, the emotions which are in fact most important to appreciation, can play a significant epistemic role in our appreciative practices. They can do this because they (a) help us to deliberately focus our attention and (b) place the appreciator in a state of second-order awareness of their mental states. I conclude the paper by showing how these two epistemic tools (a, b) can help the appreciator to meet the explanatory/justificatory conditions (2) and (3).