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Aesthetic Experience and Becoming Good: an Examination of the Connection Between Aesthetics and Ethics in Plato, Kant, and Iris Murdoch

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Aesthetic Experience and Becoming Good: an Examination of the Connection Between Aesthetics and Ethics in Plato, Kant, and Iris Murdoch AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE AND BECOMING GOOD: AN EXAMINATION OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND ETHICS IN PLATO, KANT, AND IRIS MURDOCH by Meredith C. Trexler Submitted to the graduate degree program in Philosophy and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Chairperson: Dr. Thomas Tuozzo Dr. Scott Jenkins Dr. James Woelfel Dr. Ann Cudd Dr. John Younger Date Defended: 11/24/2014 The Dissertation Committee for Meredith C. Trexler certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE AND BECOMING GOOD: AN EXAMINATION OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND ETHICS IN PLATO, KANT, AND IRIS MURDOCH ________________________________ Chairperson: Dr. Thomas M. Tuozzo Date approved: 11/24/2014 ii ABSTRACT In my dissertation, I examine the connection between aesthetic experience and morality. I specifically focus on the work of Plato, Kant, and Iris Murdoch, who all share the thesis that aesthetic experience has an ineluctable moral component, which enables it to play various roles in moral education and development. In chapter 1, I give an analysis of Plato’s discussion of experiences of beauty via art in the Republic, and his arguments that art can be used in moral training. I also examine Plato’s discussion of erotic experiences of beautiful people in the Symposium and Phaedrus and his arguments that these sorts of experiences provide an insight into the nature of true value and a certain kind of vision: they lead to the knowledge of true Beauty, and illuminate the value of the life lived by the lover of wisdom. In Chapter 2, I give an analysis of Kant’s discussion of beauty in nature and art, and his discussion of sublimity. I argue that, as a result of the different symbolic relationships that the beautiful and the sublime have with the moral, these kinds of experiences, each in a different way, are morally instructive. In Chapters 3 and 4, I examine Iris Murdoch’s view regarding the connection between moral progress and aesthetic experience. Drawing Plato’s and Kant’s theories together, Murdoch argues for her own theory of moral progress, which involves a pilgrimage that one must make from the self-focused fantasy life into which one is born to the apprehension of reality, particularly in its moral dimensions. I examine the way in which aesthetic experience is involved in the Murdochain moral pilgrimage and the connection between aesthetic experience and what Murdoch refers to as ‘unselfing.’ In Chapter 5, I address the theoretical underpinnings of the relation between morality and aesthetics that I argue for. I present three interrelated theses, one in moral psychology, one in iii normative value theory, and one in the intersection between them. The first thesis is motivational internalism about the good, and the second thesis is the substantive claim that the moral is, in fact, good. Therefore, when one understands the moral as good she has motivation towards it. However, humans do not necessarily have such an understanding. A person may believe that something is morally required without believing it to be good. Thus, the third thesis is that art may help us to see the moral as good by giving us a new kind of perspective: a new point of view from which one understands that there is a higher self. I end the dissertation with a Coda, wherein I review the way in which aesthetic experience functions in Plato, Kant, and Murdoch. Then, I consider the main philosophical objections that arise against the thesis that aesthetic experience gives rise to moral transformation. Finally, I sketch a view of aesthetics in which I make some relevant distinctions that help clear up these difficulties. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Thomas Tuozzo for directing this dissertation, and for his advice and guidance throughout the course of my graduate school career. I would also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Scott Jenkins, Dr. James Woelfel, Dr. Ann Cudd, and Dr. John Younger, who helped and encouraged the production of my project. In addition, I would like remember Dr. Anthony Genova; I am thankful for his direction of my Master’s Thesis on Kant’s Critique of Judgment, which provided the foundation for Chapter 2 of this dissertation. I would like to thank Dr. Steven Tramel and Dr. Douglas Drabkin for introducing me to philosophy, for inspiring my interest in this topic 10 years ago, and for our many conversations over the years. I would like to thank my parents, Brad and Kim Trexler, and my grandparents, Allen and Carol Trexler, for their gracious support, as well as Brittney Johnson, Lynn Bruton, Jennifer Kittlaus, Jennifer Guffey, Stella Trexler, and Lily Trexler. Last but not least, I would like to thank Jeff Drees for his love and his faith in me over the last 7 years. v Contents INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1 EXPERIENCES OF BEAUTY VIA ART AND EROTIC EXPERIENCES OF BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE: THE CONNECTION BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND ETHICS IN PLATO ............ 5 CHAPTER 2 BEAUTY, ART, AND SUBLIMITY, AND THE SYMBOLIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AESTHETIC JUDGMENT AND MORAL JUDGMENT IN KANT ......................................... 58 CHAPTER 3 AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE, MORAL VISION, AND ‘UNSELFING’ IN IRIS MURDOCH109 CHAPTER 4 A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CONNECTION BETWEEN PLATO, KANT AND MURDOCH ..................................................................................................................................................... 169 CHAPTER 5 MOTIVATIONAL INTERNALISM ABOUT THE GOOD AND THE TWO-TIER SELFLESS PERSPECTIVE........................................................................................................................... 198 CODA ......................................................................................................................................... 229 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 243 vi INTRODUCTION The relationship between aesthetics and morality is rich and manifold, and so are the works that are dedicated to discussing it. The main themes in this discussion include the question as to whether aesthetic experience may give rise to moral progress, questions about whether aesthetic experience can be used in moral education, the recent debate concerning whether or not aesthetic and ethical evaluations “go their separate ways,”1 questions about whether the moral content of a work is relevant to its aesthetic value, and the question as to whether beauty is intrinsically connected with moral value. In this dissertation, I examine these questions through an analysis of the view that aesthetic experience cannot, and should not be, divorced from morality. I specifically focus on the work of Plato, Kant, and Iris Murdoch. These three philosophies are individual and distinctive, and these philosophers’ views of aesthetics, in particular, are importantly divergent from one another in certain respects. However, they all recognize important connections between aesthetics and morality, and their theories overlap in certain ways. More specifically, these philosophers share the thesis that aesthetic experience has an ineluctable moral component, which enables it to play various roles in moral education and development. My project comprises five chapters, followed by a Coda. In chapter 1, I argue that beauty plays two roles in Plato’s general theory of moral progress: (1) Some experiences of beauty via art can be used in moral training; that is, these experiences can be used to promote the kind of 1 Marcia Muelder Eaton. Merit, Aesthetic, and Ethical (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 1 training that Plato suggests should take place during the beginning stages of education in the Republic. This is an affective kind of training, whereby a person learns to feel appropriately toward appropriate things. Experiences of beauty via art have the capacity to influence a person’s character, and they can, in turn, help give rise to appropriate behavior. (2) An erotic experience of a beautiful person, as it is described in the Symposium and Phaedrus, is a more profound sort of experience. This kind of experience can be distinguished from (1) in that it adds a higher kind of cognitive component which is lacking in (1). In (1), cognition is involved (cognition is involved in all affection), but only as perception-based thought, which merely has access to appearances. Some erotic experiences of beautiful people, on the other hand, provide an insight into the nature of true value and a certain kind of vision. They lead to the knowledge of true Beauty, and illuminate the value of the life lived by the lover of wisdom. Therefore, erotic experiences of beautiful people promote increased moral understanding as opposed to affective training. In Chapter 2, I give an analysis of Kant’s discussion of beauty in nature and art, and his discussion of sublimity, which, I suggest, is surprisingly under-appreciated. I argue that, as a result of the different symbolic relationships that the beautiful and the sublime have with the moral, these kinds of experiences, each in a different way, are instructive: The beautiful is especially capable of teaching us to love something without interest, and it cultivates a certain kind of freedom from the merely personal inclinations
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