Vichara 6: Value is an aesthetic quality
... you find their very being, regardless of its utility ...
We have already seen that there is a sense we have of intrinsic, ultimate value (on the subjective side), and if our sense isn't entirely illusory, value is a simple, irreducible substance, form or attribute of reality (on the objective side). What more can be said?
Earlier I had spoken of "an objective quality of pure value, the nectar or light, one could say, of the Good" that is apprehended when experiencing a truly great work of art. What I have to say about today may seem obvious, or even maybe tautological, but today's observations, especially when applied to domains outside the ream of art, will serve as a portal into the terrain of the core of the insights that we're getting at. Namely, what I want you to see today is that we experience the Good, or ultimate, objective value, as something aesthetic.1
It is obvious that in great art, we find great beauty, and beauty, pretty much definitionally, is an aesthetic quality. But what I'm saying here is that the aesthetically characterized quality of objective value that we apprehend in the experience of finding art to be good for its own sake is what we find perhaps in all instances when we find entities to be good for their own sake. Each of them might have their own flavor. The exact kind of aesthetic brilliance, with so many different tints and intensities, that one experiences in going through the ride that is Symphony No. 2 by Mahler might be different from the specific texture or flavor or timbre of the quality at play when one driving a high-quality car, which may consciously or unconsciously be cognized as "Wow, there is such a great quality to the operation and performance of this car," or even more succinctly, indistinctly yet maybe experientially accurately as "Wow, this is so good/impressive/amazing/somesuchadjective!" These experiences obviously feel different. However, I do wager that a) it is the same substance, form or property of intrinsic value that we are encountering in such instances, and that b) whatever specific quality we are encountering, it falls under the general type of the aesthetic. Even in encountering staggering throttle response or brake feel or chassis dynamics (or as one may be struck by when driving a Honda Civic on mile 240,000, sheer unwavering stability), what one finds there is quality that is aesthetic. And in general, when one apprehends that which one finds good for its own sake, one is apprehending that goodness or intrinsic value as an aesthetic property.
Now, time for a very important point: So far I have only given examples of artistic or technological artifacts—piano performances and firearms, musical compositions and cool cars. However, more so than such things, most people tend to value other people (or rather, certain other people) even more. Does the framework that I'm developing here accommodate those whom we cherish and love?
The answer is: Absolutely, and moreover, in the same way. Consider someone you love—it could be a spouse, child, parent, whoever. Chances are, if you truly love them (even if they drive you nuts sometimes), you are simply happy they exist—not for some utility their existence brings, but because you find that existence good in-itself. Specifically, you will find that you find their very being, regardless of its utility, to be so beautiful (in a broad sense)2, amazing or precious, you find their existence to be a fortune or treasure of a sort that is, again, aesthetic.
Here it may do to characterize what is meant by "aesthetic" by what that isn't, viz. the ethical or the moral. This is readily seen going back to our prior examples. There is no (direct) moral value to a great work of art; that is besides the point when we value that. Similarly, for a person in or about whom we sense the aforementioned nectar or light of goodness, we find their existence not an ethical win for ourselves or the universe or anything or anybody, but as a marvel or boon that has some beauty, i.e., an aesthetic quality, to it. Even as far as our experience or affirmation of their existence goes, it isn't marked by a "moral" approval regarding that existence, but again, a simple delight or appreciation for that existence that has all the radiance and enthusiasm of an aesthetic experience.
Or to go back to a way of looking at things from last time, your mental state or what your mind is like when you think of the existence of some entity being "ethical" is one way (a way that is much more cognitively marked, perhaps, but I'm not sure about this), and what your mind is like when you think of the existence of some entity being "aesthetic" is another way, and when we think about those whom we love, the mind is closer to the latter state.
Indeed, it perhaps may be that while the criterion of something being “ethical” isn’t reducible to aesthetics, our appreciation of an ethical good—some action that may be considered very moral or honorable—is also an aesthetic experience. When we appreciate a selfless act of kindness that someone may commit for a stranger, that may be morally good, but at the same time, we see it as something beautiful. Whether this is what makes it ethical in the first place is a different matter, but it can at least be said that if and when we find ethical goods such as (acts or instances of ) kindness, compassion, honesty, integrity, impartiality, etc. to be intrinsically valuable, we also find them aesthetically high-value.
So what is the relation between a) aesthetic value or beauty broadly construed and b) the Good? Are they coincident? How does this experiential proximity of beauty to intrinsic value relate to the notion that good is a simple, undefinable property, as seen last time?3 We will get to these matters over time. Today, though, I will close with a deeper metaphysical point that I’ve avoided entirely so far, but which the last two dispatches have already augured. This is regarding the nonduality of subjectivity and objectivity. Such nonduality would even seem to go against what I've talked about so far, re. the objective good, but sense will be made of this when, on a later day, we parse through different meanings of the word "objective" and build upon that understanding to see how, indeed, what is "out there" isn't fundamentally different at all from what is "in here". We can already get an inkling of this based on what we have covered this week and last: Goodness being a simple property and us experiencing it as a simple property get at the same thing; likewise it being something aesthetic and our experience of it being aesthetic also get at the same thing. We will get at what this getting at gets at when it's time to get to that.
In any case, like last week, the purpose of today's observation wasn’t to provide an essential specification of value, but to provide another crucial feature of it that builds up to its specification. The two features covered in the last two weeks are sufficient to now commence looking at, as we can specify "yellow" through physics (in terms of its electromagnetic properties) even if not explain it at its essence, to specify what the Good may be in terms of certain metaphysical properties that accompany it. We will get straight to that next time.
This does not necessarily imply that that is all we experience the Good as. It may be a predominant characteristic, it may even be sufficient, but the only point being explicitly stated today is that it is necessary.
Not in the specific sense often used be philosophers as contrasting with the sublime, but in the sense more aligned with its colloquial understanding, as broad general aesthetic quality. I may perhaps write something defining these two sense as Kantian beauty and Keatsian beauty—the latter aligned with Keats' dictum that "Beauty is truth, truth beauty".
Note that the title of today’s post, ‘Value is an aesthetic quality’, doesn’t follow the structure of the invalid definitions for “Good” that we looked at last time, such as “Good is pleasure” or “Good is virtue”. In those, the subject was being considered equivalent to the predicate. In the title, the predicate gives a type that the subject falls into, sort of like saying “Yellow is a color” as opposed to “Yellow is <definition capturing essence>”