Anthony Cross

In the age of streaming, we face a pressing problem of aesthetic choice: how are we to navigate the overwhelming quantity of content to which we now have access? Streaming platforms like Spotify and Netflix apply sophisticated machine learning tools to recommend personalized content to individual users. These recommender systems are presented to users as a technological solution to the problem of aesthetic choice, promising to help us discover new opportunities for engagement with aesthetic value. However, overreliance on algorithmic recommendation can lead to diminished aesthetic autonomy, reduced aesthetic exploration, and an overall reduction in the satisfaction we take in aesthetic engagement. This is largely due to the fact that, in their most popular implementations, recommender systems are optimized to captivate users. They aim to maximize our engagement by recommending both content and modes of engagement which are initially attractive and frictionless, but which ultimately reshape our aesthetic personalities in ways that anchor us to streaming platforms. This paper explores these concerns before concluding with an assessment of whether it’s possible to use recommender systems in ways more conducive to our aesthetic flourishing.

What does aesthetic life look like in the digital age? This chapter explores the impact that AI, algorithms, social networking, and other technological innovations have had on the ways that we create, consume, and commune. We’ll divide our focus across each one of the three c’s listed above – creativity, consumption, and community. In each section, we’ll also be zooming in on one technological development, highlighting its specific impact on our aesthetic lives. The first section focuses on the emergence of AI-generated art and its impacts on creativity; the second section concerns the impact of algorithmic recommendation systems on our consumption; and in the final section, I discuss the ways in which the internet has affected our ability to form and maintain aesthetic communities.

Artificial intelligence is now capable of generating sophisticated and compelling images from simple text prompts. In this paper, I focus specifically on how artists might make use of AI to create art. Most existing discourse analogizes AI to a tool or collaborator; this focuses our attention on AI’s contribution to the production of an artistically significant output. I propose an alternative approach, the exploration paradigm, which suggests that artists instead relate to AI as a participant: artists create a space for interaction with the AI algorithm by way of their prompts, thereby allowing them to explore the way that the algorithm “sees” and “represents.” AI art practiced in this fashion bears a striking resemblance to contemporary conceptual and participatory art. Viewing AI art in this way has implications for the appreciation of style in AI art; concerns about novelty and originality; and the assignment of artistic credit and copyright.

The aesthetic domain is a social one. We coordinate our individual acts of creation, appreciation, and performance with those of others in the context of social aesthetic practices. More strongly, many of the richest goods of our aesthetic lives are constitutively social; their value lies in the fact that individuals are engaged in joint aesthetic agency, participating in cooperative and collaborative project that outstrips what can be realized alone. I provide an account of nature and value of two such social aesthetic goods—aesthetic communities and aesthetic traditions—and further argue that such goods are a core constituent of an aesthetically good life. At the same time, I argue that the ideals of the dominant theory of aesthetic value, aesthetic value hedonism, are incompatible with a full commitment to these social aesthetic goods; the hedonist is thereby alienated from the other participants within aesthetic communities and traditions. This sets up a dilemma for the hedonist: either the hedonist must bite the bullet, accepting that the theory leads to a problematic form of aesthetic alienation; or, we must reject aesthetic value hedonism and adopt a different theory of aesthetic value which accommodates the value of social aesthetic goods. I argue that we should take the second horn of the dilemma.

Resolving to finish reading a novel, staying true to your punk style, or dedicating your life to an artistic project: these are examples of aesthetic commitments. I develop an account of the nature of such commitments, and I argue that they are significant insofar as they help us manage the temporally extended nature of our aesthetic agency and our relationships with aesthetic objects. At the same time, focusing on aesthetic commitments can give us a better grasp on the nature of aesthetic normativity; this is because, in making aesthetic commitments, we are capable of giving aesthetic concerns the weight of obligation. I argue that appealing to aesthetic commitments allows us to account for the existence of aesthetic obligations as well as their grounding. I conclude by arguing that, although the aesthetic domain is a domain of play and freedom of choice, there is nevertheless an important place in it for both aesthetic commitments and the aesthetic obligations they generate.

In recent years, an increasing number of contemporary artists have incorporated live animals into their work. Although this development has attracted a great deal of attention in the artworld and among animal rights activists, it has not been much discussed in the philosophy of art—which is quite remarkable, given the serious ethical and artistic questions that these artworks prompt. I focus on answering two such questions. First, is the use of animals in these artworks ethically objectionable? Or are such artworks instead morally permissible or even laudable? Second, what might be the distinctive value or good of incorporating animals into artworks in this way? In response to both questions, I argue that one distinctive value of some of the artworks I discuss is their ability to facilitate a relationship of moral concern and respect on the part of an audience toward the animals that are a part of the artwork. Insofar as artworks facilitate such relationships, they are not simply artistically important; they are also, to that extent, morally good.

Most recent discussions of reasons in art criticism focus on reasons that justify beliefs about the value of artworks. Reviving a long-neglected suggestion from Paul Ziff, I argue that we should focus instead on art-critical reasons that justify actions—namely, particular ways of engaging with artworks. I argue that a focus on practical rather than theoretical reasons yields an understanding of criticism that better fits with our intuitions about the value of reading art criticism, and which makes room for a nuanced distinction between criticism that aims at universality and criticism that is resolutely personal.

It is uncontroversial that our engagement with artworks is constrained by obligations; most commonly, these consist in obligations to other persons, such as artists, audiences, and owners of artworks. A more controversial claim is that we have genuine obligations to artworks themselves. I defend a qualified version of this claim. However, I argue that such obligations do not derive from the supposed moral rights of artworks – for no such rights exist. Rather, I argue that these obligations are instances of duties of love: obligations that one incurs in virtue of loving some object, be it a person or, in this case, an artwork.