Robert Fudge

One of the more striking aspects of Adam Smith's moral theory is the degree to which it depends on and appeals to aesthetic norms. By considering what Smith says about judgments of propriety – the foundational type of judgment in his system – and by tying what he says in The Theory of Moral Sentiments to certain of his other writings, I argue that Smith ultimately defends an aesthetic morality. Among the challenges that any aesthetic morality faces is that it seems to entail moral relativism. This problem is magnified by Smith's reliance on the judgments of the impartial spectator, which also seems to make his theory more vulnerable to a Euthyphro-type objection. I suggest that Smith can potentially get around these problems, given his presumption of aesthetic naturalism. While there is certainly some variation in our aesthetic judgments, Smith claims that we naturally find certain actions and sentiments odious, while others we find agreeable. The reason, he argues, is that any society that judged otherwise would not survive

Abstract Disagreement persists concerning whether aesthetic properties supervene on non-aesthetic properties. This issue is complicated by the fact that the notion of an aesthetic property is itself contentious. In this paper, I begin by identifying three conditions that arguably characterize a large number of aesthetic properties. After defending aesthetic supervenience against a number of objections, I argue that a strong version of the supervenience thesis applies to those properties that satisfy my initial conditions

The theory I present and defend in this paper—what I term the art type theory— holds that something is a work of art iff it belongs to an established art type. Something is an established art type, in turn, either because its paradigmatic instances standardly satisfy eight art-making conditions, or because the art world has seen fit to enfranchise it as such. It follows that the art status of certain objects is independent of what any individual or culture might say about it, while the art status of others fundamentally depends on the judgment of the art world. Because of the theory's quasi-institutional component, I conclude by defending it against four objections that have been raised against institutional definitions.

In critical thinking courses, informal fallacies are often best taught through using myriad examples that illustrate the subtle differences between the different fallacies. However, since a heavy reliance can become tedious for students and instructors, one challenge that teaching a critical thinking course involves is striking an appropriate balance between presenting too many and too few examples. This paper presents a way to introduce informal fallacies through an acted-out dialogue, while reserving more traditional examples for homework or in-class discussion.

The aesthetic appreciation of an object is fundamentally an appreciation of certain of its properties, especially those that have a distinctively aesthetic character. What this means differs, depending on whether one is a realist or anti-realist about aesthetic properties. I argue for aesthetic property anti-realism, according to which aesthetic properties do not exist objectively in themselves, outside of our having certain kinds of experiences, and show how this bears on the issue of aesthetic appreciation. Against theorists like Marcia Eaton, Kendall Walton, Gary Iseminger, and James Anderson, I argue that aesthetic appreciation should not be defined primarily in terms of affective states or aesthetic value . Instead, I argue that having an aesthetic appreciation of something is to have an informed aesthetic experience of it, where aesthetic experiences are defined in terms of our seeing objects as possessing aesthetic qualities, and where an informed aesthetic experience is one that is informed by a certain minimal understanding of the object's non-aesthetic properties. For example, the appreciation of a statue involves having an aesthetic experience of it, which arises out of our knowledge of its cultural/historical properties, the intentions of the sculptor, its expressive and representational properties, etc. The aesthetic appreciation of the statue is positive when we consider an informed aesthetic experience of it intrinsically valuable. I finish by applying my account to the issue of whether the aesthetic appreciation of unscenic parts of nature requires scientific knowledge