How Marvelous!

Toward a Theory of Aesthetic Value

Author(s): Kendall L. Walton
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 51, No. 3, Philosophy and the
Histories of the Arts (Summer, 1993), pp. 499-510
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/431521 .
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 KENDALL L. WALTON
How Marvelous!Towarda Theory of AestheticValue
Aestheticsis often classified as a branchof value
theory.This classificationis curiousand in some
ways objectionable. Many importantissues of
aesthetics, as traditionally practiced, have no
direct connection with notions of value or eval-
uation. This is as it shouldbe, if aesthetics is the
theoreticalor philosophical examination of the
cultural institutionof art. For there is much to
the institutionbesides evaluation,and one might
arguethat it is far more importantto understand
and appreciateworks of art than to decide how
good they are.
It is arguable, also, that the interest we do
have in evaluating works of art is a somewhat
parochialfeatureof the culturalsurroundingsof
the fine arts in Western society during the last
severalhundredyears, thatit is muchless impor-
tant in other contexts. We must not assume that
all cultures in which people produce and enjoy
or find satisfactionin what we call works of art
even recognize anythingmuch like our notion of
aestheticvalue. But there is no denying thatthis
notion plays an importantrole in the practices
surroundingthe fine arts in recent Westerncul-
ture, and for that reason alone it deserves
attention.
The notion of aesthetic value can look very
questionablewhen we do attend to it, however.
The worries are familiar. There is enormous
variety among the works we take to be of high
aesthetic quality, and our reasons for praising
them, for pronouncingthem aesthetically valu-
able, are astonishingly diverse. Some good or
great works stimulate, some soothe, others are
disturbinglyprovocativeor upsetting. Some af-
ford intellectualpleasures;others emotional ex-
periences-fulfilling emotional experiences in
some instances,distressingones in others. Some
works offer insight or illumination; others ca-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 51:3 Summer 1993
tharsis. Some provide escape from everyday
cares; others help us to deal with them. Some
requirecareful study and analysis; others wear
their charms on their sleeves. Great works can
be exuberantor gloomy; they can be intense, or
serene, or painful, or funny. "Aestheticvalue"
appearsto be an incrediblegrabbag. Whatjusti-
fication is there for speakingof a single kind of
value in cases of all of these sorts?
The distinctivenessof aestheticvalue, as well
as its unity, threatensto evaporateunder scru-
tiny. Formalists such as Clive Bell and Eduard
Hanslick who postulate the autonomy of aes-
thetic value (or musical value) take a heroic
course. Much of what we taketo be aesthetically
valuable about many works of art seems thor-
oughly intertwined with concerns of everyday
life, with "practical"values of various kinds,
with cognitive and moraland religious values. It
just does not seem plausible that what is so
wonderfulaestheticallyaboutmuchgreatpoetry,
for instance, has nothing at all to do with the
insight we receive from it, or that the feelings
one has in appreciatingmusic aesthetically are
entirely unlike and irrelevantto everyday emo-
tions-even grantingthatto be informativeor to
elicit emotional responses is not therebyto have
aestheticvalue.
Could it be that aestheticvalue superveneson
or is otherwise dependent on the capacity to
provide practicalor cognitive or emotional ben-
efits of variouskinds?If so, it maybe possible to
preserve its unity; a single sort of value might
supervene or depend on any of various other
kinds of value. And the superveningor depen-
dent value may itself be distinct from the "prac-
tical" and other everyday values that it super-
venes or dependson.
I will propose an account of aesthetic value
500
along these lines, althoughthe values on which
aesthetic value may depend, on my account,
include ones that are very different from those I
have mentioned. I should emphasize from the
start that in offering this account I do not pre-
sume to be articulatingwhat people have always
or usually meantby "aestheticvalue" (even dur-
ing just the last several centuries in Western
culture).It is far from clear thatthere is any one
thing that people have usually meant by it, even
implicitly. But the notion I will propose fits
surprisingly well into the slot that critics and
theorists have expected aesthetic value to fill,
and I believe that it is closer to what many have
meant than it may first appearto be. Most im-
portantly,however, what I will call "aesthetic"
value is value of a kind that needs to be recog-
nized no matterwhat we call it. Worksof art we
judge to be aesthetically meritoriouscharacter-
istically possess value of this kind, and appre-
ciatorscherishthem for it.
We must distinguish questions about the aes-
thetic meritof particularworksof art-questions
about whether a particular sonata or novel or
movie or fresco is a great workof art, or merely
good, or mediocre, or terrible and whetherone
work is better or worse aesthetically than an-
other-from questions about the value of the
culturalinstitutionof art. In what ways does the
institution,our practicesof making, displaying,
contemplating, appreciating, discussing, criti-
cizing, judging works of art, benefit (or harm)
people or society? What purposesdoes it serve?
What are our reasons for engaging in it? One
might ask about the evolutionary value of the
institution,the survival value of humaninclina-
tions to develop such an institution, or the con-
tributionssuch an institutionmight make to the
healthand survivalof culturesof which they are
a part.
However sceptical one might be about the
viability or coherence of the notion of the aes-
thetic value of worksof art, or about its applica-
bility beyond a narrowrangeof culturalinstitu-
tions, questionsaboutthe value of institutionsin
which paintings, novels, sculptures, cantatas,
etc., areembeddedareclearlyin orderandclearly
within the province of the aesthetician. This
does not make aesthetics a branchof value the-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
ory any more than, for example, the philosophy
of science is. For central to the examinationof
any humaninstitution-science, religion, sports,
children's games of make-believe-should be
questionsaboutthe point of the institution,what
ends it serves, what reasons we have or what
reasonsone might have for participatingin it.
In asking aboutthe value of an institution,we
usually have in mind extrinsic or instrumental
value. We want to know what contributionsthe
institution makes to our lives, what beneficial
effects it has. But aesthetic value is usually
thought of as intrinsic.1 Of course works of art
play a role in the institution'sachievementof its
beneficial effects. But this is not what their aes-
thetic value is understoodto consist in; insofar
as they are aestheticallyvaluable they are good
in themselves.
I want to explore anotherpossible difference
between the two kinds of value, or a cluster of
possible differences, ones that might be ex-
pressed initially by saying that questions about
aestheticmeritareaskedfroma perspectiveinter-
nal to the institutionandthatone is participating
in the institutionwhen one judges a paintingor a
novel to be great, or to be better aesthetically
than anotherone, that aesthetic value is institu-
tion-bound.This thoughtmight be spelled out in
several ways. Perhapsquestions about aesthetic
merit make sense only because the institution
gives them sense. Perhapsthey are legitimateor
appropriateor in order only within the institu-
tion. Perhapsit is traditionsof the institutionthat
determinehow they areto be answered,whatis to
countas aestheticvalue. Maybethe answersmat-
ter, maybepeople appreciateand care aboutaes-
thetic value, only insofaras they accept or "buy
into" the institution. We can also ask whether
the practice of aesthetic evaluation might be
essential to the institution. Could it be that the
benefits the institutionhas to offer are realized
only if people participate in it by judging the
value of worksof art or askingabouttheirvalue?
One way to begin to appreciatethe institution-
boundcharacterof aestheticvalue is to compare
other institutionsin which the evaluationof par-
ticular objects or events or activities analogous
to the aesthetic evaluation of works of art is
relativelyunimportant,or which don't even have
provision for such evaluation.
Participation in children's games of make-
believe doesn't demandor even encouragejudg
Walton How Marvelous! Toward a Theory of Aesthetic Value
ing the valueof props,or games (typesor tokens),
or participants, or acts of participation. One
finds or chooses or is given props for a game,
and uses them, but in participatingin the make-
believe one needn't evaluate the props or con-
siderhow they stack up againstothers. Children
don't endeavorto performwell, in participating
in theirgames; it seems out of place to judge that
one child did a superbjob of playing dolls, but
that, unfortunately,another'sperformancewas
mediocre.
Judgmentscan be madefroman externalview-
point, however.There are benefits to be gained
from playing games of make-believe. It is fun,
entertaining,pleasurable.One learns about real
worldactivities, abouthow to do certain things,
aboutwhat it is like to do them andhow one feels
aboutthem. A particularpropmay be especially
well suited to achieving these benefits, or more
conducive to this than other props are. But this
value is instrumentalratherthanintrinsic,and so
is not analogous to aesthetic value. And one
needn'tjudge the prop to be good, one needn't
recognize its value, in orderto benefit from it. It
is necessaryonly thatone use it in the game. The
same may be true of a particulargame, or a
participant, or a child's "performance" on a
particularoccasion. Any of these may be espe-
cially conduciveto whateverbenefits one gains,
but achieving the benefits usually does not re-
quireone to recognize its merit.
Many folk art traditionsare much like chil-
dren'sgames of make-believein these respects,
and unlike the tradition of Western fine art.
(Considerthe traditionof singing hymns in reli-
gious ceremonies.) People may participate in
singingor dancingor acting, or watchwith inter-
est and enjoyment as others do, without it ever
occurringto them to ask how good aesthetically
the performanceor the work performed is, or
whether it is better or worse than anotherone.
These questions are likely to seem out of place
or inappropriate,at best. And they needn't be
raised in order to achieve the benefits that folk
art serves.
Contrastsportsandothercompetitivegames-
baseball,chess, pickupsticks, ping pong, bridge,
Monopoly, dominoes, etc. These are instances
in which "values"(of a sort) are clearly internal
and intrinsicto an institution,in which "evalua-
tion" makes sense only within the institution,
and is essential to the institution'sfunction. The
501
"value" in question is that of winning. And we
judge teams and players, moves, plays, and
strategies, as being betteror worse, as they are
more or less conducive to winning. What con-
stitutes winning is defined by the rules of the
game, by the clause in the rule book that goes,
"The object of the game is...." And it is (pri-
marily, if not exclusively) from a perspective
within the game that one cares about winning
and losing. Making these "value"judgments is
essential to the institution. One must recognize
winning and losing in orderto play baseball, or
even to follow the game. Perhaps participants
must care about winning, at least while they are
playing, or pretend to, or anyway try to win.
And no doubt some of the benefits of which the
institutioncan boast, the excitement it affords,
for instance,dependon its provisionfor winning
and losing and on participantsrecognizingwin-
ners and losers.
The contrast between internal and external
judgments, between judgments of winners and
losers, on the one hand, andjudgmentsof play-
ers and plays and games as being conducive to
the purposes or benefits the institutionof sport
(or a particularsport) serves, on the other, is at
its starkesthere. Besides excitement, thrills, and
entertainmentfor players and fans, these bene-
fits includekeeping kids out of trouble,develop-
ing physical and mental skills, providing prac-
tice in handling success and failure, promoting
cooperation and self-reliance, providing a safe
outlet for aggressive tendencies, enhancing a
sense of community, increasing alumni contri-
butions. (There is a downside also.) Evaluating
players and plays with regard to aptness for
winning is not judging them for their contribu-
tions to these social or personalgoods. And the
two often conflict. Close games are more excit-
ing than lopsided ones, and may well contribute
more to the achievementof othersocial benefits.
But a superbplay, one conduciveto winning, by
the team or playeralready in the lead may turn
what could have been a thrilling contest into a
dull romp. The general level of play within a
league or a sport has little relationto these social
benefits. It is unlikely that society is better off
now than it was fifty years ago because of the
fact that skill levels in sports are much higher,
even if the world is a better place with sports
than it would be without them. (Maybe there is
benefit in the fact that the trend is upward,
502
however,even if the absolutelevel of skill doesn't
matter.)The sixth game of the 1975 WorldSeries
has been called the greatest baseball game ever
played-not because there was more winning in
it than in other games. Like (virtually) all base-
ball games, it hadjust one winnerand one loser.
And the winner won just barely-that is part of
what made it such a good game. Chess games
(eitherthe play of one of the contestants, or the
game as a whole) are sometimes admired for
their beauty or elegance. Among game types, I
prefer baseball, ping pong, and chess to foot-
ball, boxing, and gladiatorcontests, and I can
give reasons. These are all external value judg-
ments, and are distinct from judgments of win-
ners and losers, or of aptness for winning and
losing.
Players'primaryobjectivesare, standardly,to
win, not to furtherthe social benefits the institu-
tion is capableof furthering;the institutionpre-
scribes playing to win. But it is by playing to
win, frequently,thatthese benefits are achieved.
A game known to be rigged isn't exciting even if
the score is close. Athletes do not usually per-
form for fans in the way that rock musicians do,
even if they dependon fansjust as much for their
livelihood and fame. (Performers of classical
music may have objectives somewhat more like
those of athletes-they may think of themselves
as serving the music ratherthan the audience.
And this may be whatlistenerswantand expect.)
The distinctionbetween evaluationof the in-
stitution of sport and evaluationof players and
plays as to theiraptness for winning, is reminis-
cent of John Rawl's distinctionbetweenjustify-
ing the institutions of promising and punish-
ment, and justifying actions falling underthese
institutions.2The institutiondefines what counts
as winning and tells participantsto try to win (if
they wantto participatein the institution),just as
the institutionof promisingdetermineswhatcon-
stitutes promising and keeping promises, and
tells people to keep theirpromises. One can step
outside the institutionof sport and ask whether
having it, with its criteria for winning and its
injunctionto try to win, is a good thing, just as
one can ask whetherthe institutionof promising
is a good thing, from a perspectiveoutside of it.
There can be values internalto an institution
(in one or anothersense) without the criteria of
value being explicitly stipulated,of course. The
institutionof stamp collecting has its own spe-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
cial criteriaof excellence, but not because there
is anythinglike an authoritativerule book spell-
ing out the object (or objects) of the institution.3
Rareness in stamps is (intrinsically)"valuable"
from a perspectiveinternalto the institution,and
to value a stamp because it is rare is to partici-
pate in the institution. This fact is recorded in
the literature, but it is simply the practice of
stamp collectors that makes it a fact. Otherval-
ues internal to the institutionare less definite,
harder to specify, and many are not even re-
corded. (Of course a non-participantmay appre-
ciatethe economicworthof a stampwhich results
from the "value" stamp collectors accord it by
virtue of its rarity. This economic value is of
course instrumental.)
II
The "value" of winning, in competitivegames,
will strike us as very unlike aestheticvalue. But
there may be more to the comparisonthan first
appears. The main difference, it seems, is that
winning is, in itself, a value only in scarequotes,
only withinand relativeto the institution.It does
not really matter,in general, whetherone wins
or loses. Maybe participantsin the game only
pretend that it matters; there may be value in
engaging in this pretense. (Sometimes it does
really matterfor extrinsic reasons;winning may
boost one's confidence or alumnidonations.But
losing can also have good consequences. It may
teach one how to handlefailure;it may force one
to pay more attentionto things that mattermore
than sports do.) From a perspectiveexternal to
the institutionof stamp collecting, the "value"
accordedto rarenessmay seem ratherarbitrary;
there isn't really anythingespecially good about
a stamp's being rare. Aesthetic value, by con-
trast, is surely real (as real as any values are);
beauty really is a good thing, it seems, and it is
good apartfrom consequences.4
Once we have attached scare quotes to the
value of winning, however,we find analogies to
aesthetic value. The (scare-quoted)"value" of
winning is intrinsic, as aesthetic value is sup-
posed to be. Winning is "good" in itself (from
the perspectivewithin the game), not because of
its consequences; whateverconstitutes winning
is the object of the game. And the "value" of
winning is independentof othervalues, of prac-
tical values, moral values, economic values,
Walton How Marvelous! Towarda Theory of Aesthetic Value
etc., as aestheticvalue is supposedto be. If what
countsas aestheticvalue is somehow decreedby
an artistic tradition, as what counts as winning
and losing is decreed by the institutionsof base-
ball, tennis, bridge, etc., we will be able to
account for both the intrinsicness and the dis-
tinctivenessof aestheticvalue. Whataboutunity?
Is the notion of winning, in competitive games,
a unified one? Whatcounts as winning in differ-
ent games-basketball, chess, horse racing-is
very different. Still, we might say thatto win is,
in every case, to achieve the object of the game,
whateverthat happens to be. Maybe aesthetic
value has a similarunity in diversity?
Let's set aside the notion of aesthetic value,
for a moment, and considerwhetherthere might
be anything in the arts at all like winning (and
losing) in sports, anythinganalogousto the object
of a game, any "values" that might need scare
quotes, that are values only within and relative
to an artistic tradition. There are in various
artisticcontexts (unwritten)understandingsthat
certain objectives are to be pursued, and there
are traditionsof valuing their achievement. A
goal of some visual art is the "realistic" por-
trayalof a three-dimensionalworld on flat sur-
faces; some artists attemptto come as close as
possible to fooling the eye. Composers, in some
periods, compete with each other in the craft of
counterpoint, in producing intricate combina-
tions of melodiclines with theirinversions,retro-
grades,retrogradeinversions,augmentationsand
diminutions,and so on, while conformingto the
rules of one or anothersystem of counterpoint.
Musicalperformersaim for technicalperfection
and sometimes put on flashy demonstrationsof
skill. Some writers endeavorto reproducelocal
dialects as faithfully as possible; others take up
the challenge of rendering ordinary speech in
established poetic forms. Various other con-
straints,either self-imposed constraintsor ones
inherentin a chosen medium,challengeartistsin
other ways. Some attemptthe trick of telling a
storyby meansof visual imagesonly, withoutthe
help of words. Othersdreamup devices for por-
trayingmotion in still pictures. John Hollander
describesthepantoumverse form as follows:
There may be any numberof quatrains,but, starting
with the second one, they are generatedby repeating
the even-numberedlines of each as the odd-numbered
ones of the next. The final line of the poem repeatsthe
503
opening one. In addition, a touch of riddle is pre-
served in that the first half of each quatrainis about
somethingwholly differentfrom the second half.5
One can'thelp butthinkof constraintsimposed
by the rules of competitivegames, underwhich
one attemptsto achieve the object of the game.
Sometimes the object, in the case of an artistic
style, is not very definite, even if the constraints
are; satisfying the constraintsmay itself be diffi-
cult enough, and the object may amountto pro-
ducing something satisfying them that makes
sense or is interesting.
There is a lot of variety in these examples. In
some, the (statedor unstated)objective and the
restrictionsunderwhich it is to be pursuedmay
be thought to serve aesthetic value (whatever
that is). No doubt, in increasing the realism of
theirportrayalsartistssometimesachievegreater
aestheticvalue. Avoidingparallelfourths, fifths,
and octaves in contrapuntalwriting in the style
of Bach is perhapsjustified by the fact that such
parallelssoundugly in thatstyle. (Theirugliness
probablyhas somethingto do with theirtendency
to make the two voices sound like one, or their
establishmentof a clunky harmonicrhythm.)
But the connection with aesthetic value is
often tenuous. Deceptive realism and intricate
counterpointcertainly do not always make for
aestheticvalue;they can havethe oppositeeffect.
And aesthetic value can be achievedby deliber-
ately unrealisticportrayals,or by studiedcontra-
puntalsimplicity. Emphasison goals like those I
mentioned can reduce a work to a sterile aca-
demic exercise. Virtuosity in a musical perfor-
mance, athletic technical facility, may replace
inspirationand insight. Some will speak of art
degeneratinginto craft.
One may have the impressionthatsome of the
goals or objectives artists pursue are arbitrary,
to a greateror lesser extent, an impressionthatis
reinforced by the fact that the goals and the
restrictions change from generation to genera-
tion and vary from cultureto culture and genre
to genre. It is as thoughartistsdevise puzzles for
themselves and try to solve them, or exercise
skills "just for the heck of it"-like children
making up games or contests.6 We may be im-
pressed by the skill an artist demonstratesin
achieving her objectives. But concerning the
objectives themselves, the results, we may be
tempted-in some instances more than in oth-
504
ers-to ask, "So what?What is the point?" The
achievementmay interest us only to the extent
that we "buy into" the artistic tradition,only to
the extent that we choose to accept the goals the
artistwas pursuing,the "objectof her game," as
desirable.This choice may seem arbitrary,in the
way a choice to play a game with certain rules
and a certain object is arbitrary.Only if we do
make such a choice will we be impressedby the
artist'sachievement.
I will suggest that what seem to be, what in
fact are, "arbitrary"goals and constraints are
often connected more closely than one might
think, and in a surprisingway, to aestheticvalue,
a kindof value thattranscendsthe mere achieve-
ment of these goals.
III
Let'slook more closely at the placejudgmentsof
value, the making of judgments of value, have
within the institutionof (fine) art. After listen-
ing to a late Beethovenstring quartetor reading
Warand Peace or watching a performance of
KingLearI exclaim, "Thatwas wonderful!Mar-
velous!" In doing so I am making a judgment,
claiming that the work or performancein ques-
tion is of great value, and I am expressing my
admirationfor it. But my judgmentand my admi-
rationare notjust responsesto the value I recog-
nize; they are partlyconstitutiveof it. The value
consists in part in the experience of judging the
workor performancehighly.It is partlyby virtue
of eliciting admirationthat it is worthy of admi-
ration. To gain the benefit of the work'svalue is
to appreciateit; if I didn't feel admirationfor the
work (or the artist)orjudge it highly, if I merely
felt pleasure or enjoyment as a result of my
experience with it, I would not be appreciat-
ing it.
We can reap the benefits of many other good
thingswithoutjudgingthem to be good or admir-
ing them. A good hoe or a good car will do its
job efficiently and well, and benefit the user
accordingly,regardlessof what she thinksabout
its value. The car, if it is a good one, will provide
dependableand safe and efficient transportation
for years and years even if the beneficiary be-
ratesit constantly.
The value of the car and the hoe are instru-
mental. But the same goes for many intrinsic
values. Suppose that it is a value for me that I
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
achieve posthumousfame, or thatmy friendsnot
sneer at me behind my back. (Perhapsthis is so
by virtue of the fact that, aftercognitive psycho-
therapyor whatever,I would desire it, or desire
to desire it.) I will neverbe in a positionto praise
my posthumous fame, and I may think, para-
noically, that my friends do sneer at me behind
my back. Nevertheless, I may in fact possess
what is in fact an intrinsic good for me-forth-
coming posthumousfame and friendswho don't
sneer. Could I fail to realize thatthese are values
for me, as well as failing to realize thatI possess
them? Probably;I may not have sorted out the
desires or counterfactualdesires which (on some
accounts) determine what is good for me. So I
could possess the value withouteitherjudging it
to be valuable, orjudging thatI am in possession
of it-without saying anything like "How mar-
velous! How wonderful!"
Much the same goes also for some desirable
experiences, and for things whose (inherent, if
not intrinsic) value lies in the fairly direct pro-
duction of pleasurableexperiences-things like
a hot shower, or a walk aroundthe block. One
needn't think the shower or the walk or one's
experience of it is anything special, or even
entertain questions about how good it is, in
orderto enjoy it. One can enjoy it withoutappre-
ciating it. (Actively denigratingthe shower or
the walk might ruin one's enjoyment, however.)
Compare enjoying a folk song or a game of
make-believe without thinking it-or the per-
formanceof the song, or the props in the game,
or one's own or anotherparticipant'sactivities-
is special. One might enjoy the shower or the
walk more if one does think it is special, how-
ever. Perhapsin that case one's enjoyment is in
part "aesthetic."
Aesthetic value arguablyconsists in a capac-
ity to elicit in appreciatorspleasureof a certain
kind, pleasurableexperiences (or experiencesof
enjoyment, satisfaction, gratification?).But un-
like some pleasures produced by hot showers
and walks around the block, "aesthetic" plea-
sures include the pleasureof finding something
valuable, of admiring it. One appreciates the
work. One does not merely enjoy it; one takes
pleasureor delight in judging it to be good. One
marvelsat it. Again, I don't thinkI would enjoy
Beethoven'sC# Minor Quartetas I do if I were
not inclined to exclaim "How marvelous!,"
"How wonderful!,"if I didn't have my admira-
Walton How Marvelous! Toward a Theory of Aesthetic Value
tion of it to delightin. The quartetdoesn'tdeliver
up what it has to offer, not all of it anyway,unless
we give the work the credit due to it. Its value
consistsin partin its propensityto induceobserv-
ers to judge it valuable,andto enjoy doing so.
The owner of a hoe or a car might, in addition
to hoeing her crops or drivingher car, appreciate
and admire how marvelously suited the hoe or
car is to its task. This gives her a certain enjoy-
ment in using this tool (and perhapsjust in own-
ing it), on top of the assistance it provides in the
cultivation of her crops and in getting herself
fromone place to another.It seems not unreason-
able to describe this enjoyment as "aesthetic"
appreciation.
There is more than winning and losing in
baseball. A team may win a game, but "win
ugly." This may amountto winning in a manner
thatdoes not elicit admiration.A fan rootingfor
the ugly winner may like the result, but her
enjoymentwill lack what we mightcall the "aes-
thetic" dimensionof pleasurableadmiration.To
play a beautiful game of chess, whether one
wins or loses, is to play in a way that does elicit
admiration,and the delight thatgoes with it.
In additionto laughingas a resultof watching
a comedian'sact, one may notice and admirethe
elegant, masterful means by which the laughs
are elicited, the comedian's superb balance of
sense and absurdity,the exquisite timing of his
delivery, his sheer cleverness, and so on. One
appreciatesthe artistry of the comedian's rou-
tine in a way thatgoes beyondmerely findingthe
jokes funny. (It is likely that the appreciationof
the comedian'stechnique makes his jokes even
funnierthanthey would otherwisebe, however.)
Reading a profoundly perceptive poem may
benefit one cognitively. One may come to new
understandingsaboutlife or even acquirebits of
wisdom from one's experience with the work,
and one may enjoy achieving this illumination.
But the readermay also appreciate,he may ad-
mire with pleasure, the poet's perceptiveness
and insightfulness and her skill in presenting
profoundtruthsin a vivid and convincing man-
ner. Then the reader'senjoyment is (in part at
least) aesthetic.
Anotherreadermightenjoy the cognitive ben-
efits but withoutadmiringthe poem (or the poet)
and hence without the pleasure of admiration.
He may not give the work(or the poet) credit for
the wonderful new insights he obtains while
505
reading. He may think he achieved them him-
self, that he came to his conclusions on his own
while being stimulatedonly accidentallyby the
poem. (The poem might in fact have been de-
signed to have exactly this effect, of course.)
The readeracquiresknowledgeand enjoys doing
so, but he does not experience the pleasure of
admiration.He, arguably,does not benefit aes-
thetically from the experience. (JohnCage's ob-
jective may be, in part, to deaestheticize our
experiences, to get us to enjoy sounds them-
selves withoutadmiringthem or their creators.)
People have a naturaltendency to enjoy the
experience of admiringthings. An evolutionary
explanation of why this is so would seem not
hardto come by. But admirationis not necessar-
ily pleasurable. Sometimes admirationis with-
out delight, respect grudging. A disturbingbut
perceptivenovel may benefit us cognitively, we
may learn from it and realize that we do, but
without taking pleasure in admiring it, without
saying, "How marvelous!" A personwho reacts
to a cartoon with hostility may know that she is
getting medicine she needs; she may realize that
the cartoonistis skillfully and perceptivelyforc-
ing her to see a painful truth. But she may hate
the cartoon for it. She may admire or at least
approveof it, but withoutenjoyment.
As a first stab, let's define aestheticpleasure
as pleasurewhich has, as a component,pleasure
taken in one's admirationor positive evaluation
of something;7to be pleased aesthetically is to
note something'svaluewith pleasure.This makes
aestheticpleasurean intensionalstate, notjust a
buzz or a rushcaused by experiencinga workof
art. The pleasure of a hot shower or a walk
around the block is presumablyan intensional
state also. One takes pleasurein something;the
pleasure attaches in part to one's awareness of
something. But one is not pleased by the shower
or the walk in the way I am pleased by Beetho-
ven's C# Minor Quartet, unless one takes plea-
sure not only in the showeror the walk or one's
experience of it, but also in one's experience of
admiringit, in one'sjudging it to be good.
Certain modifications of this account of aes-
thetic pleasureare in order.A personmight take
pleasure of a self-congratulatorysort in admir-
ing something; one might pat oneself on the
back, with delight, for one's sophisticatedand
subtletaste in recognizingthe thing'smerit. This
pleasure would seem not to be aesthetic. The
506
needed restriction is something like this: Aes-
thetic pleasure is not just pleasure taken in my
admirationof something, but in its getting me to
admireit. We may also wantto broadenthe def-
inition considerably.As I will suggest shortly,
we may want to count pleasure taken in certain
attitudesotherthanadmiration,as aesthetic. But
let's leave the proposal in its simple form for
now: aestheticpleasureis pleasurewhich has as
a componentpleasuretaken in one's admiration
of something.
Aestheticvalue will no doubt have something
to do with the capacity to produce aesthetic
pleasure. But ratherthan defining it simply as a
tendencyto elicit aestheticpleasure,or to do so in
appropriatelyconstitutedand positionedobserv-
ers, I would propose requiringthat, for some-
thing to have aesthetic value, there must be a
certainpropriety in taking aesthetic pleasure in
it; it must be reasonableor apt or make sense to
do so. I leave aside the question of how to spell
out this propriety.8As a model, thinkof humor.
If something makes all of us laugh, we might
neverthelessdeny that it is funny on the ground
thatwe shouldn'tlaugh at it-because it is in bad
taste, or is racist, or whatever.
We may sometimes be bamboozledor tricked
or deceived into admiringsomethingwhich does
not merit our admiration, and take delight in
admiring it. These may be cases in which our
aesthetic pleasure is inappropriate,and hence
the thing does not possess the aesthetic value it
seems to possess. A close examinationor analy-
sis of the work might convince us that it is
shallow and unworthyof our appreciation,and
we may then prefer not to appreciateit, not to
admire it, even if such admiration would be
enjoyable.One mightarguethatthe moralrepre-
hensibility of Leni Riefenstahl'sTriumphof the
Will makes it improperto admire it with plea-
sure, and so undercuts the aesthetic value it
would otherwise have had. This gives us a way
of understandinghow moral and aesthetic value
can interact,while still takingthemto be distinct.
Understandingaestheticvalue in this way en-
ables us to accommodateits diversitywhile locat-
ing a common thread.The threadis the pleasure
taken in admiring things. The diversity lies in
what we admire things for. We may admire a
work for the way it soothes us, or excites us, or
provokesus, for the intellectualpleasures it af-
fords, or the emotional ones, for the insight it
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
provides or the mannerin which it does so, for
the way it enables us to escape the everyday
cares of life, or the way it helps us to face life,
and so on and on. But none of these groundsfor
admirationitself constitutesthe work'saesthetic
value. If we take pleasure in admiringthe work
for whatever we admire it for, this pleasure is
aesthetic. And if such pleasureis properlytaken
in the work, this constitutesthe work'saesthetic
value. In this way aesthetic value is distinct
from, yet dependenton, whatevervalue we ad-
mire the object for. If the value we admireit for
is a practicalone, this practicalvalue underlies
but does not constitutethe aestheticvalue.9
IV
Let's explore the diversitya little, the values for
which one might enjoyablyadmiresomething.
An appreciator'senjoyable admiration, usu-
ally if not always, involves not only recognizing
a thing'svalue-recognizing the marvelousjob it
does of opening our eyes to importanttruths,for
instance, or how wonderfully suited it is for
providingsafe and efficient transportation;one's
admirationalso involvesrecognizingthe creators
accomplishment, the talent and skill a person
demonstratedby producingsomethingwith this
value. Admiration is paradigmatically,if not
essentially, an attitude we have in part toward
people.
One can admire a person's talent or skill in
accomplishing an objective whether or not one
thinks much of the objective. I may think that
hitting a spherical missile travelling 90 MPH
with a stick, or winning a baseball game, is
neither here nor there, that the world is not a
better place for it (neither because winning or
hitting a fastball is good in itself, or because it
has good consequences); yet I may admire the
athletes'accomplishment-the skill and concen-
trationand strategythatmake for the win. And I
may take pleasure in my admiration.(Maybe it
helps if I somehow pretend that the result is
desirable. I need not base my admirationon the
thoughtthat the abilities which enable the play-
ers to win are ones that would be genuinely
useful in other contexts.) Of course, if I think
baseball is a waste of time and energy, that it
diverts attentionand resources from the impor-
tant problemsof life, if I think that winning, or
even playing, is undesirable, this may prevent
Walton How Marvelous! Towarda Theory of Aesthetic Value
me from admiringthe player'saccomplishment,
or from admiringit with pleasure.
So among the values that can underlie aes-
thetic value are ones we might consider to be
arbitrary,scare-quoted.We maytake pleasurein
admiringsomeone for the accomplishmentof an
arbitrarilychosen objective. The pleasure con-
stitutes a real value, even if the result accom-
plished, in itself, does not. We might admirean
artist's skill in painting bubbles convincingly,
and take pleasurein admiringit, whetheror not
we thinkconvincinglypaintedbubblesare them-
selves a good thing (aestheticallygood or good
in some other way). We may admire with plea-
sure a composer'saccomplishmentin producing
intricatecounterpoint,or a poet's skill in satisfy-
ing the conditions of the pantoum, whether or
not we think these feats have any merit them-
selves.
Comparea photographof a bubblewith Jean-
Simeon Chardin's painting of a boy blowing
soapbubbles. The convincingphotographicpor-
trayalmight have some interest for us in itself.
But we will not have the same pleasurableadmi-
ration for the photographer'sachievement that
we have for Chardin's-knowing, as we do, that
it takesrelativelylittle skill on the photographer's
part to captureconvincingly the bubble's trans-
parencyas well as its partialreflection of light,
its perfectly roundedform, etc. (One might be
awestruckby the mediumof photography-peo-
ple were, when photographywas invented-but
thatis different.) Consideralso computergener-
atedcounterpoint.
Even if the values underlyingaesthetic value
are arbitraryand scare-quoted,it doesn't follow
that the work itself isn't really valuable. It has
the desirablecapacity to induce in appreciators
pleasurableadmiration, although this capacity
belongs not to the physical workitself, but to the
workunderstoodin a certain way-as an artist's
attemptto accomplishcertain possibly arbitrary
objectives.
Don't such demonstrationsof skill sometimes
conflict with aesthetic value? Don't they some-
times makefor academicanduninspiredart, and
doesn't admirationof skill sometimes interfere
with genuinely aesthetic appreciation?Yes, but
this doesn't preventaestheticvalue from consist-
ing in a capacity to induce pleasurableadmira-
tion. Academicnessin art sometimes amountsto
the demonstrationof a relatively mundaneskill
507
(perhaps one that has become mundaneby the
constant attention of artists in a certain tradi-
tion), a skill that any moderately talented and
persevering artist might now accomplish, and
one that does not induce much pleasurablere-
spect or admiration. Sometimes technical vir-
tuosity replacesinspirationor the demonstration
of insight or ingenuity of a kind that we would
admire more and with more pleasure than the
most impressivetechnicalabilities.
Insofar as the values for which appreciators
admire a work consist in the achievement of
arbitrarygoals, there is a clear sense in which
aestheticvalue is likely to be institutional,tradi-
tion bound. The arbitrarygoals are set by the
institution. There is nothing like a rule book
specifying the "object of the game," but there
are understandingswithin an artistic tradition
about what goals artists are expected to pursue.
Only if the appreciatoris familiarenoughwiththe
traditionto recognize the goals and goes along
with them, only if she in this way "buys into"
the institution, will she admire their achieve-
ment and take pleasure in doing so. One must
also be familiarenough with the task to appreci-
ate its difficulty, and this may come from famil-
iarity with the institution. We may have here a
partialexplanationof the peculiarsusceptibility
of art to charges of fraudulence, and what can
seem the fuzzy boundary between fraudulence
and profundity.If we "buy into" the institution
with its arbitraryobjectives, we say "How mar-
velous!" If we focus on their arbitrariness,we
call "Fraud!"
The value underlyingaestheticvalue can itself
be aesthetic. We may admire something for its
capacity to elicit pleasurable admiration, and
take pleasure in admiring it for this. Then we
have aesthetic value which is not only distinct
from practicalor arbitraryvalues, but also inde-
pendent of them. Bootstrapping of this sort
amounts to art for art's sake. Often bootstrap-
ping is only partial.One mayadmiresomething,
with pleasure,for its capacityto produceinsight,
for instance, and also admireit, with additional
pleasure, for its capacity to elicit the former
admiration. I have some temptation to define
aesthetic value as necessarily involving an ele-
ment of bootstrapping.This would help to ex-
clude cases in which the pleasure one takes in
one's admirationis of a self-congratulatorysort.
Bootstrappingrequiresthatone admirethe work
508
for its capacity to elicit admiration;admiring
oneself for one's admirationdoesn't suffice.
V occurrences. (This kind of case is to be dis-
I have graduallybeen stretchingthe word "ad-
miration" out of shape. I spoke of admiring
things for their practical(e.g., cognitive) values
and for their aesthetic value, and also of admir-
ing people for the achievementof difficult even
if arbitraryobjectives. And thereis more variety
to come. I suggest replacing "admiration"with
a family of relatedterms. Whatwill remainis at
least this: thataestheticpleasureconsists in plea-
sure taken not just in an object or person itself,
but in an attitude one has toward an object or
person, the attitude being either admirationor
somethingelse.
Sometimes our attitudetoward what we take
to be aestheticallyvaluableis betterdescribedas
one of awe or wonder than one of admiration.
This is especially truein the case of aesthetically
regardednaturalobjects, things that are not the
product of human activity and do not call for
recognition of a person's achievement. (One
may of course respondto works of art with awe
or wonder as well.) The aesthetic value of sun-
sets, alpine meadows, waterfalls, and flowers
mayconsist (in part)in ourtakingpleasurein the
awe or wonderwe feel towardthem. This enables
us to explain the fact that aesthetic appreciation
of naturalobjects seems, pretheoretically,to be
similarto, but also significantly different from,
much of our aesthetic appreciationof works of
art. The differencelies in the fact thatpleasureis
taken, in one case, in admirationfor a person's
accomplishmentand, in the other case, in the
ratherdifferent experience of awe or wonder,
which need not involve recognitionof a human
accomplishment.The similarity lies in the fact
that in both cases pleasureis taken in an attitude
one has towardsomething(and in whateversim-
ilarity there is between the attitudes of awe or
wonder, and admiration). In the case of both
natural objects and works of art, one may be
surprisedby the object or by particularfeatures
of it, or one may experience feelings of famil-
iarity and recognition, and one may take plea-
sure in these experiences, and in others as well.
These responses may be components of one's
awe or wonderor admiration.
Terribleeventsor activities may demandof us
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
a certain respect or awe, if not admiration,and
we sometimes delight in feeling this respect or
awe, even while genuinelyregrettingthe terrible
tinguished from one of grudging admiration,
when one does not take delight in one's admira-
tion.) Something like this may occur when we
experience what has been called the sublime.
One might also delight in judging something
negatively,or in being revoltedor annoyedby it
or in finding it offensive or repugnant.10Revul-
sion can coexist with delight in respondingwith
revulsion. ("Things we love to hate.") Some
anti-art may be designed to elicit reactions of
this sort. And they help to accountfor the attrac-
tion painful works of more traditional kinds
sometimes have for us, worksthatprovokein us
negativefirst-orderresponses. Revulsionis very
different from admiration, although it might
involve a certainawe or wonder.In any case, the
pleasure is, again, pleasure in experiencing an
attitudetowardsomething.
Sometimes, of course, we are pained or dis-
pleased by the experience of judging something
negatively.And we mayjudge it even more neg-
atively as a resultof this displeasure-and so be
all the more displeased.11 Displeasure and dis-
approval may thus feed on and reinforce each
other, as pleasureand admirationdo in positive
cases. It is as thoughthe stakes for the artist are
continuallybeing multiplied.
But whetheror not one enjoys being revolted
or judging a work negatively, one might at the
same time admire it for its capacity to produce
revulsion or to elicit a negative judgment, and
one might enjoy admiring it for this. If we un-
derstandthe artist'sobjectiveto be to disgustthe
appreciatoror to provoke negative judgments,
we may admirewith pleasurehis achievementin
accomplishing this end. The kind of aesthetic
value thatconsists in a capacityto elicit pleasur-
able admiration-what I am inclinedto regardas
the central or paradigmaticvariety of aesthetic
value-can thus coexist with, and indeeddepend
on, a capacity to disgust or irritate or evoke
negative judgments. And we may, accordingly,
judge the work positively. We may or may not
feel a conflict betweenthe positivejudgmentand
a negativeone on which it depends. If we do, we
will feel conflicted-as we sometimes do in any
case, especially when we confront some of the
more disturbingcontemporaryworks.
Walton How Marvelous! Towarda Theory of Aesthetic Value
VI
It is an open question-and by no means an easy
one-how the conceptionof aestheticvalueI have
outlinedsorts with traditionalones, how close it
comes to capturingwhat people have meant in
speaking of "aesthetic value" (or "beauty,"or
"elegance," or "sublimity") in contexts of one
kind or another,whethercritics have something
like it in mindwhen they pronounceworksof art
to be good or bad, masterpiecesor failures. I do
not doubtthat some entrenchednotions of "aes-
thetic value" have little to do with the account I
have offered. And the possession of what I am
calling aesthetic value is certainly not our only
reason for valuing paintingsand plays and sym-
phonies. But I, for one, am surethata significant
portion of the enjoyment I receive from many
works of art derives from my admiringthem or
judging them to be valuable in one way or an-
other. My enjoyment depends on my assessing
the work positively, on my being moved to de-
clare, "How marvelous!"The word "apprecia-
tion" fits this enjoymentnicely, suggesting as it
does notjust pleasurefelt in responseto the work,
but a recognitionof its worth. If appreciationis
understoodto be centralto the aesthetic,we might
expect the capacity to elicit pleasurableadmira-
tion to qualifywith little strainas aestheticvalue.
"Appreciation"may not be quite the right
word for pleasure taken in one's experiences of
awe or wonderor, especially, shock or irritation
or revulsion,and capacitiesto inducethese plea-
sures may strike us as constituting less than
paradigmaticinstances of aesthetic value. But
such capacities are values, ones that are preva-
lent in works of art. And they are akin to para-
digmaticallyaestheticvalue in being capacitiesto
inducepleasurein one's attitudestowardthings.
Moreover,as we noted, they are values on which
paradigmaticallyaesthetic value is sometimes
based, values for which one pleasurablyadmires
things. They may be reasons for declaring,
"How marvelous!"12
KENDALL L. WALTON
of Philosophy
Department
Universityof Michigan
Ann Arbor,MI 48109
509
1. Or anyway as inherent. See William K. Frankena,
Ethics, 2nd edition (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1973), pp. 81-82.
2. John Rawls, "Two Concepts of Rules," The Philo-
sophical Review64 (1955), pp. 3-32. See especially p. 16.
3. I owe this example to David Hills.
4. The sense in which the value of winning and that of
rarenessin stampsareunrealneeds examination.Sportsfans
and stampcollectors really do care aboutwinning and about
rareness,it seems. Fansmayalso desire to desire thata given
team win, which on some accounts constitutes valuing this
result. (See David Lewis, "DispositionalTheoriesof Value,"
Proceedingsof the AristotelianSociety, SupplementaryVol-
ume 13, 1989, pp. 113-137.) After all, they (probably)
chose voluntarilyto be sports fans and to root for the teams
they root for. And stampcollectors are not forced to pursue
theirhobby or to accept its traditionalemphasison rareness.
So maybe they want to desire (to possess) rare stamps.
Presumablyonly what people are disposed to value in rele-
vantly ideal circumstances is really valuable for them.
Would the fans' and collectors' meta-desiressurvive "cog-
nitive psychotherapy"?Would they survive full disclosure
and vivid awarenessof all relevantfacts? Maybe, if thereare
extrinsic reasons for buying into the institution, for being a
sports fan or a stampcollector. But will that account for the
apparently intrinsic value, for the fan or the collector in
question, of the relevantteam winning or of the collector's
possessing rarestamps?
5. John Hollander,Rhyme'sReason: A Guide to English
Verse(YaleUniversityPress, 1981), pp. 43-44.
6. Historical circumstancesmake certain goals salient in
a given culturalcontext, no doubt, and help to explain their
adoption, even if they are arbitraryin the sense that neither
having or achieving them is in itself more valuable than
having or achievingalternativegoals wouldbe.
7. My suggestion is that we regardpleasure taken in the
object as part of one's aesthetic pleasure if it is combined
with pleasuretakenin one's admirationfor the object.
8. Allan Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (Harvard
UniversityPress, 1990).
9. Kantasks "whetherin the judgmentof taste the feeling
of pleasure precedes or follows the judging of the object"
(Critique of Judgment, ?9). On my account of aesthetic
value, the answer is (with qualifications)both. If aesthetic
pleasureis in part pleasurableadmiration,pleasuretaken in
judging something highly, it comes (logically, if not tem-
porally) after this judgment. The prior judgment is not a
judgment of aesthetic value (not a "judgmentof taste") in
the cases I havedescribedso far,but in othercases it is, as we
shall see shortly; sometimes we take pleasure in judging
something to be excellent aesthetically.Such bootstrapping
is typical of central instances of aesthetic value. Aesthetic
judgmentsare, however,judgmentsof an object'scapacityto
produce pleasure-pleasurable admiration-and it is nor-
mally by experiencing this pleasure that one detects the
object's capacity to provide it; thus does aestheticjudgment
follow feelings of pleasure.
10. Dan Goldberg suggested this possibility. In an inter-
esting paperon "The Pleasuresof Tragedy"(The American
Philosophical Quarterly 20 [1983], pp. 95-104), Susan
Feagin argues that the pleasure we derive from tragedies is
"a meta-response, arising from our awareness of, and in
response to, the fact that we do have unpleasantdirect re-
510
sponses to unpleasantevents as they occur in the performing
and literary arts" (98). Some of the metaresponsesshe has
in mind are self-congratulatorypleasures ("We find our-
selves to be the kind of people who respond negatively to
villainy,treachery,and injustice"p. 98), and so might not be
indications of aesthetic value. But they are still pleasures
derivedfrom tragedy.See also my Mimesisas Make-Believe:
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
On the Foundationsof the RepresentationalArts (Harvard
UniversityPress, 1990), ?7.3.
11. I am indebtedhere to ArthurDanto.
12. This paperbenefitedfromcommentsby ArthurDanto,
David Hills, Peter Railton, Alicyn Warren, and Stephen
Yablo, and from discussion at the 1991 NEH SummerInsti-
tute for Aesthetics.