Does Ethics Reduce to Aesthetics

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hue-man
 
Reply Thu 25 Feb, 2010 10:05 am
Ethics seeks to address questions about morality (right and wrong acts). Many, if not all, moral theories deal with the attainment of happiness, which is usually described as the presence of pleasure, the absence of pain and the sense of joy and contentment.

Aesthetics deals with the nature of beauty, art and taste. More importantly, aesthetics deals with sensory emotional values such as pleasure and pain. This seems to mean that ethical values ultimately reduce to aesthetic values (pleasure, pain, joy, happiness and suffering). In fact, this seems to mean that all of the axiological fields, such as political philosophy, philosophy of law and economic philosophy are ultimately dependent on aesthetic values.

Thoughts?
 
Krumple
 
Reply Thu 25 Feb, 2010 10:15 am
@hue-man,
hue-man;132316 wrote:
Ethics seeks to address questions about morality (right and wrong acts). Many, if not all, moral theories deal with the attainment of happiness, which is usually described as the presence of pleasure, the absence of pain and the sense of joy and contentment.

Aesthetics deals with the nature of beauty, art and taste. More importantly, aesthetics deals with sensory emotional values such as pleasure and pain. This seems to mean that ethical values ultimately reduce to aesthetic values (pleasure, pain, joy, happiness and suffering). In fact, this seems to mean that all of the axiological fields, such as political philosophy, philosophy of law and economic philosophy are ultimately dependent on aesthetic values.

Thoughts?


Some of the things you have outlined here, are questionable if they even really consider ethics as a foundation for them. Like the philosophy of politics. I know I have said it a dozen times, but I honestly don't think politicians actually consider the ramifications as far as ethics go when proposing political policies. I know that sounds rather harsh and even a bit irrational but I feel that a majority only take as the basis, wealth gain for themselves or their political affiliation then it trickles down from there, but rarely is ethics ever considered. I think if there was more ethics in politics we would have a (understated) massively improved society.

Uhg, long explanation and too much focus on just one aspect of your argument. Well anyways my point being that if ethics and aesthetics come together at all, it would first be led by ethics. However; it also depends on the system itself because I could see in certain cases where aesthetics dominates over the ethical decisions.

But the way I look at it, aesthetics won't kill anyone or have anyone killed but ethics will.
 
Pyrrho
 
Reply Thu 25 Feb, 2010 11:02 am
@hue-man,
hue-man;132316 wrote:
Ethics seeks to address questions about morality (right and wrong acts). Many, if not all, moral theories deal with the attainment of happiness, which is usually described as the presence of pleasure, the absence of pain and the sense of joy and contentment.

Aesthetics deals with the nature of beauty, art and taste. More importantly, aesthetics deals with sensory emotional values such as pleasure and pain. This seems to mean that ethical values ultimately reduce to aesthetic values (pleasure, pain, joy, happiness and suffering). In fact, this seems to mean that all of the axiological fields, such as political philosophy, philosophy of law and economic philosophy are ultimately dependent on aesthetic values.

Thoughts?



Your characterization of ethics is a bit off, as Kant, who is quite influential in ethics, did not hold such a view. But putting that aside, I believe that normally, if a "reduction" is made, it is thought that ethics is primary, not aesthetics. But it is most common to keep them as separate ideas, because it is commonly thought that what is beautiful and what is good are not the same things.
 
hue-man
 
Reply Thu 25 Feb, 2010 11:31 am
@Krumple,
Krumple;132323 wrote:
Some of the things you have outlined here, are questionable if they even really consider ethics as a foundation for them. Like the philosophy of politics. I know I have said it a dozen times, but I honestly don't think politicians actually consider the ramifications as far as ethics go when proposing political policies. I know that sounds rather harsh and even a bit irrational but I feel that a majority only take as the basis, wealth gain for themselves or their political affiliation then it trickles down from there, but rarely is ethics ever considered. I think if there was more ethics in politics we would have a (understated) massively improved society.


Well I didn't really say that ethics was the foundation of politics, but I do believe that ethics plays a major role in the development of a political philosophy. Politicians behaving ethically is another subject entirely, though. This is a bit off-topic, but when you say "improved society" I assume that you mean a society that has greatly reduced or even eliminated suffering. This may be your notion of the good but I don't share it.

Krumple;132323 wrote:
Uhg, long explanation and too much focus on just one aspect of your argument. Well anyways my point being that if ethics and aesthetics come together at all, it would first be led by ethics. However; it also depends on the system itself because I could see in certain cases where aesthetics dominates over the ethical decisions.

But the way I look at it, aesthetics won't kill anyone or have anyone killed but ethics will.


I'm not so sure that the last paragraph focused on any aspect of my argument. In the last paragraph you discussed ethics as the foundation of political philosophy and the ethical or unethical behavior of politicians. I never mentioned any of that in my original post.

My argument is very simple. It's that the foundation of ethical values are sensory emotional values like pleasure, pain, joy, happiness and suffering. These are aesthetic values, which means that aesthetic values are at the root of ethical ones.

Whether or not aesthetic values can kill anyone is a normative matter, and I can imagine aesthetic norms that can kill people. In fact, my point is that the ethical norms that allow for the murder of a person are grounded in sensory emotional values such as pleasure, pain and joy.

---------- Post added 02-25-2010 at 12:37 PM ----------

Pyrrho;132334 wrote:
Your characterization of ethics is a bit off, as Kant, who is quite influential in ethics, did not hold such a view.


My charaterization of ethics is that it seeks to address questions about morality. I think that that is a very basic definition of the field. How does Kant's (who I rarely agree with) moral philosophy conflict with the definition of ethics as the field which deals with questions of morality?

Pyrrho;132334 wrote:
But putting that aside, I believe that normally, if a "reduction" is made, it is thought that ethics is primary, not aesthetics. But it is most common to keep them as separate ideas, because it is commonly thought that what is beautiful and what is good are not the same things.


Aesthetics doesn't just deal with what is beautiful. Aesthetics deals primarily with sensory emotional values such as pleasure and pain, upon which notions of beauty are grounded. Please demonstrate how aesthetics reduces to ethics? Believing that all axiological values should be grounded in ethics and put ethics first is different from all axiological values actually being grounded in ethical notions.
 
Fido
 
Reply Thu 25 Feb, 2010 12:47 pm
@hue-man,
hue-man;132316 wrote:
Ethics seeks to address questions about morality (right and wrong acts). Many, if not all, moral theories deal with the attainment of happiness, which is usually described as the presence of pleasure, the absence of pain and the sense of joy and contentment.

Aesthetics deals with the nature of beauty, art and taste. More importantly, aesthetics deals with sensory emotional values such as pleasure and pain. This seems to mean that ethical values ultimately reduce to aesthetic values (pleasure, pain, joy, happiness and suffering). In fact, this seems to mean that all of the axiological fields, such as political philosophy, philosophy of law and economic philosophy are ultimately dependent on aesthetic values.

Thoughts?


Sure...You are wrong in the way you use the terms since morality and ethics are the same, morals coined by Cicero to translate the sense of ethics into Latin... Other than that, it is more correct to say that Ethics reduces to genetics, because no one can tell one ethnic group what is moral in the defense of their own against another ethnic group... For example, no one can say what the Jews do in defense of Jews, or what the Arabs do in defense of Arabs, however inhumane, is not perefectly moral...Morality is community, and if morality is a problem it is because communities are all fractured, having no true power over their own....
 
Pyrrho
 
Reply Thu 25 Feb, 2010 12:56 pm
@hue-man,
hue-man;132348 wrote:
...
My charaterization of ethics is that it seeks to address questions about morality. I think that that is a very basic definition of the field. How does Kant's (who I rarely agree with) moral philosophy conflict with the definition of ethics as the field which deals with questions of morality?



Your characterization of morality included: "Many, if not all, moral theories deal with the attainment of happiness, which is usually described as the presence of pleasure, the absence of pain and the sense of joy and contentment." And Kant is a prominent example of someone who did not regard the attainment of happiness, in itself, as relevant to morality. I might also add that Aristotle's idea of happiness included a good deal more than merely pleasure and the absence of pain. The idea that pleasure and pain are the essence of morality is called "hedonism", and most philosophers have not been hedonists.


hue-man;132348 wrote:
Aesthetics doesn't just deal with what is beautiful. Aesthetics deals primarily with sensory emotional values such as pleasure and pain, upon which notions of beauty are grounded. Please demonstrate how aesthetics reduces to ethics? Believing that all axiological values should be grounded in ethics and put ethics first is different from all axiological values actually being grounded in ethical notions.



Pleasure and pain are more often associated with ethics than aesthetics. If aesthetics can be reduced to pleasure and pain, then it would more often be regarded as reducing aesthetics to ethics rather than the other way around.

Additionally, I have heard people discuss the aesthetic value of boxing, which involves an admiration of the skill of the boxers, which obviously in fact involves a good deal of pain. Most often, aesthetics is considered to be separate from ethics, but if one is to be reduced to the other, I expect that one would find more philosophers who would reduce aesthetics to ethics rather than the other way around. But we are then discussing a small subset of philosophers.
 
hue-man
 
Reply Thu 25 Feb, 2010 01:23 pm
@Fido,
Fido;132393 wrote:
Sure...You are wrong in the way you use the terms since morality and ethics are the same, morals coined by Cicero to translate the sense of ethics into Latin... Other than that, it is more correct to say that Ethics reduces to genetics, because no one can tell one ethnic group what is moral in the defense of their own against another ethnic group... For example, no one can say what the Jews do in defense of Jews, or what the Arabs do in defense of Arabs, however inhumane, is not perefectly moral...Morality is community, and if morality is a problem it is because communities are all fractured, having no true power over their own....


I understand that morality and ethics are virtually the same thing because ethics entails morality. I mentioned the two because in order to make a distinction between ethics as a field and morality as the focal point of the field. That's really beyond the point, though.

Ethics does not reduce to genetics. You may not have meant this, but saying that ethics reduces to genetics is like saying that what's right is what your genetic instincts tell you is right. However ethics, from a descriptive or meta point of view, reduces to emotive states that are formed by evolutionary psychology and environmental influence. This is the same as saying that ethics reduces to sensory emotional values, which are aesthetic. That's my point after all.

---------- Post added 02-25-2010 at 03:56 PM ----------

Pyrrho;132396 wrote:
Your characterization of morality included: "Many, if not all, moral theories deal with the attainment of happiness, which is usually described as the presence of pleasure, the absence of pain and the sense of joy and contentment." And Kant is a prominent example of someone who did not regard the attainment of happiness, in itself, as relevant to morality. I might also add that Aristotle's idea of happiness included a good deal more than merely pleasure and the absence of pain. The idea that pleasure and pain are the essence of morality is called "hedonism", and most philosophers have not been hedonists.


I defined ethics in simple terms as the field that addresses question about morality (right and wrong action). I also specifically said "many, if not all, moral theories" instead of just saying all moral theories. Kant's deontology is flawed for a number of reasons:

1. He posited the naturalist fallacy.

2. He believed that a morally right action could only be right if the intent was good, which means that the intent of the agent must be benevolent. According to him, this position holds in spite of the consequences, such as when good intent leads to bad consequences. He forgot that the reason why agents act in good will in the first place is because they believe that good intent will lead to good ends. And of course what makes an end good is the pleasure that the beneficiary stands to receive.

Pyrrho;132396 wrote:
Pleasure and pain are more often associated with ethics than aesthetics. If aesthetics can be reduced to pleasure and pain, then it would more often be regarded as reducing aesthetics to ethics rather than the other way around.


Pleasure and pain are often associated with ethics just as they are with aesthetics. Aesthetic meditation often revolves around beauty and taste. Things are deemed to be beautiful or tasteful due to an appreciation of what is pleasurable to the senses. Things are deemed ugly or distasteful due to them being painful to the senses. The same goes for moral rightness and wrongness, which is why I say that morality reduces to aesthetic sensory emotional values such as pleasure and pain.

Pyrrho;132396 wrote:
Additionally, I have heard people discuss the aesthetic value of boxing, which involves an admiration of the skill of the boxers, which obviously in fact involves a good deal of pain.


This is a great example of the valuation of pain and suffering. Boxing is valued from an aesthetic point of view and an ethical point of view by some people because it functions as a paradigm of overcoming and power. However, some people devalue the sport of boxing because they have an infinite disdain for pain. A revaluation of pain and suffering can be done in the field of ethics as well.

Pyrrho;132396 wrote:
Most often, aesthetics is considered to be separate from ethics, but if one is to be reduced to the other, I expect that one would find more philosophers who would reduce aesthetics to ethics rather than the other way around. But we are then discussing a small subset of philosophers.


There may be plenty of philosophers who reduce aesthetics to ethics, but it's always expressed as an ought instead of an is. I'm not saying that ethics ought to reduce to aesthetics. I'm saying that ethics does reduce to sensory values, and sensory values are aesthetic.

Aesthetics and ethics are separate fields because they don't always deal with the same things. For example, ethics does not deal with beauty, taste or art . . . But I'm starting to think that the exclusivity of the fields is more of an illusion.
 
CJDOUGLAS
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 01:15 pm
@hue-man,
The answer in short is no, Ethics does not reduce to Aesthetics. You're talking about Morality and Art. If anything Aesthetics relies to some degree on Ethics, as much as Metaphysics and Epistemology. Aesthetics is ultimately a representation of a mans sense of life. If he views life as suffering, values as unatainable, man as unable to deal with the world, this will show through in his work. Ethics guide action, our ethical ideas will tell us how to behave, what is right, wrong and tolerable in any given situation. If a man paints something beautiful it can suggest things about his ethics, you can deduce by what he doesn't include in his painting what it is he finds unacceptable in life. Art being a depiction of essentials (if the artist takes it that way.) The essential parts of a mans art will tell you his world view. If a man paints horrific scenes of murder, you can deduce what his sense of life is rather easily in the same manner.
Under both depictions lies the artists ethics, what he believes is good and bad in the world. At the same time it suggests his view of epistemology, that is, weather or not man can interpret the world and reality or if it is being "viewed through dark glass" as I have heard it said. This will reflect in his art as well. Metaphysics also plays a role, is reality real or is it only a foggy interpretation of the true reality beyond our control to interpret or even deal with. All of this can bee seen in the aesthetic value of a work of art, be it a painting, music, film, dance, etc. I think the greatest example is Avant Garde vs. Romantiscism, in seeing opposite senses of life at work. Studying the artists would also give an idea of the kind of ethics influencing the work.
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 03:34 pm
@hue-man,
I think ethics does reduce to aesthetics, but this is an imperfect statement. Our ethics are not justified by formal logic alone, which can only offer tautology and contradiction. Our ethics is ultimately a tool for achieving a beautiful form of life.
 
Fido
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 03:54 pm
@hue-man,
Ethics is a natural form of relationship...Ethics flows out of the navel, the natal, natural relationships like the family, tribe and nation...It is made real by the emotion behind it...The feeling of love for our own...

And yes, aesthetics is of the same sort of behavior, since our taste is as we are raised...But there is no way to reduce the one to the other...
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 04:10 pm
@Fido,
Fido;136964 wrote:
Ethics is a natural form of relationship...Ethics flows out of the navel, the natal, natural relationships like the family, tribe and nation...It is made real by the emotion behind it...The feeling of love for our own...

And yes, aesthetics is of the same sort of behavior, since our taste is as we are raised...But there is no way to reduce the one to the other...


Love and beauty are difficult to separate, as what we love is also what is beautiful, and what is beautiful is also what we love. The best art is the manifestation of our best ethics. ? As the two are separated, culture declines?

Isn't greed just a person finding money more beautiful than honest human relationship?
 
hue-man
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 04:17 pm
@CJDOUGLAS,
CJDOUGLAS;136916 wrote:
The answer in short is no, Ethics does not reduce to Aesthetics. You're talking about Morality and Art. If anything Aesthetics relies to some degree on Ethics, as much as Metaphysics and Epistemology. Aesthetics is ultimately a representation of a mans sense of life. If he views life as suffering, values as unatainable, man as unable to deal with the world, this will show through in his work. Ethics guide action, our ethical ideas will tell us how to behave, what is right, wrong and tolerable in any given situation. If a man paints something beautiful it can suggest things about his ethics, you can deduce by what he doesn't include in his painting what it is he finds unacceptable in life. Art being a depiction of essentials (if the artist takes it that way.) The essential parts of a mans art will tell you his world view. If a man paints horrific scenes of murder, you can deduce what his sense of life is rather easily in the same manner.
Under both depictions lies the artists ethics, what he believes is good and bad in the world. At the same time it suggests his view of epistemology, that is, weather or not man can interpret the world and reality or if it is being "viewed through dark glass" as I have heard it said. This will reflect in his art as well. Metaphysics also plays a role, is reality real or is it only a foggy interpretation of the true reality beyond our control to interpret or even deal with. All of this can bee seen in the aesthetic value of a work of art, be it a painting, music, film, dance, etc. I think the greatest example is Avant Garde vs. Romantiscism, in seeing opposite senses of life at work. Studying the artists would also give an idea of the kind of ethics influencing the work.


Aesthetics isn't just about art. Where did you get that idea? In fact, some philosophers consider the philosophy of art to be a separate field from aesthetics, though closely related. Aesthetics deals with sensori-emotional values as a whole, including beauty, art, taste and pleasure. Just because it's possible to deduce an artist's ethical views from his art doesn't mean that the field of aesthetics reduces to ethics. Also, just because an artist depicts horrific scenes of murder doesn't necessarily mean that we can know what his ethical views are. An artist can depict these types of scenes for more than one reason.

You misunderstand what I mean when I say that the field reduces to aesthetics. I'm saying that pleasure and pain are sensori-emotional values, a.k.a aesthetic values, and that ethical values stem from these sensori-emotional values.

Aesthetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 04:24 pm
@hue-man,
hue-man;136976 wrote:
I'm saying that pleasure and pain are sensori-emotional values, a.k.a aesthetic values, and that ethical values stem from these sensori-emotional values.

Aesthetics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


I agree, Hue-man, and it seems to me that Wittgenstein & Hume also agree, no matter the wording.
 
hue-man
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 04:27 pm
@Fido,
Fido;136964 wrote:
Ethics is a natural form of relationship...Ethics flows out of the navel, the natal, natural relationships like the family, tribe and nation...It is made real by the emotion behind it...The feeling of love for our own...


Indeed, moral concepts are commonly formed by cultural norms, but why do you think that so many different tribes and nations have so many different conceptions of what is morally good or bad?

Fido;136964 wrote:
And yes, aesthetics is of the same sort of behavior, since our taste is as we are raised...But there is no way to reduce the one to the other...


We are socio-cultural animals, and so our environments do strongly influence our moral and aesthetic values . . . But I've already shown how moral values stem from sensori-emotional/aesthetic values like pleasure and pain and I have yet to see anyone prove me wrong.
 
Fido
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 05:35 pm
@hue-man,
Have you ever heard how the frog got on the moon's back... Sun married a frog because her eyes were so beautiful, but the indian girl squinted up her face and looked ugly to sun... Moon thought indian girl beautiful because she looked at him with large open eyes... Both brothers took their brides to see their mother, who conceived of a test to determine which daughter was best...She served them tripe to see which on had the best teeth, but frog having no teeth tried to cheat by chewing some charcoal from the fire to make the click click sound of good teeth chewing tripe...Her cheating failed her because moon saw the black spittle running down her face and he howled in laughter...Tree frog was angry at him and jumped on his back where she remeains visible today...

Now this is from The Near and the Far, (guess)and it tells the way primitives viewed strangers, as ugly and as animals...And it also shows the wife distant from her own kind as likely to be a clinging woman dependent upon her husband...So while it seems a display on aesthetics it is really a morality play...
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 05:41 pm
@hue-man,
If aesthetics is conceived of as including the highest purest pleasures, then aesthetics and ethics can be equated. Virtue is its own reward, as virtue is beautiful....

Huck saw Jim as a beautiful human being, hence no slave, despite his cultural programming's suggestion.
 
Fido
 
Reply Sat 6 Mar, 2010 07:41 pm
@hue-man,
All the virtues can be equated... Okay, morality could be conceived of as a virtue if it keeps your group alive, but if your group is in conflict with another, then your virtue is a vice to the other group... So, it is not virtue which defines morality, but morality which defines what is virtue...

Aestheics is a marker for culture... It does not always work to the benefit of the community as morality/ethics always does...It reflects the vagaries of habit and taste, and yes, it often blesses the familier and damns the strange, so it is only in general like morality... At best, it is one facet of ethics...
 
Reconstructo
 
Reply Sun 7 Mar, 2010 12:24 am
@hue-man,
I think they meet at the core. But I see your point, of course.
 
CJDOUGLAS
 
Reply Mon 8 Mar, 2010 01:13 pm
@Reconstructo,
Aesthetics was definde to me as, "The branch of philosophy that deals with the nature and expression of beauty." Art deals exclusively in the nature and expression of beauty.
You may aruge that a sunset or a woman can be beautiful but these are metaphysical facts. While I agree that both can be beautiful it is our minds that inderpret the sensory data and relates the conclusions to our metaphysical value judgements.
We choose essentials among the range of qualities possessed by an object, essentials we find beautiful and in so doing turn those qualities into abstractions. It is the job of an artist to take those abstractions and recreate reality by those essentials. Only then does the metaphysical attain aesthetic value.
While Moral values are involved in art, as art is also a representation of the artists etchics, they are involved ony as a consequence. Art may embody and concretize an ideal but only because the artist has a conceptual theory of ethics.
While I agree that ethics would remain in a position of theoretical engineering if art did not bring it to life, I do not believe that ethics reduces in any way to aesthetics or vicea versa.

Aesthetics deals in Metaphysics and ethics is the consequence.

For Instance, when you observe a metaphysical fact, say a woman walking down the street, You note the essentials of what makes her beautiful; the fall of her hair, its body and color, posture, style of dress, etc.
You choose by essentials what is beautiful. Now what you have are floating abstractions. You concretise them by expressing what essentials make her beautiful, thus giving her aesthetic value.

The woman is a metaphysical fact.

By your own value judgements you attribute beauty to essential qualities she possesses. Another man may notice the small blemish on her cheek and say she is flawed and unattractive.
These are metaphysical value judgements. Whats "good and bad" about reality to you. Aesthetics is a representation or an expression of metaphysical fact, it is not necessarilly metaphysical fact nor does it represent the whole of a metaphysical truth.
You speak of beauty as a concrete but it is an abstraction. Man, by use of his mind, gives beauty meaning. Prior to that all things simply are and possess qualities. It is up to the rational mind to determine what qualities are valueable and what qualities are not.
Aesthetics as dealing in "sensori-emotional values", and thus because ethics is determined by "sensori-emotional values", namely pleasure/pain, and so we conclude the two are the same is an error in judgement.
For one to understand emotion one must first know its origin. Its origin is the mind. An emotional response is a reaction to values. If a value is upheld or recieved one feels joy and pleasure. If a value is frustrated and taken away on feels anger/saddness and pain.
To give two brief examples of pleasure/pain, You win a large sum of money. You feel joy and excitement at the prospect of what you can do with that money and how it will improve your quality of life. You realize hat money equals survival and a large sum equals a better chance not only for survival but for comfort as well. Thus joy, excitement and pleausre.
Adversly a man steps in your path from a dark alley as you walk home and angrily demands your money at gun point. You feel fear at the prospect of losing your life and anger at the thought of turning your hard earned money over to a thug.
You realize this man is a stranger to you, unpredictable and the gun has the potential to mortally wound you. You also realize he has no right to steal your property, thus anger, fear and pain.
Both scenarios are examples of the rational process one undergoes in the split second one evaluates their value judgements in a given situation. It may not sound that way in your head, but never the less it is the process or similar to it.
Emotion is the poroduct of Rational value judgments. Your value judgements are based in part on ethics, in part on metaphysics. All rely on a proper epistemology. One does not gain value judgements from feelings. It is the other way around.
Any dichotomy from reason will result ultimately in confusion. Emotion relies on reason. Ethics relies on reason. Aesthetics relies on reason.
Without reason we are left to the mysterious range of the moment dominance of our emotions. Emotion without rational judgement is dangerous. Emotion without rational judgement is to equivicate oneself to the state of a lunatic. Without reason we are lost.

That having been said I don't believe the issue here is really about ethics reducing to aesthetics but rather emotion dominating reason.

Emotion cannot be the guiding factor in ethics.

If it were than naything goes. By that argument rape is moral because sex is pleasureable. I believe the purpose of the question, weather you fully realize it or not, is to destroy ethics by reducing it to aesthetics and drowning it in an emotional haze where the only moral debate is weather something is pleasureable or not.
Disagree? Ask yourslef, what would happen to human life if we reduced ethics to aesthetics? What would happen if our only moral guidance was weather or not something is pleasureable? If our only aspiration was to attain an undefinable beauty absent of rationality.
That wasn't your intention? I misunderstand and am being over dramatic?
Why the attempt to prove aesthetics as over ethics, emotion as the moral compass, morality as a cheap token for pleasure and beauty? Morality isn't always pleasurable and that which is pleasureable isn't always moral.

In conclusion I stand firm in my answer. No. Ethics does not, Cannot and never will reduce to Aesthetics.
 
jack phil
 
Reply Mon 8 Mar, 2010 01:47 pm
@hue-man,
The right method of philosophy would be one which limits the realm of the thinkable, and, therefore, the unthinkable.

The whole problem of ought and is can be plowed over with the rest of language.
 
 

 
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