Table of Contents
The reason for writing this paper is oriented on the basis of aesthetics. In my eyes, I view ethics and aesthetics both forms of values, which sets the foundation of individuals. For others, the importance of this topic could be if we respect the aesthetics values of different situations with mankind, we veer to reinforce our moral disposition when handling different situations that could pertain to our everyday life.
This paper will address the argument of aesthetics having a direct correlation to moral disposition. Defending this concept, we can utilize Article Ecology, Aesthetics, and Daoist Body Cultivation by James Miller. Encompassing Miller’s views, this gives a clear understanding and reasoning towards aesthetics and character.
Throughout reading this author digest different scholars and Chinese ideas. The major concept consensus that the Daoist encounter of being a part of every aspect of things could initiate an ecological aesthetic, which could be a vital accessory to hostile practices of environmental actions (Miller, pg. 241). The overall appeal with the article’s major claim is the collaboration of different ideas cohesively working together formatting the concept.
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Agreeing with the article’s argument, one could advance more on ethics, aesthetics, and morals. Ones experience with aesthetic matter could reshape our ethical dispositions in numerous ways, but one can also ponder that our ethical disposition can impact our lenses of aesthetic items.
Offering reason to my argument, can aesthetics be forced to connect with moral dispositions, I want to touch base with the correlation between ethics and aesthetics. Ethics is mainly about the concept of what’s right and wrong for individuals and society itself. Having two main types of ethics first, the moral authority which has mandated principles or elements of truths that are self-supporting written or practice law. Second is moral relativism, the perspective that moral judgments are true or false to some distinct point of view. Another important part to understand is the four ethical isms, moral realism which is expressing a testimony on an ethical reality, subjectivism by one’s testimony about their feelings, emotivism by conveying own personal feelings, and prescription by ethical testimony’s that can be directions or advice view (Data and Science, 2016). Now depicting aesthetics, this can be a section of philosophy that is part of the making and admiration of beauty or taste that could heavily be connected with good. Aesthetics is rooted from the Greek word aisthanomai, which means one’s perception of sensibility, and can vary from people and cultures. Our emotions are rounded by some type of representation in visual or sensory expression (Louis Hanson, 2018). The understanding of ethics and aesthetics can ground the argument that aesthetics is heavily connected to moral disposition, and can differentiate from person to person depending on their perspective of values.
With the scope of my argument, there rises multiple assumptions. Highlighting two key assumptions from Ecology, Aesthetics, and Daoist Body Cultivation, we can look at people and the environment. The materialistic life currently valued are disconnecting people from the environment, for example, back then people put so much emphasize on valuing nature and the environment because it offered so much to us and was essential for survival. The status quo of this aesthetic changed through time. If the demand put on individuals by their peers perceive nature as an object externally from their body’s, whether they know it or not, this strengthens the separation of one another. Instead of being one with nature we are subgrouping into two different entities, which is detrimental to the health of the environment. This brings us to the second assumption, the incorporation of traditions like Daoist cultivation. Incorporating these traditions could play key importance with teaching people to rise above this dualism, and make different perspectives of the work not from the outside, but internally. The Daoist epidemic is for told with the world and self-body all flooding into one. Doing so could put a hold to the disconnection between individuals and the environment creating an ecological aesthetic.
Throughout time our morals that define who we are change, and serendipitously so do aesthetics. Through the usage and development of technology, there has been recent research on the topic of new aesthetics. Developed as an image processing, originally for British media, design seeking to impose an alternative way of viewing reality for the public. James bridal explored this topic, and with the material collected “it points towards new ways of seeing the world, an echo of the society, technology, politics, and people that co-produce them.” The new aesthetics is a sequence that tip to altering what’s currently happening. The ideas of this new aesthetics include GIFS, Photoshop’s, animations, etc. Getting deeper, we can look at the usage of GIFS. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. Digital age fans are overwhelmed with substance and visual imagery. Whether it’s from company to consumer or between individuals, the usage of GIFS can layout identity’s and communicate values. To catch one’s attention there are only 7 seconds before one becomes uninterested. Research shows that the brain can interact and recall more when the usage of visuals and text are at hand, concluding the popularity in the usage of GIFs (Pauline Dewan, 2015). Looking further into the unfolding of GIFs, the picture animation and motion coincidently all work together relaying feelings and emotion. GIFS have different interpretations varying from individual to individual. The simplicity of GIFS give more meaning to social media post, text, feedback, conveying a company or personal brand, and promoting culture or values. GIFS and social media intertwining contribute huge usage that companies, political parties, and government agencies have now incorporated. The amount of GIFS is endless, giving companies or individuals a chance to bind to society’s values or culture. With technology being a part of an individual’s everyday life, the argument of aesthetics having a direct connection to the moral character is present when considering visual aesthetics and technology.
A different perspective in comparison to my argument in advancing has to do with art. Aesthetics can also be referred to as the evaluation of art and its design. This subordinate philosophy of art brings to a light different way of seeing, sensing, a perceiving phenomenon. With our senses, visual art is made by fundamental elements, the brain transcribes this and we can visualize the end product of this inner scheme. The intention of an artist making ark it to evoke an aesthetic reaction with viewers. With a philosophical lens, the worth of art stands against ways we define art, how to hold aesthetic views on art, and the intertwining of moral values and aesthetic value (Thomas Adajin, 2018). When looking at art it’s practical to understand descriptive against normative. Descriptive is observations and experiences that detail what art is and normative explains art in correlation to specific norms. Ayn Rand and David Hume also have made contributions when understanding art. Ayn Rand focuses on attributes in the art itself, and how people evaluate art is based on the configuration of qualities. David Hume focal point was how much pleaser of the work the viewer has, that the evaluation of art is determined by emotions and feelings that the piece of art makes ones evoke (Tom Blackstone, 2006). The way people view art whether it’s pleasing or not is configured back to morals which differ from individual to individual and society as a whole.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This well-known saying states that what one finds appealing differs from individual to individual on their rooted morals, which can accompany the argument of aesthetics having a correlation to moral disposition. One may try to counter argue stating what is described as aesthetically appealing is not by the individual, but by the status quo that companies and people in power emplace on societies. Although this can be true we can overcome this thought looking at the implications. As people grow through life their moral and ethical scope is nearly constructed by their surroundings, so their actions are frequently a verification they get from society. Looking at normative social influence, social validation makes people alter their behavior, attitudes, and actions even if what they observe doesn’t match who they are. People will go against their values to fit in because when people are a part of a group, they don’t have a sense of self, not feeling accountable for their emotions or actions. Contrasting formation of expressions start to go hand and hand with one another and causes an ecological power which blusters of revisions in nature come together with individuals by the discipline of innovative expression we care for healing within the individual (Morton Deutsch and Harold b. Gerard, 1955).
Looking at this counter-argument in a new light, what’s the norm in society changes from generation to generation, which some may say is bad, but this is a part of evolution Companies or powerful influencers may try to conform society on the norms but I believe these powers already target people within this scope. There are so many different groups of people that have different sets of values, but companies and people in power vary and they try to target a specific audience that would go along with its status quo, and in the long run, try to innovate evolving people already in their group. Taking this counter-argument a step further, I’d like to look at myself. Throughout life, I grew up playing sports mainly because of my father. He’s ingrained in my head that our family is strong physically and mentally, and I’ve kept this moral concept throughout life. When I was thinking about changing sports, I was considering cheerleading or gymnastics because of the movies bring it on and stick it. Once decided, I tried out for cheerleading even though the school labeled people in this sports outcast (The big thing was dance). Now, being when you enter high school this is where you find yourself, and even though it wasn’t socially accepted, I decided to become a cheerleader. Through my 4 years of cheerleading, I truly loved this sport because it brought me back to my dad’s value about being strong physically and mentally. In cheerleading, you have to be strong enough to hold someone up in the air. If you take a couple of elbows to the face the best don’t cry, but suck it up and move along. If something happens in a routine, you have to be smart not letting this affect you. If you’re physically exhausted, you have to keep pushing yourself.
Because of the morals throughout life that have backboned me as a person, I’ve enjoyed and excelled in this sport. Throughout movies, they target people to aesthetically view cheerleaders as hip, and at my school, this wasn’t true, but I still loved the enjoyment received from this sport. Cheerleading configured with me like a key and lock because of the morals needed for this sport. What we can learn with this counter argument and my personal experience is that what is seen norm differs from groups and the power of different influences will target people in that specific group. If one power is debunking a different target audience, people in the group may not be concerned because their morals are specific and excel within their group. Companies may have an impact on individual’s morals but this can go along with the rooted moral idea that in a healthy way people should do things in life that make them feel pleased about their personal self. In supporting this major claim, we can look at Millers view that gives a clear understanding and reasoning towards aesthetics and character. This can be one’s experience with aesthetic matter that could reshape our ethical dispositions in numerous ways, but one can also ponder that our ethical disposition can impact our lenses of aesthetic items. Understanding the root of aesthetics and ethics we see how they both boggle off one another, and our experiences with them throughout our environment and connection to the world. Through the usage of technology which plays an important role in today’s society,’ we can see how the aesthetic appeal of GIFS has become increasingly popular to communicate ideas, morals, emotions, etc. With the perspective of art and the idea an artist is trying to evoke emotion or feelings with their work, this solely depends on the individual and how they interoperate the piece.
Aesthetics and status quo that’s implemented on society from a powerful hand may thrive for a specific group because of an individual’s background morals. If the ones outside this group feel different from the majority, they may not care because the enjoyment received by the following values. The reasoning for this paper is to address aesthetics. Aesthetics and ethics both come into play regarding morals because this is what shape’s one view for an individual. Social norms may have an effect on the aesthetic status quo but because everyone is different and experiences life differently, so is the individual’s moral lenses. if we respect the aesthetics values of different situations with mankind, we veer to reinforce our moral disposition when handling different situations that could pertain to our everyday life.
Citations
- Miller, James. “Ecology, Aesthetics and Daoist Body Cultivation.” In Environmental Philosophy in the Asian Traditions of Thought. Edited by J. Baird Callicott and James McRae. SUNY Press, 2014. 225-244. (20 pages).
- Deutsch, Morton, and Harold B. Gerard. “A Study of Normative and Informational Social Influences upon Individual Judgment.” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, vol. 51, no. 3, 1955, pp. 629–636., doi:10.1037/h0046408.
- Adajian, Thomas. (2017). Demarcation, Definition, Art. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-definition/
- Dewan, Pauline. “Words Versus Pictures: Leveraging the Research on Visual Communication.” Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, vol. 10, no. 1, 2015, doi:10.21083/partnership.v10i1.3137.
- “Figure 2f from: Irimia R, Gottschling M (2016) Taxonomic Revision of Rochefortia Sw. (Ehretiaceae, Boraginales). Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e7720. Https://Doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e7720.” doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f.
- Hanson, Louise. “Moral Realism, Aesthetic Realism, and the Asymmetry Claim.” Ethics, vol. 129, no. 1, 2018, pp. 39–69., doi:10.1086/698732.
- Mittelstadt, Brent Daniel, et al. “The Ethics of Algorithms: Mapping the Debate.” Big Data & Society, vol. 3, no. 2, 2016, p. 205395171667967., doi:10.1177/2053951716679679.
