Repository logo

Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10217/100498

Browse

Browsing Theses and Dissertations by Subject "appropriateness question"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    A metaphysical answer to the appropriateness question in aesthetics
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) LaRose, Gabriella, author; Romagni, Domenica, advisor; McShane, Katie, committee member; Hughes, Kit, committee member
    The aim of this project is to give a new, descriptive answer to the appropriateness question in aesthetics. The appropriateness question asks how is it appropriate for ethical value to affect aesthetic value in aesthetic cases? I give a two-step argument for a metaphysical relationship between ethical content and aesthetic experience which is conditional on ethical content being aesthetically relevant and narrative being present. I argue that there is an inherence relationship between ethical content and narrative, where the former inheres in the latter. This relation holds in virtue of the mutual dependence between ethical content and narrative. I then use Noel Carroll's content approach to aesthetic experience to argue aesthetic experience supervenes on narrative content. This supervenient relationship captures the emergence of aesthetic experience while retaining the spirit of Carroll's discussion of aesthetic experience. Ultimately, I argue that because narrative is a feature of aesthetic experience and further because ethical content is a feature of narrative, there is a metaphysical relationship between ethical content and aesthetic experience. Simply, when a narrative exists (even an imagined narrative) and moral content is present, then a metaphysical relationship will exist between ethical content and aesthetic experience.