First of all, I want to admit that I know next to nothing about aesthetics, particularly Hegel’s aesthetics. That being said, I thought that there were some interesting connections to aesthetics in the ‘morality’ chapter we read for last class. First of all, Hegel talks about different kinds of harmony that are connected with morality. Hegel identifies two different ‘postulates’ about different harmonies involving morality: “The first postulate was the harmony of morality and objective Nature, the final purpose of the world; the other, the harmony of morality and the sensuous will, the final purpose of self-consciousness as such” (369). It seems like Hegel is saying that in is consciousness’ responsibility to bring about these harmonies, although he doesn’t exactly tell us what that would entail. He does, however, say that “consciousness has… to bring about this harmony and continually to be making progress in morality” (368). Without this harmony (either with objective Nature and/or with the sensuous) presumably morality wouldn’t be what it is. Besides this reference to harmony, Hegel also describes the rational, Kantian moral agent as a ‘beautiful soul’. The beautiful soul is the soul that can understand and properly apply the categorical imperative to particular situations. This beautiful soul, however, is not the final synthesis, but itself divides into acting and judging consciousness.
As I said, I don’t know much about aesthetics, however one similarity that immediately stands out to me is that both morality (or ethics more generally speaking) and aesthetics involve a kind of judgment that seems qualitatively different that other kinds of knowledge or belief. One might say that one makes a scientific ‘judgment’ about the world, but this seems different to me. This kind of knowledge claim seems of a different kind than one concerning morality or aesthetics. Perhaps what Hegel is pointing to in talking about morality and harmony and the beautiful together is that being able to perform one kind of judgment helps you perform the other. If aesthetic judgment is similar to moral judgment, then being able or good at one would help you make the other kind. This would seem to imply that learning how to make aesthetic judgments would help one make judgments about morality. If this is true, then aesthetics is a subject that would be incredibly important to teach, starting at an early age.
Interestingly enough, in the Republic, Plato makes the argument that a proper education consists of physical and musical parts. Perhaps what he intends in this musical education is learning the ability to make aesthetic judgments about particular harmonies within the music. This skill would then have very real practical consequences for the way someone with a ‘philosophical’ education would make moral judgments. Is this an appropriate connection to make? Are the connections between morality and aesthetics in Hegel as pronounced as I see them? Maybe someone with a little more experience with aesthetics can show me why this does or doesn’t make sense.
I think you've made a very interesting point with regard to the connections between morality and aesthetics, and your argument has a lot of weight. Interestingly, in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", Joyce expounds part of his, or more accurately Stephen's, ideas concerning Aesthetics which may be pertinent here. Unfortunately this is my only exposure to aesthetics, so I'll make the most of it. Stephen distinguishes between that which incites in the perciever kinetic emotions, and that which induces in them "aesthetic stasis" (223). The former he passes off as "desire and loathing excited by improper aesthetic means [which] are really unaesthetic emotions not only because they are kinetic in character but also because they are not more than the physical" (223). True beauty, on the other hand, "cannot awaken in us emotion which is kinetic or a sensation which is purely physical", and moreover, calls forth a "stasis...prolonged and at last dissolved by what [Stephen calls] the rhythm of beauty" (223).
ReplyDeleteThis distiction seems to suggest a very real morality in aesthetics, found in their common harmony. That is, in the same way that you suggest that there is a link between moral actions and aesthetic appreciation (or that's how I understood your claim), Joyce seems to hold a similar sentiment. Aesthetic perception consists of a stasis, a mind arrested on its object of perception, a kind of stilling of kinetic emotions that allows one to become attuned to the harmony in beauty, and therefore this same process seems extendable to morality. This is because one escape from the kinetic and presumably irrational emotions of desire and loathing, and reaches the plane of morality, which, as you point out, is akin to aesthetics in that it too is a kind of harmony.
So this blog post is an affirmation of your argument, which I have tried to approach from the same angle but using different material to back me up.
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ReplyDeleteBen I also think that you are onto something, though my supporting evidence is less strong. To speak more on the topic of Plato.. in a chapter out of a music and healing book (that I read for my Music and Healing class) called Music and Medicine in Classical Antiquity, there is extensive discussion about the relationship between harmony in music and harmony of the body/soul. Pythagoras, who is often credited with the invention of the lyre, believed that the soul was a harmony and daily interation with music (as he had through the use of the lyre) would benefit one's health. I think that we can see a connection between a musical harmony, a harmony of health, and a harmony of morality.
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