Last revised 16:03:05
John Benson
A module of the BA Philosophy programme
Institute of Environment Philosophy and Public Policy | Lancaster University | e-mail philosophy@lancaster.ac.uk
To evaluate a work of art is to judge whether it is good or bad as a work of art, on a rough scale from great to worthless; or whether it is better or worse, in comparison with some other work: thus ‘King Lear’ is a great play, or ‘Lear’ is a better play than ‘Look Back in Anger’.
Those are overall or all-things-considered judgements; they are sometimes referred to as ‘verdicts’. There are also more specific judgements. ‘Lear’ is a profound examination of human cruelty. ‘Look Back’ is self-indulgent and superficial. These judgements mention a particular merit or fault, a particular quality, good or bad. A work may have particular merits but also particular faults: ‘Lear’ lacks unity of plot. Or particular faults but also merits: ‘Look Back’ generates real dramatic tension.
Generally speaking to arrive at an overall judgement is a matter of balancing merits and faults. Some works may have no faults, some may have no merits, but these are the exceptions. More often it’s a question of whether the merits outweigh the faults or vice versa. ‘Lear’ is a great play despite its loose structure. ‘Look Back’ is a rather weak play despite its dramatic tension.
Both sorts of judgement are problematic, and are open to dispute, both between
judges and in the mind of a single judge. That is to say, one may be unsure
or two may disagree about
• whether a particular quality of a work is a merit, a fault, or neither
• whether, all its merits and all its faults considered, a work is on the whole
of positive or negative worth
• where on the scale of value it comes and what is its relative value in comparison
with other works to which it is relevantly to be compared.
For example, consider the alleged looseness of structure of ‘Lear’. One of the classical rules of tragedy, derived from Aristotle’s Poetics, was unity of action. ‘Lear’ has a double plot. They are not wholly independent of one another, but each of them interrupts the action of the other; scenes alternate. Is this a fault or not? The case for saying it’s not is that the two complement one another, exploring different aspects of the same theme, and integrated into a coherent whole. The case against is that the two are too similar, do not really add anything to one another, and each interferes with the impact of the other.
Thus the same feature can contribute positively or negatively to the overall value of a work.
A further characteristic of the evaluation of works of art is that merits and faults do not count additively to the overall value, each one scoring so many points, positive or negative. In many cases they act upon one another. For example, if it is the case that the two plots of ‘Lear’ are complementary, thus making the play’s treatment of its theme more far-reaching and penetrating, that enhances the play’s profundity.
What I’ve tried to show is that evaluation is a complex matter, and that disagreement can arise at different stages. The next question to consider is about the kind of disagreement (and agreement) that is possible at either stage of evaluation. There is the saying, ‘There is no disputing about tastes’. This means not that disputes do not take place, but that they are futile. People voice opposing opinions about the value of works of art, and sometimes attempt to give what they take to be reasons in support of their opinions. But when they do so they must be misunderstanding the nature of what they suppose themselves to be discussing. All that one can do if one is clearsighted about these matters is to say that one likes some work, and explain ones liking by pointing to particular features and saying ‘This and this are what I like about it’ - that’s all that reason-giving can amount to. There is no such thing as truth or correctness in value judgements of works or art; each person’s judgement is right, which is a way of saying that there is no impersonal standard by which it can be either right or wrong; my judgement cannot be challenged, but has no validity for anyone else.
‘Subjective’ is a term that can bear more than one meaning. A different sense is in play when one says that ones response to a work of art is necessarily a personal matter. No one’s judgement that a work is good, or beautiful, or no good is worth a bean if they have not experienced the work first hand. Remember Kant’s view that the judgement of beauty, though based on feeling, at the same time implies a universal claim. Whether you accept that or not, it is enough to show that from the essentially personal nature of aesthetic judgement it does not necessarily follow that each person is an unquestionable authority on what is beautiful.
To return to the first sense: the view that judgements of works of art are subjective in this sense is often prompted by the fact that we find we often disagree and, more importantly, that often disagreements are impossible to resolve. Paradoxically subjectivism explains this in a way that removes the possibility of disagreement. How?
Take the predicate ‘ - is beautiful’, in its use as a general all-in term of aesthetic appraisal, applicable to both nature and art. On the surface to say e.g. ‘The Mona Lisa is a beautiful painting’ attributes a property to the painting, one which it either has or lacks, much as ‘The Mona Lisa is a rectangular painting’ does. Two people who disagree, one saying ‘It’s rectangular’, the other denying that it is, believe different, indeed incompatible things about the painting. They cannot both be right. If ‘A is beautiful’ similarly says that something is true of the work, then two people of whom one says ‘The Mona Lisa is beautiful’ and the other denies this, believe different, and incompatible, things about the work. They cannot both be right.
The subjectivist however claims that our use of the predicate ‘- is beautiful’ is misleading. It actually functions like ‘- is pleasant’ in remarks like ‘Wine is pleasant’ which we very easily rephrase as ‘I like wine’. Just as ‘- is pleasant’ indicates a feeling or attitude on the part of the speaker, so does ‘- is beautiful.
The consequence is that when one person says ‘It’s a beautiful painting’ and the other says ‘no, it ain’t’ they do not believe different things. They do not disagree - there is no fact of the matter for them to disagree about. The only facts in question are facts about how each of them feels, and about those facts they do not disagree. Disagreement and argument are not just futile; they are impossible.
In saying this I merely draw out and make explicit what is implicit in the
subjectivist position as described (see the passage above in italics). The point
of doing this is to make clear what you have to take on board if you want to
be a subjectivist. The consequence may not be intolerable, but the theory does
leave something to be explained, in fact two things:
• why the language contains predicates like ‘- is beautiful’ which look as though
they ascribed properties to things, rather than states of mind (feelings) to
persons
• why the tendency persists unchecked to enter into what seem to be disputes
about whether a work of art is really beautiful or not. Few people bother to
argue about whether strawberries are nice or whether Werther’s Original are
nicer than liquorice allsorts.
What the objectivist has to show is that when two people disagree in the value they each attribute to a work, they cannot both be right (indeed I have argued that if they can both be right they do not disagree). What they disagree about is whether the fact of the matter is that the work is beautiful (has value) or not.
Some considerations in favour of objectivism
• The subjectivist may be right about liking (preference) but not about value.
There may be great works that one finds it difficult to get on terms with. They
are not to ones taste. But one may be non-commital about their value. In fact
because they are not ones cup of tea one should hold back from making a value
judgement. This is a consequence of the principle that only a judgement based
on personal experience of the work is worth having. Not liking a work may prevent
one from having the full experience of it that judgement requires. If the distinction
suggested here between personal preference and value is sound, then there are
two attitudes that should be avoided: insisting that other people should like
what one thinks valuable; and denying value to what one personally does not
like.
• Subjectivism is a position that’s easy to hold from an outside point of view,
more difficult from an inside point of view. An argumentum ad hominem, addressed
to you if you hold the subjectivist position: think of some branch of art you
are familiar with and have taken the trouble to get some knowledge of. There
are two kinds of value-judgement you are likely to make: first about the worthwhileness
of your favoured artform or tradition, in opposition to those outside who would
devalue it; secondly about the relative merits of particular examples of the
form. The former involves you in disputes with outsiders, the latter with fellow-enthusiasts.
What I’m suggesting is that by thinking about the art you are really serious
about you will find that your actual practice is in conflict with your official
theory.
• In setting up the subjectivist view I used judgements of beauty as the example,
taking those to be verdict-making judgements, that is taking ‘beautiful’ to
denote not a particular aesthetic quality, distinct, say, from ‘handsome’, but
taking it as the most general term of aesthetic approval. I now want to suggest
that subjectivism looks a more plausible theory if we consider only verdicts
and the general terms used in them than if we consider particular aesthetic
qualities that constitute merits or faults in a work. People may disagree about
whether a vase is beautiful, but find it possible to agree that its shape is
graceful. Or we may both agree that a thriller is superficial and poorly characterised,
but also that it is tightly constructed and quite scary. These more specific
qualities can be discussed by those with a close acquaintance with the work,
and with experience of works of the sort, and it seems plausible that experienced
readers or spectators or listeners will often be able to agree, having compared
their observations in particular detail. They may agree on all the merits and
faults but disagree about how they add up. If so their verdicts will differ,
but that may disguise the fact that they are in large measure in evaluative
agreement.
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Last revised 16:03:05 |
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John Benson |
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A module of the BA Philosophy programme Institute of Environment Philosophy and Public Policy | Lancaster University | e-mail philosophy@lancaster.ac.uk |