Aesthetic Morality.

Consider this you are holding a dinner party. During the course of the night one of your guests gets drunk STINKING drunk. Yet he makes it clear he intends to drive home. He refuses to allow you to call a taxi. You argue and he responds.

You tell him you are preventing his certain death and perhaps the deaths of other road users. He persists.

Suddenly another guest of yours interrupts.

'STOP YOU INHUMAN MONSTER' You are gobsmacked this is directed at YOU. Your sober guests tells you what you are doing is deeply deeply immoral.

You say its immoral to allow him to risk his life. Your sober guests says its morally and AESTHETICALLY wrong to exhibit bad manners towards your guest.

Ha thought AESTHETICS was just about beauty and art did you? WRONG!

Learning about the intersection between morality and aesthetics can often make people feel uncomfortable. Judgement from the notion of an aesthetic judgement.

Aesthetic judgements in reality are not just applied to art they are applied to moral actions in the real world. A gentleman can get away with more...or is it that by simply appearing to be a gentleman a moral thing to do?

Is appearing to be a gentleman in fact as morally important as actually being one?

Is it aesthetically wrong to be a feminist?

Do the archetypes (based on art and culture) created of what it is to be moral influence us to the extent that in reality our idea of what is GOOD is based on aesthetic rather than moral judgements.

The idea of virginity etc purity. For a long time this was considered a good thing to be. Why? How much did aesthetic judgments in art religion etc influence this archetype? Sluts have been considered 'distasteful'. And that contributed a lot to what is considered moral behavior.

Have often have you heard someone called 'Trash' etc.

In reality aesthetic judgements do influence moral judgements. And to be honest that is not always a bad thing. Sometimes its a good thing ...

Its a huge topic


Here contrapoints examines some of it.




Is it sometimes more important to be classy stylish etc than it is to be moral?

If you think not i would put Trump up as an example. How much damage has his lack of aesthetic judgement when he behaves actually done? The answer is quite a lot.

Arab culture for instance is quite honor based. Aesthetic judgement has influenced it a lot. You must be very careful not to make people feel shamed or slightly insulted adhering to a certain 'Aesthetic' of behavior. The slightest divination from this is a huge insult. It can seem its considered more important to LOOK good than to be good. Is this a bad thing ? Maybe not It does make a society value manners a lot.

Its also important in France. Your manners your dress can be rude and immoral. Like having bad breath.

Its a way we moderate ourselves to get along in the world rather than be like Trump and let it all hang out.

It can go too far though of course. It can mean convention stands in the way of progression for the oppressed.

And then of course there is the philosophy of art part. But i feel people already know about that.

Further topics to read might be normativity and Pleasure or Aesthetic truth.


One man very into Aethetic Philosophy is probably one you all know Nietzche, also David Hume.