The Arbitrariness of Aesthetic Judgment

For a discussion of aesthetic realism, anti-realism, and its variants, see Elisabeth Schellekens, ‘Aesthetic Properties’ in Anna Christina Ribeiro and Thomas Adajian (eds), The Continuum Companion to Aesthetics (London: Continuum, Schellekens 2012), 84–97. The statement that most philosophers accept something like aesthetic realism appears in the following works: Aaron Meskin, Mark Phelan, Margaret Moore, and Matthew Kieran, ‘Mere Exposure to Bad Art,’ British Journal of Aesthetics 53 (2013), 139–164, at 139; Aaron Meskin, Jon Robson, Anna Ichino, Kris Goffin, and Annelies Monsere, ‘Philosophical Aesthetics and Cognitive Science’, WIREs Cogn Sci 9 (2018), 1–15 at 3; and Florian Cova, Amanda Garcia, and Shen-yi Liao, ‘Experimental Philosophy of Aesthetics’, Philosophy Compass 10/11 (2015), 927–939, at 931. David Bourget and David Chalmers, ‘What Do Philosophers Believe?’ Philosophical Studies 170, 465–500, have empirical data that supports the claim that philosophers are realists about aesthetic value.

Robert Zajonc, ‘Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure’, Journal of Psychology and Social Psychology 9 (1968), 1–27; ‘Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inference’, American Psychologist 35 (1980), 151–175.

Cutting, ‘Gustave Caillebotte, French Impressionism, and Mere Exposure’, 321. Cutting confirms that he is not advocating for anti-realism in a private correspondence with Meskin et al., ‘Mere Exposure to Bad Art’. However, Meskin et al. interpret his results as putting pressure on the idea that quality plays any role at all in canon formation, as it calls into question the role that judgments of quality play in general canon formation.

Lopes, ‘Feckless Reason’.

Ibid, 35.

Ibid.

For example, towards the end of his article, Lopes states that subjects ‘are in some sense aware of the features of stimuli that speak in favour of one choice over another. However, this awareness is not the same as the kind of state that is either articulated verbally in making a report or mentally in preparation to making a report,’ ‘Feckless Reason’, 34.

Zajonc, ‘Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure’; ‘Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inference’.

Zajonc, ‘Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inference’.

Cutting, ‘Gustave Caillebotte, French Impressionism, and Mere Exposure’, 321.

Ibid., 321.

Ibid, 324.

One of Cutting’s research aims is to determine whether paintings from the Caillebotte collection of impressionist works somehow formed a ‘cream of the crop’ of impressionistic work, but that goal is not relevant to understanding this study, and in fact it ends up taking a backseat to his inquiry into the effects of mere exposure.

Ibid., 328–329.

Ibid., 331.

Ibid., 332.

Ibid., 335.

Meskin et al., ‘Mere Exposure to Bad Art’, 142. Meskin et al. seem to use “artistic value” and “aesthetic value” interchangeably. For example, they later say “philosophers standardly assume that, other things being equal, aesthetic judgment latches on to a work’s aesthetically appreciable qualities” (142).

Ibid., 145.

Ibid.

Ibid, 146

On the Likert scale used, a rating of 10 indicates strong agreement with the statement ‘I like it’ and a rating of ‘1’ indicates strong disagreement. Ibid, 147.

Ibid, 149

Ibid, 150

Ibid, 151; Meskin et al. blame their lack of results on the relatively small sample size that they made use of. This, if anything, suggests a flawed experimental design. Cutting made use of over 200 students who were more reliably exposed to the art objects. Meskin et al. would have been wise to follow suit.

Ibid, 151–152

Ibid, 154

Ibid

See footnote 12 on the robustness of the mere exposure effect.

Ibid., 157.

Nanay, ‘Perceptual Learning, the Mere Exposure Effect and Aesthetic Anti-Realism’.

See Jason Farago, ‘It’s time to take down the Mona Lisa’, New York Times (published online November 6, 2019) <https://​www.​nytimes.​com/​2019/​11/​06/​arts/​design/​mona-lisa-louvre-overcrowding.​html> for evidence that it is the most visited painting in the world. That the Mona Lisa is the most reproduced painting in the world is hard to prove, but seems highly probable. A quick Google search produces a great many suspect rankings, but the Mona Lisa is invariably listed in the top 5 of many such rankings.

When Googling ‘the Mona Lisa’, Google tells you that people who search for the Mona Lisa also typically search for: Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Last Supper, Birth of Venus, Starry Night, and the Pietà (among others). This is quite a hodgepodge of works; but they do have one thing in common, they are all quite famous.

David Edelstein, “All Ten Quentin Tarantino Films Ranked,” Vulture (published online July 25, 2019) <https://​www.​vulture.​com/​2015/​08/​every-quentin-tarantino-movie-ranked.​html>.

Ibid., 303. To conduct the study, the same female server altered her make-up, hair, and clothing for the attractive/unattractive condition (Lin et al., 302).

Ibid., 298.

Wine experts attempt to make extremely fine-grained distinctions as evidenced by the point system commonly used in rating wines. See for example the system used by Wine Spectator: https://​www.​winespectator.​com/​articles/​scoring-scale.

See Douglas Burnham & Ole Skilleås, ‘You’ll Never Drink Alone: Wine Tasting and Aesthetic Practice’, in F. Allhoff (ed), Wine and Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008), 157–171; The Aesthetics of Wine (Malden, MA: Wiley, 2012); ‘Categories and Appreciation—A reply to Sackris’, Journal of Value Inquiry 48 (2014), 551–557; Jonathan Cohen, ‘In the Kingdom of the Blind: On the Limitations of Blind Tasting’, The World of Fine Wine 41 (2013), 74–81; Barry Smith, ‘The Objectivity of Tastes and Tasting’, in Barry Smith (ed), Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine (OUP, 2007), 41–78; Cain Todd, The Philosophy of Wine: A Case of Truth, Beauty and Intoxication (Montreal: Queen’s University Press, 2011). For a dissenting view. see David Sackris, ‘Category Independent Aesthetic Experience: The Case of Wine’, Journal of Value Inquiry 47 (2013), 111–120; ‘What Jancis Robinson didn’t know may have helped her’, Erkenntnis 84 (2018), 805–822.

Ibid., 316.

Frédéric Brochet, ‘Chemical Object Representation in the Field of Consciousness, Grand Prix of the Academie Amorin (2001) <http://​static.​stevereads.​com/​papers_​to_​read/​brochet_​wine_​experiment.​pdf> 1/3/2020.

Ibid., 10. Describing a wine as containing ‘faults’ is a significant ding on a wine. A fault is considered to be defects such as cork taint, or the wine having been over exposed to air and having begun to turn to vinegar.

Brian Wansink, Collin Payne, and Jill North, ‘Fine as North Dakota Wine: Sensory Expectations and the Intake of Companion Foods’, Psychology and Behavior 90 (2007), 712–716. North Dakota is decidedly not known for making wine in the United States. If a person knows anything at all about wine in the United States, it is that California is the primary wine producing state within the country.

Ibid., 713.

Ibid., 855.

This study was repeated with individuals from a range of demographic backgrounds and a similar result was obtained. The results of this study are not a function of it being performed on teenaged individuals. See Matthew Salganik and Duncan J. Watts, “Web-Based Experiments for the Study of Collective Social Dynamics in Cultural Markets, Topics in Cognitive Science 1 (2009), 439–468.

Ibid.

Farago, ‘It’s time to take down the Mona Lisa’.

Sarah Young, ‘Mona Lisa Voted the World’s “Most Disappointing” Tourist Attraction by Britons’, Independent (Published online April 2019) <https://​www.​independent.​co.​uk/​life-style/​mona-lisa-paris-louvre-travel-tourist-attraction-easyjet-instagram-a8887161.​html> accessed 3 January 2020.

Steven Cuellar, ‘The “Sideways” Effect: A Test for Changes in the Demand for Merlot and Pinot Noir Wines, Wines and Vines (published online October 2004) <https://​winesvinesanalyt​ics.​com/​features/​article/​61265/​The-Sideways-Effect> accessed 3 January 2020.

For evidence that an item gains value in the eyes of an individual simply as a result of being chosen by that individual, see J.W. Brehm, ‘Postdecision Changes in the Desirability of Alternatives’, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 52 (1956), 384–389; L.C. Egan, L.R. Santos, and P. Bloom, ‘The Origins of Cognitive Dissonance: Evidence from Children and Monkeys’, Psychological Science 18 (2007), 978–983.

See Cova (2015) and Meskin et al. (2018),

Meskin et al., ‘Philosophical aesthetics and cognitive science’.

Jancis Robinson, a famous wine critic, admits to falling victim to this old ‘trick’; see Confessions of a wine lover (Middlesex, UK: Penguin, 1997). Such a tactic is also discussed in Burnham and Skilleås’ The Aesthetics of Wine.

Kevin Melchionne, ‘On the Old Saw “I Know Nothing About Art but I know What I Like’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 68 (2010) assumes that film producers must have some reason for funding one film over another (pg. 132).

John Lawless, The Interview: Nigel Newton: Is There Life after Harry Potter? You Bet Your Hogwarts There Is. Independent (published online July 3, 2005) <https://​www.​independent.​co.​uk/​news/​people/​profiles/​nigel-newton-is-there-life-after-harry-you-can-bet-your-hogwarts-there-is-296317.​html>.

‘Web-Based Experiments’, 442.

Werness, ‘Han van Meegeren Fecit’, 29. Robson, ‘Aesthetic Testimony and the Test of Time’, discusses the van Meegeran forgery as an instance of an echo chamber in the artworld, and it may well be: because some famous art critics thought it was a Vermeer, other critics fell in line with the beliefs of the opinion leaders. However, I think it is also an instance of expectations driving perceptions: if it is a Vermeer, it has to be good. If it’s a van Meegeren, who no one has ever heard of, it cannot possibly be all that good. My thanks to Robson for bringing this example to my attention.

Werness, ‘Han van Meegeren Fecit’, 10–11.

Ibid., 31.

See for example Patricia Herzog, ‘Akrasia and Aesthetic Judgment’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58 (2007) 37–49; Anita Silvers, ‘Aesthetic “akrasia”: Disliking good art’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 31 (1972), 227–234.

‘Philosophical aesthetics and cognitive science’, 4.

‘Perceptual Learning, the Mere Exposure Effect and Aesthetic Anti-Realism’, 59.

Meskin et al., ‘Philosophical Aesthetics and Cognitive Science’, 3.