What is it to find something beautiful? To take pleasure in looking at it, or in listening to it, or in otherwise contemplating it. One might find the proof of the Pythagorean theorem beautiful. If this is literally true, it is because intellectually contemplating it gives one pleasure. But let’s stick to the senses, and pleasure in gazing or listening.
Why have we evolved to have a sense of beauty? That is, why (in evolutionary terms) do we take pleasure in contemplating certain things? What advantage did that give us? (I’ll just assume that the sense of beauty is at least partially the product of evolution. Argument: almost all humans find some things beautiful, but most of our ancestor species find nothing beautiful—that response is not in their repertoire.)
And secondly, why are certain things (certain patterns, certain rhythms) universally found to be beautiful? Why have we evolved to appreciate these things?
The fact is that we need food, water, and shelter wherever we find ourselves and whatever form our social life takes. This alone may establish a baseline landscape aesthetic that is applied to varying local conditions . . . People who were naturally drawn to [congenial] habitats, who found them appealing and pleasing, would have had an edge in reproductive success over those who were not.
In other words, we take pleasure in certain landscapes because they contributed to biological flourishing. This, according to Davies (and Denis Dutton), is what makes them beautiful to us.
Davies is not alone in following this line of thought. But it seems to me as if it gets the explanatory task wrong. To find something beautiful is to enjoy contemplating it. If I want to explain why a certain kind of landscape is found beautiful, I should explain why it’s advantageous to contemplate it. It’s easy to understand why I want to inhabit a place that provides me with food and water. But this doesn’t tell me why I should enjoy looking at it. In fact, it tends to emphasize other priorities. I should get on with grabbing a piece of this landscape and building a house in it. Looking at it would be a waste of my time. And yet looking is what the sense of beauty encourages me to do.
The theory of motivation needs more structure than Davies argument allows it. At least, it does if it is going to explain aesthetic pleasure.
Consider food and hunger. Clearly, it is good that we should eat when our bodies need nourishment. Hunger is an evolved motivational state that helps us do this: it arises when the body needs nutrition, and it enjoins eating. Hunger is action-specific: it motivates us to eat; it does not, for example, enjoin a trip to the supermarket. Or at least that is not directly and intrinsically the intentional object of hunger (though we might have learned that a trip to the supermarket may be necessary to satisfy hunger).
Move now to gustatory pleasure. Why did evolution make it pleasurable to eat certain things? Hunger makes us eat—what additional purpose is served by pleasure in eating? One answer is that pleasure is a reward that helps us learn. Hunger is action-specific but not object-specific. It tells us to eat, but it doesn’t tell us what to eat. This is something we have to learn. When I sample a peach, its flavour gives me pleasure. This tells me that peaches are good to eat. In future, when I feel hungry, I know that a peach is a good choice.
Pleasure in eating is object-directed and complements an action-directed drive. Gustatory pleasure is peach-directed because peaches are good to eat. Pleasure taken in eating teaches me nothing else about its object. Aesthetic pleasure is object-directed too. For example, the Rockies may give one aesthetic pleasure. This is because the Rockies are good to look at. And parallel to hunger, aesthetic pleasure tells me nothing other than this—it is not informative about eating these objects or making love to them. Of course, it may also be pleasurable to gaze upon the Rockies because doing so makes me anticipate climbing or skiing in them. And looking at one’s habitat may similarly be pleasing because it makes one feel secure and well provided for. But this is not aesthetic pleasure. Gazing at the Rockies is aesthetically pleasing only if gazing at them gives me pleasure without the intermediary of some other activity.
Let me reiterate this point. Gustatory pleasure tells us that something is good to eat. It is uninformative about other values. Aesthetic pleasure tells us that contemplating a certain object is desirable. It is uninformative about any other value of the object. To explain the aesthetic value of an object in utilitarian or evolutionary terms, we must show how contemplating that object contributes to flourishing. It won’t work to cite how some other activity directed to that object contributes to flourishing.
So what is the evolutionary value of looking at something? I’ll come back to this in another post. But in the meanwhile remember: it doesn’t do to cite why it’s valuable to do something else with what you are looking at. Beauty is as beauty does.
Recent Comments