Judgement as play: revealing analogies between aesthetics and ethics

This thesis is about the similarities of process between aesthetic experience and ethical judgement. I claim that in both cases the activity is best described as a type of play in which elements interact in mutual adjustment and transformation. This conception of play has its roots in Kant's aesthetic theory. Describing aesthetic experience as play results in emphasis on three central characteristics. These characteristics become the basis of constraints on judgement. In the case of ethical judgement these are important because they save from subjectivism a moral theory, particularism, which relies on individual judgement rather than moral rules. Seeing the activity of judgement as play suggests a conception of the outcome of judgement as picturing. This conception helps to make sense of reason-giving within the particularist model. A further analogy with the grounds of aesthetic qualities is used to illuminate the problem of justifying the values put into play. These values are ultimately defended in terms of their relationship to human flourishing. Perennial problems for theories based on human flourishing are avoided by my account because prescriptions for action are not derived from the characterisation of flourishing but from the process of individual judgement which values based on flourishing merely inform. One positive effect of adopting my model of judgement as play is the reduction of problems concerning the motivation to act on ethical judgements.

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Philosophy

Grantor dc:publisher

ResearchSpace@Auckland

Year dc:date.issued

1993

Author dc:creator

• Kovach, Vanya

Statement dc:rights

• Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htm

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2292/2488

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchspace.auckland.ac.nz:2292/2488