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Paisley Livingston

This chapter addresses philosophical questions about the value of art, focusing especially on the nature of exclusively artistic value. Although these questions, and the proposed answers to them, are highly general, I indicate some ways in which they readily apply to motion pictures.

Answers to questions about art’s value depend in part on assumptions about art. In this regard, I emphasize the distinction between a broad and well-entrenched conception of art that covers many different kinds of skills, and a more narrow and controversial conception that singles out only the fine arts—identified as those arts, the primary but not exclusive end of which is the realization of aesthetic value. Fine-artistic value is, then, a species of aesthetic value. As I explain below, my proposal about the nature of fine-artistic value is consistent with the observation that artistic works and achievements, including art films, typically manifest a plurality of values, both public and private.

Here is a brief outline of the chapter. Section 1 sets forth a broad, skill-centered conception of the arts. Section 2 focuses on the question of the exclusively artistic value of art, given that broad conception. My point of departure for explicating exclusively artistic value is some ancient anecdotes pertaining to the relation between artistic success, skill, and luck. I also draw on Aristotelian ideas about the relations between instrumental and intrinsic (or final) values. Section 3 develops the distinction between art and fine art with reference to a C.I. Lewis-inspired proposal regarding the nature of aesthetic value and experience. In Section 4 I turn to the relationship between aesthetic and fine-artistic merit, and identify a kind of exclusively fine-artistic value based on the admiration of displays of skill or virtuosity. I conclude with some remarks about the topic of the relations between different kinds of value manifested by a particular work of art.