What Makes Good Art Good?

Think of one of your favourite songs that you can listen to over and over again, or a beautiful painting that grabbed your attention, or a novel that you couldn’t put down, or a film that was deeply meaningful to you. When asked about each of these works of art, you may find yourself describing all of them as good or great. But what exactly is this goodness or greatness that all of these works of art have in common? According to aesthetic hedonism, every good work of art has a unique kind of goodness called aesthetic value, and this value is grounded in the final value of a correct and complete perceptual experience of the artwork. In this talk, Anthony Meyers will defend a restricted form of aesthetic hedonism, according to which aesthetic value is grounded in the value of a pleasant or meaningful perceptual experience of the artwork.

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Anthony Meyers is a second year PhD student in the Department of Philosophy at UBC. Originally from California, Anthony received his BA from UCLA and his MA from Tufts University, both in Philosophy. His philosophical areas of interest include ethics, metaphysics and aesthetics. Before coming to UBC, he worked in the tech industry for several years as a data analyst.