The Broad View of Aesthetic Experience

Peter Kivy and Noël Carroll advocate a narrow view of aesthetic experience according to which it consists mainly in attention to formal properties. Excluded are cognitive and moral properties. I defend the broader view that includes the latter properties. I argue first that cognition and moral assessment can be inseparable in experience from grasp of form and expressiveness. Second, Kivy and Carroll must extend the notion of form itself beyond ordinary usage to accommodate acknowledged aesthetic experience. Third, the broad view has a more impressive historical lineage than the narrow view. Fourth, aesthetic experience is appreciation of aesthetic value, and the latter is more plausibly analyzed in a broad way.