Naturalized Aesthetics and Criticism

Abstract

Can naturalized aesthetics contribute to the evaluation of a work? In this article, I consider three ways in which naturalized aesthetics may inform critical evaluation. First, I analyze the role of naturalized aesthetic analysis in the formation of the creative choices made by filmmakers. Second, I assess the relationship between the analysis of empathy provided by Murray Smith’s Film, Art, and the Third Culture and the expression of moral evaluations. And third, I outline what I take to be naturalized aesthetics’ promising potential contribution to the study of genre and contra-standard features. In the concluding section, I instead introduce what I take to be two rather serious difficulties to a cooperation between criticism and naturalized aesthetics.