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<p>Friedrich Schiller’s notion of moral virtue includes self-determination through practical rationality as well as sensual self-determination through the pursuit of aesthetic value, i.e., through beauty. This paper surveys conceptual assumptions behind Schiller’s notions of moral and aesthetic perfections that allow him to ground both, moral virtue and beauty on conceptions of freedom. While Schiller’s notions of grace and dignity describe relations between the aesthetic and the moral aspects of certain determining actions, the ‘aesthetic condition’ conceptualises human beings from the perspective of aesthetic self-determinability. Schiller thereby provides a normative aesthetic standard that not only affects the moral nature of our motives and actions, but also of what we, as human beings, want to and should be conceived of in the first place. As I argue in this paper, considering this aesthetic self-determinability from a moral perspective results in an aesthetic constitution of moral virtue, which in turn justifies aesthetic obligations. Schiller thereby merges the perfections of the two normative domains for an extended anthropological conception of aesthetically infused notion of moral virtue while assuring the conceptual autonomy of each normative domain. Giving aesthetic demands a practical normative role by partly constituting moral virtue and thereby still maintain their aesthetic normative source is a move that opens up many resources for current research on the interactions between various normative demands, such as aesthetic reasons for moral or legal judgements and action, aesthetic obligations or weighing varying sources and elements of normative authority and hegemony against each other.</p>
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Friedrich Schiller’s notion of moral virtue includes self-determination through practical rationality as well as sensual self-determination through the pursuit of aesthetic value, i.e., through beauty. This paper surveys conceptual assumptions behind Schiller’s notions of moral and aesthetic perfections that allow him to ground both, moral virtue and beauty on conceptions of freedom. While Schiller’s notions of grace and dignity describe relations between the aesthetic and the moral aspects of certain determining actions, the ‘aesthetic condition’ conceptualises human beings from the perspective of aesthetic self-determinability. Schiller thereby provides a normative aesthetic standard that not only affects the moral nature of our motives and actions, but also of what we, as human beings, want to and should be conceived of in the first place. As I argue in this paper, considering this aesthetic self-determinability from a moral perspective results in an aesthetic constitution of moral virtue, which in turn justifies aesthetic obligations. Schiller thereby merges the perfections of the two normative domains for an extended anthropological conception of aesthetically infused notion of moral virtue while assuring the conceptual autonomy of each normative domain. Giving aesthetic demands a practical normative role by partly constituting moral virtue and thereby still maintain their aesthetic normative source is a move that opens up many resources for current research on the interactions between various normative demands, such as aesthetic reasons for moral or legal judgements and action, aesthetic obligations or weighing varying sources and elements of normative authority and hegemony against each other.

Schiller on the Aesthetic Constitution of Moral Virtue and the Justification of Aesthetic Obligations

Disputatio

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Friedrich Schiller’s notion of moral virtue includes self-determination through practical rationality as well as sensual self-determination through the pursuit...

Schiller on the Aesthetic Constitution of Moral Virtue and the Justification of Aesthetic Obligations

Published Online: Nov 28, 2022

Page range: 205 - 243

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2021-0012

Keywords
aesthetic obligations, freedom, moral virtue, Schiller, self-determination

© 2021 Levno von Plato, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Schiller on the Aesthetic Constitution of Moral Virtue and the Justification of Aesthetic Obligations

Published Online: Nov 28, 2022

Page range: 205 - 243

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2021-0012

Keywordsaesthetic obligations, freedom, moral virtue, Schiller, self-determination

© 2021 Levno von Plato, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
aesthetic obligations, freedom, moral virtue, Schiller, self-determination