Experts in Aesthetic Value Practices

Abstract

Abstract Work on aesthetic value appeals to expertise in three different ways. On traditional approaches, expert aesthetic judges either provide authoritative access to aesthetic value or they constitute it. On a third, new approach, aesthetic values are relative to social practices, and aesthetic expertise determines which practices are the ones that we belong to. Aesthetic experts, on this approach, are neither guides to aesthetic value nor those whose responses constitute aesthetic value. This paper offers a defence of this innovative third approach to the relationship between aesthetic value and aesthetic expertise.