On the Value of Art
Content:
1 Introduction
2 Suffering, and art
3 Marxism and art
4 Conclusion
1 Introduction
With the rise of AI and the consequential debates about its impacts on art and creativity, aesthetics has regained some of its spotlight in discourse. But do not fret! This debate prompt is not about the tired conversation around AI and art, but rather about its value. The questions, and subsequent ponderings, this prompt wishes to entice upon our delectable Carnegie readers are as follows: Is art necessary for a healthy society? If so, are we obliged, as a society, to create and encourage art? Should we subsidize art? Hence, as this prompt concerns the meta-evaluation of aesthetics itself, we will not be concerned about, at least not too much, what art ontologically is. But rather, we will explore art’s function in our lives and within society.
The prompt, as always, seeks to lay out relevant views and information to facilitate and motivate the debate. As usual, there will be philosophical considerations involving Schopenhauer. His pessimistic judgment of life’s guaranteed suffering finds an unusual upbeat in his argument that art can offer us reprieve from our condemnation. The prompt then turns its attention to something experimental. We shall be considering empirical evidence about how art functions to improve social relations and self-understanding. Finally, we shall consider aesthetic value through the lens of Marxism, and aesthetic functions in society.
2 Suffering, and art
Schopenhauer’s ‘supreme principle’, underlying most of German idealism, is the mindless, aimless, and non-rational impulse at the basis of our most instinctual drives that is called the Will. This Will expresses itself in us through perpetual striving, which is embodied by desire. Yet, this desire, due to the nature of the Will, cannot be truly satiated. Once a desire is fulfilled, boredom creeps, propelling us to nullify this boredom through the pursuit of another desire. Hence, giving rise to the famous quote ‘life is a constant oscillation between the desire to have and the boredom of possessing.’ Schopenhauer’s characterisation of life through the Will is thus a never-ending cycle of desire-fulfillment followed by boredom, propelling us to desire again. This cycle is constantly underpinned by suffering.
Schopenhauer’s characterisation of life as suffering finds agreement in various other philosophical traditions. Al-Razi for example writes ‘the state most pervasive […] is either pain or the cessation of pain’ with the pleasures of fulfilling a desire being the latter disjunction – the cessation of pain. Moreover, there are pertinent parallels with Buddhism. Buddhist characterisation of pleasure as innately contingent is also the root of the Buddhist understanding that life is innately suffering, that is desire innately leads to suffering. The fading of pleasure motivates us to find new pleasures and desires to satisfy, starting anew the cycle of seeking out pleasures anew. A never-ending cycle. Moreover, this recognition constantly plagues us even at the moment of the fulfillment of that desire. Especially, when we come to achieve a profoundand meaningful desire, the recognition of its impermanence leads to anxiety around losing this good.
All good. Life sucks. But where does art come into this? For Schopenhauer, aesthetics is a way of accessing extraordinary, universal states of mind. A state of tranquility brought on by the sublime. With less individuation, which occurs through our individual desires, we can, however briefly, escape the cycle of suffering. Aesthetic contemplation, for Schopenhauer, is the appreciation of art without the presence of the will. There are two categories of these ‘contemplation-resistant’ objects. I will however just focus on one, The Sublime. The Sublime describes the depiction of objects that overwhelm the human individual or reduce their existence to a mere speck. The sublime functions to tear us away from our individuality, and our will. Under his characterisation, we are liberated from the perpetual, cyclicality of the Will and hence suffering.
If Schopenhauer is correct, or at least onto something. A quick normative argument about the value of art can be made.
P1. Art is one of the only modes through which we can elevate ourselves above the suffering-inducing desires that structure our lives.
P2. It is normatively good to alleviate the suffering of people.
P3. If something is normatively good, then there is an obligation to produce this good.
C. The production of art is obligatory.
Hence, art production may be a societal obligation if we are to alleviate suffering that so structures life.
Section 2.1 The Socio-Epistemic Value of Art
If Schopenhauer’s defense of art rests on its ability to provide respite from suffering, a complementary defense can be found in its capacity to generate knowledge: particularly knowledge about ourselves and others. Art is not merely a source of pleasure or distraction; both philosophical and empirical research suggest that engagement with art cultivates what might be called socio-epistemic capacities, which are forms of understanding that allow individuals to better interpret themselves, others, and the social world they inhabit. Traditionally, philosophical aesthetics has argued that art contributes to moral and personal understanding. In recent decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have begun to explore these claims empirically. Rather than focusing solely on aesthetic pleasure or beauty, this research investigates how engagement with art fosters skills such as empathy, self-reflection, and social understanding. As AleksandraSherman and Clair Morissey argue, the arts should be understood not merely as aesthetic objects but as social practices that cultivate knowledge and understanding within communities.
Section 2.1 Art as a Social Practice and Source of Knowledge
MacIntyre describes a practice as
[A] coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which goods internal to that form of activity are realized… with the result that human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are systematically extended (1984)
Within this framework, practices are not merely activities but structured social traditions that cultivate specific forms of excellence and understanding. Chess, medicine, science, and education are often cited as examples. Sherman and Morrissey suggest that the arts can be understood in precisely this way: as practices embedded within social communities that generate distinctive epistemic goods.
Understanding art as a social practice shifts our perspective away from viewing artworks as isolated aesthetic objects. Instead, art becomes part of a network of shared activities involving artists, audiences, critics, institutions, and cultural traditions. Within this network, individuals learn to interpret, critique, and engage with artistic works. These activities cultivate emotional and imaginative skills that cannot be easily developedelsewhere. Importantly, the value of art in this framework does not lie solely in aesthetic pleasure. Rather, the arts serve as arenas in which individuals refine their cognitive and emotional capacities. Philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum have argued that literature trains moral perception by forcing readers to attend to the complexity of human lives and experiences. Through narrative and representation, art presents situations that challenge existing assumptions and provoke reflection about values, commitments, and relationships.
Empirical research increasingly supports this view. Much of early neuroaesthetics research focused primarily on the perception of beauty or preference judgements: asking participants to rate artworks based on how much they liked them. Sherman and Morrissey argue that such approaches risk reducing art to its pleasurable effects, neglecting the broader social and cognitive outcomes of artistic engagement. Instead, they propose that art appreciation should be studied as a process that produces socio-epistemic outcomes. These include enhanced self-understanding, improved perspective-taking, increased empathy, and the cultivation of social knowledge. From this perspective, the question of whether art should be socially supported takes on a different dimension. If art functions as a practice that develops essential cognitive and social capacities, then its role in society may be closer to that of education or public discourse than to that of entertainment.
Section 2.2 Art and the Development of Self-Understanding
One of the most frequently cited philosophical claims about art is that it helps individuals better understand themselves. Rather than providing new propositional knowledge, art often deepens our grasp of ideas, emotions, and moral commitments we already possess. Philosopher Noel Carrol refers to this as clarificationism. According to Carrol, works of art do not necessarily teach us new moral truths. Instead, they help us clarify outunderstanding of existing beliefs. For example, a reader encountering Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment does not learn that murder is wrong, they know this already (hopefully). What the novel provides, however, is a deeper appreciation of guilt, moral conflict, and psychological turmoil. Such experiences can contribute to the formation of what philosophers call self-identity: the set of values, commitments, and perspectives that shape how individuals understand themselves. Artistic engagement can challenge or refine these commitments by representing unfamiliar perspectives or emotionally powerful scenarios.
Psychological research provides some evidence for this process. Studies on literary engagement suggest that reading complex narratives encourages self reflection: defined as thinking about one’s own values, experiences, and emotional states. Self-reflection is associated with improved emotional regulation, psychological well-being, and stronger self-concept formation. Experimental research suggests that narrative complexity plays a role in eliciting this reflective process. When readers encounter texts with ambiguous characters or morally complex situations, they are more likely to relate the narrative to their own experiences and values. This process of comparison and reflection can lead individuals to reassess their beliefs or deepen their understanding of personal commitments.
Neuroscientific research provides further support for the connection between art and self-reflection. Studies using functional neuroimaging have found that highly moving artistic experiences activate the default mode network (DMN), which is a set of brain regions associated with self-referential thinking and introspection. The DMN is also active during tasks involving autobiographical memory, moral reasoning, and reflection on personal identity. When participants view artworks, they find particularly moving, increased activity in these regions suggests that the experience prompts inward reflection and self-evaluation. Other studies suggest that emotionally powerful artistic experiences, such as moments that induce chills, tears, or feelings of awe, can provoke what psychologists describe as epiphanic responses. These responses are often accompanied by feelings of insight or personal transformation.
Although empirical research on this topic remains limited, the existing evidence suggests that artistic engagement can create psychological conditions conducive to self-examination. By confronting individuals with unfamiliar perspectives or emotionally resonant narratives, art encourages reflection on beliefs, values, and identity. In this sense, art may function as a form of cognitive rehearsal for moral and existential questions. It provides a space in which individuals can explore complex emotional and ethical scenarios without facing their real-world consequences. Through this process, individuals may come to better understand who they are and what they value.
Section 2.3 Art, Empathy, and Understanding Others
If art fosters self-understanding, it may also enhance our capacity to understand others. Many philosophers have argued that one of the central functions of art is to allow individuals to imaginatively inhabit perspectives different from their own. Literature, film, theatre, and visual art frequently place audiences in situations where they must interpret the thoughts, emotions, and motivations of fictional characters. This process resembles what psychologists call perspective-taking or theory of mind: the ability to infer the mental states of others.
Empirical research suggests that artistic engagement can strengthen these capacities. Studies on literary fiction, for instance, have found correlations between frequent reading of narrative fiction and higher performance on tests measuring theory of mind, such as the “reading the Mind in the Eyes” task. In experimental settings, participants who read complex literary fiction have been shown to perform better on measures of social cognition than those who read non-fiction or popular genre fiction. Researchers hypothesize that literary narratives require readers to actively infer characters’ mental states, thereby exercising cognitive empathy.
Art may also evoke affective empathy, the ability to emotionally resonate with the feelings of others. Neuroaesthetic research indicates that viewing emotionally expressive artworks can activate neural systems associated with emotional stimulations and empathy. One influential explanation of this phenomenon comes from the theory of embodied simulation. According to this view, observing actions of emotional expressions in artworks can trigger neural responses similar to those produced when individuals perform those actions or experience those emotions themselves. For example, viewing images of physical pain or emotional distress can activate neural networks associated with experiencing pain or emotional distress. These responses involve brain regions such as the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex: areas implicated in empathic processing. Research also suggests that art can prompt motor simulations of artistic gestures. When viewers observe expressive brushstrokes in paintings, they may unconsciously simulate movements used to create them. Such embodied responses may help viewers understand both the emotional content of the artwork and the intentions of the artist. These mechanisms suggest that artistic engagement can function as a kind of social training ground. By repeatedly encountering narratives, images, and performances that require perspective-taking and emotional interpretation, individuals may strengthen the cognitive and affective capacities necessary for social understanding.
There is also evidence that these processes can influence behavior. Studies have shown that emotionally moving artistic experiences, such as films or movies that evoke empathy, can increase prosocial behavior: including charitable giving and cooperation. Of course, the extent to which art reliably cultivates empathy remains a matter of debate. Some scholars argue that artistic engagement can reinforce existing biases or lead audiences to empathize primarily with characters who resemble themselves. Nevertheless, the growing body of research suggests that art has the potential to enhance social cognition and emotional understanding. If these findings are correct, then the socio-epistemic value of art extends beyond individual enjoyment. Artistic practices may contribute to the development of social capacities that are essential to functioning societies.
Section 3. Marxism and art
Marxist approaches to art begin from a premise quite different from that of Schopenhauer or contemporary psychology. Rather than asking whether art provides metaphysical escape from suffering or cultivates individual psychological capacities, Marxist thinkers tend to situate art within the material and social structures of human life. Art, on this view, is not merely an individual expression of beauty or creativity, but a social activity embedded in historical conditions, class relations, and forms of human production. Yet Marxism does not reduce art to crude political propaganda. Indeed, many Marxist thinkers have insisted on the autonomy of artistic creation and warned against subordinating art to a rigid political program. To understand this position, we must first consider Marx’s broader conception of human creativity.
Section 3.1 Marx: art as Human creative Activity
Karl Marx did not produce a systematic aesthetic theory, but scattered throughout his writing are remarks that suggest a distinctive view of art grounded in his theory of human activity. For Marx, human beings are fundamentally creative, productive creatures who transform both nature and themselves through labour. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx describes human productive activity as a form of conscious, free creation:
Man produces even when he is free from physical need and truly produces only in freedom from such need
This conception of production is not limited to economic labor in the narrow sense. Marx often uses the concept of production in a much broader anthropological sense: human beings shape the world through creative activity. Art, literature, and culture are therefore expressions of the same fundamental capacity through which humans make their world.
Siegbert Salomon Prawer, in Karl Marx and World Literature (1976), emphasizes that Marx viewed the arts as part of this universal creative activity. Artistic creation is one of the ways through which human beings transform their environment and express their species-being. For Marx, the capacity for creative self-expression is not an optional luxury but an indelible aspect of being human. A society that suppresses or neglects artistic creativity therefore restricts a fundamental dimension of human flourishing. However, Marx also insisted that artistic production occurs within particular historical conditions. Art reflects the social relations of its time, even when artists themselves are not consciously political. Literature, painting, and music are shaped by the material structures of the societies in which they arise. This insight became foundational for later Marxist aesthetics.
3.2 Art and Social Contradictions
Marx himself admired artists whose work captured the contradictions of their societies. One of his favorite writers was Honore de Balzac. Balzac was politically conservative and sympathetic to the aristocracy, yet his novels vividly depicted the disintegration of French aristocratic society and the rise of bourgeois capitalism.
Marx and Engels both admired Balzac precisely because his work revealed social truths that exceeded his own political commitments. Engels wrote in a letter to Margaret Harkness that Balzac provided “a wonderfully realistic history of French society”. This example illustrates an important Marxist principle: art should not be assessed according to the political beliefs of the artist. The social insight contained within a work of art mysurpass the conscious ideology of its creator. A reactionary author may nonetheless produce a work that exposes the tensions and contradictions of the social order.
For this reason, Marxists often approach artworks not simply as ideological statements but as complex cultural products that reveal underlying social dynamics. Art can illuminate the structure of class, power, and historical transformation even when it does not explicitly advocate political change.
However, despite the political commitments of many Marxists thinkers, there has also been long resistance within Marxist aesthetics to the idea that art should simply serve a political program. Leon Trotsky responded to attempts within the early Soviet Union to subordinate artistic production to party directives, Trotsky argued that genuine artistic creation cannot be be commanded by political authority, “art not only does not seek orders, but by its very essence cannot tolerate them”. Artistic creativity requires freedom, experimentation, and individual vision. When art becomes a mere instrument of political propaganda, it ceases to function as art in the full sense. For Trotsky, the role of socialism was not to dictate artistic content but to create social conditions under which artistic creativity could flourish more widely.
This tension between political commitment and artistic autonomy runs throughout Marxist aesthetic thought. While Marxists recognize that art is historically and socially situated, they also maintain that artistic creation possesses a degree of independence from immediate political goals.
3.3 Art, Alienation, and the Human Need for Creativity
The Marxist concern with art is closely connected to the broader concept of alienation. In capitalist societies, Marx argued, workers are alienated from the products of their labour, from the process of production, and from their own human potential. Creative activity becomes reduced to repetitive, instrumental labour directed toward profit rather than self-realization. Ernst Fischer develops this idea in explicitly aesthetic terms. Fischer argues that art arises from the human desire to overcome alienation and reconnect with the world and with others. For Fischer, art is not a luxury reserved for elites but a basic human need. Art allows individuals to experience forms of human creativity that transcend the fragmented routines of everyday labour. Through artistic representation, people encounter shared experiences, emotions, and historical realities that connect them to a broader human community.
Fischer also emphasizes the communal dimensions of artistic experience. Art enables individuals to recognize themselves in the lives of others and to see their personal experiences as part of a larger social narrative. In this sense, artistic practices contribute to the formation of collective consciousness. This communal dimension of art connects Marxist aesthetics to broader philosophical discussions about community and social life. While liberal aesthetics often emphasizes the individual genius of the artist or the private experience of aesthetic pleasure, Marxist approaches tend to stress the social character of both artistic production and reception.
Furthermore, modern forms of reproduction, such as film and photography, transform art from an object of elite contemplation into a more widely accessible social medium. While this process may diminish the “aura” of tradition artworks, it also democratizes cultural participation. This transformation opens the possibility for art to play a more active role in collective political consciousness. Film and mass media allow artistic experiences to reach broader audiences and to engage directly with social realities.
4 Conclusion
We have hopefully described the various facets of value that art possesses. Art in its various forms have been interpreted as the only thing that breaks its monotony of life’s cycle of suffering; and it has been empirically shown to increase self-reflection, understanding while contributing positively to society through enhancing societal connections and interpersonal relationships. This innate ability that we wield, this method of expression has been repetitively been identified with humanity’s very own nature. However, as capitalism seemingly always does, we are becoming alienated from our ancient right of expression. With society’s growing monotony, with economic barriers to our God-given right to pursue art, do we have an obligation as a society to encourage, motivate, and fund art? Should art be one of the primary concerns of societal organisations? How should art be facilitated – with capital? With institutions? And finally, if we are obliged to foster art, is capitalism able to create an economic, and material situation that allows this to take place?