Ethical issues of experience-oriented aesthetic education

Alicja Lisiecka, Anna Maria Passaseo

Abstract


Introduction: Traditional aesthetic education has focused on appreciating art and cultivating refined taste, relying primarily on classical aesthetic theories and canonical works. Contemporary currents in aesthetics challenge Kantian assumptions, expanding the discipline’s scope to include everyday, embodied, and relational experiences that shape perception, ethical awareness, and social responsibility. These developments should be reflected in aesthetic education.   

Research Aim: This article aims to examine the ethical challenges emerging in experience-oriented aesthetic education, which moves beyond the traditional art-centered approach. The research question is: what ethical challenges arise in this framework, and how can they be addressed responsibly in pedagogical practice? This article serves as an introduction to further, more in-depth analyses.   

Evidence-based Facts: Contemporary aesthetics, inspired by Dewey, Berleant, Saito, and Shusterman, understands aesthetic experience as participatory and inclusive, encompassing everyday life and relational engagement. Aesthetic education built on these principles fosters reflective thinking, empathy, and ecological responsibility through multisensory experiences. At the same time, it generates new ethical challenges, including respecting individual experiences, balancing personal and transpersonal values, avoiding overly intrusive interventions, and preventing instrumentalization of aesthetic experiences. Educators working within this approach must create open, dialogical spaces that accommodate diverse perspectives.

Summary: Experience-oriented aesthetic education promotes holistic learning, values everyday experiences, and cultivates ethical awareness and social responsibility. It requires careful attention to ethical tensions, such as respecting student autonomy and maintaining the integrity of aesthetic experiences. It emphasizes inseparability of aesthetic and ethical development, positioning education as a space for nurturing reflective, sensitive, and responsible individuals.


Keywords


aesthetic education, experience-oriented aesthetic education, aesthetic experience, ethics

Full Text:

PDF

References


Adorno, T. W. (1984). The essay as form. New German Critique, 32, 151–171. https://doi.org/10.2307/488160

Bagnall, R. G. (2006). Ethical issues in lifelong learning and education. In J. Chapman, P. Cartwright, & E. J. Mcgilp (Eds.), Lifelong learning, participation and equity (pp. 25-45). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-5322-3_2

Bain, L. L. (1993). Ethical issues in teaching. Quest, 45(1), 69-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00336297.1993.10484073

Berleant, A. (1997). Living in the landscape: toward an aesthetics of environment. University Press of Kansas.

Berleant, A. (2010). Sensibility and sense: the aesthetic transformation of the human world. Imprint Academic.

Berleant, A. (2017). Estetyka polityki. In K. Kaśkiewicz, R. Michalski, & T. Siwiec (Eds.), Między etyką a estetyką. Rozważania nad problemem estetyzacji (pp. 297-316). Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika.

Berleant, A. (2021). Aesthetics and the arts of engagement. Roczniki Kulturoznawcze, 12(1), 19-29. http://doi.org/10.18290/rkult21121-2

Böhme, G. (2002). Filozofia i estetyka przyrody w dobie kryzysu środowiska naturalnego. Oficyna Wydawnicza.

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Bourriaud, N. (2002). Relational aesthetics. Les presses du réel.

Burge, E. J. (2007). Considering ethical issues. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 22(2), 107-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680510701306319

Carlson, A. (2001). Environmental aesthetics. Routledge.

Carlson, A. (2010). Contemporary environmental aesthetics and the requirements of environmentalism. Environmental Values, 19(3), 289-314. https://doi.org/10.3197/096327110X519844

Carpenter, B. S. (2019). What is (the matter) with art education? Studies in Art Education, 60(1), 3-6.

D’Olimpio, L. (2022). Defending aesthetic education. British Journal of Educational Studies, 70(3), 263-279. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2021.1960267

D’Olimpio, L. (2024). The necessity of aesthetic education: The place of the arts on the curriculum. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Denac, O. (2014). The significance and role of aesthetic education in schooling. Creative Education, 5, 1714-1719. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2014.519190

Dewey, J. (1934). Art as experience. Minton, Balch & Company.

Dziamski, G. (2022). Przemiany estetyki. Przegląd Kulturoznawczy, 1, 127-147. https://doi.org/10.4467/20843860PK.22.009.15754

Feng, Y., & Xu, L. (2024). Modernity criticism of aesthetic education. Discover Education, 3(124), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-024-00226-3

Fenner, D. E. W. (2003). Aesthetic experience and aesthetic analysis. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 37(1), 40-53.

Gaskill, N., & Stanley, K. (2023). Aesthetic education without guarantees: An Introduction. PMLA, 138(1), 127-136. https://doi.org/10.1632/S0030812923000044

Gee, C. B. (2004). Spirit, mind, and body: Arts education the redeemer. In E. W. Eisner, & M. D. Day (Eds.), Handbook of research and policy in art education (pp. 115-134). Routledge.

Geiger, I. (2021). Kant on aesthetic ideas, rational ideas and the subject-matter of art. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 79, 186-199.

Hart, R. E. (1990). On personalism and education. The Personalist Forum, 6(1), 51-74.

Hurren, W. (2017). Cultivating an aesthetic sensibility and activism: everyday aesthetics and environmental education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 22, 27-41.

Kopčáková, S. (2018). Aesthetics education and its position in the 21st-century democratic society. Ars Inter Culturas, 7, 249-262.

Kupfer, J. (1978). Aesthetic experience and moral education. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 12(3), 13-22.

Leddy, T. (2012). The extraordinary in the ordinary: the aesthetics of everyday life. Broadview Press.

Levine, C. (2013). Od prowokacji do demokracji, czyli o tym, dlaczego potrzebna nam sztuka. Warszawskie Wydawnictwo Literackie Muza.

Lisiecka, A. (2025a). Art pedagogy, or perhaps aesthetic pedagogy instead? Studia z Teorii Wychowania, 1(50), 73-88. https://doi.org/10.5604/01.3001.0055.0566

Lisiecka, A. (2025b). Włączanie estetyki codzienności do edukacji poprzez autonarrację. Biografistyka Pedagogiczna, 10(2), 481-504. https://doi.org/10.36578/BP.2025.10.22

Lorenc, I. (2007). O potrzebie estetyki nieautonomicznej. In K. Wilkoszewska (Ed.), Wizje i re-wizje. Wielka księga estetyki w Polsce (s. 79-90). Universitas.

Maliszewski, K. (2021). Bez-silna edukacja. O kształceniu kruchego. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego.

Mandoki, K. (2016). Everyday aesthetics: prosaics, the play of culture and social identities. Routledge.

Nanay, B. (2018). The aesthetic experience of artworks and everyday scenes. The Monist, 101(1), 71-82. https://doi.org/10.1093/monist/onx037

Nanay, B. (2019). Aesthetics. A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.

Nanay, B. (2024). Aesthetic experience as interaction. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 10(4), 715-727. https://doi.org/10.1017/apa.2023.21

Naukkarinen, O. (2021). Everyday aesthetics solving social problems. ESPES, 10(2), 151-164.

Nussbaum, M. C. (1997). Cultivating humanity: A classical defense of reform in liberal education. Harvard University Press.

Rancière, J. (2013). The politics of aesthetics. A&C Black.

Saito, Y. (1998). Appreciating nature on its own terms. Environmental Ethics, 20(2), 135-149.

Saito, Y. (2010). Everyday aesthetics. Oxford University Press.

Saito, Y. (2021). The role of aesthetics in world-making. Contemporary Aesthetics, 9.

Saito, Y. (2025). The role of aesthetic education in everyday life. https://www.philosophy-of-education.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/PESGB-Saito.pdf

Shusterman, R. (2012). Thinking through the body: Essays in somaesthetics. Cambridge University Press.

Smith, R. A. (2004). Aesthetic education: questions and issues. In E. W. Eisner, & M. D. Day (Eds.), Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education (pp. 163-185). Routledge.

Świątek, A. H., Szcześniak, M., Borkowska, H., Stempień, M., Wojtkowiak, K., & Diessner, R. (2024). The unexplored territory of aesthetic needs and the development of the Aesthetic Needs Scale.

Plos One, 19(3), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299326

Wang, P. C., & Yu, C. Y. (2018). Aesthetic experience as an essential factor to trigger positive environmental consciousness. Sustainability, 10(4), 1098. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10041098

Wassiliwizky, E., & Menninghaus, W. (2021). Why and how should cognitive science care about aesthetics? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(6), 437-449. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.03.008

Westerlund, H. (2003). Reconsidering aesthetic experience in praxial music education. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 11(1), 45-62.

Wojnar, I. (1995). Teoria wychowania estetycznego. Zarys problematyki. Żak.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lrp.2026.45.1.25-39
Date of publication: 2026-03-16 10:05:09
Date of submission: 2025-10-08 13:26:07


Statistics


Total abstract view - 0
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF - 0

Indicators





Copyright (c) 2026

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.