Aaron Smuts

Lecturer

Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006

http://www.aaronsmuts.com

Most of my research has been focused on the role of the emotions in moral and aesthetic evaluation.  I have done extensive work on three related topics: the ethics of humor, emotional responses to art, and the relationship between moral and aesthetic value.  In addition, I am pursuing various other topics in ethics and the philosophy of art.  My current interests range across topics in general value theory, especially the relationship of pleasure to moral and aesthetic value and the philosophy of death.

Recently I have been engaged in work on a variety of topics in general value theory.  In particular, I am pursuing questions related to theories of well being, such as the nature of pleasure and desire.  In response to a couple recent theories, I am developing a defense of the distinctive feeling view of pleasure in contrast to what has become the dominant view since Sidgwick.  Pleasure and its relationship to desire are not only significant to well being, these topics are important to our theories of the value of art and our reasons for seeking putatively painful art experiences.

I am also interested in the philosophy of film and have written several articles and book chapters on horror.

Selected Bibliography

• "Art and Negative Emotions." Philosophy Compass (forthcoming, Fall 2007).
• “Wings of Desire: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality.”(forthcoming, Film and Philosophy,Volume 12, January 2008).
• “Horror.”  Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film, eds. Carl Plantinga and Paisley Livingston (New York: Routledge, forthcoming, 2008).
• "The Paradox of Painful Art." Journal of Aesthetic Education  (vol. 41, no. 3, 2007, pp. 59-77).
• "The Joke is the Thing: 'In the Company of Men' and the Ethics of Humor."  Film and Philosophy (Volume 11, January 2007, pp. 49-66).
• "Are Video Games Art?"  Contemporary Aesthetics.  (Volume 3, November 2005)
•  "Anesthetic Experience."  Philosophy and Literature, (Volume 29, Number 1, April 2005, pp. 97-113).
• "Helpless Spectators: Suspense in Videogames and Film."  Text Technology (December 2003, pp 13-34, co-authored with Jonathan Frome).
• "Haunting the House from Within: Disbelief Mitigation and Spatial Experience," Dark Thoughts: Philosophic Reflections on Cinematic Horror. Ed. Steven Jay Schneider and Daniel Shaw (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003).

Recent courses

• Intellectual Heritage
• Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind
• Classics in Moral Philosophy

Contact Information

Office: 714 Anderson Hall

asmuts@temple.edu

 

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