The Enlightenment communication between, on the one hand, natural philosophy preoccupied with causal explanations and empirical adequacy about nature and, on the other hand, aesthetic claims about beauty, has recently gained new attention. The third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), who has been introduced as an intermediary in this context, is frequently claimed to integrate scientific methods, idioms, and problems in aesthetics and ethics. This chapter follows a different tack. I will argue against the current trend and demonstrate why we might benefit from maintaining and improving a focus on Shaftesbury’s disavowal of natural philosophy, rather than erasing differences. I will proceed in three parts. First, I will clarify how Shaftesbury’s science of the self relates to conceptual variations of the terms interest and disinterestedness. Second, I will explain how he unites the moral (human) self with the beauty of physical nature as a self by arguing for a shared fraternity with plants and animals. Third, I will show how Shaftesbury’s science of the self and his critique of natural philosophy are most fully developed in aesthetic claims about disinterestedness and natural beauty in The Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody (1709). Though rarely recognised in contemporary environmental ethics and aesthetics, Shaftesbury’s radical claim for an “equal brotherhood” with plants and animals continues to speak to us in the age of global climate change.

At the heart of Michael B. Gill's impressive study of the third Earl of Shaftesbury's theory of beauty is the notion of nature and its moral, aesthetic, and religious ramifications. In this article, I elaborate on one of Gill's primary claims up to a point where I think a weak spot occurs. The claim concerns nature, and the weak spot is the interpretation of Shaftesbury's references to science (natural philosophy). On the whole, Gill holds that Shaftesbury is “no enemy of a rational understanding of nature, no enemy of science” (44). While I agree with the first clause, I find the second problematic. I argue that, for Shaftesbury, a central problem with science is that it disrupts the moral and aesthetic unity of nature, a flaw shared by society's general exploitation of nature and animals.

This volume re-examines traditional interpretations of the rise of modern aesthetics in eighteenth-century Britain and Germany. It provides a new account that connects aesthetic experience with morality, science, and political society. In doing so, it challenges long-standing teleological narratives that emphasize disinterestedness and the separation of aesthetics from moral, cognitive, and political interests.

The chapters are divided into three thematic parts. The chapters in Part I demonstrate the heteronomy of eighteenth-century British aesthetics. They chart the evolution of aesthetic concepts and discuss the ethical and political significance of the aesthetic theories of several key figures: namely, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, David Hume, and Adam Smith. Part II explores the ways in which eighteenth-century German, and German-oriented, thinkers examine aesthetic experience and moral concerns, and relate to the work of their British counterparts. The chapters here cover the work of Kant, Moses Mendelssohn, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, and Madame de Staël. Finally, Part III explores the interrelation of science, aesthetics, and a new model of society in the work of Goethe, Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Friedrich Hölderlin, and William Hazlitt, among others.

This volume develops unique discussions of the rise of aesthetic autonomy in the eighteenth century. In bringing together well-known scholars working on British and German eighteenth-century aesthetics, philosophy, and literature, it will appeal to scholars and advanced students in a range of disciplines who are interested in this topic.