[From Greek aisthetikos: pertaining to perception; extended to refer to perception of the beautiful by Alexander Baumgarten (1714-1762).]
(ethics) The idea that the highest values are aesthetic rather than ethical or religious. This idea is often associated with 19th-century romanticism in general, and personally with Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), author of The Aesthetic Education of Man, and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900); both of these thinkers sometimes advocated the goal of making one's life a work of art.