Abstract

If one views humans’ creation and appreciation of art as grounded in our biological nature, it might be tempting to see art as a spandrel, as an adventitious by-product of some adaptation without adaptive significance in itself. Such a position connects art to our evolved human nature yet apparently avoids the demands of demonstrating how art behaviours enhanced the fitness of our ancestors in the Upper Paleolithic. In this paper I explore two arguments that count against the view that art is a spandrel. The first rejects the idea that the spandrel option is somehow less demanding or controversial than the alternative view according to which art is an adaptation. The second argues that if art behaviours came to us as spandrels, they would not remain so; their occurrence in the usual manner would become normative because they would come to provide honest signals of fitness