Abstract
This paper argues that Kant's account of the "ideal of beauty" in paragraph 17 of the Critique of Judgment is not only a plausible account of one kind of beauty ("boring" beauty), but also that it can address some of our moral qualms concerning the aesthetic evaluation of persons, including our psychological propensity to take a person's beauty to represent her moral character.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 107-130 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| Journal | Inquiry |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2005 |
Funding
I am grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies for a grant that supported work on this article. Many current philosophical claims about the moral significance of taste take broadly this form, proposing that aesthetic appreciation involves skills and attitudes on the part of the appreciator similar to those employed in moral judgment or action. Thus, e.g. many argue that in appreciating art, we imaginatively practice the sympathetic involvement with others that characterizes proper moral engagement. Contemporary philosophers (e.g. Noël Carroll and Colin McGinn) argue, too, that moral values and questions inform our interest in, and appreciation for, works of art, especially literature. See Judith H. Langlois, Lisa Kalakanis, Adam J. Rubenstein, Andrea Larson, Monica Hallam, and Monica Smoot, ‘‘Maxims or myths of beauty? A meta-analytic and theoretical review,’’ Psychological Bulletin, 2000, 126:3, pp. 390–423, and Karen Dion, ‘‘Cultural perspectives on facial attractiveness,’’ in Leslie Zebrowitz and Gillian Rhodes (eds), Facial Attractiveness (Westport, CT: Ablex, 2003), for overviews. I am not qualified to discuss the prevalence of this trope in the non-Western traditions of art, though I would be surprised to discover its absence. In order to evaluate fully Kant’s
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Philosophy
- Health Policy
