Hume and the Causal Theory of Taste

Abstract

This paper has two aims. The first is the purely philosophical aim of exposing as untenable the Causal Theory of Taste. The second is the interpretive aim of reading David Hume's famous essay "On the Standard of Taste" as defending a version of such a causal theory. The two aims are pursued in parallel, in that the main source of raw material for criticizing the causal theory of taste will be passages drawn from Hume's essay. Before we reach the text of the essay, however, some stage-setting is needed. Consider the following two lines of thought which might occur in philosophical reflection about aesthetic taste. First, in thinking about judgments of taste, one may be struck by the elusiveness of the properties which are the targets of judgments of taste, in comparison with the steadfastness of many other kinds of property and objects. This elusiveness is well expressed thus: "no sentiment of taste represents what is really in the object ... beauty is no quality in things in themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them."1 We might think that the impression we have of elegance-that slice of our mental life-reveals to us the property of an object. But, this first line of thought says, we would be wrong in so thinking. There is no such property; there is only our impression. Second, in thinking about judgments of taste, one may also be struck both by the fact that persons seem to differ in the degree to which they possess the capacity to make judgments of taste, and moreover that among those who seemingly are more experienced and skilled at judgments of taste there is some convergence at a fairly general level in such judgments. For instance, if at first I do not see the elegance my friend sees in a sculpture or a dance, my friend can say, "Look at this line; see how these lines complement each other; see how the piece would be different if this curve were more concave or more convex. Look at how this variation in the arm or leg movement would change the character of the dance altogether." And thus I come to see that the sculpture or the dance is indeed elegant. These thoughts are well summarized thus: "amidst all the variety and caprice of taste, there are certain general principles of approbation or blame.... Persons of taste may be distinguished by the soundness of their understanding" (p. 243). Much of philosophical interest in judgments of taste has to do with a tension between these two lines of thought and with possibilities for its resolution. Let us first investigate the tension. The first line of thought seems to locate the ground of judgments of taste, not in some object which is the target of the judgment, but in the maker of the judgment. If someone says that he finds a dance elegant and powerful, or a soloist's musical interpretation fractured, this first line of thought implies that ground for the judgment of elegance is to be found, not in the dance, but in the speaker. As Hume puts it, in describing this line of thought, "sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself ... no sentiment represents what is really in the object" (p. 230). This line of thought Hume associates with the maxim de gustibus non est disputandum, and is his first "species of common sense" thinking about taste. Let us call it the Internalist Theory. The second line of thought, Hume's second species of common sense about taste, is quite different. It affirms a genuine difference between "Ogilby and Milton, or Bunyan and Addison. ... The principle of the natural equality of tastes is totally forgot" (pp. 230-231). Some judgments of taste are rejected out of hand as "absurd and ridiculous" (p. 231). Although in