My Delicate Taste: Aesthetic Deference Revisited

Abstract

Pessimistsabout aesthetic testimony argue that it is inappropriate to rely on otherpeople’s aesthetic judgments in forming our own aesthetic beliefs. Some suggestthat such reliance violates an epistemic norm, others – that it violates anon-epistemic norm. In making their case, pessimists offer several arguments.They also put forward cases meant to elicit pessimist intuitions. In thispaper, I claim that none of the main pessimist arguments succeeds against aplausible version of optimism, that is, the view that reliance on testimony inaesthetic matters is appropriate. However, I suggest also that pessimistintuitions have a certain pull that optimists must account for. My second taskis to explain the force of pessimist intuitions by shedding new light on theirsource.