A matter of taste? On the significance of aesthetic judgement for morality

Abstract

ABSTRACT It is clear that in everyday life, people and behavior patterns are frequently, or perhaps almost always, judged not in terms of good or bad, but with terms that belong more to the aesthetic, like appropriate and inappropriate. This means that in a situation where you would tend to expect moral judgement and moral behavior, it is in fact much more a question of style and, at best, self-respect that plays a role, not morality. As a result, the desired behavior is achieved more easily and more confidently. These observations might seem to undermine Kant’s account of the categorical imperative, but Kant, unlike Kierkegaard, for example, did not advocate a strict separation between ethics and aesthetics. Rather, as I demonstrate here, he showed an ethical interest in the formation of aesthetic taste. This disclosure is followed by a series of further reflections in moral philosophy that, among other things, take up Hegel’s distinction between the Customary and the Moral, and Foucault. By offering this new reading of Kant’s Critique of Judgement, my aim is to show that there are areas of ethics that are a matter of taste, and these are by far the most common.