In his essay ‘Of the Standard of Taste,’ Hume argues that artworks with morally flawed outlooks are, to some extent, aesthetically flawed. While Hume's remarks regarding the relationship between art and morality have influenced contemporary aestheticians, Hume's own position has struck many people as incoherent. For Hume appears to entangle himself in two separate contradictions. First, Hume seems to claim both that true judges should not enter into vicious sentiments and that true judges should adopt the standpoint of an artwork's (...) intended audience. But The Iliad, say, was obviously intended for an audience that shared Homer's flawed moral outlook. Second, Hume appears to claim that our moral sentiments are both highly resistant to change and extremely fragile. This essay defends Hume against these two objections by drawing increased attention to the role that Hume's aesthetics assigns to the faculty of good sense or sound reason. (shrink)

I develop resources from Hume to account for moral knowledge in the qualified sense developed by Bernard Williams, according to which the proper application of thick ethical terms constitutes moral knowledge. By applying to moral discernment the criteria of the good aesthetic critic, as explained in Hume's “ Of the Standard of Taste ”, we can see how Humean moral knowledge might be possible. For each of these criteria, an analogous trait would contribute to moral discernment. These traits would enable (...) moral judges to distinguish valid from invalid uses of thick moral terms. The deliverances of such judgments constitute mitigated moral knowledge, as opposed to knowledge in the stricter sense that Hume clearly says cannot be had of moral distinctions. This account has the potential to explain how moral judgments may be valid or invalid without appealing to unique operations of the understanding and how moral knowledge might escape the threat, identified by Williams, of reflective destruction. (shrink)

Partiendo de la descripción subjetivista que Noël Carroll hace de las ideas estéticas de David Hume en On Criticism, propongo una interpretación objetivista de las mismas. Para ello, muestro que hay cierta confusión en la obra del filósofo escocés cuando vincula los valores estéticos con las cualidades secundarias lockeanas. Creemos que esa vinculación requiere de cierto esclarecimiento. Para ello me apoyo en distinciones ya clásicas propuestas por Kripke. A partir de ahí, muestro que Hume es más objetivista de lo que (...) Carroll y otros autores interpretan. Finalmente señalo en qué sentido Hume, a pesar del objetivismo, sigue siendo un sentimentalista en lo que a los valores se refiere. (shrink)