A discussion of Kant's aesthetics and their place in the philosopher's theory offers a new interpretation of Kant's writings on the nature of the beautiful.

Kant holds that it is possible to quarrel about judgements of beauty and cultivate taste, but these possibilities have not been adequately accounted for in the dominant interpretations of his aesthetics. They can be better explained if we combine a more subjectivist interpretation of the free harmony of the faculties and aesthetic form with a type of social constructivism. On this ‘subjectivist-constructivist’ reading, quarrelling over and cultivating taste are not attempts to conform to some matter of fact, but rather to (...) reconcile subjective perceptions through mutual interchange governed by the regulative goal of constructing a universal community of agreement. (shrink)

The paper defends an interpretation of Kant’s notion of the sensus communis as the normative ideal of a universal aesthetic community. It further proposes that this understanding is the key to illuminating his account of our moral interest in cultivating taste. A sensus communis is morally necessary because it is an essential means to the creation of the kingdom of ends, which it promotes through its sustaining of a shared symbolic network for the sake of ethical community. The moral advancement (...) of any historical ethical community depends upon an artistic culture that promotes social communication and unity, and mitigates the vices to which the extreme ends of the class hierarchy are vulnerable. In pursuit of the cosmopolitan ideal, agents should attempt to widen their immediate artistic culture in the service of a world culture and eventual universal ethical community. (shrink)

The paper defends an interpretation of Kant’s notion of the sensus communis as the normative ideal of a universal aesthetic community. It further proposes that this understanding is the key to illuminating his account of our moral interest in cultivating taste. A sensus communis is morally necessary because it is an essential means to the creation of the kingdom of ends, which it promotes through its sustaining of a shared symbolic network for the sake of ethical community. The moral advancement (...) of any historical ethical community depends upon an artistic culture that promotes social communication and unity, and mitigates the vices to which the extreme ends of the class hierarchy are vulnerable. In pursuit of the cosmopolitan ideal, agents should attempt to widen their immediate artistic culture in the service of a world culture and eventual universal ethical community. (shrink)