III. The Third Claim
The third claim is, roughly, that to judge that something is beautiful is
to judge that, other things being equal, others will enjoy the item in the way
just characterized. To formulate this claim more precisely, it is convenient to
have a name for the type of enjoyment just characterized; thus, where one
enjoys an item as having an organized array of features, and, in doing so,
meets conditions (1) – (4), let us say that one b-enjoys the item as having
the array. We claim: to judge that something is beautiful is to judge that
others will, other things being equal, b-enjoy the item as having a specific
organized array of features, provided that they form the first-personauthoritative belief that the item has the array (and perhaps belong to a
certain culture or some other more or less narrowly defined group, but we
defer discussion of this requirement to Section IV). In addition, we require
that one’s regard one’s b-enjoyment a sufficient reason for the judgment. To
judge that something is beautiful is not merely to assert that others will
enjoy as one does, it is to declare that one’s own enjoyment is sufficient
reason for the assertion.
This “sufficient reason” requirement calls for immediate comment and
defense. The short, correct, but unilluminating defense is, “That is part of
what we mean by a judgment of beauty.” As we noted at the outset, the
judgments which form our focus are characterized by three conditions: (1)
one forms first-person-authoritative belief that the item has a certain array
of features; (2) one b-enjoys the item as having that array; and (3) one’s benjoyment is one’s reason for the judgment one’s judgment of beauty. A
more illuminating response reveals a rationale for singling out judgments
meet these three conditions as of particular interest and concern. The
response rests on a point we have already made. Recall that to b-enjoy
something involves regarding the relevant first-person-authoritative belief as
a belief-universal reason to enjoy. When discussing the causal feedback
loop, we emphasized that to regard a belief as a belief-universal reason is to
regard the recognition of the reason as independent of one’s idiosyncratic
wants, aspirations, dreams, values, and the like (except in so far as such
factors play a role in forming the belief). The one’s first-person-authoritative
belief provides a reason which holds, not just for one, but for all others (at
least all others who share the same first-person-authoritative belief); in this
way, to regard the belief as a belief-universal normative reason is to regard it
as transcending the contingencies of one’s personal aspirations, values,
hopes, dreams, and so on. Of course, one will be wrong if the majority of
others who form the same (or closely similar) first-person authoritative belief
do not regard it as a belief-universal normative reason. The transcendence
seemingly revealed by one’s b-enjoyment would prove to be an illusion. The
judgment of beauty is the claim the revelation is no illusion; it is the claim
that those form the same (or closely similar) first-person authoritative belief
will b-enjoy the item and hence will, as a result of their b-enjoyment, regard
the belief as a belief-universal reason to enjoy. By way of illustration,
imagine Carol is looking at Michelangelo’s David, which she b-enjoys for the
way the sensuous harmony of the naked form expresses composure,
confidence, and readiness for action. On the basis of her b-enjoyment, she
regards the statue as beautiful; that is, she believes that those who form the
same first-person-authoritative belief will, other things being equal, b-enjoy
the David as having the same array of features. As a result, she expects
those b-enjoying others to agree that the belief is a belief-universal
normative reason; in addition, she also expects them to agree that the statue
is beautiful. The others b-enjoyment is a reason to judge the David
beautiful, and, since Carol regards that reason as sufficient, she assumes the
others will, other things being equal, judge accordingly.
The critical question is why one’s b-enjoyment is a sufficient reason for
a judgment of beauty. Exactly why is one’s b-enjoyment a sufficient reason
to think that, other things being equal, those who form the relevant the firstperson-authoritative belief that the item has a certain array of features will
b-enjoy the item as having that array? We have just argued that one who
makes such a judgment believes that his or her b-enjoyment is a sufficient
reason for that judgment. But is the belief true? If one were pressed to
defend the belief, one would cite that the array of features one ascribes to
the item. One’s attitude is, “You can’t see that and not b-enjoy it.” But is
this enough to show that one’s b-enjoyment is a sufficient reason? The
question arises because there is a seemingly compelling argument that it is
not, that one’s b-enjoyment is at most a very weak reason, if it is a reason at
all. If this argument is correct, our account very implausibly represents one
who judges something beautiful as premising that judgment on an extremely
weak, or even non-existent, ground.
Our response begins by noting that whether one’s b-enjoyment is
sufficient reason to believe that appropriate others will b-enjoy depends on
how one interprets “sufficient reason to believe.” If we were to follow Kant’s
lead here, we would advance two claims. The first is that one’s b-enjoyment
is sufficient to support a claim to know that appropriate others will b-enjoy as
one does, where “appropriate others” are those who form the same or closely
similar first-person-authoritative belief. The second is that one knows others
will enjoy as one does because one knows all human beings share the same
human nature and hence one knows that what one b-enjoys appropriate
others will also b-enjoy. For Kant, the shared human nature is
transcendental: all human beings have the same faculties of Imagination
and Understanding, operating in the same ways. If we were to avoid this
transcendental appeal, we would have to clarify what we mean by “human
nature,” and we would have to provide an explanation of how one knows all
human beings share it, but let this pass. We do not see how any “shared
human nature” account is consistent with the considerable disagreement
over judgments of beauty among different cultures as well as within the
same culture. Knowledge of a “shared human nature” is patently not
sufficient for me to know that appropriate others will b-enjoy as I do. The
often do not do so.1 One might suggest that the reply that it is only certain
key aspects that are shared, but then one owes not only an explanation of
what those aspects are, but of how everyone who makes a judgment of
beauty knows what they are. We think this demand cannot be met.
1
Other things being equal objection.
One might suggest that the solution is simply to abandon the claim to
knowledge, the claim that one knows others will b-enjoy. Even if one’s benjoyment may support a claim to knowledge, it may still be sufficient reason
to believe that others will b-enjoy as one does. But this is also implausible.
The problem is the widespread disagreement about beauty; there is no claim
to beauty that does not have its numerous detractors. The solitary b-enjoyer
who declares, “My b-enjoyment is sufficient reason to attribute a like
enjoyment to all appropriate others,” would appear to be clinging to slender
reed of support, one quickly crushed the obvious fact of widespread
disagreement.
A. Possessing Sufficient Reason
Our response rests on a point the foregoing argument overlooks:
namely, one can at a given time be aware of reasons that weigh strongly in
favor of its being false that p, but one can nonetheless have a sufficient
reason to continue to believe that p if one has sufficient reason to think one
may discover further reasons that tip the balance back in favor of p’s truth.
Consider an example. Ricardo, an amateur chess player, believes that the
Sicilian Four Knights Defense leads to an equal game for Black against all
strategies White may chose. He believes this because, in light of his
experience and general ability to assess chess positions, the first five moves
strike him as yielding a dynamically balanced position. After five moves,
there are a vast number of variations; many lead to roughly equal positions,
but there are some key variations in which Ricardo does not, at the present
time, see how to achieve an equal position against the White strategy.
Those variations provide Ricardo with strong reasons to think that the
defense does not in all variations yield an equal position; however, he is
convinced that his experience and general chess judgment provide him with
sufficient reason to think he will discover ways to answer the White strategy
and, for this reason, he continues to believe that the defense leads in all
variations to an equal position. This belief motivates him to continue to
analyze the variations instead of turning his back on the Four Knights
Defense. Ricardo’s conviction could be correct; it certainly could be true that
he has sufficient reason to think he will discover answers to the White
strategy, and, whether he is right or wrong about that, one often does
continue to believe hypotheses even though the reasons of which one is
currently aware weigh against them. Philosophical and scientific discovery
often take this path, and it is a common feature of trust and friendship (“I
know the evidence is strongly against her, but I am confident she will be
exonerated in the end”).
One who makes a judgment of beauty is in a similar position. The
David example illustrates the idea. Carol b-enjoys the David, and for that
reason, which she regards as sufficient, believes that those who form the
relevant first-person-authoritative belief will also b-enjoy it, other things
being equal. Even if disagreement (and there is disagreement even about
the David) provides strong reason to think that appropriately believing others
may not b-enjoy the statue, Carol’s b-enjoyment is sufficient reason to
continue to believe that others will b-enjoy provide it is sufficient reason to
think she will discover reasons that will tip the balance in favor of thinking
that appropriately believing others will indeed b-enjoy the statue. Carol’s
continued conviction that appropriately believing others will indeed b-enjoy
motivates continued interaction with others to discover such reasons.
Indeed, she has a compelling reason to discover such reasons. As we noted
earlier, to regard a belief as a belief-universal reason is to regard it as
transcending the contingencies of one’s personal aspirations, values, hopes,
dreams, and so on. We originally made this point when discussing the causal
feedback loop, where we also emphasized that one has compelling reason to
seek such reasons, reasons which allow one to see oneself as having
transcended the contingencies that otherwise shape one’s life.
A continuation of the David example provides further motivation and
explanation. Suppose Carol expresses her view that the David is beautiful to
her companion, Mason; Mason, who does not b-enjoy the statue, replies,
“Sadly, not for me.” Carol first assumes that Mason simply fails to perceive
the sensuous harmony expressive of composure, confidence, and readiness
for action, but she is quickly corrected. Mason, an art historian, offers a
description of the David that elaborates on the sensuous harmony theme in
ways that Carol finds illuminating and that deepens her b-enjoyment; in
offering the description, Mason is not merely reporting the views of other
experts; he sees what he is describing with his own eyes and is articulating
his own first-person-authoritative belief. Carol is now even more puzzled.
She cannot understand how Mason can see the statue as he does and not
find it beautiful. She suggests to him that a homophobia-induced inability to
enjoy looking at a naked male body prevents him from b-enjoying the statue
and on that basis finding it beautiful. Mason, who is gay, responds that he is
certain that homophobia is not the problem. He nonetheless does not benjoy the David, and never has; he does not know why. Mason
acknowledges that many others agree with Carol, and he is more than willing
on that basis to agree that the David is beautiful, but this agreement does
not express his own judgment that the statue is beautiful.
He makes no
such judgment; his agreement merely acknowledges the view of the majority
of others. His lack of b-enjoyment, however, excludes him from that
community of b-enjoyers.
There are a variety of ways for Carol to respond to Mason’s lack of benjoyment. Distinguishing and discussing them motivates and explains our
account of the judgment of beauty.
B. Varieties of Response To Failures To B-Enjoy
Mason’s failure to b-enjoy the David a counter instance to Carol’s
judgment that others will, other things being equal, b-enjoy the David as
having the relevant organized array of features, provided that they form the
first-person authoritative belief that the item has that array. How is Carol to
revise her judgment? She has three options.
1. Refusing to revise
She can leave her judgment unrevised. The judgment of beauty is an
“other things being equal” judgment, and, Carol could take the position that
other things are not equal. Something unknown in Mason’s character or
history might inhibit his b-enjoyment; the statue might, for example, remind
him of his first love, a memory that enlivens pain still fresh despite the
passage of time. Mason is excluded from a community to which Carol
belongs. The community consists of all those who b-enjoy the statue in the
same way Carol does: they first-person-authoritatively attribute the same
(or a very closely similar) array of features as Carol does, and they b-enjoy
the statue as having that array. Members of this community see their benjoyment has having revealed the same contingency-transcending beliefuniversal normative reason to enjoy. Mason does not share this vision of
transcendence.
Where one has sufficient reason to suspect that other things are not
equal, the failure of someone to b-enjoy does not provide any reason to
abandon one’s other things being equal judgment that they would so enjoy.
Many disagreements over beauty are plausibly disagreements over whether
“other things” are “equal.” Suppose Sally b-enjoys Carl Orff’s Carmina
Burana and for that reason judges it beautiful; Sam disagrees, calling Orff’s
compositions childish compared to Brahms. Sam does not b-enjoy Carmina
Burana since his perception of the music as childish prevents him from
thinking that there is a belief-universal underived normative reason to enjoy
the music. Sally regards Sam’s accusation of childishness as simply one
more manifestation of his need to appear superior to anyone with whom he
engages in conversation, and she is convinced that, if other things were
equal, if, that is, Sam were freed from his obsession with appearing superior,
he would b-enjoy Orff. Sam, who is well aware of Sally’s view of him, thinks
Sally lacks a sophisticated musical ear.
2. Revising the first-person-authoritative belief
The claim that other things are not equal is not a plausible defense if a
great many of those who form the appropriate first-person-authoritative
belief fail to b-enjoy the item. It is, of course, possible for “other things” not
to be “equal” across the board; evil space aliens may have distorted the
responses of almost everyone. Such eventualities are extremely unlikely,
however.
So what are Carol’s options if almost everyone disagrees with her
judgment that the David was beautiful? One option is to decide that she has
not identified the relevant organized array of features with sufficient
precision and detail. Perhaps she could count on agreement from those who
form the first-person-authoritative belief that the David has a different,
perhaps richer and more complex, array of features. It is helpful to switch
examples.
Suppose Carol finds beautiful the opening lines of the poem in
Nabokov’s Pale Fire:
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the window pane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff—and I
Lived on, flew on, in that reflected sky.
Carol first-person-authoritatively believes that the lines capture the situation
of a self-consciousness that identifies itself only with its own selfconsciousness, not with any contingent circumstance in which that selfconsciousness happens to be embodied. Mason forms the same first-personauthoritative belief, but he thinks any sufficiently mature adult should regard
the lines as the adolescent and indefensible refusal to accept that the self is
embodied in a particular contingent setting, and, far from regarding the lines
as beautiful, he finds their adolescent indulgence unpleasant. Grant, for the
sake of argument, that the vast majority of readers agree with Mason.
Carol could respond by attempting to reformulate her first-personauthoritative assessment of the lines in a way that side-stepped the charge
of adolescent indulgence. To respond this way, is to concede the nonexistence of the community of b-enjoyers to which one thought one belonged
and to seek to a differently defined community. Carol might, for example,
set the lines in the context of the rest of the poem and see the lines, not as
the endorsement of a self-consciousness refusing to identify with anything
beyond its own self-consciousness, but as introducing the plight of such a
self-consciousness and laying the foundation for considering ways to escape
its isolation (the first line, after all, reads “I was” not “I am”).
Debates over beauty often exhibit just this sort of criticism and
redefinition. In taking this line we do not wish to decide whether there is
some specific set of concepts (as invoked by our critical vocabulary) which
are the exact beauty-making features of the thing, or whether, as argued in
an old but influential paper of Isenberg’s, there is some kind of nonconceptual perceptual content which our critical vocabulary gestures at
rather than explicitly identifying. Whether the features in question relate
most primordially to a way of experiencing or to a way of conceptualizing, or
whether there is even a coherently expressible difference between the two, is
not at issue. The point is just that whatever the specific array of features in
question is, and however we indicate it, it is an open possibility for the lonely
lover of beauty to try to work harder to make others see or understand, and
for the lonely holdout to believe that there something he or she is simply
missing, in either case no matter how much intelligent scrutiny has come
before.
3. Mistaken judgment
A final response to disagreement with a judgment of beauty is to
concede that the judgment is false and cannot be revised so as to make it
true. It is false if those who form the relevant first-person-authoritative
belief fail to b-enjoy the item when other things are equal. There is no true
revision of the judgment if there is no revision of first-person-authoritative
belief relative to which others will b-enjoy the item when other things are
equal. In such a case, one might say, “Well, I still think it is beautiful!”, but,
insofar as this implicitly concedes that others do not b-enjoy the item, it
concedes that the judgment of beauty is false and unrevisable. The solitary
critic determined to find beauty in a thing most do not b-enjoy has the task
of finding a first-person-authoritative attribution of an array of features that
fulfills two requirements: others will also first-person-authoritatively regard
the item has having the array; and, that attribution will lead them to b-enjoy
the item. The alternative is to regard oneself as merely enjoying—but not benjoying—the object (to regard the object as merely “agreeable,” as Kant
would say).