Enjoyment and Beauty
Beauty is powerful. It compels our attention and appreciation and
unites us in shared visions and divides us with different ones. Our goal is to
describe beauty in a way that illuminates its power. The description consists
of arguments for three claims. First, one enjoys the items one judges to be
beautiful. Second, the enjoyment is a special kind; one does not enjoy in
that way items one does not find beautiful. Third, to believe that something
is beautiful is to believe, on the basis of the special kind of enjoyment, that
others will, other things being equal, enjoy the item in that special way. The
arguments for the second characterize beauty’s power to compel attention
and appreciation; the arguments for the third claim address its power to
unite and divide. The first claim is an essential preliminary. The inspiration
for this approach is Kant’s Critique of Judgment, in which Kant (arguably)
advances all three claims. Our concern, however, is with the truth of the
claims, not with Kantian exegesis, and our arguments will not, for the most
part, be the same as Kant’s.
I. The First Claim
Must one enjoy what one finds beautiful? The question arises because
it seems possible to think something beautiful without enjoying it at any
time. Imagine, for example, that you and Jones are looking that the Taj
Mahal. Your enjoyment leads you to exclaim, “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Jones
agrees, thereby expressing his own judgment that the Taj is beautiful.
Jones, however, does not enjoy the Taj. He is not cognitively or affectively
impaired; he attends to features that people generally regard as making the
1
Taj beautiful, and he makes a good faith effort to enjoy looking at the
building, but he simply does not enjoy it. He agrees with you because he
knows that the received opinion is that the Taj is beautiful; his agreement
merely acknowledges that the Taj belongs with that diverse collection of
items that people generally take to be beautiful. Jones’s statement that the
Taj is beautiful may be misleading since it is typically one’s enjoyment that
convinces one that something is beautiful. But surely Jones can consistently
say, “I believe the Taj is beautiful, although I do not, never have, and expect
I never will enjoy it.” Even if Jones cannot base his judgment on his own
enjoyment, he can base it on the reports of others. Compare believing that
Beijing is densely populated. One can form that belief based in entirely on
the reports of others, so why can’t one, on the basis of reports, judge that
the Taj is beautiful?
In response, we distinguish two types of judgments of beauty. Jones’
judgment illustrates the first: the defining feature is that the reasons for
judgment consist entirely in the reports of others. The following conditions
(roughly) characterize the second: (1) one forms the subjective conviction
that the item has certain features; (2) one enjoys the item as having those
features; and (3) that enjoyment is one’s reason for the judgment. By “a
judgment of beauty” and similar expressions, we shall mean a judgment of
this second sort unless we explicitly indicate otherwise. Section II discusses
and elaborates condition (2); Section III doest the same for condition (3).
We devote the rest of this section to explaining and defending (1). In doing
2
so, we assume that a judgment of beauty is something for which one
typically has reasons.
To see that one typically has reasons for a judgment of beauty,
suppose that, in the Taj example, Jones asks you why you think the Taj is
beautiful. Jones is not asking for an explanation of why you respond to the
Taj as you do; he is asking you to justify your judgment. You answer by
identifying the features you enjoy. We take this to be typical: one defends
one’s judgment that a face, painting, statue, or poem, for example, is
beautiful by indicating the features one enjoys.
There will always be such features: one does not simply enjoy an
item; one enjoys it as being some way, as exemplifying some feature or
features. To see why, consider first that there is typically an answer to the
question, “What do you enjoy about it?” The answer specifies the features
one enjoys the item as having. If, for example, one enjoys chocolate, one
enjoys it for its bitter-sweet taste, or as a rebellion against one’s strict diet,
or whatever. It may seem that there are obvious counterexamples in which
one enjoys something but does not enjoy it as exemplifying any relevant
feature. Suppose, for example, that one is enjoying an ice cream cone. Why
can’t one just enjoy the whole cone, not any particular aspect of it? Here,
the description of the purported counterexample itself specifies the relevant
feature: one enjoys the cone as a whole, where presumably what is meant is
that one enjoys the whole experience of eating the cone from beginning to
end. The following argument supports these intuitions about examples by
showing that there must always be an answer to the question, “What do you
3
enjoy about it?” Imagine Carol claims to have enjoyed dining out in a
restaurant, but sincerely denies that there is anything she enjoyed about it.
She insists she did not enjoy the food, the restaurant atmosphere, the
experience of being waited on, the people-watching, or anything else. She is
completely indifferent to every feature of dining out. This is a paradigm case
of not enjoying dining out; Carol just self-deceptively believes she enjoys it.
Before we leave the topic of enjoyed features, we should emphasize a
final point that will be of considerable importance later. In the case of the
enjoyment of beauty, the relevant features are unified; the beautiful item’s
parts, qualities, internal and external relations present themselves to the
enjoyer as an organized whole. Even with the simple beauties of flowers and
geometrical designs, the eye ranges over the form, appreciates the variations
in color, calls to mind perhaps other beautiful flowers. Even apparently
simple beauties, like the beauty of a particular shade of red, only stand out
as beautiful because of the relation of that red to its surroundings (visual or
conceptual) and our ability to compare it to many other closely similar
shades (as we will argue in Section IV). The enjoyment of the item as
having the organized array of features serves as the reason for the judgment
of beauty. To avoid misunderstanding, we should emphasize that we are not
claiming that, when one gives reasons for a judgment of beauty, one expects
others to infer on the basis of these reasons that the item is beautiful. The
role of reasons is not to compel agreement by providing evidentiary grounds.
We assign a far different role to reasons in Sections II and III.
4
The foregoing discussion of enjoyed features was a preliminary step in
identify the kind of judgment of beauty on which we will focus. For
convenience, we repeat the rough characterization of relevant type of
judgment: (1) one forms the subjective conviction that the item has certain
features; (2) one enjoys the item as having those features; and (3) that
enjoyment is one’s reason for the judgment. Condition (1) requires
explanation and elaboration. We begin by explaining what we mean by
“subjective.”
A subjective judgment is one that is not objective. Israel Scheffler
captures the relevant sense of “objective”:
A fundamental feature of science is its ideal of objectivity, an ideal that
subjects all scientific statements to the test of independent and
impartial criteria, recognizing no authority of persons in the realm of
cognition. The claimant to scientific knowledge is responsible for what
he says, acknowledging the relevance of considerations beyond his
wish or advocacy to the judgment of his assertions. In assertion . . .
he is trying to meet independent standards, to satisfy factual
requirements whose fulfillment cannot be guaranteed in advance.
In this case of judgments of beauty, one does recognize the “authority of
persons in the realm of cognition,” as the following example illustrates.
When Brian asks Brianna why she thinks the Mona Lisa is beautiful, Brianna
describes the organized array of features she perceives the painting as
having. In doing so, she is not merely repeating what she has read or
otherwise acquired from others; she sees the painting as having the array of
features for herself, through her own eyes.
In response, Brian produces a
painting—the faux Mona Lisa—having all of the specified features. Brianna
denies it is beautiful. Brian complains that the two paintings are relevantly
the same: both have the array of features Brianna specified. Brianna
5
responds by pointing out relevant differences--e. g., “the background is
different,” “the use of light is different,” “the eyebrows are different,” and so
on. None of the features she mentions were included in her earlier
specification of the array. She insists that the differences mean the faux
Mona Lisa does not exhibit the same organized array of features as the true
Mona Lisa.
To see that one “recognizes the authority of persons” in such a case,
the critical question is whether Brianna could be making a mistake about a
matter of objective fact when Brianna denies the faux Mona Lisa lacks the
relevant organized array. The answer is that it depends on what type of
belief Brianna was expressing when she asserted that the painting had a
certain array of features. She could be making a mistake about a matter of
objective fact if she was incorrectly reporting the results of a study that
imposed a grid over a digitized image of the painting and analyzed the color
distribution within each division of the grid. But she is doing no such thing.
She is specifying the array of features she enjoys, and which she would
identify in giving a reason for her judgment of beauty. In such a case, she
cannot be making a mistake about a matter of objective fact when she
denies that the faux Mona Lisa has the same array of features that she
enjoys in the case of the genuine painting. As Kant notes,
If any one reads me his poem, or brings me a play, which all said and
done, fails to commend itself to my taste, then let him adduce . . .
critics of taste, with the host of rules laid down by them, as a proof of
the beauty of his poem; let certain passages particularly displeasing to
me accord completely with the rules of beauty (as . . . universally
recognized) . . . I take my stand on the ground that my judgment is
one of taste . . . This would appear to be one of the chief reasons why
this faculty of aesthetic judgement is has been given the name of
6
taste. For a man may recount to me the ingredients of a dish, and
observe that each and every one of them is just what I like . . . yet I
am deaf to these arguments. I try the dish with my own tongue and
palate, and I pass judgement according to their verdict.
Brianna is deaf to Brian’s arguments and passes judgment according to her
own tastes: she is authoritative with regard to whether the two paintings
share the same features.
As we will express it, she first-person-authoritatively believes that the
Mona Lisa has a certain array of features, and, as a consequence, she is
authoritative with regard to whether the faux Mona Lisa shares that array.
Her rejection of the faux Mona Lisa as beautiful merely even though it has all
the features she specified merely reveals that specification as incomplete.
There are two dimensions to Brianna’s authority: whether the paintings
possess certain features, and whether those features are organized in a
certain way. This authority is subject to only one limitation. If one of
Brianna’s organized features is simply “red there,” we do not claim she is
authoritative about that; if however, the feature is “a certain interaction of
light and dark in the background,” she will be authoritative in that regard
(one may try to decompose all such features into arrays of features over
which one is not authoritative; we will not pursue this possibility). A similar
point holds for the organization of the array of features. The organization of
the array consists in relations among features. Brianna may not be
authoritative with regard to all such relations. She would not, for example,
be authoritative about there being a blue brush stroke approximately two
inches above the red region, but she would be about whether the blue brush
stroke softens the harshness of the red. However, one can only properly be
7
described a first-person-authoritatively believing that an item has a certain
array of features if one is authoritative with regard to enough of the relations
and features constituting the relevant organized array.
Two further points are in order before we conclude this section. First,
the subjectivity of the ascription of the array has a consequence that is
essential to a plausible description of the ways in which we experience
beauty: namely, any specification of the array of features is provisional. To
see what we have in mind, consider that, when Brianna looks at the Mona
Lisa, enjoys the painting, and thinks, “Beautiful!”, her conscious attention
need not be focused on any particular array of features. It may be only on
further contemplation, investigation, and reflection that she can describe the
organized array of features she enjoys; moreover, as the faux Mona Lisa
example illustrates, any specification of these features Brianna offers to
others or to herself, will be provisional. She is authoritative we regard to (at
least some aspects of) the organized array of features, and later she may,
with any imputation of error about an objective matter of fact, elaborate,
modify, or extend the specification. Indeed, one who finds something
beautiful typically does so. One typically discovers beauty in a sustained and
variegated experience of the object over time as one replaces one provisional
specification of an array of features with another richer, more detailed, and
more complex one.
The second point is a final comment on the Mona Lisa example. It is
tempting, following Kant, describe Brianna’s subjective ascription of an array
of features to the Mona Lisa as a product of the “free play of the
8
Imagination.” Of course, the Imagination to which Kant appeals is a
transcendental faculty, and we wish to avoid any such appeal. Even so, we
can still non-transcendentally describe Brianna’s perception as a result of
“free play of the imagination” in the following sense: the organized array of
features Brianna ascribes to the Mona Lisa is her own first-personauthoritative construction. What Brianna does is akin to seeing shapes in
clouds, an activity that one might well describe as a free play of the
imagination. Unlike one’s typical attitude toward clouds, however, one
typically repeatedly contemplates and investigates things one finds beautiful
in ways that extend and enrich that array of features one apprehends it as
having. Beauty creates opportunities for imaginative interaction,
opportunities we value highly. The interaction is typically temporally
structured in a way which involves attention to the various features in
question as a sustained appreciation of the whole.
This imaginative activity is associated, not just with enjoyment, but
with enjoyment of a special kind. A further consideration of the Mona Lisa
example motivates this claim. Imagine that, although Brianna does not find
the faux Mona Lisa beautiful, she nonetheless enjoys it as having a certain
organized array of features, just not the same array she believes the true
Mona Lisa as having. Her enjoyment of the true Mona Lisa provides with her
reasons to think it is beautiful, but her enjoyment of the faux Mona Lisa does
not. What accounts for the difference? The relevant differences she points
out between the two paintings do not constitute an answer to this question.
They merely show that she is not guilty of failing to treat like things alike;
9
they do not provide an explanation of how one enjoyment plays a reasonproviding role and the other does not. We suggest that what accounts for
the difference is that the basis of a judgment of beauty is a special kind of
enjoyment.
II. The Second Claim: A Special Kind of Enjoyment
The distinguishing feature of the relevant kind of enjoyment is the
presence of a certain type of reason for that very enjoyment, a presence
caused (or causally sustained) by the enjoyment itself. Section B
characterizes the type of reason; section C addresses the causal claim.
Section A explains what we mean by a reason to enjoy.
A. Reasons
We treat a reason to enjoy as a special case of a reason for action.
This may seem obviously wrong. Surely, unlike action, enjoyment is an
experience which is not under our voluntary control; it just either happens or
does not happen. In fact, enjoyment is typically under one’s voluntary
control in two ways: one can often determine whether it occurs, and how
long it endures. If Smith goes the museum, he knows he will enjoy various
impressionist paintings, which he finds beautiful. He can determine whether
the enjoyment occurs by determining whether he goes to the museum; if he
does go, he can determine the duration of the enjoyment by how long he
stays.
This is, however, not sufficient to give a clear sense to a reason to
enjoy. All the example shows is that Smith’s expectation of enjoyment is a
10
reason for him to go to the museum. Where is the need to posit a reason for
the enjoyment itself?
The answer lies in a fundamental fact about beauty: it commands
enjoyment. By way of illustration, imagine two painters, Marcia and Martin,
discussing the facial features of a potential model. They both see her as
having the same organized array of features; however, while Marcia finds her
beautiful, Martin finds her completely unappealing. Marcia responds, “You
don’t enjoy looking at her? What is wrong with you?” In general, when one
judges something beautiful, one’s enjoyment reveals features that one is
convinced are to be enjoyed, not just by oneself, but by anyone—at least
anyone who apprehends the item in the same way. Moreover, one is
convinced that the command has it source entirely in the way the item is
apprehended, and that—apart from whatever individual traits condition the
apprehension—the source is otherwise free of any idiosyncratic taint from
one’s wants, aspirations, dreams, values, and the like. To paraphrase Kant,
the enjoyment of beauty is a disinterested delight in the existence of the
item. Compare enjoying bittersweet chocolate. If Sally enjoys bittersweet
chocolate, and Ed does not, Sally does not think that Ed ought to. She just
thinks they differ.
We capture the idea commanding enjoyment in terms of reasons: one
who judges an item beautiful is convinced that there is a reason for anyone
(everyone who apprehends the item in the same way) to enjoy the item.
Smith’s visit to the museum illustrates the point. Smith finds some of the
impressionist paintings beautiful, and his conviction that there is a reason to
11
enjoy the paintings serves as a reason for him to visit the museum.
Similarly, when Marcia responds to Martin, “You don’t enjoy looking at her?
What is wrong with you?”, she expresses her puzzlement that he does not
acknowledge and conform to the reason she is convinced there is to enjoy
the model’s face.
To characterize the special kind of enjoyment associated with
judgments of beauty, we will distinguish two types of reason to enjoy. The
distinction is a special case of a general distinction between two types of
reason for action. To draw the general distinction, we first ask, what is it for
something to be a reason for a person to perform an action?
We begin with the observation that reasons typically play a
characteristic motivational-justificatory role. An example: Smith devotes
considerable time to chess; he studies the game, analyzes his past games,
seeks out chess partners, browses in the chess section of bookstores, and so
on. When asked why he engages in these activities, he explains that a wellplayed game displays the beauty of forces in dynamic tension and reveals
creativity, courage, and practical judgment in an exercise of intuition and
calculation akin to both mathematics and art. These considerations motivate
him to engage in a variety of activities; and, they serve as his justification for
performing the very actions they motivate. We take it to be clear that
reasons play a distinctive motivational-justificatory role. We will not,
however, offer any further characterization of that role. Our goal is simply to
make it clear what we mean by a reason for action, and no detailed
characterization is required for this purpose.
12
One further point is in order, however. The chess example, which
involves the explicit articulation of reasons, may suggest the implausibly
rationalistic view that a reason always plays its motivational-justificatory role
through explicit reasoning prior to action. Worse yet in the context of our
discussion of beauty, it may associate reasons for action with dispassionate
reflection. This is not to deny the obvious fact that reasons sometimes do
operate explicitly and dispassionately. For example, reflecting on his need to
improve his ability to blend strategy and tactics, Smith may—explicitly and
even dispassionately—reason his way to the conclusion that he should study
former world champion Mikhail Tal’s games. The same reasons, however,
could operate implicitly and in the presence of passion. Imagine that Smith,
without prior reasoning, he accidentally happens on a collection of Tal’s
games while wandering around a bookstore to kill time. The collection
catches his eye; the conviction, “I need this!” takes hold of him and he
straightaway decides to buy the book. The thought and the decision occur
against the background of an emotion-laden memory of a recent bitter defeat
caused by his lack of skill in blending strategy and tactics. Despite the
passion and lack of explicit reasoning, the same reasons that figure in the
explicit reasoning may also operate in this case. If Smith were later asked
why he bought the book, it would hardly be odd for him to give a reason by
saying, “I realized I need to study Tal’s games to improve my ability to blend
strategy and tactics.” He doing so he would not only be justifying his choice,
he would be identifying his motives. While on occasion we treat such after
the fact rationalizations skeptically as the likely products of self-deception or
13
fabrication, on the whole they are part and parcel of the routine conduct of
everyday life, and we accept them as true unless we have specific grounds
for doubt.1
These observations suggest an initial account of a reason for action: a
psychological state (or complex of such states) is a reason for a person to
perform an action if and only if the state (or states) plays, or would in
appropriate circumstances play, the relevant motivational-justificatory role.
We drop the “or complex of such states” qualification from now on. There is
no need to take a position on the long-standing debate about what sort of
psychological state is required to explain the motivational dimension of
reasons. Some—crudely, “Humeans”—will insist that Smith’s beliefs about
chess are never sufficient on their own to motivate; they must always be
supplemented by a separate motivational state—a desire, hope, aspiration,
an allegiance to an ideal, or some such thing. Others—crudely, “Kantians”—
will insist that a separate motivational state is not always required; a belief
may, in appropriate circumstances, motivate on its own. Each view tends in
the direction of the other. Plausible Humeans interpret “desire” broadly to
include such diverse sources of motivation as values, ideals, needs,
commitments, personal loyalties, and patterns of emotional reaction;
plausible Kantians refer to such sources of motivation to explain why the
same belief may motivate one person but not another. There is, however, no
See the excellent account of after-the-fact attribution of reasons in Paul Grice,
Aspects of Reason (Oxford University Press, 2001); see also the related discussion of
“deeming” in the attribution of intentions in Paul Grice, “Meaning Revisited,” in Paul
Grice, Studies in the Ways of Words (Harvard University Press, 1969).
1
14
need to opt for one view or the other; everything we say is consistent with
either. We should, however, emphasize one merely terminological point:
We will, for convenience, describe beliefs as reasons; one should read in
whatever motivational factor one thinks is also required.
The suggested initial account conceives of reasons for action as
psychological states that do, or would, play a certain motivationaljustificatory role. The difficulty is that a state can be a reason even if it does
not, and would not, play the relevant role. Thus: Robert is a prominent wine
critic. His doctor informs him he has severe and chronic gout, and must, on
pain of destroying his health and ultimately his life, stop drinking the French
wines in which he delights. Robert persists nonetheless; he thinks of himself
as a badly injured warrior who, although doomed to defeat, defiantly refuses
to cease fighting for his ideal—Robert’s ideal being the refinement of taste as
a source of pleasure. When his friends try to change his mind, their
arguments fall on deaf ears. Robert acknowledges that if others were in his
situation, the health considerations would, for them, serve as a compelling
reason choose good health over the delight of fine wine; but, as he
emphasizes, those considerations play no such role for him. He takes pride
in this, seeing it as a sign of the depth of his commitment.
The friends think the health considerations are a reason for Robert to
abandon his gourmet pursuits, a reason Robert ignores. The friends of
course realize that the health considerations do not, for Robert, play the
motivational-justificatory role of a reason; their position is that those
considerations should play that role. They think the considerations are a
15
reason in this “should play” sense. This is not to say that the friends think
considerations should be decisive (although they may); playing a
motivational-justificatory role does not mean playing a decisive role. In
general, a belief can be a reason for a person even if it does not in fact play
the motivational-justificatory role of a reason for that person. Indeed, the
person need not have the belief. If Robert did not believe that his gourmet
pursuits were threatening his health, the friends would still think that he
should form that belief and that it should play the motivational-justificatory
role of a reason.
One way to accommodate examples like Robert is to define a reason
for action as follows: a psychological state is a reason for a person to
perform an action if and only if it should be the case that the state plays, or
would in appropriate circumstances play, the characteristic motivationaljustificatory role of a reason. This, however, has the uncomfortable
consequence illustrated by the following example. A shaman believes that
sacrificing a chicken will help cure a disease that the observing
anthropologist knows to be measles; the belief about the efficacy of the
sacrifice plays the motivational-justificatory role of a reason for the shaman.
The observing anthropologist, however, thinks the belief should not play that
role (on the ground that the shaman’s goal is to provide an efficacious
treatment). Under the suggested definition, the anthropologist cannot agree
that there is a reason for the shaman to sacrifice the chicken. This seems
quite odd as it is not obviously improper to answer, “Is there a reason the
16
shaman is sacrificing the chicken?” with, “Yes, he believes that it will cure the
disease.”
The solution we adopt is to acknowledge that one uses “reason”
ambiguously. One uses it to describe the “does play” cases whether or not
the belief should play the motivational-justificatory role of a reason, and one
uses it to describe the “should play” cases whether or not there is a belief
playing the relevant role.
We will call the belief in the “does play” cases an
active reason. More fully, a belief is an active reason for a person if and only
if it does, or would in appropriate circumstances, play the motivationaljustificatory role of a reason for that person. We will call the reason the
“should play” cases a normative reason. A normative reason is a proposition.
A proposition is a normative reason for a person if and only if it should be the
case that: (1) the person believes the proposition, and (2) that belief is an
active reason. An active reason may, but need not be, a normative reason.
Smith may, to his horror, find himself cursed with an active reason to view
child pornography, but there is—as Smith is acutely aware—no normative
reason to do so. A normative reason may exist without the relevant belief
being an active reason, as the Robert example illustrates. The fact that
Robert is destroying his health is, at least in the friends’ eyes, a normative
reason that for him to abandon his gourmet life, but the belief—which Robert
has—that he is destroying his heath does not function as an active reason.
There are of course competing accounts of when normative reasons
exist. Typically, views see the existence as depending on various factors—
values, ideals, needs, commitments, and the like; to the extent the view
17
holds that disagreements about the existence of normative reasons are not
rationally resolvable disagreements, the view embraces a degree of
relativism. On such views, Robert’s values (or whatever) may be sufficiently
different than the friends’ values (or whatever) that there is a normative
reason from their perspective but not from his. We will not address such
relativistic claims here; while we do not subscribe to a complete relativism
about reasons, everything we say will be consistent with any plausible
relativism. One just needs to add to our claims whatever relativization one
thinks is required.
Now we can provide a provisional characterization of the type of
enjoyment on which we base our judgments of beauty. One enjoys x as
having an organized array A of features, where:
(1)
one first-person-authoritatively believes x has A;
(2)
that belief is a—certain type of—active reason for one to enjoy x as
having A;
(3)
one regards x’s having A as a—certain type of—normative reason
for one to enjoy x as having A;
(4)
one’s enjoyment causes or causally sustains (3).
The next section motivates conditions (2) and (3) by characterizing the
relevant types of reasons.
B. The Special Type of Enjoyment
An example is helpful. Suppose you and Jones have taken time out of
your demanding business trip to travel from Delhi to Agra to see the Taj
18
Mahal. You enjoy it and find it beautiful; Jones also enjoys it, but does not
find it beautiful. After an hour, Jones has had enough. He decides it is time
to abandon the Taj and return to the pressing demands of the business trip.
You, however, wish to continue to contemplate and investigate the building,
which you feel is just beginning to yield up its treasures. When Jones asks
you why, you respond, with surprise, “Why? Just look at the way the whole
structure seems almost weightless!” You continue in this vein, articulating
your active reason to enjoy the Taj by drawing Jones’ attention the features
of the Taj you enjoy. The presence of this reason explains (in part) why you
are motivated to continue to contemplate and investigate the features in
question, and why you think you are justified in doing so. We take this to be
characteristic of the enjoyment of the beautiful: the first-person
authoritative belief that the item has an organized array of features is an
active reason to enjoy the item as having that array. The continued
contemplation and investigation will be curtailed if competing reasons direct
action along different lines, but, when contemplation and investigation do
continue, they may increase the number and richness of the enjoyed features
and increase the detail and complexity of the array of features one believes
the item to possess. The result is a richer, more complex and detailed active
reason.
Your paean to the Taj leaves Jones unmoved, and he still wants to
leave. Two differences in the reasons you each have to enjoy the Taj explain
the difference in attitude. The first is that Jones’s reasons are derived; yours
are not. A reason is a derived reason for a person to perform an action A if
19
and only if it is a reason for the person to perform A only because there are
other distinct reasons for the person to perform other actions, and
performing A is a means to performing those actions. An underived reason is
a reason that is not derived. Jones’ active reasons to enjoy the Taj are—we
may suppose—derived from the principles to which he adheres. The first is
that more enjoyment is better than less. Since he enjoys the Taj, he has a
reason to make time for that enjoyment among is other pursuits. Jones’s
second principle is that one should enjoy significant artistic achievements.
He regards the Taj as a significant artistic achievement, so he has a second
reason to make time to enjoy it. Were it not for his adherence to these
principles, Jones would not—we may assume—have an active reason to enjoy
the Taj. Jones is ready to leave after an hour of enjoying the Taj because he
feels he has devoted enough time to that means of realizing the relevant
ends.
Your active reason is underived. Enjoying the Taj is, for you, an end
in its own right, and you feel that you have just begun to realize that end,
that the Taj has much more to reveal. This is characteristic of the enjoyment
of beauty: the first-person-authoritative belief that the item has an
organized array of features is an underived active reason to enjoy the item
has having that array. Typically, this active reason motivates and justifies a
sustained interaction which reveals the beauty of the item in a variegated,
temporally extended experience.
The underived nature of your active reason does not, however, fully
explain why you want to continue to contemplate the Taj. Why do the
20
pressing demands of the business trip not take precedence for you over your
underived active reason to enjoy the Taj? Because you recognize a second
to enjoy the Taj, a reason Jones does not acknowledge. You regard the
proposition that the Taj has the relevant array as an underived normative
reason for you to enjoy the Taj as having that array. Of course, this reason
too could yield to the pressing demands of the business trip, but it is an
additional hurdle those demands must overcome. If you were asked why
you believe the normative reason exists, you would identify the array of
features you believe the Taj to have, the array you enjoy it as having. Your
attitude is, “You can’t see that and deny that it is to be enjoyed!” The
natural—but incorrect—characterization of this attitude is that you regard the
fact that the Taj has the features you enjoy as sufficient in and of itself to
establish the belief that it has those features should serve as an underived
active reason. The problem is that the Taj’s having the organized array is
not a matter of objective fact. There is just your first-person-authoritative
belief that the Taj has that array; it is in your eyes that your enjoyment
reveals the Taj as possessing an array of features sufficient to establish an
underived normative reason for you to enjoy it. But not only in your eyes.
To say that would be to overlook the point emphasized earlier: when beauty
commands enjoyment, the command is not personally addressed, but
impersonally: not “You should enjoy this,” but “This is to be enjoyed.” You
regard your enjoyment as revealing that an array of features sufficient to
establish that the reason will be acknowledged by anyone—anyone meeting
two conditions, that is: the person forms the same or a sufficiently similar
21
first-person-authoritative belief; the person has interests and attitudes
relevantly similar to yours. The second condition is required because the
normative reasons a person recognizes vary with the person’s interests and
attitudes. Smith’s frequent business travel to Poland leads him to
acknowledge a normative reason to master conversational Polish, but Jones,
whose entire contact with Poland and Polish culture consists in two hours
spent catching a connecting flight in the Warsaw airport, does not recognize
any normative reason for him to master conversational Polish. When you
think that relevantly believing others will recognize a normative reason to
enjoy the Taj, you restrict that prediction to relevantly similar others. It will
be convenient to call the group of relevantly similar others a similarity group.
To summarize: you form the first-person-authoritative belief that the
Taj has a certain array of features; you enjoy it as having that array, and, for
that reason, judge it item beautiful. We suggest that the following conditions
partially characterize the enjoyment: (a) one regards the proposition that
the item possesses the array as a normative reason for one to enjoy the item
has having that array; and, (b) there is a similarity group G such that one
thinks anyone in G who forms the same or sufficiently similar first-personauthoritative belief will also regard the proposition that the item possesses
the relevant array as a normative reason for that person to enjoy the item
has having that array. We will have many occasions to use formula
expressed in (a) and (b), and it proves convenient to shorten it. To this end,
let us say that, where G is a similarity group, the proposition that x has an
array A of features is a G-universal normative reason to enjoy x as having A
22
when and only when anyone who forms the first-person-authoritative belief
that x has A will also believe that that the proposition that x has A is a
normative reason for that person to enjoy x has having A. We can then
collapse (a) and (b) into the single requirement that one regard the
proposition that x has A as a G-universal normative reason for one to enjoy x
has having A. So, we can, in the Taj example, simply say that you are
convinced that, for some similarity group G, the Taj’s having the relevant
array of features is a G-universal normative reason for you to enjoy the Taj
as having that array.
The following observations on your enjoyment of the Taj support for
the claim that your conviction is a defining feature of the relevant special
kind of enjoyment. To regard a normative reason as G-universal it to see its
recognition as dependent on only two factors: the first-person-authoritative
belief that x has A (or a sufficiently similar belief), and the attitudes and
interests that define membership in G. The more widely those attitudes and
interest are shared, the more closely G approximates all of humanity. Focus
for the moment on the “very widely shared” cases. The Taj, with its
considerable cross-cultural, appeal is an example; from its completion in
1631, an increasing large group—and with increasing travel, increasingly
culturally diverse group—has enjoyed the Taj and has, on that basis, judged
it beautiful. The larger, more diverse, and temporally extended the similarity
group, the less the recognition of the normative reason depends on any
person’s idiosyncratic attitudes or interests. It depends only on the shared
interests and attitudes defining membership in the group, and on the
23
formation of a relevant first-person-authoritative belief; moreover, in the
case of the Taj, the arrays of features first-person-authoritatively attributed
to the Taj tend to be quite similar (focusing on the completely unified
presentation of perfect symmetry, simplicity, lightness, complexity, immense
detail, and massiveness). Even the formation of the relevant belief is largely
independent of idiosyncrasies. One has a compelling reason to discover such
reasons. One finds oneself thrown into a particular time, in a particular
place; the circumstances into which one is born, how one is raised and
educated, largely shape one’s interests and attitudes; some reflect the
peculiarities of one’s unique circumstances and personality, others are shared
by smaller or larger groups but are still the product of the contingent
conditions shaping the group’s interest and attitudes and may not be shared
by groups formed by other circumstances (New Yorkers take things for
granted that Los Angelinos find bizarre, and vice versa). G-universal
normative reasons offer an escape from the contingences that shape us.
They allow one to answer the question, “What reason was there for you to
enjoy that?”, by offering a reason the existence of which does not (in one’s
eyes) depend on one’s idiosyncratic interests and attitudes. We take it for
granted that one has compelling reason to seek such reasons, to see oneself
as having, at least in that way, transcended the web of ruthless
contingencies in which one must otherwise live. In taking this for granted,
we do not of course mean to suggest that it is a trivial task to explain why
one has sufficient reason to seek such reasons—far from it.
24
We take it to be a defining feature of the enjoyment of beauty that it
reveals contingency-transcendent reasons—reveals them in the eyes of the
enjoyer, that is. One may, of course, be mistaken in one’s conviction that
the relevant others will recognize the existence of the normative reason; this
possibility takes center stage in Section III when we offer an account of the
judgment of beauty. The contingency-transcendent reasons are more or less
contingency-transcendent. The Taj example illustrates the “more”; the
following example illustrates the “less.”
William is listening to Son House’s 1965 a cappella rendition of the
following verse from the Gospel/blues song, John The Revelator:
You know God walked down in the cool of the day
Called Adam by his name
But he refused to answer
Because he's naked and ashamed
William first-person-authoritatively ascribes an array of features to the
rendition (concerning Son House’s tone, cadence, relations to Blind Willie
Johnson’s version, and so on); he enjoys the verse as having that array, and
judges it beautiful on that basis. He regards the possession of the array as a
G/rendition/relevant array-universal normative reason, where he regards G
as including only those who appreciate the blues more or less as he does,
who understand the references to Genesis 3: 8 – 10, and who can compare
Son House’s rendition to other treatments of the same song, such as Blind
Willie Johnson’s. Given such a similarity group, whether someone will
acknowledge the existence of the normative reason depends on interests and
attitudes that are far less widely shared than interests and attitudes in the
Taj example. Such reasons are still shared among the relevant group and
25
are thus not idiosyncratic to the individual enjoyer. We have—we assume—
compelling reason to discover reasons we share with a like-minded
community, at least one those reasons concern something important to us.
It is illuminating to compare Jones. When he looks at the Taj, he does
not believe that there is an underived G-universal normative reason to enjoy
the Taj. His reasons to enjoy the Taj are entirely derived reasons. In this
regard, Jones’ attitude toward the Taj is similar to his attitude toward
bittersweet chocolate, which he also enjoys. He devotes some time and
attention to enjoying the chocolate because he believes more enjoyment is,
other things being equal, better than less, and because the thinks a full life
should have some room for sensory pleasures. He does not, however, think
that anyone who believes that the chocolate is bittersweet will also believe
that there is an underived normative reason to enjoy the chocolate as
bittersweet. We do not deny that a chocolate gourmet might have such a
belief. The gourmet, aware of chocolate’s manifold possibilities, might locate
the particular realization of bitter sweetness offered by this piece of chocolate
in a complex of similar discriminations which reveal the realization of the
taste as something that should be highly prized. Jones, however, is no
chocolate gourmet; he just tastes an undifferentiated bitter sweetness, and
by no means believes that there is an underived normative reason to enjoy
the chocolate as bittersweet. The enjoyment of beauty differs in precisely
this way from the routine enjoyment of chocolate. One who finds an item
beautiful sees it as making a claim on everyone that it should be enjoyed—
everyone, that is, who forms the relevant first-person-authoritative belief.
26
One of course sometimes also thinks that everyone should form the
relevant belief. Many evidently take such a view of the Taj, one of the Seven
Wonders of the World. Those who take this view regard those who fail to
believe as they to as suffering from an impaired apprehension of the item: if
they were just able to apprehend the item in an unimpaired way, they would
form the relevant belief. We will consider such cases in more detail in
Section IV. At the moment, however, the point to emphasize is that there
are many examples in which it just reveals one’s lack of appreciation of the
ways in which others may be different to insist that others should believe as
one does.
To summarize, we restate the suggested characterization of the
relevant type of enjoyment. One enjoys an item x as having an organized
array A of features, where for some similarity group G,
(1) one first-person-authoritatively believes x has A;
(2) that belief is an underived active reason to enjoy of x as having A;
(3) one regards x’s having A as a underived G-universal normative reason
for any member of G to enjoy x as having A;
(4) one’s enjoyment of x causes or causally sustains (3).
We turn to the causal claim.
C. Causation
The causal claim is that your enjoyment causes you to regard your
belief that the Taj has a certain array of features as an underived G-universal
normative reason to enjoy the item as having that array. The claim resolves
an otherwise awkward difficulty. To see the problem, suppose Ed has never
27
seen Gauguin’s Riders On The Beach. The first time he lays eyes on it, he
enjoys it in the special way just characterized and judges it beautiful. It
follows that he regards the relevant first-person-authoritative belief that the
painting has a certain array of features as an underived G-universal
normative reason to enjoy the item as having that array. A difficulty is that
it is far from routine to form the conviction that an underived normative
reason exists as the result of a single experience of a particular item, as the
following example illustrates.
A mugger threatens Victoria with a knife. She could safely retreat, but
she does not consider that option; attitudes inculcated through years of selfdefense classes take hold, and, confident that she can repel the attacker, she
stands her ground. When he attacks, it is necessary for her to use deadly
force to repel the danger, and she kills the would-be mugger. Was there an
underived normative reason for Victoria to retreat? And, if so, should that
reason have been a decisive one? One might think that respect for life—even
the life of a mugger—requires retreat when it is safely available. Suppose
Victoria’s friend Edwards is inclined to think so; however, upon viewing the
entire incident on video captured by a nearby security camera, he finds
himself inclined to believe that no normative reason existed for Victoria to
retreat. Edwards, however, does not yet believe that no normative reason
existed. He takes his inclination to so believe as a starting point for
discussion and investigation; if he pursues the matter, he will see if others
agree, if his view of Victoria is consistent with other particular and general
28
judgments about normative reasons. He may, as a result of this inquiry,
believe that no normative reason existed.
So what explains your regarding the belief about the Taj as sufficient
to establish the existence of a normative reason? Because your enjoyment
causes you to regard the belief in that way. Through enjoyment, beauty
takes hold of one and makes one believe that there is a normative reason for
one—anyone who apprehends it as one does—to enjoy it.2
A further elaboration of the Taj example provides support. Disturbed
by his failure to find the Taj beautiful, Jones returns the next day, having
spent the prior evening studying expert discussions of the Taj. He looks at
the Taj again—armed this time with a thorough knowledge of the features
the experts regard as contributing to the Taj’s beauty. When he looks at the
Taj, he sees that it does indeed have the organized array of features the
experts identify. He even sees this through his own eyes; that is, he forms
the first-person authoritative belief that the Taj has the array. He enjoys the
Taj as having that array, and the belief serves as an active reason to enjoy
the Taj.
He even regards the belief that the Taj has the array as an
underived normative reason to enjoy the Taj as having that array. But he
There is an interesting, but ultimately misleading, analogy to the way in which
persons close to Victoria or the mugger would generally be more inclined to see the
presence or absence of decisive normative reasons in that example. One might be
inclined to suggest that, just as love generates partiality in human affairs, beauty
encourages a partiality of perception. But there is an important difference. In the
example of Victoria and the mugger, it would be an interest in Victoria or the mugger
that would generate the belief in the existence or absence of the reason. The
enjoyment of beauty is, as we emphasized earlier, disinterested. One who judges an
item beautiful thinks anyone who forms the relevant first-person-authoritative belief
will recognize the existence of the relevant normative reason—no matter what other
interests they may have or lack.
2
29
regards the belief in this way only because his reading of the experts has
convinced him it is true. He finds no ground for the belief in his own
experience. As he says, “The Taj does not speak to me in the way it
evidently speaks to others,” and he still does not find the Taj beautiful. He
thinks it is a nicely designed building, and he enjoys the harmony of the
design, but, as far as he is concerned, the Taj belongs with the wide variety
of other things—including tastefully appointed bathrooms, HBO’s Sex and the
City, and an immense variety of faces and bodies—that he enjoys as
harmoniously designed but does not regard as beautiful. He continues to
regard the belief that the Taj has the array as an underived normative reason
to enjoy the Taj as having that array, but this belief persists in spite of, not
because of, his experiences.
Now imagine that, in the midst of his disappointment about not finding
the Taj beautiful, Jones notices the unexpected presence of a friend, who is
also contemplating the Taj. They fall into conversation for some time, and,
then, in a lull in the conversation, Jones happens, without thinking about it,
to look back at the Taj. He looks without any expectations, without any
explicit thought about the expert-identified features which he was
scrutinizing earlier. Suddenly, the building speaks to him in a way it did not
before: he enjoys it has having the expert-identified array of features, and,
this time, the enjoyment causes him to regard his belief that it has the array
as an underived normative reason to enjoy the Taj.
This time the belief
persists because of, not in spite of his experiences. Jones thinks, “Now I see!
It is beautiful!”
30
In general, when one enjoys an item one finds beautiful, one’s
enjoyment of the item testifies to its own justification by causing one to
regard one’s belief that the item has an array of features as an underived
normative reason to enjoy the item. Our talk of causation here is to be
understood in the context of everyday causal explanations. The identification
of causes in such explanations is highly pragmatic. When eight-year-old
Sally asks her mother why the mill wheel turns, Catherine replies that the
wheel turns because the water strikes it. When Sally, now an
undergraduate, is working on a similar homework problem for her Physics
course, her answer includes a calculation of the friction in the mill’s system.
Our only claim is that we can, and do, make distinctions of the sort
illustrated by the Jones example—between convictions that persist in spite
of, not because of one’s experiences, and convictions that persist because of,
not in spite of, them.
This completes our argument that one’s enjoyment causes one to
regard the proposition that x has A as an underived G-universal normative
reason to enjoy x as having A; however, before we leave the topic of
enjoyment and causation, we should note that that the causal relation also
runs the other way: other things being equal, one’s belief that the normative
reason exists causally supports one’s enjoyment. The enjoyment of beauty
captures us in a feedback loop: the enjoyment causes one to recognize the
existence of a normative reason, which causes the enjoyment, which causes
the recognition of the reason, which causes the enjoyment, and so on ad
infinitum—or, in reality, until some natural limit (mental exhaustion, physical
31
fatigue, distraction, etc.) is reached. When we enjoy items we find beautiful,
our enjoyment unceasingly testifies to its own justification by continuously
causally sustaining the belief that there is an underived G-universal
normative reason to enjoy. This provides a partial explanation of beauty’s
power to hold us captive, to compel our attention and appreciation. The
feedback loop makes it hard to tear our eyes away.
It follows from general principles about reasons, that other things
being equal, one’s belief that the normative reason exists causally supports
one’s enjoyment. Other things being equal, if one regards a proposition p as
a normative reason to do A, then, if one believes that p, that belief will
function as an active reason to do A. By way of illustration, you believe that
the proposition that the Taj has the relevant array is a normative reason to
enjoy the Taj as having the array. Hence, other things being equal, your
belief will serve as an active reason to enjoy the Taj as having the array.
Other things being equal, if one has an active reason to do A, then one will
do A for that reason. Thus, other things being equal, you will act so as to
continue to enjoy the Taj as having the relevant array. When you act so as
to continue to enjoy the Taj, other things being equal, your attempt to do so
will be successful. Thus, not only does one’s enjoyment cause one to believe
in the existence of a normative reason, that belief leads, other things being
equal, to one’s continuing to enjoy.
A final point: there is an additional dimension to the causal “feedback
loop.” As we enjoy the work we attend to it, and as we attend to it we may
(or may not) discover additional features of the work which give it even
32
greater power for us, which then feeds back into our enjoyment, and so on.
The Taj example illustrates the point. The array of features you first-personauthoritatively believe the Taj to have is the initial focal point of your
enjoyment; however, as you continue to enjoy the Taj, the array of features
you subjectively ascribe to the Taj may increase in number and complexity,
and your original enjoyment of the item as having the array A may transform
into the enjoyment of the Taj as having the more complex array A’; A’ then
becomes the focal point of your continued contemplation and investigation of
the Taj, with the result that the array of features you subjectively ascribe to
the Taj, which may increase in complexity . . . and so on—until some natural
limit is reached (or perhaps, for optimists, once the critical task of
understanding the artwork is fully complete).
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
those in the relevant similarity group will, other things being equal, b-enjoy
the item as having a specific organized array of features, provided they form
the first-person-authoritative belief that the item has the array. In addition,
33
we require that one regard one’s own enjoyment is a sufficient reason for the
judgment. There are of course other possible grounds for the judgment, but,
our concern is with making the judgment on the basis of one’s b-enjoyment.
To do so is to regards one’s enjoyment as an exemplar of what all relevant
others will also experience. We take this to be the characteristic attitude of
one who judges something beautiful on the basis of his or her enjoyment,
not solely on the reports of others or other sorts of extrinsic evidence.
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
G-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.
We have just argued that one who makes a judgment of beauty
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
34
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. Showing that the argument is not correct is a key step in motivating
our account of the judgment of beauty.
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.” We claim that one’s benjoyment yields a reason sufficient to support a claim to know that relevant
others will b-enjoy the item. The “relevant others” are the similarity group
members who form an appropriate first-person-authoritative belief.3 The
members of the group are sufficiently relevantly similar to oneself that one
can reliably infer that appropriately-believing members will b-enjoy what one
does.4 The problem with these claims is that they appear patently false.
One routinely encounters disagreement with one’s judgments of
beauty. Imagine, for example, that, in a discussion with his friend, Roger,
William expresses his belief that the “naked and ashamed” verse in Son
House’ rendition of John The Revelator is beautiful. William is confident
Roger will agree; he knows from the discussion that they both have formed
very similar first-person-authoritative beliefs about the verse, and he knows
Kant makes a similar, but much stronger claim: his relevant others are all of
humanity (at least in his favored case of free beauty).
3
For Kant, the shared human nature is transcendental: all human beings have the
same faculties of Imagination and Understanding, operating in the same ways.
4
35
Roger belongs to the appropriate similarity group: they share a very similar
understanding and appreciation of the blues; Roger is understands and
appreciates the references to Genesis, and he is very familiar with other
renditions of John the Revelator. Roger does not, however, think the verse is
beautiful. “I think it is very fine,” he says, “and I love listening to it, but—
beautiful? No, I draw the line there. Beautiful it is not.” Such
disagreements are commonplace. Appropriately-believing others whom one,
on excellent grounds, regards as relevantly similar nonetheless often reject
one’s judgments of beauty. The solitary b-enjoyer who declares, “My benjoyment is sufficient reason to attribute a like enjoyment to all relevant
others,” would appear to be clinging to slender reed of support, one quickly
crushed the obvious fact of widespread disagreement.
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.
We illustrate the foregoing claim with an example. The example does not
involve beauty or enjoyment. We will, however, claim that the situation of
one who judges something beautiful is analogous.
A. Sufficient Reason in the Face of Disagreement
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
36
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
37
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 G-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
38
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 five options.
1. Refusing to revise
39
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 Guniversal 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 an underived G-universal 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
40
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.
The claim that other things are not equal is not a plausible defense if a
sufficient number of those who form the appropriate first-personauthoritative belief fail to b-enjoy the item. It is, of course, possible for
“other things” not to be “equal” in such a case; evil space aliens may have
distorted the responses of almost everyone. Such eventualities are
extremely unlikely, however. So what are Carol’s options if a significant
number of people disagree with her judgment that the David is beautiful?
2. Revising the first-person-authoritative belief
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 self-
41
consciousness, 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
42
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. Relativization
Another way to defend one’s judgment of beauty against disagreement
is to revise the similarity group. To judge that something is beautiful is to
judge that appropriately-believing others in the relevant similarity group will,
other things being equal, b-enjoy the item. By way of illustration, suppose
Vicki reads Wallace Steven’s Sunday Morning, a poem offering Stevens’
reflections, from a distinctly non-Christian perspective, on the Christian story
of the crucifixion of Christ, the sacrament of communion, and the Christian
promise of immortality. She forms the first-person-authoritative belief that
the poem has a certain array of features (concerning the elegance of the
language, the power of the metaphors to capture aspects of the Christian
themes of communion, suffering, salvation, and immortality); she b-enjoys
the poem as having that array, and, on that basis, judges it beautiful. That
is, she thinks that appropriately-believing others in the relevant similarity
group will, other things being equal, b-enjoy the item. In her enthusiasm for
the poem, she takes the relevant similarity group include anyone with
43
sufficient knowledge of Christianity. A few days later, she encounters
Guanglei, a Buddhist, is a counter-intelligence analyst for the Chinese
government. He has thoroughly studied Christianity and Christian culture,
and, when he reads Sunday Morning, he easily forms a first-personauthoritative belief which is not at all dissimilar to the one Vicki forms, but he
does not b-enjoy the poem as having that array. He does not in fact enjoy
the poem in any way at all, but, even if he did, his enjoyment would not
amount to b-enjoyment as he does not, and would not, regard the poem’s
possession of the array of features he attributes to it as normative reason for
him to enjoy the poem. The poem offers him a vision of an alien world,
which he understands, but with which he does not identify or sympathize. In
response to Guanglei’s reaction, Vicki revises her judgment of beauty; she
now restricts her prediction of b-enjoyment to those who are not only
sufficiently familiar with Christianity but who also have an affective
attachment to it similar to her own. Vicki could have tried to avoid this
revision by claiming that other things are not equal in Guanglei’s case. The
boundaries of “other things are not equal” claims are hardly clear, but we
interpret such claims as asserting interferences with processes and attitudes
that would otherwise yield a particular result, and we do not think it is
plausible to posit such interference in cases like Guanglei’s.
Some debates about beauty are plausibly regarded as debates about
the proper relativization of a judgment of beauty. Consider Vladimir
Nabokov’s novel, Pale Fire, for example. The novel contains a long poem by
the—fictional—famous poet, John Shade; the poem is preceded by an
44
introduction by Shade’s fictional friend, Charles Kinbote; Kinbote’s
commentary, correlated with the poem’s numbered lines, follows the poem.
The poem and Kinbote’s observations comprise a highly allusive and selfreferential narrative in which Shade and Kinbote are the characters. The
novel makes considerable demands on the readers intellectual abilities,
sophistication, and literary knowledge (the title, “Pale Fire,” for example, is
from Act IV, scene 3 of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens: "The moon's an
arrant thief, / And her pale fire she snatches from the sun", a line
traditionally interpreted as a metaphor for creativity and inspiration). Carol
and Mason both first-person-authoritatively attribute more or less similar
arrays of features to the novel; each b-enjoys it as having the relevant array,
and each judges it beautiful on that basis. They restrict their respective
judgments to different similarity groups, however. Carol excludes from her
group traditionalists about the novel who regard Pale Fire as “self-referential
trash”; Mason includes them on the theory that they would abandon their
“self-referential trash” assessment if they were ever to form a first-personauthoritative belief about the novel similar to Mason’s own. Mason is
convinced that if they could see the novel through his eyes, they would
indeed b-enjoy it and judge it beautiful. Carol is convinced they would not.
Mason attributes greater power to the novel to generate b-enjoyment than
Carol does.
The extent of an item’s power to generate b-enjoyment matters.
Compare the community that b-enjoys Pale Fire as having arrays of features
similar to those Carol and Mason attribute to it to the community that b-
45
enjoys the Taj. Members of each group are convinced their b-enjoyments
reveal a contingency-transcending G-universal normative reason; however,
the contingency transcending vision of the Pale Fire group is available to the
relatively few capable of understanding the novel; the vision of the Taj
group, however, is accessible to many. One cares about both. The benjoyments accessible only to “specialist” groups may offer profound
insights, but few would forego membership is wide reaching communities
such as those who b-enjoy the Taj.
C. Knowledge?
If one successfully defends one’s judgment of beauty in one or more of
the above ways, does one thereby qualify as knowing that appropriatelybelieving others in the relevant similarity group will b-enjoy the item? The
analogy with the Sicilian Four Knights Defense is instructive. If Ricardo
examines enough key variations and discovers that they all lead to a roughly
equal game for Black, he certainly knows that the defense generally leads to
an equal game. In the case of a judgment of beauty, can one “examine
enough key variations”? Carol has when she judges that the David is
beautiful—or, better, people have. Carol b-enjoys the statue for the way the
sensuous harmony of the naked form expresses composure, confidence, and
readiness for action, and judges that those who form the same or similar
first-person-authoritative belief will, other things being equal, b-enjoy the
David as having the same or similar array of features. The group that has
made the same or more or less similar judgment is quite large, and has
46
endured as a sizable group from the creation of the statute in 1504 to the
present. Against the background of such extensive agreement, Carol knows
that the relevant others will b-enjoy the statue. The background of
agreement need not be agreement about the particular item one judges
beautiful. Imagine Carol sees the face of man on the street during a trip to
Beijing, b-enjoys the man’s face, and judges it beautiful. She will never see
the man among, nor ever meet anyone who has, but the face is similar to
those that people have for centuries judged beautiful. Compare a case of
“unique beauty.” Suppose Carol is the first to see a new painting by an
aspiring artist. The painting is as innovative as impressionist painting was
when it first appeared. She thinks the painting is beautiful, but there is no
David-like history she can rely on to support her claim that others will benjoy the painting; indeed, apart from her and the artist, there is no history
of others judging, or refusing to judge, the painting beautiful. Of course,
Carol—and others—can develop a relevant history by determining whether
others agree with her judgment of beauty, and, if there is sufficient
agreement, she will at some point know that others will b-enjoy. It is
important not to overemphasize the importance of knowledge in this context.
Carol’s interactions with others not only confirm or disconfirm whether others
agree, they may also build one or more communities of like b-enjoyers.
Consider that the process involves determining whether other things are
equal, whether the first-person-authoritative-belief should be revised, or
whether the similarity group should be redefined. The process may (need
not, but may) lead various groups to the same or similar first-person-
47
authoritative belief that the painting has a certain array of properties, and to
b-enjoy the painting as having that array. One may care as much or more
about the formation of such communities as one does about whether one
ultimately achieves knowledge. Of course, none of this may happen. The
artist may abandon painting to go to law school, and burn his paintings,
leaving Carol the only one who has seen them. In this case, Carol may never
know whether others would have b-enjoyed them.
IV. False Positives, False Negatives
False positives and false negatives would show that our account of the
judgment of beauty is incorrect. False positives are cases in which the
definition is fulfilled but in which one withholds any judgment of beauty; false
negatives, cases in which one makes a judgment of beauty when the
definition is not fulfilled. We consider a number of false negatives and false
positives. Our goal is not merely to dispose of objections, but to illustrate
the explanatory power of the account.
B. False negatives
1. Simples
On our account, a completely uniform shade of blue could not be
judged beautiful; only items which one regards as having an organized array
of features can be so judged. This may seem questionable. After all, people
do say, “That is a beautiful shade of blue,” and, in any case, to avoid the
charge of arbitrariness, the requirement of an organized array needs a
justification.
48
To begin with, one should set aside examples which do not really
involve a uniform shade and which are not disallowed by our account. A
shade of blue can be the dominant feature in a b-enjoyed organized array of
features (in an abstract painting, for example) where that b-enjoyment
serves as the reason for a judgment of beauty; further, a “color connoisseur”
(an artist, for example) might first-person-authoritatively attribute to a
shade of blue an organized array of relations to other shades of that color, benjoy the shade as having that array, and, on that basis, judge it beautiful.
What follows from our account is that one cannot b-enjoy a shade of blue as
merely having the feature being that shade of blue. Since we require that benjoyment be the reason for one’s judgment of beauty, it follows that one
cannot judge the shade beautiful.
To justify this result, suppose one did claim to b-enjoy the shade of
blue merely as being that shade. That is, one claims that, for some similarity
group G,
(1) one first-person-authoritatively believes the color is the relevant
shade of blue;
(2) that belief is an underived active reason to enjoy of the color as that
shade of blue;
(3) one regards the proposition that the color is that shade of blue as an
underived G-universal normative reason for any member of G to enjoy
the color as being that shade;
(4) one’s enjoyment causes or causally sustains (3).
49
(3) is the problem. One cannot coherently regard the proposition that the
color is that shade of blue as an underived G-universal normative reason for
any member of G to enjoy the color as being that shade. Our argument
appeals to general limitations on what one can coherently regard as a reason
for action. One cannot, for example, coherently regard the belief that there
will be a full moon as a reason to seek a new proof that no positive integers
a, b, and c satisfy the equation an + bn = cn, for n greater than 2 (Fermat’s
Last Theorem). We first explain why this is so, and then return to the shade
of blue issue.
Limitations on what one can regard as a reason for action arise
because one cannot coherently claim that a belief is a reason for action
without being able, in principle, to offer others an explanation of why the
belief provides as least some justification for performing the action. The
others may reject the explanation, but what one offers must qualify as a
candidate explanation. One may object that one can indeed meet this
requirement with regard to offering the belief that the moon is full as a
reason to seek a new proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem; one could easily meet
the requirement if one lived in a community of astrologers who believed in
appropriate connections among astronomical events and mathematical
discoveries. But no one, or almost no one, lives in such a community, and
absent such convictions, one could only sketch what would be a candidate
explanation if one were a member of a community with appropriate beliefs.
One cannot count as offering even a candidate explanation of why moon’s
being full provided a reason to seek a new proof unless one actually believes
50
things that one regards as weighing in favor of thinking that the moon’s
being full provides some degree of justification for seeking a new proof. No
one, at least almost no one, has such beliefs. To avoid misunderstanding,
we should emphasize that we are not embracing a “community relativism”
about reasons; we do not think that a belief qualifies as a reason only
relative to this or that community. We are just emphasizing two facts: first,
to claim that a belief is a reason is to commit oneself to being able in
principle to offer others an explanation of the justificatory force of the belief;
second, one’s beliefs impose limits on what one can offer as a candidate
explanation. This is consistent with an anti-relativism that recognizes
principles for assessing, criticizing, and revising views about what counts as
an explanation that are valid independent of the views of any particular
community.
Now let us return to the question of whether one can regard the belief
that an object has a uniform shade of blue as an underived G-universal
normative reason to enjoy the item as having that shade. One who so
regards the belief is committed to offering a candidate explanation to others
of why the belief qualifies as an underived G-universal normative reason to
enjoy. The task is demanding. The reason must be underived, so one
cannot appeal to reasons for other ends for which enjoying the shade would
be a means. The reason must be G-universal, so one must attempt to
explain why anyone who formed the belief that the item had the relevant
shade of blue would also believe that there was a normative reason to enjoy
the thing as having that shade. One could meet these demands if, for
51
example, one believed that by enjoying the shade one would be granted a
vision of the ultimate spiritual reality and that one’s life would thereby be
transformed for the better. We do not, however, think that the vast majority
of people have beliefs that would support any candidate explanation at all.
One issue remains: remarks like, “That is a beautiful shade of blue.”
These can be understood as claiming the blue is particularly pleasing,
suitable, or whatever.
2. Beauty without a G-universal reason
It appears that one can judge that something is beautiful without
regarding the proposition that the item has a certain array of features as a
G-universal normative reason. If history had been different, impressionist
painting would have been an example. Impressionism was not well received
when it first appeared (Henry James, for example, lamented the retreat from
the “good old rules that decree that beauty is beauty and ugliness,
ugliness”5). Imagine a world in which impressionism never catches on;
painters eventually stop painting in that style; only a single impressionist
painter remains. Imagine him looking at one of his paintings. As he does so,
he fulfills the following conditions:
(1’) he first-person-authoritatively believes the painting has a certain
array A of features;
(2’) that belief is an underived active reason to enjoy the painting as
having that array;
5
Henry James, “Parisian Festivity,” New York Tribune, 13 May 1876.
52
(3’) he regards the proposition that the painting has the array as an
underived normative reason for him to enjoy the painting as having A;
(4’) his enjoyment causes or causally sustains (3).
The above conditions are almost the conditions for b-enjoyment. The only
difference is in (3’), which omits the provision that the painter regard the
reason as G-universal.
The objection is that the painter may judge the painting beautiful on
the basis of the enjoyment characterized by (1’) – (4’) and hence that benjoyment is not required as the reason for a judgment of beauty. To make
his plausible, suppose that, over the years since the disappearance of
impressionism, the painter has encountered many who have looked at the
painting and formed first-person-authoritative beliefs very similar to the
painters; however, not a single one of them has thought the relevant
normative reason existed. They understood the painting, they just didn’t like
it. The negative responses have worn the painter down to the point at
which, when he looks at the painting, he no longer expects anyone else to
agree with him that the normative reason exists.
Our answer is that when the painter fulfills (1’) – (4’), there is a
similarity group G such that he regards the proposition that the painting has
the array as an underived G-universal normative reason for anyone in G to
enjoy the painting as having A. The group consists of anyone who shares his
attitudes and reactions to impressionism. That group currently consists, as
far as he knows, only of himself; however, even when, at a certain time, a
similarity group consists just of oneself, one may still judge a painting
53
beautiful on the basis of the related b-enjoyment. We offer the following
considerations in defense of this claim.
We begin with the observation that groups of people making the same
judgment of beauty can be categorized along two dimensions. The first is
the size of the group that b-enjoys the item as having more or less the same
array of features. The “more or less” allows variation in enjoyed arrays; they
must just be more alike than they are different. The second dimension is
temporal duration, the length of time the group exists. Michelangelo’s David
illustrates both ideas. Recall Carol’s judgment that the David is beautiful.
She b-enjoys the statue for the way the sensuous harmony of the naked
form expresses composure, confidence, and readiness for action, and judges
that those who form the same or similar first-person-authoritative belief will,
other things being equal, b-enjoy the David as having the same or similar
array of features. The group that has made the same or more or less similar
judgment is quite large, and has endured as a sizable group from the
creation of the statute in 1504 to the present. Similar remarks hold for the
Taj, the Parthenon, and selections from Shakespeare, Goethe, and Keats, to
take just a few examples.
Contrast the judgment that 1960 pop song Teen Angel is beautiful. In
the song, the narrator’s car stalls on a railroad track; he helps his girlfriend
to safety, but she runs back to the car and is killed when the train strikes;
they find the narrator’s high school ring in her hand. The group that judges
the song beautiful is small (if indeed it exists), and it most likely reached its
maximum size around February 1960 when Teen Angel ranked number one
54
on the U. S. Billboard Hot 100. The group has dwindled since then.
Innumerable examples fall between these extremes, including Sunday
Morning and Pale Fire. The former, like the David, has a large group that
judges it beautiful on the basis of b-enjoying it as exhibiting arrays of
features that are more or less similar, and the group has remained sizable
since the first publication of the poem in 1915; unlike the David, which has
cross-cultural appeal, the group that judges Sunday Morning beautiful is
almost certainly restricted to those with sufficient emotional and intellectual
attachment to Christianity and Christian culture. The group that judges Pale
Fire beautiful is even more restricted, given the demands the work makes on
its readers; nonetheless, a sizeable group has endured since the book’s 1952
publication.
We concede that, when one expresses a judgment of beauty, others
most naturally understand the judgment as follows: one judges that others
who form the appropriate first-person-authoritative belief will, other things
being equal, b-enjoy the item as having a specific organized array of
features, where, at the time of the judgment, the relevant similarity group is,
or under appropriate circumstances would be, a reasonably sizable group
that is a successor to similar groups extending significantly back into time
(more or less like the groups that, for example, judge the Taj, Sunday
Morning, and Pale Fire beautiful). The “or under appropriate circumstances
would be” qualification allows one to judge something beautiful in this way
even if few, if any, others have encountered it. The rationale for this attitude
lies in a point we emphasized earlier: to regard a reason as G-universal is to
55
regard it as transcending the contingencies of one’s particular situation—in
the sense that others in other situations with other attitudes and interests
also acknowledge the reason. The larger and more diverse the similarity
group, the less one’s recognition depends on idiosyncratic attitudes and
interest, and the more it depends only on widely shared attitudes and
interests. Given one’s compelling reason to discover such contingencytranscending reasons, our interest in judgments of beauty involving sizeable
similarity groups is understandable. This does not, however, mean that,
when the similarity group consists just of oneself, one cannot judge
something beautiful on the basis of the related b-enjoyment. It just means
that others may not be much interested in the judgment.
3. Beauty without enjoyment
There are some examples that suggest b-enjoyment—indeed,
enjoyment in general—is not required for a judgment of beauty. Goya’s
Third of May is an example. It is arguably a case of what one might call
“horrific beauty.” The center of the painting is occupied by a white-shirted
guerilla with arms outstretched about to be shot by faceless firing line of
blue-uniformed French soldiers, who are executing the lined up guerillas with
mechanical precision. The following seems extremely plausible: only an
extremely perverse person would enjoy contemplating the horrific scene;
nonetheless, the painting, a masterpiece, has a beauty that makes it
depiction of the horror all the more effective. There is a large and complex
literature addressing “horrific beauty”; we offer the following reflections, not
56
as a decisive treatment, but as an indication that our account of beauty has
resources that may shed some light on such case.
We agree of course that only the very perverse would enjoy the horror
just for the horror, but this is consistent with b-enjoying the painting as
having an array of features that concern its artistic merits—it masterful
composition, use of color, and effective depiction of the contrast between the
guerilla’s and the French army. One can b-enjoy the painting as having this
array, and judge it beautiful on that basis. The enjoyment aids one in
looking at the horror, from which one might otherwise turn away.
Our answer to the Goya example depends on the claim that one does
not enjoy the horror. One may well object that many who watch horror films
enjoy being horrified. Surely, there is no reason to deny that they can benjoy the horrific aspects of a particularly artfully executed film, but no one
would claim the horror was beautiful.
We do deny that the horrific aspects of the film are b-enjoyed. To benjoy the horror one must regard the relevant first-person authoritative
belief as a underived G-universal normative reason to enjoy the horror. That
is, one must think that anyone who so believed would think there was an
underived normative reason to enjoy the horror. For most, if not all, horror
films, no one will believe this (or, if they do, they will soon be corrected).
Not everyone enjoys horror films; many are repulsed. Those who are
repulsed may form the same first-person-authoritative beliefs as those who
enjoy the films, but they will hardly regard that belief as a underived Guniversal normative reason to enjoy the horror.
57
One may object that the objection gains power if we change the
example from horror films. Consider Matthias Grünewald’s picture of the
crucified Christ, which depicts the horror of the crucifixion. It is fairly
standard commentary on the painting that, in presenting the horror,
Grünewald’s goal was not beauty but a sermon in pictures. Someone might
b-enjoy the painting. Imagine that Perry, in despair over the troubles in his
life, finds himself in front of the picture. As he contemplates the suffering
Christ, he suddenly no longer feels lost and alone in his own suffering, which,
in a sudden reversal of attitude, Perry now sees as a path to purification and
salvation, and, as he looks the picture, he b-enjoys Christ’s purifying-pathto-salvation-suffering; in particular, he thinks anyone who sees the picture as
he does would believe that there is a normative reason to enjoy Christ’s
purifying-path-to-salvation-suffering. Isn’t Perry an example of b-enjoying
something without judging it beautiful? We do not think so. We think that
one who b-enjoys the painting in the way described will also judge it
beautiful. Indeed, Perry might well describe his experience this way: “When
I saw the beauty in Christ’s suffering, I realized my own suffering was the
path to my salvation.” In general, the “horrific beauty” examples divide into
two types: those in which the horror, which (virtually) no one would judge
beautiful, is enjoyed but not b-enjoyed; and those in which the horror is benjoyed but judged beautiful.
4. Beauty without causation
58
The account requires that one’s enjoyment causes the belief that there
is an underived G-universal normative reason to enjoy. The following
example appears to show that this is not required. An elderly museum
curator is looking at his favorite Gauguin. He forms the first-person
authoritative belief that the painting has a certain—to him long-familiar—
array of features; the belief serves as an active reason; and, as result of his
enjoyment, he regards the belief as a belief universal underived normative
reason. But all this quickly fades away. His consciousness is flooded with
memories of his youth combined with an attention-consuming awareness of
the comparative shortness of the rest of his life. His conviction that a
normative reason exists to enjoy the painting cannot hold these thoughts at
bay, and they rob that conviction of his causal power to sustain his
enjoyment. The curator can nonetheless judge the painting beautiful on the
basis of his present enjoyment.
We agree that the curator can judge the painting beautiful, and that he
can do so on the basis of his present enjoyment. However, that enjoyment
is a pale reflection of what it once was. We take the robust enjoyment
sustained by the feedback loop, not the curator’s pale refection thereof, to be
the paradigm case of enjoying beauty. Indeed, if the curator had never benjoyed the painting with the causal feedback loop in place, he would not, at
least not without qualification, judge it beautiful. His attitude would be that
something is missing, that it is not quite beautiful. (An interesting
suggestion, which we will not purse, is that the pretty is characterized by benjoyment without causation.)
59
B. False positives
1. Wine, chocolate, and chess
Compare “Michelangelo’s David is beautiful” with “This Côtes du Rhône
is beautiful.” Although wine connoisseurs sometimes describe wines as
beautiful, wine is hardly the example one would produce if asked for a
paradigm case of beauty, and—as we will argue shortly—for good reason.
Our account of beauty, however, there is no relevant difference between
judging the David beautiful and making the same judgment about the Côtes
du Rhône. Imagine Robert, the gout-ridden wine critic, tastes a wine. He benjoys the wine. That is: (1) he forms a first-person authoritative belief
ascribing array A of features to the wine; he finds in it an aroma of cherry
and a touch of smoke combined with light taste of tannin and a soft taste of
red fruit, spice, and earth). (2) This belief motivates and justifies his
enjoyment of the wine for its own sake; that is, that belief is an underived
active reason to enjoy of the wine has having that array. Further, as a
deeply committed wine connoisseur, he thinks he should believe that the
wine has that array, and that the belief should serve as an underived active
reason. That is, he regards the proposition that the wine has A as an
underived normative reason for him to enjoy the wine as having A. In
addition, for a similarity group G of wine connoisseurs of similarity
sophistication and discriminatory abilities, he thinks that if one of them forms
the same or sufficiently similar first-person-authoritative belief, he or she will
also believe that he regards the proposition that the wine has A as an
underived normative reason for him to enjoy the wine as having A. That is,
60
(3) he regards the proposition that the wine has the array as an underived
G-universal normative reason for any member of G to enjoy the wine as
having A. Finally, his enjoyment causes or causally sustains (3). On the
basis of his b-enjoyment, Robert judges the wine is beautiful.
Similar
remarks hold for b-enjoying the complexities of chocolate, or any item one
can experience with sensations of sufficient structure and complexity.
We think the wine, chocolate, and the like can be beautiful; however,
we also think there is an important difference between, for example, judging
a wine beautiful and judging the David beautiful. Take the latter example
first. Now, by way of contrast, suppose Barbara and Carol are looking at the
David; unlike Carol, Barbara fails to b-enjoy it. When Barbara expresses her
disappointment, her remarks reveal that, unlike Carol, she does not firstperson-authoritatively believe that statue to evince a sensuous harmony
expressive composure, confidence, and readiness for action. Indeed, she
fails to first-person-authoritatively attribute any organized array of features
to the statue; it is, for her, just a lifeless piece of marble. To aid Barbara in
forming an appropriate first-person-authoritative belief, Carol calls Barbara’s
attention to the way the left leg is bent, the bend and slight turn at the waist,
and the way the head is turned directing the gaze to the left and exhibiting
the muscles of the neck; and he could ask her to try to see all these as
combining to express concentration and readiness for movement. The
essential point is that Carol can aid Barbara by directing attention to publicly
accessible features of the statue. This is possible in many—but we do not
61
claim all—cases. One can often refer to publicly accessible features when
trying to assist others to form an appropriate first-person authoritative belief.
Compare the wine example. Imagine that Barbara neither smells the
cherry aroma and touch of smoke, nor tastes the tannins, red fruit, spice,
and earth. To help her detect these features, Paul, a wine connoisseur, could
have her taste other wines with similar but more easily detectable features;
after sufficient practice with these wines, Barbara might be able to detect the
features that initially eluded her. Paul does not, however, typically direct
Barbara’s attention to publicly accessible features of the wine. He might call
her attention to the wine’s color and viscosity, but this aid Barbara little, if
any, in detecting the aromas and tastes that elude her. One may well object
that aromas and tastes are “publicly accessible” features of wines. They are
in the sense that there is remarkable agreement among wine experts—welltrained sommeliers, for example—on aromas and tastes. We have no wish to
deny this. Our point is that such features are less accessible in the sense
that reliably detecting them typically requires considerable specialized
experience and training.
It matters whether one can refer to generally publicly accessible
features when trying to assist others to form an appropriate first-person
authoritative belief. Iris Murdoch emphasizes similar point about art:
The accessible existence of art, its ability to hang luminously in human
minds at certain times, depends traditionally upon an external being, a
fairly precise and fixed sensory notation or ‘body’, an authority to
which the client intermittently submits himself. . . Art experience . . .
62
is something we can self-evidently and identifiably have and enjoy, in
various ways in various materials.6
We think a similar point holds for beauty: the “ability [of beauty] to hang
luminously in human minds at certain times, depends [in a range of central
and important—but not all—cases] upon an external being . . . an authority
to which the client intermittently submits himself.” The publicly accessible
features (accessible with out specialized experience and training) provide an
“external authority,” shared external point of reference around which
communities of like b-enjoyers may readily form.
We do not, however, wish to overemphasize the role of publicly
accessible features. By way of counterpoint, consider the conversion of M.
Alphonse Ratisbonne, a Jew by birth and, for the first part of his life, an
atheist by conviction. When Alphonse entered a chapel devoted to the Virgin
Mary, he had a vision of the Virgin and was instantly converted to
Catholicism. Alphonse described his state immediately after the conversion:
I did not know where I was: I did not know whether I was Alphonse or
another. I only felt myself changed and believed myself another me; I
looked for myself in myself and did not find myself. In the bottom of
my soul I felt an explosion of the most ardent joy; I could not speak; I
had no wish to reveal what had happened . . . All that I can say is that
in an instant the bandage had fallen from my eyes, and not one
bandage only, but the whole manifold of bandages in which I had been
brought up. One after another they rapidly disappeared, even as the
mud and ice disappear under the rays of the burning sun. I came out
as from a sepulchre, from an abyss of darkness; and I was living,
perfectly living. But I wept, for at the bottom of that gulf I saw the
extreme of misery from which I had been saved by an infinite mercy.7
Iris Murdoch, Metaphysics As A Guide To Morals (Allen Lane, The Penguin Press,
1993).
6
7
William James, Principles of Psychology
63
One can readily imagine that, as part of the “explosion of the most ardent
joy,” Alphonse b-enjoyed the vision of the Virgin and judged his vision
beautiful. There are of course few publicly accessible features that one might
indicate to help others b-enjoy a similar vision. There is the chapel and its
adornments, but few who experience them experience visions.
2. The Oprah Sign
The following objection rests on two claims. First, there are attempts
to judge something beautiful that misfire so badly that one should not regard
them as genuine judgments of beauty. Second, on our account, such cases
count as entirely non-defective judgments of beauty. We offer an example
to illustrate and defend the first claim. If one finds the example
unconvincing, it poses no threat to our account of the judgment of beauty.
For those who are convinced, we contend that it follows from our account
that the purported judgment of beauty does not really qualify as one.
The example: outside Oprah’s studio in Chicago, there is a sign with a
slanted “O” on top that reads “HARPO STUDIOS,” and below that, in smaller
letters, “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” A group from a small town in Iowa
gathers before the sign on Mother’s Day; having laid flowers before it, they
contemplate it. Each forms the first-person-authoritative belief that the
script-like slanted “O” complements the straight block letter “HARPO
STUDIOS,” which is harmoniously offset by modest, “The Oprah Winfrey
Show.” In their adoration of Oprah, the features combine in a way that fills
them with awe, and, as a result, each fulfills—at least apparently fulfills—the
remaining conditions (2) – (4) of b-enjoyment: (2) the belief is an active
64
underived reason to enjoy the sign as having the array of features; (3) each
regards—or apparently regards—the sign’s having the array as a underived
G-universal normative reason to enjoy the sign as having the array; and (4)
the enjoyment causes each to so regard the sign’s having the array. On the
basis of this apparent b-enjoyment, each judges—better, appears to judge—
that others will, other things being equal, b-enjoy the sign has having the
array, provided that they form the first-person-authoritative belief that it has
the array. We first explain why, on our account, the fans do not in fact
qualify as judging that the sign is beautiful, and then we explain why this
result is desirable.
On our account, one judges something beautiful only if one’s benjoyment is one’s reason for the judgment. To fulfill this requirement, the
fans must regard the sign’s possession of the relevant array as an underived
G-universal normative reason to enjoy the item as having that array. We
contend (with qualifications) that they cannot so regard the possession of the
array. Our argument appeals to general limitations on what one can
coherently regard as a reason for action. One cannot, for example,
coherently regard the belief that there will be a full moon as a reason to seek
a new proof that no positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation an + bn
= cn, for n greater than 2 (Fermat’s Last Theorem). We first explain why this
is so, and then return to the Oprah sign.
Limitations on what one can regard as a reason for action arise
because one cannot coherently claim that a belief is a reason for action
without being able, in principle, to offer others an explanation of why the
65
belief provides as least some justification for performing the action. The
others may reject the explanation, but what one offers must qualify as a
candidate explanation. One may object that one can indeed meet this
requirement with regard to offering the belief that the moon is full as a
reason to seek a new proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem; one could easily meet
the requirement if one lived in a community of astrologers who believed in
appropriate connections among astronomical events and mathematical
discoveries. But no one, or almost no one, lives in such a community, and
absent such convictions, one could only sketch what would be a candidate
explanation if one were a member of a community with appropriate beliefs.
One cannot count as offering even a candidate explanation of why moon’s
being full provided a reason to seek a new proof unless one actually believes
things that one regards as weighing in favor of thinking that the moon’s
being full provides some degree of justification for seeking a new proof. No
one, at least almost no one, has such beliefs. To avoid misunderstanding,
we should emphasize that we are not embracing a “community relativism”
about reasons; we do not think that a belief qualifies as a reason only
relative to this or that community. We are just emphasizing two facts: first,
to claim that a belief is a reason is to commit oneself to being able in
principle to offer others an explanation of the justificatory force of the belief;
second, one’s beliefs impose limits on what one can offer as a candidate
explanation. This is consistent with an anti-relativism that recognizes
principles for assessing, criticizing, and revising views about what counts as
66
an explanation that are valid independent of the views of any particular
community.
Now let us return to the question of whether the fans can regard the
possession of the relevant array as a G-universal normative reason to enjoy
the sign as having that array. One who so regards the belief is committed to
offering a candidate explanation to others of why the belief qualifies as a Guniversal normative reason to enjoy. One must attempt to explain why
anyone who formed the belief that the sign had the relevant array would also
believe that there was a normative reason to enjoy the sign has having that
array. One could meet these demands if, for example, one believed that by
enjoying the sign in the requisite way one would be granted a vision of the
ultimate spiritual reality and that one’s life would thereby be transformed for
the better. We do not, however, think that the vast majority of people have
beliefs that would support any candidate explanation at all. People typically
do not find in things like the Oprah sign arrays of features that constitute Guniversal normative reasons to enjoy.
Since the fans cannot coherently regard the sign’s possession of the
relevant array as a G-universal normative reason, they cannot b-enjoy the
sign as having that array; consequently, they cannot make a judgment of
beauty that requires that b-enjoyment as a reason. The most they can do is
appear to judge the sign is beautiful based on a simulacrum of b-enjoyment
in which they incoherently regard the possession of the array as a normative
reason to enjoy.
67
One might object that the fans can defend their judgment by claiming
that the similarity group consists of themselves and anyone else of similarly
adores Oprah? This attempted defense fails however. They cannot explain
why one—anyone—would coherently regard the possession of the array as a
reason, so they cannot coherently explain why members of G do.
3. Thriller
Is Michael Jackson’s music video Thriller beautiful? [Answer: Many
may judge it so, and be able to provide candidate explanations of the
existence of the normative reason. The issue is the duration of the group?
Will the current group have a more or less unbroken series of successors? If
not, Thriller is like Teen Angel. Similar remarks about piles of aluminum cans
and light gendered laser light shows.]
V. Beauty’s Power
We can now deliver on our promise to explain beauty’s power to
compel our attention and appreciation, to unite us in shared visions, and to
divide us with different ones. B-enjoyment is the source of these powers. It
compels our attention and appreciation in three ways. To see how, suppose
one forms the first-person-authoritative belief that x has an array A of
features and b-enjoys x as having that array; then, first, the belief is active
reason to enjoy x as having A, a reason that motivates and justifies
continued enjoyment. Second, the operation of the active reason is
reinforced by the conviction that the belief is a normative reason to enjoy x
as having A. That is, one not only has an active reason to enjoy x, one also
68
believes that one should have the reason. Third, the b-enjoyer is not only in
the grip of a causal feedback loop, that loop typically enriches the conception
of the relevant array of features and thereby renews the enjoyment in a
more complex form.
Judgments of beauty unite us in communities of like b-enjoyers,
communities in which each member shares the belief that his or her benjoyment has revealed a particular normative reason that transcends life’s
contingencies. Judgments of beauty, however, also divide us into distinct
communities of b-enjoyers, communities from which, as a practical matter,
many are simply forever barred from entry. Bobby Fischer played many
beautiful chess games, but, since the vast majority of people lack the
expertise to b-enjoy the complex chess relationships in which their beauty
consists, the vast majority are forever barred from the community that benjoys them for those relationships. Similar examples abound, as the earlier
discussion of Wallace Steven’s Sunday Morning illustrates. Guanglei will
never become sufficiently immersed in Christian culture to join Vicki and
others in the community that b-enjoys the poem for its portrayal of
Christianity-rooted concerns over purification, suffering, forgiveness,
communion, and immortality. Vicki on the other hand will never join
Guanglei in the community that enjoys classical Chinese landscape paintings.
In each case, group members believe their b-enjoyments reveal a normative
reason that transcends life’s contingencies, but the two groups have
profoundly different conceptions what that contingency-transcending reason
is.
69
70