De gustibus : arguing about taste and why we do it

188 Pages·2015·1.35 MB·English

by  Kivy

De Gustibus

De Gustibus
Arguing about Taste
and Why We Do It
Peter Kivy
1
3
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For Ted Cohen
Never To Be Forgotten

Contents
Preface ix
1. Hume’sDilemma 1
2. AGroundCommontoAll 10
3. TheBeautifulversustheGood(intheEighteenthCentury) 22
4. SimpleEmotivism 27
5. DosoasWell 36
6. TheAestheticShrug 45
7. ImmoralArt 58
8. IsBadTasteImmoral? 67
9. Push-pinandPoetry 73
10. BacktoSquareOne 82
11. TheRightPhenomenology? 93
12. TheTruthofInterpretation 102
13. TheTruthofAnalysis 119
14. TheTruthofEvaluation 137
15. CommonSenseandtheErrorTheory 152
Bibliography 161
Index 165

Preface
Theseedfromwhichthismonographsproutedwasplantedsomethirty
oddyearsago—1980,tobeprecise—inanessayofminecalled“AFailure
of Aesthetic Emotivism,” Philosophical Studies, 38 (1980), pp. 351–65,
portions of which, now in revised form, are included here in Chapter4
andChapter5withkindpermissionofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia.
Idonotatpresentreallyrecallhowtheideaforthisarticlecametome.
For at the time, the so-called emotive theory of ethics was dead as the
Dodobird,andwhyIshouldhavebeenthinkingaboutitatallIcannot
imagine. Be that as it may, the point I made in that essay was that
contrary to what might, on first reflection, be thought, the emotive
theory of ethics was more plausible in at least one respect than was the
emotivetheoryofaesthetics,namely,itprovidedaplausibleexplanation
forwhyweengageinethicaldisputes,whereasthelatterprovidednone
forwhyweengageinaestheticdisputes,disputesovertaste,whichmani-
festlywedo.
Furthermore, I was even emboldened, in that essay, to suggest that,
again contrary to what one might initially conjecture, aesthetic realism
might, in the event, be a more defensible position than ethical realism.
But there Iessentially letthe matter drop;and although in 1992 Iwent
overmuchofthesamegroundagaininaninvitedessayfortheLibraryof
LivingPhilosophersvolumedevotedtoA.J.Ayer,Igotnofurtherwithit,
andthewholethingquietlyslippedmymind.
But whereas I do not now recall why I became concerned with the
emotivetheoryofvalueinthefirstplace,in1980,Iknowquitewellwhat
remindedmeofitnotverylongago,andwhatledmetothewritingof
thepresentmonograph.Iwasinvited,in2012,tocommentonapaperof
JamesHarold’s,atthePacificDivisionmeetingoftheAmericanSociety
forAesthetics.Inthatinsightfulpresentation,ProfessorHaroldproposed
thehypothesisthatwhatissometimescalledthesedays“expressivism”in
ethics, the view that ethical value terms such as “right,” “good,” and
“just,”donotrefertofactsabouttheworldbutexpressattitudestowards
it, is true of aesthetic value terms such as “beautiful” and “sublime” as