Photographs are ubiquitous in our lives. Most of us contribute to making some of the billions of photographs produced each year. A small number of these have qualities that capture and sustain aesthetic interest. What distinguishes such photographic art from all the other kinds of photograph? What constitutes the distinctive value of photographic art?

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume’s Sceptical Standard of Taste*Jonathan Friday1it is generally agreed that Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste”1 is the most valuable of the large number of works on what we now call aesthetics to emerge from the intellectual and cultural flowering of the Scottish Enlightenment. Here, however, agreement about the essay comes to an end, to be replaced by disagreement about what Hume identifies as the standard of taste. (...) Hume’s text encourages differing interpretations by appearing to identify a number of different standards of taste while continually suggesting there is only one. At the very least, one can find Hume hinting at a rule standard, a decision standard, an ideal spectator standard, a test of time standard as well as the position that there is no standard of taste at all. None of these views is explicitly rejected and more than one receives qualified approval. A review of the literature on Hume’s essay reflects its puzzling nature. Most commentators focus upon one or another of the standards Hume discusses; others examine more than one, but devote little attention to the relation between various standards appearing in the essay.2 [End Page 545]I will suggest in what follows that a better understanding of “Of the Standard of Taste” can be achieved by beginning with the question: What is Hume trying to do in this essay? As we shall see, Hume gives relatively explicit answers to this question in the essay and elsewhere, and attention to these takes us some way towards dissolving the puzzle of why so many positions on the standard of taste are discussed without any being explicitly rejected. Moreover, an understanding of Hume’s aims will make it much easier to clearly discern his own position on the possibility of a standard of taste. Therefore, in what follows, I will offer a reading of Hume’s essay which addresses the puzzle of the multiple standards and puts us in a much better position to answer the question of what Hume’s view is and whether it survives critical scrutiny.2The opening paragraphs of “Of the Standard of Taste” set the stage for the discussion that follows. Hume begins by observing that “the great variety of taste, as well as of opinion, which prevails in the world, is too obvious not to have fallen under everyone’s observation.”3 People of similar background and culture notice the wide differences of taste within their own like-minded community, and when they turn their attention to “distant nations and remote ages”4 the phenomenon is found to be even more pronounced. Further reflection suggests this variety of taste to be even greater in reality than appearance since although we may agree in our evaluative language—e.g., that beauty is to be praised and ugliness scorned—“when critics come to particulars this seeming unanimity vanishes”5 and argument arises about what objects are properly referred to by such evaluative terms. Hume goes on to conclude the opening remarks of his essay by connecting this state of affairs with his familiar views about morality and moral language. These latter reflections are suddenly broken off and Hume turns to the main subject of his essay.He begins with a “natural” response to the phenomena he has just considered. He writes:It is natural for us to seek a Standard of Taste, a rule by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least a decision afforded confirming one sentiment and condemning another.6It is worth emphasizing that Hume characterizes the much sought standard in two very different ways—as a rule reconciling sentiments and, more modestly, as [End Page 546] a decision confirming (or otherwise) a sentiment.7 Although this passage provides the initial characterizations of the standard of taste Hume is investigating, and ought therefore to have been accorded some attention by commentators, it has been largely ignored.8 This is unfortunate since it proves crucial to understanding what Hume is attempting to do in the essay. I will return to this point, but before doing so we need to further set out the problem as Hume conceives it... (shrink)

This article questions whether the study of normative moral theory and its application to particular moral problems has a beneficial effect upon someone seeking to improve the quality of their moral thinking. A broad outline of the conception of moral thinking underlying moral theory and applied ethics is considered, particularly the logical requirements that moral thinking be impersonal and the judgements that issue from it universally valid. The error of both of these requirements is explored through consideration of a detailed (...) example. It is further argued that the procedure by which the theory‐driven applied ethicist arrives at moral conclusions does not involve moral thinking at all. Moreover, it is argued that the failure of moral philosophers to explore the meaning and significance of the full range of concepts constituting our moral vocabulary puts in doubt the efficacy of the study of moral philosophy for the improvement of moral thinking. (shrink)

During the intellectual and cultural flowering of Scotland in the 18th century few subjects attracted as much interest among men of letters as aesthetics - the study of art from the subjective perspective of human experience. All of the great philosophers of the age - Hutcheson, Hume, Smith and Reid - addressed themselves to aesthetic questions. Their inquiries revolved around a cluster of issues - the nature of taste, beauty and the sublime, how qualitative differences operate upon the mind through (...) the faculty of taste, and how aesthetic sensibility can be improved through education. This volume brings together and provides contextual introductions to the most significant 18th century writing on the philosophy of art. From the pioneering study of beauty by Francis Hutcheson, through Hume's seminal essays on the standard of taste and tragedy, to the end of the tradition in Dugald Stewart, we are swept up in the debate about art and its value that fascinated the philosophers of enlightenment Scotland - and continues to do so to this day. Jonathan Friday is Senior Lecturer in History and Theory of Art at the University of Kent. He has published on the philosophy of art and aesthetics, the history of philosophy and moral philosophy. (shrink)