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Eileen John, De Gustibus: Arguing about Taste and Why We Do It By Peter Kivy, Analysis, Volume 79, Issue 3, July 2019, Pages 581–583, https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anz013
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Peter Kivy demonstrates in De Gustibus the pleasure of arguing about our ‘art-interested’ lives. It is a terrific read: pithy, argumentatively bold and compelling. Kivy’s humour and verve bring the arguments to life on every page. I will raise some questions about the position defended, but primarily I want to celebrate this as a model of philosophical writing. Kivy’s scholarship, including his rich knowledge of 18th century aesthetics, is at work, but so deftly that the less scholarly reader is not excluded. We are given the benefit of his sharp, economical ground-clearing and can zoom in on his burning question: why do we argue with each other about matters of taste?
Kivy motivates his question via a similarity and a contrast between moral and aesthetic argument. The similarity is that we do argue with the apparent goal of convincing others, on both aesthetic and moral matters: ‘aesthetic disputation … seems to be engaged in … with the same vigour, the same tenacity as moral disputation’ (72). In the case of moral argument, actions and their outcomes are usually at stake, so that we can understand the point of arguing: moral arguers aim for co-ordinated actions and desired outcomes. The contrast with aesthetic argument is that, aside from some relatively unusual circumstances, there is no particular action, action tendency or outcome at stake in aesthetic argument. Absent an explanation in terms of action and practical outcomes, must we construe ‘aesthetic disputation’ as pointless and even irrational behaviour? No, because a satisfying inference to the best explanation is available. People engage in aesthetic argument because they are ‘realists with regard to aesthetic and artistic properties’ (160) who dispute about ‘what they take to be a factual matter’ (140). The ‘desire to convince another of the truth of one’s belief about how the world is is completely sufficient justification, no further explanation required, for entering into a dispute’ (96). Kivy thinks that, while forms of moral anti-realism can explain moral argument, because of the latter’s relations to action, aesthetic argument is best explained by positing in the arguers an implicit commitment to realism about art and its value.
