The Politics of Beauty

An original account of Kant's theory of taste, emphasizing his political and moral aims, and resolving some important textual puzzles.

This Element examines the entirety of Kant's Critique of Taste (in Part One of the Critique of Judgment) with particular emphasis on its political and moral aims.This Element examines the entirety of Kant's Critique of Taste (in Part One of the Critique of Judgment) with particular emphasis on its political and moral aims. Kant's critical treatment of aesthetic judgment is both an extended theoretical response to influential predecessors and contemporaries, including Rousseau and Herder, and a practical intervention in its own right meant to nudge history forward at a time of civilizational crisis. Attention to these themes helps resolve a number of puzzles, both textual and philosophic, including the normative force and meaning of judgments of taste, and the relation between natural and artful beauty.