Putting Value into Art

Putting Value into Art

The attempt to base a standard for assessing the value of works of art upon sentiment (the feeling of pleasure or displeasure) was famously made by David Hume in his essay "Of the Standard of Taste." Hume's attempt is generally regarded as fundamentally important in the project of explaining the nature of value judgements in the arts by means of an empirical, rather than a priori, relation. Recently, Hume's argument has been strongly criticized by Malcolm Budd in his book Values of Art. Budd contends that Hume utterly fails to show how any given value judgement in the arts can be more warranted or appropriate than any other if aesthetic judgements are determined by sentiment. This is a remarkable charge, since Hume explicitly sets out to introduce an aesthetic standard for "confirming one sentiment and condemning another." I examine Budd's arguments and conclude that Hume's position-and the empiricist tradition that it inaugurated-can withstand them.

The attempt to set up a standard for assessing the merit of works of art, based upon contingent connections between these works and the sentiments (feelings of pleasure or displeasure) of spectators, was famously made by David Hume. His attempt remains the locus classicus for those philosophers who attempt to found the aesthetic judgment upon empirical, rather than a priori, grounds. I have myself given it a limited defense (1). Recently, Hume's argument has been severely attacked by Malcolm Budd (2). His central contention is that Hume completely fails to introduce any normative element into the aesthetic judgment; he fails, that is, to give any content to the claim that some judgments on the value of a work are more warranted or appropriate than others...

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... to "appreciating or failing to appreciate" the work. For although it is doubtless a necessary condition for valuing a work of art that we should appreciate it, this simply returns us to our original question, viz how should the aesthetic merits and blemishes of a work be determined? To this question, no answer other than Hume's is provided.

Notes

(1) See "Judgment, Aesthetic" in A Companion to Aesthetics edited by David Cooper (Basil Blackwell, Oxford: 1992).

(2) See his Values in Art, Chapter I ("Artistic Value"), (Penguin Books, London: 1996).

(3) See David Hume Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary (1777).

(4) Budd, Values in Art, page 23.

(5) Hume, "Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion", Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary.

(6) Hume, "Of the Standard of Taste" (paragraph 16).

(7) See "Of the Standard of Taste" (paragraphs 21 and 22).