David Hume: Of the Standard of Taste (3)

In this post I’ll look at two more issues arising from Hume’s essay: the paradox of taste, and the alleged circularity of his argument.

The paradox of taste

The paradox of taste says: all sentiment is right, yet we also think some sentiments are better than others. Hume remarks that anyone who claims that Ogilby is the equal of Milton might as well claim that a pond is ‘as extensive as the ocean’.

The principle of the natural equality of tastes is then totally forgot, and while we admit it on some occasions, where the objects seem near an equality, it appears an extravagant paradox, or rather a palpable absurdity, where objects so disproportioned are compared together. (§8)

The aesthetician Noël Carroll points out that this purported paradox is based upon a confusion:

The phenomena of taste cited in the beginning of the essay differ from the exercises of taste by Hume’s ideal critics.¹

These are both novels... but which is better?

The paradox assumes a strong connection between what we like and what we value. Carroll explains that in fact there is a difference between ‘liking’ and ‘assessing’. There is no necessary connection between what we like and what we value: we may love work of low aesthetic value (such as the novels of Barbara Cartland) and hate work of high value (such as the novels of Tolstoy) – even if we agree that Tolstoy is the better writer.² Therefore there is a problem of how we settle disputes over aesthetic value, but there need be no paradox between what are actually separate aspects of taste. If someone enjoys Cartland more than Tolstoy they are entitled to read what they please.

Hume does not notice this correct distinction. At the end of the essay he remarks on personal variation in preferences – the young man who prefers Ovid, the older man who prefers Tacitus. But ideal critics try to rise above personal and cultural prejudices to attain the most perfect state of mind for their judgements; they do not base their judgements on their favourites. This implies that Hume has bundled both liking and assessing under a general heading of ‘taste’.

The Standard of Taste, then, should not be involved in personal likes and dislikes; it should be about a calm assessment of aesthetic value. But note that ‘calm’ does not mean ‘cold’. Hume’s approach is sentimentalist, i.e. to find an artwork beautiful is to have a distinctive feeling of pleasure in its beauty (ideally in proportion to the work’s greatness). Preferring a calm assessment rather than personal liking should not mean that no pleasure is taken.

Circularity

According to Hume, people’s sentiments about art are subjective; however, some people’s judgement is better than others, and through their joint verdict we may find a Standard of Taste. Hume claimed that the identity of ideal critics is a matter not of personal taste but of fact, and can be resolved empirically.

Some men in general, however difficult to be particularly pitched upon, will be acknowledged by universal sentiment to have a preference above others. (§25)

To identify his ideal critics, Hume lists five criteria (§23):

1. Strong sense
2. Delicate sentiment
3. Practice
4. Comparison
5. Lack of prejudice

One of the main complaints against Hume’s solution is that it is circular. If we want to know how good an artwork is, we appeal to the ideal critics. Who are the ideal critics? The ones who possess the five qualities. How do we know if the critic has the five qualities? Check if the critic approves of good art. But how do you know if the art is good? And so on. You have to know which artworks are good in order to identify the critics who can tell you which artworks are good.

In 1967 the critic Peter Kivy wrote a well-known essay in which he sought to ‘break the circle’.³ He argues that not all five of the qualities involve circularity. Practice and comparison, he admits, both assume prior knowledge of the aesthetic:

We must be able to recognise the beautiful before we are able to determine whether a critic has or has not been engaged in ‘the frequent survey or contemplation of a particular species of beauty’. We must know what is excellent before we are able to determine whether or not a critic has compared ‘the several species and degrees’ of excellence.

Practice and comparison are both defined in terms of the beautiful or excellent, and are thus circular. But for Kivy, the remaining three qualities escape that criticism, as they do not have to be defined by reference to good art. Delicacy can refer to ‘emotional sensibility in general’. In the 1747 essay Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion, Hume claims a strong connection between delicacy of taste and a more general ‘passion’ or desire, i.e. one may possess delicacy on the strength of a general sensibility rather than a specifically aesthetic one. As for prejudice, says Kivy,

We expect fairness in judgements, whether they be aesthetic, moral or any other kind.

Hume himself notes that that prejudice perverts ‘all operations of the intellectual faculties’ (§22, my emphasis). Critics who can take a disinterested, open-minded position can take it on anything, not only art. Finally, good sense too seems to refer to an acute general intelligence rather a specifically aesthetic quality.

Kivy argues that although two of the five qualities are circular, three are not.

This leaves us with a potential problem: it seems he is asking critics to rely purely on delicacy, lack of prejudice and good sense, whereas in reality, no one becomes expert in any field without experience, gained through both practice and comparison. But in Kivy’s defence, he does not say we must abandon practice and comparison, only that the presence of the other three qualities is sufficient to break the circularity.

The philosopher James Grant has pointed out that the claim of circularity is itself not as straightforward as it appears.⁴ The problem posed in Of the Standard of Taste is not how we can know if artworks are good or beautiful. Hume actually acknowledges there is widespread agreement about which artworks are good, whether because they have been tested by time (e.g. his examples of Homer and Milton) or because some works are judged by ‘common sense’ as being better than others (§8). We often already know what is good without the Standard of Taste. As Hume says, what he seeks is

a rule, by which the various sentiments of men may be reconciled; at least, a decision, afforded, confirming one sentiment, and condemning another. (§6)

The purpose of the Standard of Taste is to settle disputes about taste. That is a different task.

Notes

1. Noël Carroll, ‘Hume’s Standard of Taste’, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (1984). 
2. I am of course taking it for granted that Cartland is a worse writer than Tolstoy. If you disagree that this is uncontroversial, then on Hume’s account we will have to find some ideal critics to settle the matter.
3. Peter Kivy, ‘Hume’s Standard of Taste: Breaking the Circle’, The British Journal of Aesthetics (1967).
4. James Grant, ‘Hume and the Standard of Taste’ podcast, Oxford University.