The heart of this assignment is Hume’s essay “Of the Standard of Taste”; but, although Hume has much to say there about judgments of beauty, he says little or nothing about the nature of beauty, so I’ve included a couple brief selections from other works that address that question. (If you’re curious about the contexts they are taken from, you can find the full works with links to these selections in the text browser on the Moodle site for the course.)

• The idea of sympathy that Hume describes in the selection from his Treatise is important to him in many respects, and beauty is only an illustrative example. But, for us, this discussion of beauty provides one sort of alternative to Shaftesbury’s distinction between the appreciation of beauty and the desire to possess.

• The argument in the second selection (from Hume’s Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals) should remind of you of an argument in Plotinus. However, Hume’s views on the nature of beauty seem quite different from those of Plotinus, so ask yourself just how far their agreement goes and where they part company.

• The key idea in “Of the Standard of Taste” is an analogy between taste and sense perception. Hume will often point to it, but it can help to have the analogy in mind even when he does not make it explicit. More specifically, I’ll suggest you read the essay with the following questions in mind. (The references are to the paragraph numbers appearing in the handout.)

• Why might it be doubted that there is a standard of taste? (See ¶ 7.)

• On the other hand, what can be said on behalf of its existence? (See ¶¶ 8-11.)

• What factors affect the quality of one’s taste? I count 5; they are marked by italicized terms. Be careful to notice what Hume means by these terms (particularly prejudice) because they may not have quite the sense you expect. (See ¶¶ 12-22, leading up to a summary in ¶ 23.)

• How does Hume respond in ¶¶ 25-27 to the concerns raised in ¶ 24?

• What limitations are there on the universality of the standard of taste? (This is Hume’s topic from ¶ 28 to the end of the selection.) What is the significance of differences in moral principles on the one hand and “speculative opinions” (including religious ones) on the other?

I’ll suggest that our class discussion focus on the question of whether there is a standard of taste. In thinking of this, keep in mind especially the arguments on each side in ¶¶ 7-11 and the considerations Hume addresses in ¶¶ 24-27. Remember also that the qualifications Hume adds to his position from there until the end of the essay can be seen as his responses to objections that might be offered to his view.