Of the Standard of Taste

David Hume's essay "Of the Standard of Taste" explores the basis of aesthetic judgment. Hume argues that while individual tastes vary, there is a need to find a standard by which these sentiments can be reconciled and judgments confirmed or condemned. He proposes an ideal of the "man of taste" whose discernment is clear and informed by a "delicacy of imagination".1

Hume believed that reason alone cannot form moral judgments because it is subservient to passions and desires. Instead, morality is rooted in sentiment and feeling. Virtue is defined as whatever quality evokes a pleasing sentiment of approbation in a spectator, while vice evokes the contrary. This perspective suggests that moral judgments are not based on objective facts but on subjective emotional responses, though Hume also considered the possibility of a universal human moral sentiment.23