ABSTRACT
Recent debates over the relation of ethics to aesthetics refer (at least tacitly) to Kant’s separation of nature, art, and morality, and to the corresponding separation between the faculties of understanding, judgment, and reason. In the subsequent history of philosophy, each faculty has found champions who assert and defend its priority. For the present discussion, the question is whether practical reason or aesthetic judgment, or, correspondingly, morality or art, should be considered most fundamental. Kant himself asserts that “An interest can be ascribed to every faculty of mind,” and “every interest is ultimately practical.” 1 But historically, others have found in Kant reasons for preferring the aesthetic. Among contemporary philosophers, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jean-Frangois Lyotard both represent this line of thought, their many differences notwithstanding.
