ABSTRACT
The problem of the validity of value judgments about art has haunted and preoccupied aesthetics since its eighteenth century inception. It is entirely analogous to the problem of the validity of moral judgments, the problem of demonstrating that a moral judgment is something more than not reducible to an expression of personal approval or disapproval. The trouble is, however, that judgments of taste won't go away, even in post-liberal culture. It is not only that criticism continues to offer discriminations between the good and the bad. Intelligent opponents of the elitism and intolerance they see masquerading as objective judgments of artistic or aesthetic value can go half way with the Kantian at this point, but resist the final conclusion. For example, it is central to Kant's enterprise in The Critique of Judgment that he demonstrate not only that judgments of taste claim to be universally valid but that he demonstrate that such judgments can indeed be rationally grounded.
