Morality and Aesthetic Judgement

What is at stake in the relationship of morality and aesthetic judgement is the hospitality of nature to the aesthetic ends of humanity. The affiliation of morality (the rational self-determination of the will) and aesthetic judgement (the designation of nature or its artistic representation as beautiful or sublime) emerged as a pressing concern within Enlightenment philosophy. The core of the Enlightenment project as it developed in its English, French, and German forms was an absolute faith in the capacity of reason to overcome the prejudice and superstition of the Middle Ages, to establish moral, political, and normative systems that would liberate humanity from its dependence on unquestioned forms of authority, and to establish by science and experimentation the rational order that underlies the affairs of ...