Kant and Beauty

Somewhat late, but better late than never.

Reading Kant’s explication of how interest prevents the spectator from truly experiencing beauty, I wonder if the strict separation of interest and a true value statement is valid. Kant claims that anyone who has an interest in an object (i.e., wants to own it, has a stake in its existence) is not making a true judgment of beauty, and anyone that attaches a moral goodness to an object cannot find it beautiful either. Perhaps this structure was more realistic in the eighteenth century, but it leaves little room for anyone to be able to make a true judgment of beauty. Kant’s paradigm that art must exist solely for art’s sake is straightforward enough, and is the basis of much modern thought about the cultural work that art does. But even his example of the field of flowers leaves room for an impure value judgment. True, a spectator who walks past a field of flowers and thinks they are beautiful does not necessarily desire to own or attribute moral good to the field. But if that spectator buys a bouquet of daisies on their way home after viewing the field,  and uses them to make their house more beautiful, does that eliminate the possibility of a true value judgment or not? If the spectator instead picks some of the flowers and takes them home, does that make the field any less beautiful? 

            How do we truly separate an object and our own desire for it? And where in this paradigm is there room for physical art? Or literature for that matter? A patron may go to an art exhibit and look at the photographs, sculptures, or any other art there and find it beautiful. But what if he chooses to buy a piece of that art? Kant seems to imply that the patron can no longer find the art beautiful, but only desirable. In another scenario, the artist sees the same field of flowers. Is it a true judgment of beauty, and not interest, if he goes home and paints that field? Pushing this example even farther, is it still a judgment of beauty and not interest if he sells the painting so that he can buy groceries? Does his desire to eat somehow taint his judgment of that field’s beauty? Does his use of the field in his painting which provided him with the money to eat taint the field’s beauty itself?

            It seems that Kant’s separation of interest and beauty is more clearly a separation of participation and beauty. And if any participation in the object means the spectator cannot make a beauty judgment, then not only does the creation of art prevent a beauty judgment, but the purchase of art does as well.      

            The distance between moral good and beauty is also questionable. The theory behind each of these distinctions is very clear. But in practice, it seems more exclusionary than inclusionary. Can a church be beautiful if it is associated with spiritual progress and goodness? Can it only be found to be beautiful by an atheist? If someone reads a book and find it morally edifying, is it no longer beautifully written? Forget hundreds of years of literary theory-- Kant’s paradigm leaves little space for anyone to find anything beautiful without it being tainted by interest or moral good.