The pleasant and the good have both a reference to the faculty
of desire; and they bring with them--the former a satisfaction
pathologically conditioned (by impulses, _stimuli_)--the latter a
pure practical satisfaction, which is determined not merely by the
representation of the object, but also by the represented connexion
of the subject with the existence of the object. [It is not merely
the object that pleases, but also its existence.[16]] On the other
hand, the judgement of taste is merely _contemplative_; _i.e._ it is
a judgement which, indifferent as regards the being of an object,
compares its character with the feeling of pleasure and pain. But this
contemplation itself is not directed to concepts; for the judgement of
taste is not a cognitive judgement (either theoretical or practical),
and thus is not _based_ on concepts, nor has it concepts as its
_purpose_.
The Pleasant, the Beautiful, and the Good, designate then, three
different relations of representations to the feeling of pleasure and
pain, in reference to which we distinguish from each other objects or
methods of representing them. And the expressions corresponding to
each, by which we mark our complacency in them, are not the same. That
which GRATIFIES a man is called _pleasant_; that which merely PLEASES
him is _beautiful_; that which is ESTEEMED [or _approved_[17]] by
him, _i.e._ that to which he accords an objective worth, is _good_.
Pleasantness concerns irrational animals also; but Beauty only
concerns men, _i.e._ animal, but still rational, beings--not merely
_quâ_ rational (_e.g._ spirits), but _quâ_ animal also; and the Good
concerns every rational being in general. This is a proposition which
can only be completely established and explained in the sequel. We may
say that of all these three kinds of satisfaction, that of taste in
the Beautiful is alone a disinterested and _free_ satisfaction; for no
interest, either of Sense or of Reason, here forces our assent. Hence
we may say of satisfaction that it is related in the three aforesaid
cases to _inclination_, to _favour_, or to _respect_. Now _favour_ is
the only free satisfaction. An object of inclination, and one that
is proposed to our desire by a law of Reason, leave us no freedom in
forming for ourselves anywhere an object of pleasure. All interest
presupposes or generates a want; and, as the determining ground of
assent, it leaves the judgement about the object no longer free.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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