skepticism about normative domains (in the vein of logical positivism) will follow.16
My arguments against relativism about beauty thus rest. I have undermined ordinary arguments in support of relativism about beauty and shown how relativism about beauty does not fit with our considered judgments about beauty. Both of these types of arguments have analogs to ordinary arguments against moral relativism, which are overwhelmingly thought to be successful arguments. In my experience, relativism about beauty is hard to shake for many philosophers outside of aesthetics and lay people: “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” has almost the status of a dogma. But I have shown that this aphorism is underspecified and not enough to entail relativism about beauty. None of this of course has been to establish any particular theory of beauty, much less to argue for the thesis of this book—that judgments of beauty are relevant to theory evaluation. But with thoroughgoing relativism about beauty now out of the way, the concept of beauty is on the table and worthy of our serious consideration. In the next chapter, I’ll examine an account of beauty that will get us more of a grip on this concept. With that account in hand, I will be able to develop the argument for my thesis in the remaining chapters.
NOTES
1 Throughout this chapter, I will refer to “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” as “the aphorism.” Like most aphorisms of this kind, it is difficult to discover its full origin. It seems the aphorism first appeared word-for-word in print in English in Margaret Wolfe Hungerford’s 1878 novel Molly Bawn.
2 The audience for this chapter (like the rest of this book) is a general philosophical audience (along with the interested lay reader). This is because the thesis of this book—that beauty is relevant to theory evaluation, including philosophical theory evaluation—is of general philosophical interest. This does mean, however, that this chapter is not addressed to narrow debates in aesthetics on the precise formulation of the truth conditions of judgments of beauty (what the “truthmakers” of judgments of beauty are, what kind of semantic we should give to judgments of beauty, and so on). Nor does this chapter speak to the dreaded realism/antirealism debate (see Zangwill 2001 for a good overview of that debate). As I understand it (and there is some dispute about even the terms of the dispute), a realism/antirealism debate is about whether a property is “really” in the world or whether it is not. Note that such a dispute is orthogonal to a universalism/relativism dispute (which is what this chapter is about). These two kinds of disputes are often confused because realism about phenomenon P does entail that relativism about P is false and vice versa (i.e., realism and relativism are inconsistent). But various kinds of antirealism are compatible with universalism (i.e., these kinds of antirealism deny relativism). For example, Kant’s theory of beauty (see Kant 1790) is not plausibly construed as a realist theory (given Kant’s transcendental idealism). But obviously Kant is a universalist, not a relativist, about beauty (likewise for morality). To give another example, the emotivist theory of beauty is a classic antirealist view. But emotivism can be interpreted as either a relativist view (see Santayana 1896) or a non-relativist view (see Hume 1757). This chapter only means to argue against common kinds of relativism (often found, in my experience, in lay people and philosophers outside of aesthetics). This chapter does not to speak to whether universalism (i.e., non-relativism) about beauty entails realism about beauty. Indeed, the mid-level account of beauty that I will develop in the next chapter will be inherited from Kant and so will easily be compatible with antirealism about beauty. That being said, everything I say about beauty in this book is meant to be agnostic about the realism/antirealism debate. But, as this chapter will make clear, I must (and do) deny relativism about beauty. To be sure, some antirealists about beauty (see Bender 2001; Cova & Pain 2012) are also relativists about beauty and my arguments in this chapter will necessarily cut against their view. But I am rejecting their relativism about beauty, not necessarily their antirealism about beauty. Again, I do not speak to the realism/antirealism debate in this chapter and everything in this book is meant to be agnostic about that debate. The purpose of this chapter is merely to motivate the general philosophical reader to take judgments of beauty seriously enough such that arguments for my thesis in the coming chapters will not be total nonstarters.
3 By thoroughly relative I mean that judgments of beauty are relativized to each individual believer. That is what is most often meant by this aphorism and the term “relativism.” This kind of relativism is what I’ll mean when I refer to “relativism” throughout this chapter. This kind of relativism is distinct from, say, a view on which judgments of beauty are relativized to the human species as a whole. That species-kind of relativism is not threatening to my thesis, so I do not engage it at all in this book. Everything I say about beauty in this book is meant to be agnostic about whether our judgments of beauty are relativized to our species or not. For thoroughly relativist theories of beauty, see Ayers (1936) and Santayana (1896).
4 Note that while such relativism is common (in my experience) among contemporary philosophers outside of aesthetics and among lay people, it is the significant minority view in the history of theorizing about beauty. For non-relativist theories of beauty, see Aristotle Poetics, Burke (1765), Collingwood (1945), Danto (2003), Hogarth (1753), Hume (1757), Hutcheson (1725), Kant (1790), Mothersill (1984), Nehamas (2010), Plato Symposium, Plotinus Ennead, Schiller (1795), Shaftesbury (1711), Sircello (1975), and Zangwill (2001). For relativist theories of beauty, see Ayers (1936) and Santayana (1896).
5 Obviously, there are some theories of color that hold that color is indeed in the object itself. My point is only that subjective color theory shows that subjective non-relativism is a live option. This is another way of emphasizing the point made in footnote 2: antirealist non-relativism is a live option, and so rejecting relativism does not commit one way or the other with respect to the realism/antirealism debate.
6 Confusing these terms is another version of confusing the realism/antirealism dispute with the universalism/relativism dispute. Subjectivism is a type of antirealism, but is not thereby relativist.
7 Remember, the main audience of this chapter is a general philosophical audience and interested lay readers, given the general nature of the book’s thesis. I have, in personal experience with philosophers, often encountered the kinds of arguments from disagreement that I will consider in this section. That said, philosophers in the realism/antirealism debate in aesthetics who also endorse relativism often ground their arguments for relativism in disagreement, particularly in intractable or so-called “faultless” disagreement. See Bender (2001) and Cova and Pain (2012). My arguments in this section will cut against these views. See Schafer (2011) for a realist (and thereby non-relativist) interpretation of faultless disagreement. Remember that I am only arguing against relativism, I am not thereby taking a view on realism/antirealism.
8 I refer of course to the infamous case of “the dress,” in which a large swath of the American internet was gripped by a dispute over the color a pictured dress. Many people perceived it to be blue and black, while many others perceived it to be white and gold.
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