Abstract

The foundation of ethical judgements being assigned to preference is the foremost reason whereby the boundary between Ethics and Aesthetics remains so indistinct. Taste pressures reason during the latter’s passing aesthetic, but also ethical, judgements. Four are the features of taste: The sense of balance and proportion; The sense of fullness; The sense of purpose; The sense of repetition. Due to the lurking influence of aesthetic subvenients, ethical judgements are affected by an ‘aesthetic twist’. Ethical judgements passed in respect of the conduct of others bear aesthetic nature and, more often than not, amount to a mere statement about the judging agent’s taste. Pure aesthetic judgements are such as to evoke no ethical subvenients proper. Owing to reason’s aesthetic infatuation, no pure ethical judgements may be conceived of at the current stage of human evolution.