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Notes essence of evaluation. Even the worst critic says nothing false in foolishly saying that one work is
better than another, however prejudiced the sentiment. Yet even the best critics—those with the
most refined taste—will retain some immovable preferences. Even the best critics will display a
variety of responses. But if their differences are “blameless,” there is no interference of prejudice
(SOT, 280). The problem of finding a standard of taste leads Hume to the problem of deciding
which disagreements are blameless, in order to distinguish them from prejudices that disqualify a
sentiment as a public recommendation.
Hume highlights two sources that contribute to differences of sentiment among qualified critics:
basic dispositions of character, and moral differences arising from cultural differences (SOT, 280).
Today, we are more likely to notice a third source of disagreement, Hume’s recognition that each
kind of object has its own species of beauty. Becoming a qualified judge of epic poetry does not
contribute to being a qualified judge of architecture. Addison is a better writer than John Locke,
but the comparison assumes that they are both writing philosophy (EHU, 7). We can compare
John Milton and John Ogilby, and only a false critic would rank Ogilby above Milton (SOT, 269).
But it makes no sense to compare Milton and Addison, for Milton is a poet, not a philosopher.
Furthermore, different cultures employ different customs when handling the same artistic medium.
“You will never convince a man, who is not accustomed to Italian music, and has not an ear to
follow its intricacies, that a Scotch tune is not preferable” (S, 217). So the good critic must overcome
the challenge of cultural prejudice. “A critic of a different age or nation, who should peruse this
discourse, must have all these circumstances in his eye, and must place himself in the same
situation as the audience, in order to form a true judgment of the oration” (SOT, 276). Hume
emphasizes the great difficulties involved in overcoming the prejudices of one’s time and place
(SOT, 281–82).
Many readers balk at Hume’s willingness to grant a strong influence of moral judgment upon
aesthetic evaluation (SOT, 283–84). Hume discusses the moral failing of several plays (SOT, 284)
and of the Koran, considered as a literary “performance” (SOT, 267). How can Hume reconcile this
position with his endorsement of Batteux’s influential thesis, in which the mechanical arts are
distinguished from fine art by the fact that the latter exists only to provide pleasure? (“Of Tragedy”
proceeds as if literature exists solely to provide the pleasure of the experience.) But there is also a
side of Hume that refuses to distinguish between literature and other, “practical” writing. Every
work of art is evaluated according to its distinctive purpose, with poetry alone singled out as
having the purpose of “pleasing” the imagination (SOT, 277). Ultimately, there is very little art
that Hume might treat as art-for-art’s-sake.
There should be no great surprise that Hume insists that moral judgments must sometimes enter
into our aesthetic evaluations. Hume does not offer a sharp distinction between moral and aesthetic
taste. Evaluations that subsequent aesthetic theories regard as a purely aesthetic are, for Hume,
concluding sentiments following numerous observations of contributing strengths and weaknesses.
When a work of art represents human activity, then Hume’s account of moral evaluation requires
that moral sentiment accompany apprehension of the action. The fictional status of the work
weakens our sympathetic response, but the mere sequence of ideas will be sufficient to produce
weaker versions of the sentiments that one would have if one were faced with the actual events.
Given Hume’s moral theory, there is no possibility of suspending our moral response. Moral
sentiments are natural and immediate. At best, one can gain a better understanding of the cultural
context responsible for the work, so that one’s moral sentiments will not be negative through mere
prejudice. Hume’s theory of sentiments requires that if we are going to have an aesthetic evaluation
of a play’s plotting and language, then we are also going to have a moral response to its display
of virtue and vice. Both must enter into our final sentiment of approbation or disapprobation.
Although Hume emphasizes the variety of responses that different groups and individuals have
with the same works, some sources of preference are “blameless” (SOT, 280) and “innocent” (SOT,

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