Bradley Murray’s The Possibility of Culture aims to elucidate ‘the ethical priorities that underlie [Kant’s] account of aesthetic pleasure’ in the Critique of the Power of Judgement (p. 2). Murray frames Kant’s aesthetic theory as a response to ‘the kind of anti-aesthetic thought, based in large part on ethical considerations, that Rousseau advanced’ (p. 13). According to this supposedly Rousseauian critique, beauty and art are, at best, morally neutral avenues for escape from practical affairs and civic responsibilities and, at worst, morally problematic embodiments of luxury, which undermine public spiritedness and virtue by promoting self-interest and ‘pettiness of soul’ (p. 14). Murray’s basic claim is that Kant’s aesthetic theory should be understood as a response to such anti-aestheticism, which demonstrates that aesthetic pleasure contributes to the moral development of individual human beings and, by implication, to the moral development of humanity as a whole.
Drawing on Kant’s Lectures on Pedagogy, Murray describes moral development as culture and interprets Kant’s account of it as a four-stage ‘process of culture’, consisting of discipline, skill, prudence and moralization (pp. 19–20). While the first three stages involve the development of instrumental reasoning, ‘moralization’ describes a fundamental revolution in one’s way of thinking, in which one adopts the moral law as the principle of one’s own will and devotes oneself to developing a moral character. Murray rightly recognizes that the process of moralization has both negative and positive moments; for, in order to adopt the moral law as one’s own, one must first distance oneself from one’s inclinations. Thus, Murray concludes, ‘Kant holds that we need to develop our capacity to distance ourselves from our inclinations to develop as human beings and moral agents’ (p. 21). The central thesis of Murray’s book is that, though it cannot make us moral, aesthetic pleasure helps us ‘to acquire skill in putting aside our inclinations in order to act in conformity with duty’ (p. 26).
Murray argues that aesthetic pleasure helps us distance ourselves from our inclinations in two ways, on Kant’s account. First, it develops our capacity to feel love (chapter 2). More specifically, encountering beauty in nature or art cultivates a feeling of gratitude, which mobilizes ‘a desire to give to others out of love’ (p. 39). Because love involves a ‘universal affection’ that is detached from self-interest, Murray concludes that gratitude for beauty helps one distance oneself from personal inclinations. Second, aesthetic pleasure’s disinterested character teaches us to distance ourselves from our inclinations (chapter 3). For, on Murray’s account, the very possibility of aesthetic pleasure depends on a process of ‘abstraction’ in which we ignore or dismiss both our inclinations and our cognitive concerns (pp. 54, 73–5).
Murray’s account of aesthetic pleasure’s ability to cultivate our capacity to love and to habituate us to disinterestedness constitute the core of his argument, and the remainder of his book is devoted to exploring the applications and implications of these conclusions. First, he argues that, on Kant’s account, art (chapter 4) and sublimity (chapter 5) can contribute to our moral development just as effectively as natural beauty because both provoke disinterested pleasure. Next, he argues that, though it clarifies how aesthetic pleasure contributes to moral development, Kant’s aesthetic theory cannot explain why we should pursue moral development rather than our selfish interests (chapter 6). Finally, Murray concludes that ugliness is detrimental to moral development, before defending his appeal to the empirical elements of Kant’s aesthetic theory (chapter 7).
While his exploration of the moral significance of Kant’s account of aesthetic pleasure is admirable, Murray tends to push Kant’s aesthetic and moral theories too close together. At times, he is so intent on explaining how aesthetic pleasure contributes to moral development that he describes aesthetic pleasure as ‘a means’ to the end of moral development (pp. 8, 13, 32, 58). Relatedly, he underplays the extent to which Kant’s claim that aesthetic pleasure is disinterested is intended to distinguish aesthetic from moral judgements. In fact, Kant argues that aesthetic experience distances us from both our inclinations and our moral concerns. Indeed, aesthetic judging is morally significant precisely because it is wholly distinct from moral judging. Murray may be able to incorporate this important point into his argument, but as things stand, he does not pay sufficient attention to Kant’s commitment to the autonomy of the beautiful. As a result, he runs the risk of giving the mistaken impression that Kant subordinates his aesthetic theory to concerns with morality and culture.
Overall, Murray’s book will be of limited use for scholars, graduate students and even upper-level undergraduates who are familiar with and interested in the details of Kant’s aesthetic theory. For he self-consciously refrains from serious engagement with most secondary literature (p. 6). Moreover, he does not discuss the important question of the systematic import of Kant’s aesthetics. Finally, Murray often merely reports Kant’s conclusions and summarizes their meaning, rather than reconstructing or evaluating Kant’s more detailed arguments. And yet, what cannot but seem like limitations from the perspective of readers who are acquainted with Kant’s thought ultimately make Murray’s book extremely useful for readers who are less familiar with Kant’s moral and aesthetic theory. Indeed, The Possibility of Culture provides a unique and fruitful introduction to Kant’s philosophy. One can justly hope that it will contribute to more vibrant, diverse and serious discussions of Kant’s place at the intersection between ethics and aesthetics in the future.
