2. Disinterested pleasure and empirical and intellectual interest in the beautiful

In the first moment of the Analytic – the moment of quality – Kant presents the beautiful as the object of a satisfaction without any interest (KU, 5: 211). In accordance with the definition of interest as ‘the satisfaction that we combine with the representation of the existence of an object’ (5: 204), interested pleasures are characterised by their relation to the existence of their objects, such that they prompt the subject to bring those objects into existence. Indeed, the determining ground (Bestimmungsgrund) of interested pleasure is the faculty of desire. Pleasure in the beautiful is, by contrast, a disinterested pleasure because its determining ground is not necessarily connected with desire for an object,Footnote ⁶ being rather independent of the question of the existence of the object judged as ‘beautiful’:

The way in which the presence of an interest in the determining ground of the judgement influences the kind of satisfaction can easily be seen in the distinction between the agreeable, the good, and the beautiful. Although the agreeable and the good please in a different way, the corresponding judgements are both interested judgements because their satisfaction is grounded in interest in the existence of their object, while pleasure in the beautiful is pleasure in the form of the object as presented to us.Footnote ⁷ Agreeable is by definition ‘that which pleases the senses in sensation’ (KU, 5: 205), thus it identifies a sensible satisfaction that excites desire for an object and presupposes the relation of its existence to the state of the judging subject. Similarly, the satisfaction in the good is interested because it entails the faculty of desire, that is, the faculty to act in accordance with the representation of an end.Footnote ⁸ Even if the good does not please in sensation, but only by means of reason, reason determines the faculty of desire and makes the good an object of the will, ‘but to will something and to have satisfaction in its existence, i.e., to take an interest in it, are identical’ (5: 209).

The comparison between interested satisfaction in the agreeable and interested satisfaction in the good sheds light on the peculiarity of disinterested pleasure in the beautiful as a merely contemplative pleasure: the beautiful immediately relates the form of the object to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure and does not require the concept of what the object is supposed to be.Footnote ⁹ There is, however, a surprising element in the analysis of disinterested pleasure in the beautiful. Namely, the disinterestedness of the aesthetic judgement concerns its determining ground, according to which the beautiful is independent of the existence of its object, but it does not exclude the possibility of taking an interest in it.Footnote ¹⁰

The possibility of combining disinterested pleasure in the beautiful with a form of interest in it is fully developed in §§41-42 of the DeductionFootnote ¹¹ and provides a distinction between two kinds of interest, the empirical and the intellectual. I want to suggest that these two kinds of interest in beauty are also central to addressing the differences between the beauty of nature and the beauty of art: an interest in beauty can be unambiguously intellectual only if it is directed towards beautiful forms of nature.

I suggest that the specification of nature as the proper object of intellectual interest in the beautiful can only be understood within a broader perspective: the systematic perspective of the possibility of a transition (Übergang) from nature to freedom.Footnote ¹² Nothing prevents artistic beauty from being, prima facie, an object of pure intellectual interest for us, but this only happens as long as it appears to be nature. Indeed, as already noted, Kant writes that, once the subject discovers that beauty is artistic and not natural, ‘the immediate interest that he had previously taken in it would immediately disappear’ (KU, 5: 299), though, as he adds, perhaps empirical interest ‘would take its place’.

On this basis, we may now address: 1) the possibility that disinterested pleasure in the beautiful is combined with an interest in it a priori; and 2) the reason why Kant argues that an interest in the beautiful can only be intellectual if it refers to beautiful nature. This second point will also clarify why only an interest in beautiful nature is, as I have been putting it, ‘unambiguously’ relevant to the question of a transition from nature to freedom.

Kant’s analysis of empirical interest in the beautiful takes place in §41 and is based on the social character of human beings and their belonging to a society. In this context, Kant does not dwell on the difference between artistic and natural beauty, but mainly focuses on what makes an interest in the beautiful empirical. This interest expresses the human natural inclination (Neigung) to sociability (KU, 5: 297-8), which makes human beings interested in communicating their feelings to even potentially all others. The characterisation of empirical interest as an inclination-based interest is sufficient for Kant to dismiss it as an interest capable of being related to disinterested pleasure a priori: since an inclination is a ‘sensible desire’ that has to be conquered by reason (Anth, 8: 251), any inclination-based interest ‘is of no importance for us here, for we must find that importance only in what may be related to the judgement of taste a priori’ (KU, 5: 297).

To be sure, this general characterisation of empirical interest does not exclude a potentially moral function that might be served by the inclination to communicate one’s feelings. Social inclination marks the beginning of civilisation because it reveals ‘not merely a human being but also, in his own way, a refined human being’ (KU, 5: 297). According to Kant, interest in universal communicability is a property inherent in human nature, and so the possibility of universally communicating one’s feelings takes on importance in a society concerned with self-cultivation. However, ‘social’ interest in the beautiful has no necessary connection with pure moral interest. As Henry Allison puts it, the problem is not that the inclination in question is social, but simply that no inclination can claim necessity (Allison Reference Allison2001: 225). And for that matter, even the most refined inclination can become confused with other inclinations and passions (5: 298).

Kant seems to have in mind that interest in the beautiful can take on a moral value only if it reveals a subject interested in the possibility of realising the effect of freedom in the world of nature. Put in terms of what I have been calling our ‘systematic’ concern in this paper, an interest in the beautiful is unambiguously morally relevant only if it reveals an interest in the transition from the sensible to the supersensible (KU, 5: 299) This of course does not mean that if I take an empirical interest in the beautiful I cannot also take an interest that is relevant from a moral point of view. But since empirical interest in the beautiful is linked to social life, it cannot ensure the latter. The moral value of an interest in the beautiful requires that it be connected a priori to the judgement of taste, so as to preserve its purity (5: 297). Kant accounts for this requirement in §42, where he introduces the notion of intellectual interest in the beautiful.

In contrast to the ‘social’ context that characterises empirical interest in the beautiful, Kant specifies solitude as the context in which intellectual interest in the beautiful is taken:

In any case, before further considering the connection between such intellectual interest in the beautiful and an interest in morality, I want to emphasise that §42 features a key point that is not so explicit in §41.

As previously noted, interest in something is interest in the existence of something; pleasure in the beautiful is disinterested, thus Kant aims to justify how a disinterested pleasure in the beautiful can be combined a priori with an interest in its existence. Here, I argue that the specification of natural beauty in particular, as the appropriate kind of beauty for an intellectual interest, can be fully clarified only when traced back to Kant’s ‘systematic’ project in the third Critique. This is precisely because aesthetically disinterested interest in the existence of beautiful forms of nature expresses an interest in the existence of an order that goes beyond the merely mechanical and that represents a meaningful mode of transition from nature to freedom. By writing that, in beautiful forms of nature, we grasp a ‘cipher by means of which nature figuratively speaks to us’ (KU, 5: 301), Kant considers beauty of nature as an expression of nature’s purposiveness, which, as mentioned in the Introduction to this paper, is the ‘mediating concept’ for a transition from nature to freedom (5: 196).

The following passage, following closely on that just quoted regarding solitude, is of particular interest:

In this passage, Kant makes three important points. First, the intellectual character of interest in beauty is motivated by the thought that the beauty in question was produced by nature. Second, if this were not thought to be so, the only interest we could have in the beauty in question is an empirical interest aimed at promoting our inclination towards society. Third, empirical interest cannot provide sure indications of a morally good way of thinking.

And why, we might then ask, might Kant be saying this? My answer to this question relies on the possibility of conceiving beautiful forms of nature as a ‘trace’, given by nature itself, for embracing the effects of freedom, for beautiful nature seems to be disposed in a purposive arrangement that is different from causal mechanism.Footnote ¹³ Indeed, Kant does not only say that the interest in beauty is intellectual if the beauty at stake belongs to nature, but he also adds that this kind of interest can be taken only by a subject who ‘has already firmly established his interest in the morally good’ (KU, 5: 300). In other words, the thought that nature produced that beauty makes the interest in it not only intellectual, but also of a morally relevant sort, because only a subject who has at least ‘a predisposition to a good moral disposition’ (5: 301) can grasp in the beautiful forms of nature a ‘cipher’ bearing on the realisation of our moral ends.

These lines of §42 are key to establishing a moral reading of the purposive arrangement of nature. In this regard, I would like to emphasise Patricia Matthews’ comment on Rudolf Makkreel regarding the moral significance of beautiful nature as a ‘cipher’. Namely, in grasping natural beauty as a cipher, nature hints at being purposive, not for our cognitive, but specifically for our moral end.Footnote ¹⁴ Indeed, as already suggested, the disposition toward taking an interest in the morally good seems to be a condition for the subject who finds himself immediately interested in beautiful forms of nature. In addition, Kant in fact explicitly compares interest in traces of a correspondence between our feelings of pleasure and products of nature to concern with the question of the objectivity of the ideas in which reason is interestedFootnote ¹⁵:

The parallelism with the interest of reason lets us assume that, in taking an interest in the existence of beautiful forms of nature, we demonstrate our status as rational beings: pleasure in the beautiful is not only disinterested and a priori valid for everyone, but it also acquires value for reason insofar as it expresses a free, purposive satisfaction in a sensible world that seems to be well disposed to the supersensible. In order for there to be a lawful correspondence between our pleasure and beautiful forms of nature, these beautiful forms must of course exist.Footnote ¹⁶ And the existence of natural beauty assumes a moral significance because it is a trace of nature’s openness to freedom. Thus, intellectual interest in the existence of beauty of nature is specified as morally, and not only cognitively, relevant, because it denotes a subject interested in the realisation of the morally good in the world of nature.

As a result, any judging subject who is a moral subject is not merely interested in the existence of these beautiful forms: he must take such interest. This second point requires further analysis, since it raises the problem of whether taking an interest in natural beauty should be regarded as a duty. This question is closely intertwined with the comparison between artistic beauty and natural beauty, which will be further explored in the following section within the systematic perspective of a transition to the supersensible both ‘within’ the subject and ‘without’.

3. Supersensible ‘within’ and supersensible ‘without’: beauty as a form of transition

The grounds of distinction between intellectual and empirical interest in the beautiful within Kant’s systematic framework have made it possible to understand why the kind of interest changes depending on whether it concerns nature or art. Being now clear that the pre-eminence of beauty of nature over beauty of art is motivated by the moral significance of nature’s suitability to the realisation of freedom, but without failing to preserve the moral import of both, in this section I will deepen our consideration of the difference in relation to the transition (Übergang) to the supersensible they allow. But first, I take into account some examples from the critical literature to further stress that a complete picture of Kant’s theory of interest in the beautiful is not possible outside of the systematic frame.

Paul Guyer, for example, argues that Kant’s theory of empirical interest in beauty brings out the point that fine arts cannot directly contribute to morality because their use has its origin in gratifying human inclinations (cf. Guyer Reference Guyer1996: 255). However, in light of what I have argued so far, prima facie, we could take an intellectual interest in beautiful art: this happens if we think that the beauty in question was produced by nature. Although Guyer is right in highlighting that beauty of art, due to its intentional origin, interests through its end and not in itself,Footnote ¹⁷ this focus on the actual origin of beautiful art is not enough to account for Kant’s dismissal of empirical interest in beautiful art as morally irrelevant (or, at least, as morally ambiguous). Guyer also states that works of art are disqualified from serving as symbols of autonomy, and accordingly of morality,Footnote ¹⁸ because interest in the beautiful can express our freedom and autonomy only if it is disinterested, i.e., if it arises independently of antecedent interest (cf. Guyer Reference Guyer1997: 267-8). But again, the fact remains that, if I am not aware that the beauty in question is artistic and not natural, I can take a disinterested interest in it.

I agree with Guyer’s claim that beautiful nature alone can properly symbolise morality (cf. Guyer Reference Guyer1997: 267-71), but I think that only the systematic perspective fully makes sense of the moral value of intellectual interest in beauty of nature. Indeed, it is in light of the mediating concept of a purposiveness of nature that we can explain why an interest in beauty is intellectual only if it is accompanied by the ‘thought that nature has produced that beauty’ (KU, 5: 299).

Henry Allison takes a step forward here. His starting point is precisely to understand the role that beauty of nature and beauty of art play in connection with the question of Übergang from nature to freedom. In particular, he puts the question in terms of what I have been referring to as that of the ‘supersensible within’ and the ‘supersensible without’.Footnote ¹⁹ Allison refers to ‘the supersensible substrate of humanity’ as the ‘supersensible within’ (KU, 5: 340) and the ‘supersensible substrate of appearances’ as the ‘supersensible without’ (5: 341). This distinction is more explicitly formulated in the Dialectic, and in particular in §57 and §59. In §57, the supersensible is presented as the ‘intelligible substratum of nature outside [außer] us and within [in] us’ (5: 345); in §59, the reference to the supersensible is expressed ‘as something in the [im] subject itself and outside [außer] of it’ (5: 353). The supersensible is thus both in the human being and outside of him, namely, in nature, and Kant is concerned with the determinability of the supersensible in both senses, as well as with its effect on the sensible world. However, Allison notes an important difference: while artistic beauty occasions the thought of the purposiveness of nature within the subject, natural beauty also occasions that of the purposiveness of external nature (cf. Allison Reference Allison2001: 214). Accordingly, natural beauty brings about a transition to the supersensible both ‘without’ and ‘within’, while artistic beauty promotes a transition to the supersensible ‘within’ (Reference Allison2001: 263).

This concern with a transition to the supersensible ‘within’ and ‘without’ is further developed by Lara Ostaric, who claims that beautiful art, just like beautiful nature, promotes a transition in both senses. Ostaric aims to overcome both Guyer’s and Allison’s perspectives by shedding light on fine art as the work of the genius, whose moral significance would be at least as important as the moral significance of natural beauty (Ostaric Reference Ostaric2023: 115). She claims against Guyer that the intentions of the genius surpass those of human inclinations, and against Allison that work of genius, although it cannot directly represent nature’s purposiveness, does not just prompt the thought of it (Reference Ostaric2023: 113-8). There are two points to be emphasised here. The first is that works of genius elicit the harmony between the faculties, demonstrating that they are in accord with our minimal rational requirements, i.e., the conditions for any cognition in general; the second is that works of genius also exhibit nature’s purposiveness, suggesting that nature too can be in accordance with the maximal demands of our rationality, that is, morality. As a result of the first point, fine art promotes the transition to the supersensible ‘within’, but in accordance with the second point, even if what is in question, as Kant himself emphasises (KU, 5: 308, 344), is ‘nature’ at work within the genius, fine art even promotes the transition to the supersensible ‘without’.

The discussion of genius indeed helps to bring beautiful art closer to nature insofar as genius produces the work of art through its own talent, which ‘as an inborn productive faculty of the artist, itself belongs to nature’ (KU, 5: 307). However, from this definition of genius it of course does not follow that the moral significance of the beauty of art is due to genius’ ability to exhibit the purposiveness of nature. Also, we might say, however close artistic beauty may come to ‘exhibiting’ the purposiveness of nature, from this definition, as a work of genius, what we have is at most an example of the purposiveness of nature. I would suggest, by contrast, considering the moral import of beauty of art in connection with Kant’s definition of genius as ‘the faculty for the presentation of aesthetic ideas’ (5: 314). However, with his theory of aesthetic ideas, Kant does not seek to equate the moral significance of natural and artistic beauty, precisely in that, in this particular respect, he does not attribute to genius the exhibition of nature’s purposiveness. Rather, Kant describes the exhibition of aesthetic ideas as ideas that universally represent and communicate intuitions to which no concept can be adequate, as the exhibition of imaginative representations of ‘as it were, another nature, out of the material which the real one gives it’ (ibid.; my emphasis).

In this regard, we can also consider the relationship between nature and art that Kant presents in his theory of the ‘normal idea’ (Normalidee; KU, 5: 233) of the species. The normal idea is an image that represents the standard of a particular species, thanks to the imagination’s ability to shape an object out of many different instances of kinds of objects, so as to offer a common measure to all of them. In this case, Kant does not say that the imagination creates another nature out of real nature, but rather that it ‘unlock[s] its secret from nature’ (ibid.). The theory of the normal idea of species thus seems to find enrichment in artistic representation with respect to nature itself, for in actual observation of nature we cannot find a single standard image for all species.Footnote ²⁰

This close relationship between art and nature thus leads to the possibility of also considering artistic beauty as a promotion of the transition to the supersensible ‘without’. However, we must bear in mind that nature still always maintains primacy here. The very reason for this primacy, which is common to every relationship between nature and art, is that a ‘beauty of nature is a beautiful thing; the beauty of art is a beautiful representation of a thing’ (KU, 5: 311). In addition, the production of a standard image for natural species seems primarily to express the human need to find order in the manifold of nature, and so to stand out above all as cognitively, rather than morally, relevant.Footnote ²¹

I share Ostaric’s effort to preserve the moral import of beautiful art in Kant’s thought, and I also think she is right in considering that beautiful art can in some sense exhibit the purposiveness of nature even ‘without’. However, the reference of beauty of art to the supersensible ‘without’ remains merely representative. To this extent, the attempt to ground the moral significance of artistic beauty in the genius’s ability to in some sense exhibit the purposiveness of nature is lacking precisely with respect to the possibility of nature itself offering a direct ‘hint’ in the matter (KU, 5: 299). Indeed, when recalling the boundaries between art and nature, Kant insists that art can only be called beautiful ‘if we are aware that it is art and yet it looks to us like nature’ (5: 306): the awareness that art is a production through freedom corresponds to the awareness that the purposiveness of art can only be intentional, even if it must be regarded as unintentional (5: 306-7). And again, while the discussion of genius sheds light on genius as a talent of nature, the fact remains that the ‘nature’ which gives the rule to art is really nature ‘within’ the subject:

The moral significance of the beauty of art emerges in the light of the supersensible substratum that is part of our very nature and that attunes our cognitive faculties: the talent of genius, therefore, consists in universally promoting and communicating a state of mind that cannot be grasped according to rules or concepts and that belongs exclusively to the human being. Therefore, beauty of art promotes a transition to the supersensible ‘within’; in addition, although with the limitations noted above, it can also occasion the thought of a transition to the supersensible ‘without’. The pre-eminence of nature over art, therefore, is not to be understood as a devaluation of art, but as the necessary element to complete Kant’s philosophical system aimed at demonstrating the possibility of the realisation of moral ends in the world of nature. In judging the beautiful in general, the difference between art and nature can remain in the background, but the theory of intellectual and empirical interest in the beautiful explains – within the systematic framework – the pre-eminence of beautiful nature as the only reliable trace of nature’s lawful suitability for our moral ends.Footnote ²²

4. An interest to be ‘expected’: interest in beautiful nature as a ‘regulative’ duty

In this last section, I will argue that interest in the beautiful can be considered as a duty in a ‘regulative’ sense. Before turning to a deeper terminological analysis, I will present some interpretations from the critical literature with respect to this issue.

Paul Guyer addresses the link between aesthetics and morality as an element that completes Kant’s theory of the intersubjective validity of aesthetic judgement. He considers the imputation of the feeling of aesthetic pleasure to everyone else as ‘a sort of duty’ (Guyer Reference Guyer1997: 313). According to him, the presence of an interest is necessary to explain this. However, in my view, the pre-eminence of beauty of nature leads to the conclusion that interest in the beautiful may be considered as a duty only in case it is directed to beautiful forms of nature.

Henry Allison argues that interest in beauty is a duty only if it helps to bridge the gap between nature and freedom and, more specifically, if it brings about a transition from sense enjoyment to moral feeling (cf. Allison Reference Allison2001: 229). However, he also states that Kant provides no argument in this regard and his conclusion is that we can speak merely of ‘duty’ here, but not of ‘full-fledged duty’: in considering beautiful forms of nature as a trace of its amenability to the realisation of our ends, beautiful nature seems to be on our side, and interest in it may function as a sort of ‘moral facilitator’. Allison acknowledges that both beautiful nature and beautiful art can serve morality as facilitators (Allison Reference Allison2001: 229-35), but since fine art cannot provide a sign of nature’s purposiveness, its transition to the supersensible concerns only the supersensible ‘within’, while natural beauty also promotes the transition to the supersensible ‘without’.

Rather than talking about a sort of ‘duty’ short of ‘full-fledged duty’, I will propose a terminological analysis according to which we can speak of a ‘regulative’ duty to take an interest in the beautiful.

Kant writes that ‘reason must [muß] take an interest’ (KU, 5: 300) in the existence of beautiful forms of nature as the manifestation of a lawful correspondence between our pleasure and the object of that pleasure. However, in aesthetic judgement, interest cannot be an a priori prescription, as in the case of moral judgement, because the determining ground of the former is disinterested. The interest involved in moral judgement is grounded on objective laws, while in aesthetic judgement it remains free and independent of determinate concepts (5: 301); furthermore, moral judgement has an objective determining ground, that is, the will determined by reason, while aesthetic judgement has a subjective determining ground, namely, a disinterested and free pleasure.Footnote ²³ Accordingly, intellectual interest in the beautiful cannot be regarded as a moral duty.

The starting point to understand why Kant writes that reason ‘must take an interest’ in the existence of beautiful forms of nature is that he presupposes that every rational being is interested in the realisation of morality: since beautiful forms of nature are conceived as a sign of the possibility of this realisation, rational beings must be interested in their existence. This reading becomes clearer in highlighting that Kant uses the verb müssen, not sollen: this terminological choice strengthens the idea of the presupposition of a judging subject who ‘has already firmly established his interest in the morally good’ (KU, 5: 300), i.e., a subject who cannot but help take such interest.

Once again, in light of the justification of the pre-eminence of beautiful nature over beautiful art, I suggest that this model applies only in the case of an interest in the existence of beautiful nature. In the previous sections, I mentioned Kant’s description of cases of deceptive art – that is, art that appears to be nature. This is relevant to the consideration of interest in the beautiful as a ‘regulative’ duty only in the case of beautiful nature. When the subject judges something as beautiful in nature, only to later discover it is a work of art, even the ‘disposition’ toward that beauty changes. This shift is reflected in the disappearance of interest: ‘it disappears entirely as soon as one notices that one has been deceived and that it is only art, so much so that even taste can no longer find anything beautiful in it’ (KU, 5: 302).

Kant takes the example of the song of the nightingale: I judge its song to be beautiful as long as I believe it to be natural. However, once I discover that it is a deception – an artificial reproduction by a human being – my interest in it disappears (KU, 5: 302). As I have suggested, the reason for this is that, without denying that fine art also sheds light on the supersensible within the human being, the particular interest in question here relates to a higher and more ‘systematic’ aim, namely, that of confirming a general compatibility between the sensible and the supersensible. This account is confirmed by the fact that we do not expect everyone to be interested in fine arts, but in the case of the beauty of nature we do ‘expect of others that they should [sollen] take this interest in it; which in fact happens, as we consider coarse and ignoble the thinking of those who have no feeling for beautiful nature’ (5: 302-3; my emphasis).

Here, I conclude by noting that, while in a previous quotation I highlighted Kant’s choice of the verb müssen, rather than sollen, to express an interest that a rational subject cannot help but take, in this last quotation, instead, Kant writes that we should (sollen) take an interest in natural beauty. I think that this terminological shift cannot go unnoticed.

In the earlier passage, the use of the verb müssen relates to interest in beautiful nature not as a moral duty in the strict sense, but as a natural and necessary outcome if the judging subject is a moral subject. But interest in beautiful nature as a sollen offers a new perspective on intellectual interest as a duty, moving to a different level and finding articulation in the form of a universal claim.

As we might put it, the association of the interest in question with the verb müssen highlights that interest as a constitutive aspect of a certain sort of aesthetic judgement, presupposing a moral interest already grounded in the judging subject. By contrast, the question of when we should (sollen) take an interest in beauty relates to a regulative principle that bears on the expectation that everyone in fact develop a good moral intention. In the first case, there is a subject who is already a beautiful soul (schöne Seele, see KU, 5: 300), and an interest in beauty is a constitutive character of that subject; in the second case, the point is that everyone is expected to make himself or herself a beautiful soul, and the interest in question is then a duty at least in a ‘regulative’ sense.Footnote ²⁴

Immediate interest in beautiful nature thus denotes a disposition already imprinted with morality, but the only way to consider it a duty is in ‘regulative’ terms: such an interest is not objectively required, but we expect it to be acquired and cultivated by every subject – whose only objective duty is interest in the moral law.Footnote ²⁵ Keeping in mind that, for Kant, ‘Duty is the necessity of an action from respect for law’ (Groundwork, 4: 400), interest in beautiful nature is not directly assimilated to a moral duty because it neither has objective necessity nor involves action towards the fulfilment of the law. Nevertheless, interest in beautiful nature can be concluded to be a consequenceFootnote ²⁶ of a moral duty.