1. Kant on Symbolic Hypotyposis

In Kant’s terminology, a “hypotyposis” is a procedure that makes something sensible in an intuition (KU 5: 351). The hypotyposis of a pure concept of the understanding is “schematic,” where the power of judgment, as “the faculty of subsuming under rules,” determines an intuition whose content corresponds to the concept (KrV A132/B171). By contrast, since no intuition can be adequate for an idea of reason, the latter’s hypotyposis must be “symbolic,” whereby the power of judgment proceeds in a way merely “analogous” to its schematization. In this case, what corresponds to the idea is “not the content” of an intuition but rather “the form of the reflection” (KU 5: 351). For Kant, the power of judgment is “determining” in subsuming the particular under the universal while “reflecting” in finding the universal for the given particular (KU 5: 179). Hence, to symbolize an idea, we reflect on two connections, the first between two intuitions, the second between the idea and some other intuition or idea, and we find a form of reflection that applies to both connections. Kant contrasts the two types of hypotyposis in an important, albeit ambiguous, text as follows:

I relate the term ‘task [Geschäft]’ here to Kant’s writing in the same book on our cognitive “business [Geschäft]” of finding the universal for the particular (KU 5: 186).^{Footnote 3} Thus the ‘double task’ in fact refers to the two functions of the power of judgment, in view of which Kant distinguishes between two types of hypotyposis. The schematic hypotyposis is the direct presentation of a pure concept of the understanding, whereby the power of judgment applies the concept to a sensible object and determines the latter accordingly. In contrast, the symbolic hypotyposis is the indirect presentation of a concept of the understanding or even of reason, whereby the power of judgment reflects on the connection between the intuition of a sensible object (i.e., a symbol) and another object so as to find a rule, and it applies this mere rule of reflection to another connection, namely, the one between ‘an entirely different object’ (i.e., the symbolized) and even another object, without demonstrating the symbolized object in any intuition.^{Footnote 4}

In Kant’s example, a hand mill symbolizes a monarchical state governed by a single absolute will (KU 5: 352). On my reading, the hand mill, qua a sensible object, does not correspond to the concept of a despotic state in terms of content. Nevertheless, we may reflect on the mill’s connection to another object (such as a miller) and discover a rule of reflection (such as mechanism); meanwhile, to reflect on the connection between a despotic state and a single absolute will, we find a similar rule, insofar as the dictator also manipulates the state mechanically. In a symbolic hypotyposis, the power of judgment does not determine objects according to their concepts (as it does in a schematic hypotyposis) but rather reflects on their respective connections to some other objects. Therefore, without demonstrating the despotic state directly, the mill symbolizes the despotic state insofar as the analogous rule or form of reflection applies to both the connection between the mill and the miller and the connection between the state and the dictator, although these objects do not resemble each other in terms of content. As Kant points out, even daily language contains symbolic expressions, such as “ground (support, basis)” and “flow (instead of follow)” (KU 5: 352). Since the ground holds up buildings in the same way that a good reason holds up an argument, ‘ground’ symbolizes the reason.^{Footnote 5} Similarly, since water flows from a spring in the same way that an effect follows a cause (i.e., both relations are subject to a succession of before and after), ‘flow’ symbolizes ‘follow.’^{Footnote 6}

My interpretation is significantly different from a prevalent reading. Along with others, Henry E. Allison argues that the very procedure of symbolic hypotyposis

The major difficulty in this reading is how exactly the power of judgment should ‘apply’ an idea to a sensible object in a ‘quasi-determinative’ manner, as if the former were to subsume the latter in terms of content. Thus the first function in Allison’s account contradicts Kant’s precept that what corresponds to a symbolized idea is ‘not the content’ but ‘the form of the reflection.’ As I see it, to symbolize the concept of a despotic state by the intuition of a mill, the power of judgment does not apply the former to the latter in some ‘quasi-determinative’ manner; rather, it reflects on the similarity in their connections to some other objects, such as a single absolute will and a miller.

There is an ambiguity in Kant’s text cited above. While I take Kant as referring ‘that intuition’ in the second task to ‘the second’ of ‘intuitions that are ascribed to concepts a priori’ in hypotyposis in general, the other commentators seem to refer it to ‘first applying the concept to the object of a sensible intuition’ in the first task; consequently, their reading of the symbolic hypotyposis involves the (quasi-)determining power of judgment and implies similarities between an idea and a symbol themselves, leading to a substantive interpretation which I shall examine in Section 4. By contrast, on my reading, while Kant does refer the ‘double task’ to the two functions of the power of judgment, he grounds the schematic hypotyposis in its first, determining task and the symbolic hypotyposis solely in its second, reflecting one.

My reading accords with Kant’s writings elsewhere. Early in the Prolegomena, Kant claims that one legitimate use of analogy is to obtain relational knowledge about objects of ideas. For instance, we may associate the idea of God to something sensible by an analogy of relations: “as the promotion of the welfare of children (= a) is to the love of parents (= b), so the welfare of the human species (= c) is to that unknown in God (= x), which we call love” (Prol 4: 357–360). We do not apply the idea of God’s love to any sensible object in some (quasi-)determinative manner, for parental love, qua a human inclination, cannot be an attribute of God. And yet, our power of judgment reflects on the connection between parental love and children’s welfare just as it does on the connection between the idea of God’s love and human beings’ welfare. Insofar as we observe the same rule of reflection (namely the promotion of welfare) in both connections, we regard parental love as a symbol of God’s love. In a later work, Kant also states that an object may symbolize an idea by “analogy,” even though they themselves are entirely different; for example, the maker of a clock symbolizes the supersensible creator of organisms, because they have the same sort of causality regarding their products (FM 20: 280).

Based on my interpretation of Kant’s theory of symbolic hypotyposis in general, Section 2 will turn to his claim that “the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good” (KU 5: 353).

2. The Beautiful Symbolizes the Morally Good

This section comprises three parts: the first explicates the terms “the beautiful” and “the morally good [das Sittlich-Guten]” in Kant’s symbolic relation (KU 5: 353); the second examines the formalistic similarities between our reflections on beauty and morality; and the third raises the question of why it is our duty to regard beauty as the special symbol of morality, the answer to which will be provided in the remaining three sections of this paper.

Following empiricists such as Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, Kant argues that beauty is not a property of the object and that a judgment of taste “contains merely a relation of the representation of the object to the subject” (KU 5: 211). We judge something as beautiful insofar as its representation occasions in our minds a free and harmonious play, which does not constitute any knowledge of the object itself. That said, what can qualify as a symbol must be an intuition, namely, something sensible; therefore, strictly speaking, the term ‘beauty’ in Kant’s discussion of the symbolic hypotyposis should be taken as the intuition or representation of a beautiful object rather than its abstract relation to the subject.

Interpretation of the term ‘the morally good’ is more complicated. Some commentators consider beauty to be symbolizing “the idea at the basis of morality”^{Footnote 8} or “the supposed supersensible basis of our capacity for moral action,”^{Footnote 9} but it seems that the supersensible basis of beauty, rather than beauty itself, would be a more suitable counterpart to the basis of morality. To solve this problem, I appeal to G. Felicitas Munzel’s distinction between Kant’s usages of Sittlichkeit and Moralität (both are translated as ‘morality’ in English): while Sittlichkeit refers to “morality’s making an appearance in actual life and conduct,” Moralität consists in “how a law in itself can be the immediate ground of determination of the will.”^{Footnote 10} In my view, Sittlichkeit refers to a mental state that conforms to Moralität: the former is the effect of the latter, just as our power of choice (Willkür) ought to be effected by the pure will (Wille), while the pure will itself has no further determining grounds (MS 6: 213). As I shall show in Section 5, while we refer beauty to some indeterminate concept of end, we refer Sittlichkeit to determinate moral concepts, which belong to Moralität, and which determine the former concept through a practical necessity.

Against Munzel, Lara Ostaric considers it questionable whether Kant clearly distinguishes between Sittlichkeit and Moralität.^{Footnote 11} But I think the distinction is at least evident in the third Critique, for Kant states that we represent “(moral [Moralische-]) good … not so much as beautiful but rather as sublime,” (KU 5: 271) even though we symbolically present “morality [Sittlichkeit]” through beauty (KU 5: 351). On my reading, we judge Moralität to be sublime or absolutely great because it ought to determine our power of choice and to arouse in us the feeling of respect, a feeling akin to the sublime experience (KU 5: 257); by contrast, Sittlichkeit refers to that which is grounded in the supersensible Moralität, just as beauty is considered to be grounded in some intelligible causality, which I shall detail in Section 5.

Now that Sittlichkeit points to actual life and conduct, what Munzel does not explain further is why its hypotyposis requires a symbol at all. In daily language, we may call a certain mental state and, by extension, certain choices or even actions, ‘morally good,’ as if they were examples demonstrating Sittlichkeit. To understand this, I call attention to Kant’s distinction between consciousness of acting “in conformity with duty” and “from duty,” namely, between “legality” and “morality” (KpV 5: 81). Kant defines “duty” as an action that accords with the moral law or Moralität (KpV 5: 80). While we can judge the legality of an action, we cannot determine whether it is truly and purely grounded in Moralität, that is, whether its intention is morally good (Sittlichgut). For Kant, “the depths of the human heart are unfathomable” (MS 6: 447). One can never be absolutely certain whether his own motive, let alone others’, is completely free from sensory impulses. Now that Sittlichkeit derives from the supersensible Moralität, it is as much an idea as the latter and its hypotyposis must be symbolic.

Beauty and morality, thus understood, may constitute a symbolic relation, insofar as we reflect on them according to similar rules. In fact, Kant draws four analogies in their rules of reflection while also taking note of certain dis-analogies, which I analyze as follows.

Firstly, both beauty and morality please “immediately,” although the former does so “in reflecting intuition,” the latter “in the concept” (KU 5: 353–354). On the one hand, a judgment of taste is aesthetic and determinable by the feeling of pleasure and displeasure rather than by concepts (KU 5: 203), such that beauty pleases without conceptual mediation (KU 5: 208). On the other hand, Kant distinguishes between the mediate and the immediate good: we represent the former as useful in terms of its compatibility with the concept of an external end, the latter as “good in itself” in terms of its internal perfection, namely, its accordance with the concept of what it ought to be (KU 5: 208; cf., KU 5: 229). Now that a moral (sittlich) mental state conforms to the concept of what the power of choice ought to be (i.e., the concept of freedom or Moralität), I take its morality (Sittlichkeit) as a type of ‘good in itself.’ Therefore, unlike utility and much like beauty, morality pleases us immediately, that is, for its own sake and free from consideration of other ends.^{Footnote 12}

Secondly, both beauty and morality please “without any interest,” although the former does not even produce any interest, while the latter does (KU 5: 354). Kant defines interest as the satisfaction that we combine with the representation of an object’s existence (KU 5: 204). A judgment of taste is disinterested, for an object’s beauty consists in its mere “form,” which is “the combination of different representations,” (KU 5: 224) and which is composed through our “imagination,” namely, the faculty of intuition “without the presence of an object” (Anthro 7: 153). A moral judgment is also disinterested, for morality (Sittlichkeit) consists in the accordance between our power of choice and the moral law rather than an object’s presence. Therefore, in terms of disinterestedness, both satisfactions are free from objects’ existence. Nevertheless, while the imagination is a cognitive faculty and not directly connected to any interest, the power of choice is practical and initiates an action to realize its object.

Thirdly, both beauty and morality please through harmonious “freedom” of our mental powers (KU 5: 354). In a cognitive judgment, the imagination harmonizes with the understanding through a determinate and determining concept. By contrast, in a judgment of taste, the imagination is taken as “productive and self-active” and not subjected to “the laws of association;” and so, it composes a beautiful form in a way without conceptual guidance, and yet is harmonious with the lawfulness of the understanding in general (KU 5: 240–241). Similarly, in judging the morally good, our power of choice is free from empirical concepts, although it still accords with universal laws of reason.

Fourthly, both beauty and morality please with necessary “universal” validity for all judging subjects (KU 5: 354). For Kant, from the disinterestedness of the judgment of taste we can already “deduce” its intersubjective universality (KU 5: 211). The satisfaction in beauty, much like that in morality, is free from sensory stimuli and personal idiosyncrasies. Furthermore, to establish the necessity of its universality, Kant grounds the judgment of taste in a transcendental condition that is the understanding’s “lawfulness without law” (KU 5: 241). Meanwhile, the moral judgment refers to reason’s lawfulness according to the moral law.^{Footnote 13}

To summarize, in both representations of beauty and morality, we experience free lawfulness of our mental faculties, such that both satisfactions are immediate, disinterested, free, and universal. Put differently, beauty: the judgment of taste = morality : the moral judgment = free lawfulness. We also observe two significant differences: firstly, while the judgment of taste is aesthetic and free from all concepts, the moral judgment relies on moral concepts; secondly, while we judge beauty with cognitive faculties, we judge morality with the faculty of desire.

The structural analogies between the two types of judgment already entitle beauty as a symbol of morality, whether or not it expresses any specifically moral concepts. After all, a symbolic hypotyposis requires no resemblance in content but mere isomorphic forms of reflection; a symbolic relation is merely formalistic. What is peculiar, however, is Kant’s bold assertion that the beautiful is not just a symbol but indeed “the symbol” of the morally good, and that “only in this respect (i.e., by a relation [einer Beziehung] that is natural to everyone, and that is also expected of everyone else as a duty) does it please with a claim to the assent of everyone else” (KU 5: 353).^{Footnote 14}

The formalistic analogies cannot explain why beauty should be the symbol of morality. As I have shown in the last section, a symbolic hypotyposis consists of three steps: firstly, the mind connects an idea = X to something else = Y; secondly, the power of judgment reflects on this connection and finds a rule = R; thirdly, if R also applies to another connection between something sensible = A and even another object = B, namely, A : B = X : Y = R, then A is a symbol of X. Accordingly, for three reasons, there can be numerous symbols of an idea. Firstly, X may be connected to something other than Y. For example, morality is conducive to the highest good, just as a right path leads to a destination. Secondly, the same connection between X and Y may conform to some rule other than R. For example, the morally good only pleases someone susceptible to the feeling of moral ideas, just as a gentle touch or a subtle fragrance only affects someone sufficiently perceptive to sensations. Thirdly, the same rule R may apply to some connection other than the one between A and B. For example, much like beauty and morality, an object’s internal perfection also pleases immediately and universally. Therefore, the right path, the gentle touch, and the internal perfection are all symbols of the morally good. In the same vein, a despotic state can be symbolized by a hand mill, a puppet, or a herd, none of which is its special symbol; and we certainly have no duty to regard any of them as a special symbol.

Kant’s statement that “only in this respect … does it please with a claim to the assent of everyone else” (KU 5: 353) suggests that the judgment of taste is universally valid on condition that beauty symbolizes morality; it would follow that, in order to establish the judgment’s necessary universality, we must maintain the symbolic relation. Donald W. Crawford thus takes Kant as concluding his deduction of the judgment’s universality with symbolism.^{Footnote 15} But this approach is unconvincing in three respects. Firstly, it is the judgment’s universality that grounds the symbolic relation, rather than the other way around.^{Footnote 16} Crawford could respond that beauty symbolizes morality only in terms of the other three analogous aspects, save the universal validity; but still, secondly, how can we prove that the judgment of taste must be as much universal as the moral judgment for the mere reason that they are both immediate, disinterested, and free from empirical concepts? The symbolic relation seems too weak for such a proof.^{Footnote 17} Thirdly, the duty to regard beauty as the symbol of morality can at best grant a duty that we regard the judgment of taste as universally valid, but it does not prove the universality as a matter of fact.^{Footnote 18} On my interpretation, once we judge something as beautiful, we must then regard its beauty as the symbol of morality, even though the aesthetic judgment itself, which makes a claim to universal validity, does not presuppose moral considerations.

For Kant, “duty” is an action necessitated only by practical reason and its objective law (KpV 5: 32). As I see it, it is the alleged ‘duty’ that justifies Kant’s assertion of beauty as the special symbol of morality. In view of this, the symbolic relation is more than a matter of fact, which the formalistic analogies alone establish, but indeed serviceable for some practical end and, therefore, associated with practical necessity. This is why, for Kant, we even evaluate others “in accordance with a similar maxim of their power of judgment,” (KU 5: 353) that is, in terms of whether they similarly regard beauty as the symbol of morality. As I shall show, the ‘duty’ in question is twofold, as it concerns both moral cultivation and moral motivation.

3. Symbolism and Moral Cultivation

This section argues that the symbolic relation between beauty and morality contributes to the cultivation of the moral feeling, which is a duty.

According to Kant, taste “makes possible the transition from sensible charm to the habitual moral interest without too violent a leap” (KU 5: 354). Much like the agreeable, beauty pleases without any determinate concept; meanwhile, much like the morally good, beauty pleases disinterestedly and universally. Hence, although beauty itself is very different from the agreeable and the morally good, the satisfaction it arouses is similar to both satisfactions in the latter.

This mediation in satisfactions further facilitates a mediation in our susceptibility to them. In Kant’s words, the experience of beauty elevates our mind above “the mere receptivity for a pleasure from sensible impressions,” (KU 5: 353) that is, above the mere susceptibility to the agreeable. On my reading, this elevation by taste is directed towards the “moral feeling,” namely, the “susceptibility to feel pleasure or displeasure merely from being aware that our actions are consistent with or contrary to law of duty” (MS 6: 399).

Not spelled out in the third Critique, this elevation is importantly associated with a duty. In the Metaphysics of the Morals, Kant states that we are obliged to cultivate and to strengthen the moral feeling, without which one would be “morally dead” (MS 6: 399–400). Elsewhere Kant also argues that we should “cultivate as much as possible the effect of reason on this feeling” (KpV 5: 117). The moral feeling is the necessary condition for moral judgments and thus for moral actions, for otherwise one could not even decide whether an action conforms to the law.

For Kant, we cultivate the moral feeling by wondering at “its inscrutable source” and by showing how it is “set apart from any pathological stimulus and is induced most intensely in its purity by a merely rational representation” (MS 6: 399–400). Put differently, we strengthen this susceptibility by constantly contemplating the moral lawfulness, which is determined by the law of pure practical reason, and which is free from empirical concepts and sensible charm.

Now, taste is the susceptibility to a kind of lawfulness that is entirely free from all concepts and interests whatsoever. Although the experiences of beauty and morality concern two distinct types of free lawfulness, both strengthen our susceptibility to free lawfulness in general, such that the promotions of taste and the moral feeling indirectly and reciprocally advance each other. As Kant points out, while one can improve his taste through practicing this faculty itself (KU 5: 282),^{Footnote 19} “the true propaedeutic for the grounding of taste is the development of moral ideas and the cultivation of the moral feeling” (KU 5: 356). Conversely, appreciation of beauty is also beneficial to the moral cultivation and, therefore, as much a duty as the latter.

My reading is consistent with Kant’s statement as follows:

Much in the same way that we judge the morally good, with taste we take pleasure in something without considering its usefulness, that is, without any precedent interest. Hence, the experience of beauty, though ‘not of itself moral,’ is nevertheless a disposition that promotes the moral feeling and thereby ‘greatly promotes morality.’ While the wanton destruction of beauty is opposed to duty, the advancement of taste is compatible with it.

However, both the opposition and the compatibility are indirect, for the satisfaction in beauty is the aesthetic consciousness of a harmonious play in our faculties of cognition (rather than of desire), a play entirely free from all concepts (including the moral ones). It is through the symbolic relation between beauty and morality that we represent the analogous rules in their reflections and, thereby, actively and decisively direct taste to the moral feeling, such that practice of the former can effectively promote the latter. And so, consideration of this symbolic relation is necessary for a practical end.

This consideration is also necessary in a negative, precautionary sense. Although Kant himself does not make the point, it must be emphasized that the mediation through taste is bilateral. Taste, the other way around, also facilitates a dangerous transition from the habitual moral interest to mere sensible charm.

In the second Critique, Kant already warns us of an “error of subreption” (KpV 5: 116). The moral determination of the power of choice grounds both an intellectual satisfaction and an impulse to activity. The sole incentive of this impulse should be the moral law, but one might mistake the satisfaction as the genuine ground of the impulse, just as when an inclination determines the power of choice, the agreeable feeling alone grounds a pathological impulse. In this scenario, one would act for the sake of pleasure rather than for the law itself. As I see it, this subreption is possible exactly due to an analogy between the moral judgment and the judgment of the agreeable, that is, both produce an interest and an impulse to activity.

Now that taste mediates between the intellectual and the merely sensory satisfactions, the subreption between moral interests and sensible charm becomes even more threatening. Insofar as beauty, much like morality, pleases the mind through a kind of free lawfulness, one might mistake the satisfaction in the former, rather than the law determining the latter, as the real ground for moral actions. Such a false, aesthetic ground might be further conflated with the aesthetic satisfaction in following one’s pathological impulses. As in chivalric romances, a self-delusional chevalier may proclaim to act out of duty (i.e., morality), which can be especially deceptive with all his beautiful pretenses such as eloquent speeches and elegant costumes, while he actually, though possibly unwittingly, performs only in conformity with duty (i.e., mere legality) so as to feel good about himself and to fulfil his covert inclinations to fame, sex, and power. It might be too harsh to call such a character hypocritical, but his motive is essentially different from being morally good.

Therefore, while we analogize beauty and morality in terms of the similar satisfactions they arouse, we must also bear in mind that beauty is merely symbolic of morality and does not resemble the latter in terms of content. In short, the duty in taste is inevitably combined and integrated with the duty in regarding beauty as the symbol of morality, for this consideration not only facilitates moral cultivation through taste but also keeps the cultivation strictly moral.

Meanwhile, the above is not all there is to the practical dimension of Kant’s theory of taste, as it does not address the general task of Kant’s third Critique, that is, the unification of the theoretical and the practical parts of his philosophy (KU 5: 176). According to Kant, by concepts of nature we have no insight into the supersensible substrate of nature; nevertheless, by the concept of freedom and for the sake of moral motivation, we must postulate an intelligible causality underlying nature that would cooperate with practical ends, such that we can be sufficiently motivated to pursue the highest good. And so, a gap emerges between the theoretically possible but unknowable and the practically necessary. Now, with regard to our aim at bridging this gap, taste displays an interesting duality: while the beautiful pleases through a free, harmonious play in the cognitive faculties, it also symbolizes the morally good. Suppose taste indeed contributes to the reconciliation and thus to the moral motivation, then the symbolic relation must be associated with a duty. Having this in mind and with reference to Kant’s account of an intellectual interest in beauty, several commentators attempt a substantive approach to the symbolic relation, which I shall examine in my next section.

4. Intellectual Interest in Beauty: Nature’s Moral Purposiveness?

In this section, I shall first provide an interpretation of Kant’s account of an intellectual, moral interest in beauty, and then examine the prevalent reading, which declares beauty to symbolize nature’s moral purposiveness, namely, its cooperation with practical ends. As I shall show, this approach does not faithfully reflect Kant’s thoughts, nor is it philosophically tenable on its own terms; nevertheless, it does inquire into the general task of the third Critique.

Although the satisfaction in beauty is disinterested, we may take an interest in an object in light of its beauty. On the other hand, while the satisfaction in morality is also disinterested, it always produces an interest in the existence of a practical end. And so, in §42 of the third Critique and prior to his writing on symbolism in §59, Kant proposes an intellectual interest in beauty as follows:

I break down Kant’s rather cryptic reasoning into three steps.

Firstly, the faculty of desire is morally good (sittlichgut) insofar as its disposition accords with the moral law or with ideas of practical reason (i.e., with Moralität). The moral feeling is the susceptibility to this conformity through a universal and disinterested satisfaction, which produces an interest in the objective reality of the ideas in nature, namely, in the existence of practical ends determined by the moral law. Now that the satisfaction, which we perceive through our moral feeling, gives rise to this interest, it is an interest ‘in the moral feeling.’

Secondly, since the interest in the practical ends is necessarily produced by the satisfaction in morality, there is a ‘lawful correspondence’ between the ends and the satisfaction that is ‘independent of interest’ and ‘valid for everyone.’ Meanwhile, Kant maintains that we cannot ‘ground this [satisfaction] on proofs,’ because the practical law is reciprocally implied by freedom (KpV 5: 29), which is, much like the immortality of the soul and the existence of God, a postulate without theoretical proofs (KpV 5: 312).

Thirdly, since we are interested in the practical ends, which must be realized in nature, and which correspond to a certain satisfaction, we are, by extension, interested in whatever objects correspond to a similar satisfaction. Therefore, we must take an interest in beautiful objects in nature, insofar as they similarly correspond to a disinterested and universal satisfaction. In contrast, the satisfaction in beautiful art is “not combined with an immediate interest,” (KU 5: 301) for artistic genius “presupposes a determinate concept of the product, as an end” (KU 5: 317). In other words, we are not immediately interested in art exactly because its appreciation is preoccupied with a mediate, non-moral interest. As Hans-Georg Gadamer points out, in §42, Kant emphasizes primarily natural beauty because it “possesses no significance of content, and thus manifests the judgment of taste in its unintellectualized purity.”^{Footnote 21}

Kant characterizes the interest in beauty as “moral,” for it derives from our moral interest in practical ends; as such, one’s interest in beauty indicates of one’s “predisposition to a good moral disposition,” which is why we expect it of others (KU 5: 300–302). On my reading, this derivation is possible due to the merely formalistic analogies in our reflections on aesthetic and practical objects, that is, due to the similarities in the satisfactions these objects correspond to.

Now, the prevalent interpretation argues differently. On Paul Guyer’s reading, Kant’s idea of intellectual interest implies that the natural existence of beauty “suggests the possibility of the realization in nature of the highest good” and, therefore, “symbolizes the possibility of the natural fulfilment of the rational intensions of morality.”^{Footnote 22} In the same vein, Birgit Recki states that we are interested in that “nature at least ‘gives a sign’ on the objective reality of our rational ideas.”^{Footnote 23} According to these commentators, insofar as beauty and morality bring about similar satisfactions, beautiful objects in nature are the sign that nature will cooperate with our practical pursuit, such that we must be as much interested in the existence of natural beauty as in the reality of moral ideas. If this should be the case, beauty would symbolize morality by exhibiting nature’s specifically moral purposiveness. Such a symbolic relation, which indicates a resemblance in content, would be more than formalistic but indeed substantive.

According to Kant, given that the “mere universal communicability” of the satisfaction in beauty must “in itself already involve an interest,” we can explain why “the feeling in the judgment of taste is expected of everyone as if it were a duty” (KU 5: 296). In view of this, Allison further argues that we have an “indirect duty” to develop taste and to take an intellectual interest in beauty, because the capacity of aesthetic appreciation is a “moral facilitator” which reinforces the sense that nature is on our side and that our moral efforts will not be in vain.^{Footnote 24} Ostaric also states that works of artistic genius, much like natural beauty, serve as a “source of moral motivation” on their own terms and strengthen our feeling that “nature is cooperative with our moral ends.”^{Footnote 25} Accordingly, we seem to have a duty to regard beauty as the symbol of nature’s moral purposiveness.

Despite its merits, I find the prevalent approach untenable in three respects.

Firstly, as I have shown, Kant does not directly refer the existence of beautiful objects in nature to the objective reality of moral ideas, as if the former indicates the possibility of the latter. Rather, Kant argues that our intellectual interest in practical ends extends to natural beauty insofar as they correspond to similar satisfactions. In fact, Kant clearly states that natural beauty interests us not through its association with moral ideas but through “the quality inherent in it by means of which it qualifies for such an association” (KU 5: 301–302). While not explicit in Kant’s texts, the ‘association’ appears to presage the symbolic link between beauty and morality in his later discussion. Beauty does not interest us by being a symbol of morality; rather, it is the ‘inherent quality’ of beauty, namely, its correspondence to a disinterested and universal satisfaction, that qualifies beauty for an indirect association with morality and, simultaneously rather than consequentially, attaches beauty to an intellectual interest. Hence, for Kant, beauty does not interest us by symbolizing morality, let alone by exhibiting nature’s moral purposiveness.

Secondly, what Kant claims to be ‘as if it were a duty’ is not the intellectual interest in beauty (as in Allison’s reading), but rather the “feeling in the judgment of taste” (KU 5: 296). As I have shown in the last section, this duty concerning taste is connected with the cultivation of the moral feeling. It is a duty, ‘as if it were,’ because the connection is only indirect and must be facilitated by the consideration of a symbolic relation, which is also why this duty must be combined and integrated with the duty in regarding beauty as the symbol of morality. We explain the duty in terms of the universal communicability of the feeling, which “must in itself already involve an interest,” (KU 5: 296) but this does not entitle the interest as a duty.

Thirdly, natural beauty does not, by itself, indicate nature’s moral purposiveness. While a beautiful object arouses an aesthetic satisfaction which resembles the moral one, this does not entail that the object itself should resemble a practical end in terms of their content, for such an entailment would undermine the autonomy of taste. The correspondence between certain natural objects and an aesthetic satisfaction does not suggest that nature would contain in itself some sort of ground for assuming a correspondence between its objects and the moral satisfaction, as if nature would, through its products, cooperate with our pursuit for the good.

In spite of these difficulties, the commentators’ attempt at a substantive interpretation is rich in suggestions, as it addresses the central question of the third Critique that is the role of taste in mediating between the domains of nature and freedom. In this respect, their arguments point us in the right direction: from the fact that nature, in its beauty, inspires our cognitive faculties to be invigorated in a harmonious way, we may speculate, without concluding, that nature may also harmonize with our practical ends. But again, this speculation must go beyond the mere formalistic similarities between the aesthetic and the moral satisfactions, such that it cannot possibly account for the intellectual interest in Kant’s §42.^{Footnote 26}

In the next section, I shall propose a semi-substantive reading of Kant’s approach: the experience of beauty directs us to some indeterminate purpose underlying nature, such that practical reason (rather than taste itself) can further determine this substrate for the sake of moral motivation. It is our duty to regard beauty as the symbol of morality, not because beauty itself manifests nature’s moral purposiveness but because, by means of this symbolic relation and then through a practical necessity, we can ascribe a moral purpose to nature’s supersensible substrate.

5. Symbolism and Moral Motivation

In §59, Kant claims that taste looks toward “the intelligible,” without which “glaring contradictions” would emerge between the nature of our cognitive faculties and the claims of taste (KU 5: 353). On my reading, Kant refers the ‘contradictions’ to the antinomy of taste he presents in §56: its thesis declares the judgment of taste to be based on a concept, while the antithesis argues to the contrary. To resolve this antinomy, Kant states that the judgment rests on some “indeterminate concept” (KU 5: 341), which I take to be the ‘intelligible’ in §59.^{Footnote 27}

Kant identifies this indeterminate concept with the “subjective principle” of taste (KU 5: 341). For Kant, the judgment of taste is the subjective or aesthetic representation of “the purposiveness of nature” (KU 5: 188). In Kant’s terminology, we call something “purposive” insofar as we cannot conceive of its possibility without assuming “as its ground a causality in accordance with ends” (KU 5: 220). For instance, a regular hexagon drawn in the sand in an uninhabited land is purposive, because, to explain its otherwise entirely contingent compatibility with the concept of ‘hexagon,’ we must assume a causality that produces it accordingly. In representing a given, beautiful form, our cognitive faculties undergo a harmonious and free play, as if the form is produced according to some concept which we cannot determine, such that we judge the form to be subjectively purposive for our power of judgment, namely, for our faculty of subsuming under concepts, and we represent this purposiveness aesthetically through the mere feeling of pleasure; and so, we are inevitably directed to the thought of an intelligible causality, even though we have no insight into its objective reality.

Therefore, the experience of beauty evokes in us the conception of an indeterminate purpose underlying nature, which is exactly the “intelligible” or the “subjective principle” that taste looks toward.^{Footnote 28} The judgment of taste represents the subjective purposiveness of sensible nature, which facilitates our assumption (rather than knowledge) of some utterly indeterminate purpose in nature’s supersensible substrate.

While beauty itself expresses nothing specifically moral, it can be a means for conveying a moral idea. Kant calls beauty in general “the expression of aesthetic ideas,” (KU 5: 319) which are the counterparts of rational ideas such as the moral ones (KU 5: 314). But it does not follow that we can express a moral idea in terms of beauty, namely, in terms of the subjective purposiveness we find in beauty. For Kant, an aesthetic idea is related to an intuition “in accordance with a merely subjective principle of the correspondence of the faculties of cognition with each other” (KU 5: 341). On my reading, a beautiful form yields an aesthetic idea through a purposive, free mental harmony: although the aesthetic idea has determinate, possibly moral content, the purposiveness is subjective and indicative of some completely indeterminate purpose underlying the form. This explains why, although beautiful forms can convey aesthetic ideas concerning immoral themes such as jealousy and cruelty, their beauty remains amoral.

Much like morality, beauty pleases all judging subjects through a lawful play of mental powers, which we cannot explain except by assuming in its basis some universal law, namely, a concept of purpose. Therefore, in both the aesthetic and the intellectual judgments, our mental powers represent a kind of purposiveness. On the one hand, we represent mere subjective purposiveness in beauty and assume an absolutely indeterminate purpose. Beauty as such does not correspond to morality (Sittlichkeit) in terms of content. If beauty, on its own terms, were to necessitate an appeal to a specifically moral causality, then taste would depend on practical concepts and its autonomy would be compromised. On the other hand, just as we refer the morally good to the concept of freedom and to the purposes of practical reason (i.e., to Moralität), we also refer the beautiful to the supersensible substrate of nature and to some purpose, as if nature is not merely an object for our theoretical cognition but also an effect by some faculty of desire in its supersensible substrate. In this regard, reflection on beauty prepares for a mediation between the domains of nature and freedom. As Kant points out in §59, in judging the beautiful, the power of judgment sees itself

The ‘inner possibility in the subject,’ namely practical reason and its moral law, postulates nature’s cooperation with our practical pursuit, which is, from a theoretical perspective, a mere ‘outer possibility;’ and so, a gap emerges between the practical necessity and the theoretical possibility. On account of this, we relate taste to the conception of some indeterminate purpose underlying nature, which is neither theoretically cognized nor practically postulated. Now that the purpose remains indeterminate, how is this conception connected with the ground of freedom? And how are the theoretical and the practical faculties thereby reconciled? As I see it, Kant provides the answer not in §59 but in the second Introduction to the third Critique. In the last section of the Introduction, Kant outlines the procedure of this reconciliation as follows:

I break down Kant’s reasoning into three steps.

Firstly, the pure concepts of the understanding enable our cognition of nature as mere appearance and indicate its noumenal substrate. But, in this regard, we cannot justifiably ascribe any purpose, let alone a moral one, to nature’s supersensible substrate. Meanwhile, in accordance with our moral vocation, we are to realize the final, practical end in the same sensible world. The problem is how to determine the as-yet ‘entirely undermined’ substrate of nature in such a way that it would harmonize with our moral pursuit.

Secondly, on account of the free mental harmony in judging beauty, our power of judgment necessarily appeals to some purpose in nature’s substrate. In other words, we could not explain the possibility of beauty except by assuming as its ground a causality according to a concept of end. Although taste still leaves the exact content of this purpose undetermined, the mere assumption of a purpose already makes nature’s substrate determinable.

Thirdly, our ‘intellectual faculty,’ namely reason, necessarily postulates this purpose’s consistency with the practical law. For Kant, “from a practical point of view,” we must assume “a moral cause of the world” in order to “set before ourselves a final end, in accordance with the moral law;” and so, the assumption is as much necessary as the final end itself (KU 5: 450–453). Hence, reason gives a specifically moral determination to the otherwise indeterminate purpose underlying nature.^{Footnote 29}

In my view, Kant’s account of the reconciliation involves two necessary assumptions: the first is based on the subjective purposiveness we represent in judgments of taste, the second on reason’s practical necessity. Accordingly, without theoretical cognition of nature’s supersensible causality, we are justified to conceive of nature as harmonizing with our practical ends. My interpretation finds support in Kant’s statement in §42. As a side note to his discussion of the intellectual interest in beauty, Kant writes:

We admire nature insofar as its beauty displays ‘purposiveness,’ that is, as if it were intentionally and lawfully arranged according to some as-yet indeterminate concept of end. Since this purposiveness of nature is ‘without end’ and the determination of the concept cannot be encountered in nature, we must turn to the ends of our own practical reason. Put differently, a judgment of taste represents nature’s subjective, amoral purposiveness and provides its supersensible substrate with mere determinability, which is then determined by our moral vocation. As Kant explicitly points out, this ‘admiration’ concerning nature’s moral purposiveness neither grounds nor derives from the intellectual interest in beauty; rather, the former is externally, ‘further added’ to the latter.

My analysis sheds light on Kant’s differentiation between and reconciliation of three supersensible ideas: the first is the “substratum of nature;” the second is “the principle of the subjective purposiveness of nature,” namely, the intelligible or the idea of an indeterminate concept that taste looks toward; and the third is “the principle of the ends of freedom and principle of the correspondence of freedom with nature [mit jener] in the moral sphere,” namely, reason’s moral law and its postulation of nature’s cooperation with the practical ends (KU 5: 346).^{Footnote 30} The first idea receives determinability from the second, such that it can be further determined by the third. And so, Kant declares the three ideas to be “the very same thing” (KU 5: 346).

According to Kant, without the conviction that nature would harmonize with the final, practical end, one would “certainly give up [the final end] as impossible” (KU 5: 452) and consider one’s effort to be futile. In this scenario, one would tend to seek excuses to escape from one’s duties, especially when one encounters obstacles to fulfil them. Hence, we should refer beauty to morality in view of their similar satisfactions, which ground their analogous connections to purposes, such that we can refer the aesthetic determinability in the reflection on beauty to the practical determination in the reflection on morality. In other words, we should symbolize morality by beauty.

To conclude, we must regard the beautiful as the special symbol of the morally good. The consideration of this relation is a twofold duty, as it not only contributes to the cultivation of our moral feeling but also provides an indirect, albeit crucial source of motivation for our moral pursuit.