Episode 231: Ideal Critics (Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste")

Many of us think that art is subjective, but at the same time it seems like some artistic judgments are better than others. Do you think Crash deserved to receive an award for Best Picture? Did you like Season 2 of Ted Lasso? Well you’re wrong. So how do we reconcile these two conflicting attitudes about art? David and Tamler turn to David Hume’s classic essay Of the Standard of Taste (link in notes) for help. Will Pizarro finally see the error of his ways on Straw Dogs?

Plus a doozy of a medical ethics paper – should we allow people to change their legal age if it doesn’t match their "biological" and "emotional" age?

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Links:

• Räsänen, J. (2019). Moral case for legal age change. Journal of medical ethics, 45(7), 461-464.
• Of the Standard of Taste by David Hume (pdf)
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy section on Hume's Essay