Intersubjective judgments. Some similarities in Sant, Smith and Arendt

Abstract

In this article I will focus on the possible similarities between the structure of the aesthetic judgment of Kant's Critique of Judgment (1790) and the structure of moral judgment in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Hannah Arendt in her Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy (1970) takes the structure of the Kantian aesthetic judgment and applies it in the field of politics, so that a moral dimension emerges as a consequence (i.e. Arendt seeks to regulate political action with scope morals). I will examine the structure of the Kantian aesthetic judgment and I will to investigate the similarities they have with the structure of the Smithian moral judgment, in order to examine to what extent Smith would help to broaden and deepen Arendt's philosophical project. It seems that Smith is close to the Arendtian project. I will propose that the structure of the Kantian aesthetic judgment, the Arendtian political judgment and the Smithian moral judgment are all intersubjective judgments, that is, they are judgments that need to be contrasted with the others. The three judgments judge the particular from the perspective of an impartial spectator thanks to the faculty of the imagination.