Cool. Thanks for your interest here, Shea.

I think the main point to make is that there is no argument here for an ethical system. There is simply the point that Schiller sees beauty as a model and motivation for our caring to become better people. To read this post and think it’s arguing for wine as a basis for our morality is an obvious misunderstanding. The post was a look at beauty only for the sake of appreciating a particular experience — in this case, drinking a specific Raveneau that without question is a special wine.

As a secondary point, since you raise it, it is also impossible to develop an ethical system on people’s plights, as to do so roots our principles and standards only in what we wish to change, when we must define any recognition of goodness on what we wish to establish and live. To put that another way, ethics by definition is the study of principles behind what it means to have a good life (that is, the study of a good life is necessarily a claim of what factors are included (that is present or positive, rather than missing or negative) in a person having a productive life); plights, on the other hand, are by definition problems and can only be treated in relation to correction not as the foundation for a positive ethical system as already described.

Creating a system of ethics is fundamentally generating a positive program of principles, rather than a list of rules against what should not happen. For example, something like the ten commandments can be very useful but in and of itself can only ever function as a list of rules, NOT a system of ethics. There must be additional principles alongside those rules to create an ethical system. Because the ten commandments is precisely a list of what NOT to do it is not defining a life of what we ARE to do. A response to peoples plights is a response to what has gone wrong, a reaction against what has not worked.

It can be important to respond to people’s plights. However, establishing an entire system on individual and collective plights, to use your example, is to create a *political* process, which is, of course, valuable but not by definition ethical. However, political systems do depend first on clear understanding of the ethical principles behind the government that will determine those political principles. So, while a response to plights can be crucial, they are not in and of themselves ethical, and so are far outside the scope of this particular article. In other words, your final assertion is fine but a claim of a different sort than is what was being discussed here, and as a result implies a misunderstanding of what moral decisions are by definition.

Since you wish to push on the metaphysical discussion, I’ll indulge you to a certain extent. You make a point of stating that wine is a created, mediated product. Certainly. As is all and any art. For Kant this point is central and at the same time strangely irrelevant. That is, if wine can ever be treated as an art object, then the fact that it may trigger additional sensual responses of desire is secondary to judging it on its form. Art in general can be judged in relation to aesthetic standards. And, according to Kant, aesthetic judgments actually have no argument.

Additionally, for Kant, to claim that an art object could be beautiful is to state that my judgment is not dependent on my preference, EVEN IF I also happen to like it. So, an aesthetic judgment of beauty in that sense depends upon a universal assertion of value, whether everyone else recognizes that value or not, and also whether or not I also happen to prefer it. In other words, I may strongly like a particular thing and yet at the very same time recognize it on universal terms. Whether I desire it or not is secondary. This is relevant of any type of art, as long as we could consider it art.

Some people are going to claim that food or wine cannot count as art. However, as pointed out in the post already, aesthetic judgments depend on our sensory acuity. There are places where people argue that visual acuity has greater aesthetic value than sensory ability deriving from something like taste or smell, but this post is obviously setting such concerns aside. There are also entire traditions in philosophy on the aesthetics of taste and smell. You would, in fact, be hard pressed to legitimately claim that visual judgments are more valuable than sensory judgments of other sorts outside of cultural reasons. It is clearly the case that our culture prefers visual standards. That is not enough to show that preference is anything but historical. That is, it is not clear that visual arts have an easier claim to judgments of beauty than products more obviously taste or smell based. Indeed aesthetics as a tradition gives plenty of ground for our applying principles of beauty to non-visual media.

That said, there are many that would be happy to argue against the idea of wine as art. There are also many that simply assume it is. I have had, in fact, very long discussions with a number of winemakers on this very subject. Taking the post here on its own merits, it is clear the point behind it is less about arguing that winemaking must be art, and more about discussing what is behind witnessing a unique aesthetic experience. Some wines simply achieve higher status than others in a way that is universal and not merely relative.

Still, as the post mentions, not everyone has had an experience with wine that proves to be ineffable. Some of us have. The write up already discusses this. “You’ve either seen beauty, and so recognize the simplicity of it, or you haven’t.” If someone hasn’t had that contact with a wine that transcends explanation then discussion of the issue will make no difference. To put it another way, my commentary here with you is actually irrelevant to the ultimate point because the ultimate point was already plainly put.

Schiller certainly does take some differing moral equivalences than Kant. However, it is not clear, necessarily, that Schiller goes further than Kant on his arguments for moral to aesthetic linkage. Again, such a discussion is entirely extra to the post presented here. But, since you seem to be interested, I’ll simply point out that there is an entire tradition stating that Schiller under estimated what Kant had already done.

Kant actually maintains a kind of linkage between the two but wants the motivation of the will to fall consistently on moral grounds, whereas Schiller asserts that aesthetic experience can have impact on decisions of the will. Schiller never entirely divorces the moral from the aesthetic, which is where the two differ. Kant sees that the aesthetic can trigger something else in us, which happens to fall within the moral. Schiller believes the two can fall more closely together. As already stated though there is a whole history of literature that argues back and forth about these fine tuned distinctions.

As for your balance question, the idea of balance in art is integral to how Schiller describes his notion of an art piece exhibiting completeness. Balance is an aspect of being complete, according to Schiller. Finding balance is integral to our aesthetic study but we cannot claim in advance exactly what specific qualities are necessary to accomplishing it. That is, balance in art (or self) is not the same as balance in mathematics, for example, which can be argued for. Aesthetic judgments are by definition NOT rational arguments. That means they operate differently than rational arguments do and must be respected as distinct to be recognized for what they are. In the case of the self, balance is a dynamic, mutable quality that has to occur over time. It is never there static like balance in a painting can be.

When it comes to the moral points, Schiller wants only to draw a parallel. To put it too quickly, we could make a comparison between balance towards completeness in art from Schiller with balance in virtue for goodness in Aristotle. For Aristotle, virtue is an on going life process that depends entirely on who we are in what context or position in society. We have to take our own specific demands into account to determine what is right for us to do. For Schiller balance is similarly contextual.

In such a shortened seminar as a blog, I expect that’s as good a quick point as we can make on it. That said, there are some great volumes on ideas of balance in virtue ethics, and balance in aesthetics that I could point you to if you’re interested.

The better point is the one this post originates with — find a wine that is beautiful and enjoy it. If you haven’t had that experience yet, keep looking, or look elsewhere. If you haven’t had such experience though, such discussion will be irrelevant or perhaps even trite to you until you do. So, if you don’t have access to the finer experience of beauty, such limitation is about your own experience without knowing beauty, and does not ultimately undermine the experience of those that have lived such moments. There is no argument or explanation for beauty. You’ve either experienced it, and so understand its simplicity, or you haven’t.

Cheers.
Elaine