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May 29, 2007
The aesthetic experience of nature is different from the aesthetic experience of art, as the former are not designed and we are immersed in them. Many adopt an approach that centres on the subjectivity of the individual.
In contrast to formalist accounts of beauty subjective accounts commonly hold that beauty is the object of what Kant called ‘judgements of taste’, or what we would call ‘judgements of aesthetic value’. One feature of these judgements is that they are made on the basis of a response of pleasure and displeasure. Aesthetic judgements share this with judgements of the taste about food and drink.

Gary Sauer-Thompson, rocks + sea 2007
The other distinctive feature is that these judgements lay claim to correctness. Aesthetic judgements share this with empirical judgements. Though we cannot command that others find the same things beautiful that we ourselves do---eg., coloured rocks--- we are always commending what we find beautiful to each other.
This is not something we can responsibly do without having some well-grounded expectation that those to whom we commend the objects we have found beautiful may also do so. Hence are judgements of taste are ground in some form of intersubjectivity or sensus communis. .Each person has basically the same "common sense" for recognizing beauty in objects.
So we have the subjective accounts of beauty which focus on taste, on the attenders or audience members (1) exercising their ability to judge correctly from an aesthetic point of view and (2) finding enjoyment in attending to those aesthetic qualities that properly should ground such enjoyment.
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