Can moral actions be beautiful? On the possibility of a moral aesthetics along the lines of David Hume

Abstract

The present article aims to defend the possibility of the existence of the moral beauty based on David Hume's moral and aesthetic theory. The relationship between aesthetics and morality will be analyzed in the first part. The moral beauty hypothesis will be placed as one of these possible relationships. Within the possibilities of grounding moral beauty, it will be argued that the best would be through the Humean understanding of aesthetics and morality. The second part of the article analyzes the concept of aesthetic experience and its importance for the Humean foundation of moral beauty. Finally, the moral and aesthetic theory proposed by Hume will be developed in order to demonstrate how his moral and aesthetic theory have an intrinsic relationship that would allow the confirmation of the moral beauty hypothesis.