Let us define the meaning of "an end" in transcendental terms (i.e., without presupposing anything empirical, such as the feeling of pleasure).An end is the object of a concept so far as this concept is regarded as the cause of the object (the real ground of its possibility); and the causality of a concept in respect of its object is finality (forma finalis).Where, then, not the cognition of an object merely, but the object itself (its form or real existence) as an effect, is thought to be possible only through a concept of it, there we imagine an end.The representation of the effect is here the determining ground of its cause and takes the lead of it.The consciousness of the causality of a representation in respect of the state of the subject as one tending to preserve a continuance of that state, may here be said to denote in a general way what is called pleasure; whereas displeasure is that representation which contains the ground for converting the state of the representations into their opposite (for hindering or removing them).
The faculty of desire, so far as determinable only through concepts, i.e., so as to act in conformity with the representation of an end, would be the Will.But an object, or state of mind, or even an action may, although its possibility does not necessarily presuppose the representation of an end, be called final simply on account of its possibility being only explicable and intelligible for us by virtue of an assumption on our part of fundamental causality according to ends, i.e., a will that would have so ordained it according to a certain represented rule.Finality, therefore, may exist apart from an end, in so far as we do not locate the causes of this form in a will, but yet are able to render the explanation of its possibility intelligible to ourselves only by deriving it from a will.Now we are not always obliged to look with the eye of reason into what we observe (i.e., to consider it in its possibility).So we may at least observe a finality of form, and trace it in objects-though by reflection only-without resting it on an end (as the material of the nexus finalis).
SS 11.The sole foundation of the judgement of taste is the form of finality of an object (or mode of representing it).
Whenever an end is regarded as a source of delight, it always imports an interest as determining ground of the judgement on the object of pleasure.Hence the judgement of taste cannot rest on any subjective end as its ground.But neither can any representation of an objective end, i.e., of the possibility of the object itself on principles of final connection, determine the judgement of taste, and, consequently, neither can any concept of the good.For the judgement of taste is an aesthetic and not a cognitive judgement, and so does not deal with any concept of the nature or of the internal or external possibility, by this or that cause, of the object, but simply with the relative bearing of the representative powers so far as determined by a representation.
Now this relation, present when an object is characterized as beautiful, is coupled with the feeling of pleasure.This pleasure is by the judgement of taste pronounced valid for every one; hence an agreeableness attending the representation is just as incapable of containing the determining ground of the judgement as the representation of the perfection of the object or the concept of the good.We are thus left with the subjective finality in the representation of an object, exclusive of any end (objective or subjective)-consequently the bare form of finality in the representation whereby an object is given to us, so far as we are conscious of it as that which is alone capable of constituting the delight which, apart from any concept, we estimate as universally communicable, and so of forming the determining ground of the judgement of taste.
SS 12.The judgement of taste rests upon a priori grounds.
To determine a priori the connection of the feeling of pleasure or displeasure as an effect, with some representation or other (sensation or concept) as its cause, is utterly impossible; for that would be a causal relation which (with objects of experience) is always one that can only be cognized a posteriori and with the help of experience.True, in the Critique of Practical Reason we did actually derive a priori from universal moral concepts the feeling of respect (as a particular and peculiar modification of this feeling which does not strictly answer either to the pleasure or displeasure which we receive from empirical objects).But there we were further able to cross the border of experience and call in aid a causality resting on a supersensible attribute of the subject, namely that of freedom.But even there it was not this feeling exactly that we deduced from the idea of the moral as cause, but from this was derived simply the determination of the will.But the mental state present in the determination of the will by any means is at once in itself a feeling of pleasure and identical with it, and so does not issue from it as an effect.Such an effect must only be assumed where the concept of the moral as a good precedes the determination of the will by the law; for in that case it would be futile to derive the pleasure combined with the concept from this concept as a mere cognition.
