VM asked:

What is Hume's position on relativism in aesthetic judgements?

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In his essay "On the Standards of Taste", Hume describes an aesthetic judgement as not really a
judgement at all, but a matter of sentiment based upon something's being agreeable or pleasurable.
Sentiment has reference to nothing beyond itself, so we are not making judgements about the quality
of a thing. We cannot find real beauty in a work and different sentiments give rise to different
opinions, so it looks as if this is a theory of aesthetic relativism.

Hume answers this relativism in terms of the standard of taste. The various opinions of the masses
do not give rise to this standard. When we make a judgement that is a work is to our taste, which is to
find it pleasurable, we are still prepared to defer to the critic on the matter of quality. Although
mankind has a common nature, the critic who sets standards is a person of refined taste and
experience. The critic will have the sort of taste which enables him to pick out works that we can say
are of quality even if the quality of beauty is not something we can point to as real.

Relativism can still arise in two ways. Firstly, works of art belonging to different genres and periods
might appeal to one critic but not another. If one critic champions the glories of abstract art whilst
another finds quality only in Impressionism, there is no criteria upon which to say either one is right
without making reference to taste. Secondly, there are cultural differences so that Japanese critics,
say, will have different taste and experience from those in the West, so standards become culturally
relative.

However, the critic need not be seen as an actual critic. If the critic is taken to be an ideal critic, a
person we imagine as not embodied in the institution of art and immersed in a culture, we are
supposing that such a person — who is possible but not actual — might determine which works are
works of quality in light of different human tastes and cultures. The ideal critic will determine which
tastes pick out real quality and which works in different cultures are worthy of appreciation.

Rachel Browne