Bad taste

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?

Durian (pictured above) is a popular fruit in Asia with a rather pungent smell. Some people love it and others hate it. So is durian tasty? Most people would probably say there is no correct answer. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beolder, whether durian is tasty depends on the person. It is tasty to some, and not tasty to others.

According to what we might call subjectivism about taste, when we make a claim such as "durians are tasty", we are only expressing our subjective opinion, but the claim is not objectively true. Whereas if we say "durians contain sugar", that is an objectively true claim, and it can be scientifically verified.

Many people think that subjectivism is correct about aesthetic judgments in general, and not just about the relative merits of food. When it comes to music, movies, literature, and art, different people have different tastes, and there are no objective standards. But is this view really correct?

Variations in taste

There are many reasons why people differ in their judgments about the quality of food. One factor is physiology. Some people have less sensitive taste buds. Others might react more strongly to bitter taste because of their genes. But taste preferences can also reflect social status and fashion as well. Standards of beauty can change over time & across cultures.

Moreover, our preferences can be influenced by all kinds of contexual factors which have nothing to do with the quality of the item being evaluated. Wine rating can be affected by the price tag, the color of the lighting and the glass, and information about the place of origin of the wine.

A short video about variations in wine tasting:

Problems with subjectivism

Subjectivism about taste seems very plausible. But if taste simply reflects subjective opinion, why do we continue to argue with each other when we know the the other person's opinion? If there is no correct answer when it comes to taste, why do say that some people have "bad taste", and why should we think that some people are experts when it comes to taste?

In fact, people can be very passionate about these disputes. Many Italians think it is a big mistake to put pineapples on pizza, and that you should make spaghetti carbonara with egg yoke and not cream. Chinese people also have strong opinions about how fried rice should be made:

This is not just true of food, but with aesthetic standards in general. Sometimes we describe people as having "bad taste" in music or fashion. How can this be if taste is entirely subjective? In addition, we recognize that some people are experts when it comes to taste, and we often try to learn from them and to emulate them. This is hard to understand unless there are standards about taste that go beyond our subjective preferences.