The charientic: a neglected normative category

Abstract

It is a standard problem of value theory, broadly construed, to identify, classify, and analyse evaluative judgements. In 1958, Peter Glassen argued that judgements regarding vulgarity or elegance, which he calls “charientic” judgements, are (i) properly evaluative judgements; and (ii) distinct from other types of universally recognised evaluative judgements, such as moral or aesthetic ones. The goals of the current work are firstly to defend and develop these claims to establish the charientic as a proper normative category, and secondly to show, using Christine Korsgaard’s theory of normativity from her 1996 book The Sources of Normativity, that there exist charientic obligations. Grounding obligations in practical identity, a conception of oneself under which one finds oneself valuable, is key to establishing the existence of charientic obligations.