  Kant’s fourth connection between the aesthetic and the ethical lies in his theory of the “intellectual interest” in the beautiful. Here Kant argues that although our basic pleasure in a beautiful object must be independent of any antecedent interest in its existence, we may add a further layer of pleasure to that basic experience if the existence of beautiful objects suggests some more generally pleasing fact about our situation in the world.  Kant’s claim is that since it is of interest to practical reason that nature be hospitable to its objectives, we take pleasure in any evidence that nature is amenable to our objectives, even when those are not specifically moral; and the natural existence of beauty is such evidence, because the experience of beauty is itself an unexpected fulfillment of our most basic cognitive objective.