 Hume’s theory is most firmly rooted in the work of Joseph Addison, Francis Hutcheson, and, to a lesser extent, Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper). The specific connections are detailed in Kivy (2003), Townsend (2001), and Costelloe (2007). From the older tradition, elegantly expounded by Addison in numerous essays written between 1709 and 1715, Hume retains the idea that the values within the scope of criticism are essentially pleasures of the human imagination. Although Hume acknowledges cases where beauty seems a merely sensory pleasure, he emphasizes beauty’s status as a cognitive pleasure. Taking beauty as his paradigm case of such a value, Hume combines Addison’s theory of taste as an operation of imagination with Hutcheson’s proposal that emotions are the foundation of moral judgment. Elaborating on the “inner sense” theory, Hume endorses Hutcheson’s stance on the general question of the nature of both moral and aesthetic value. Value judgments are expressions of taste rather than reasoned analysis. Values cannot be addressed except in the context of a general theory about our shared human nature. Although recognition of aesthetic and moral beauty is a manifestation of taste (and perhaps they cannot ultimately be distinguished from one another), taste must not be dismissed as subjective, idiosyncratic preference.