 Shaftesbury goes on to offer an extensive defense of critics, maintaining that the kind of discursive attention they give to art is necessary for artistic improvement and full appreciation (C 3.165–9). Such passages have led other commentators to conclude that correct aesthetic taste for Shaftesbury requires well-cultivated reflective, discursive abilities (Rivers 2000a: 126–9; Darwall 1995: 186; Townsend 1982: 210–12).