 Taste is the capacity to respond with approbation and disapprobation. But how does taste relate to Hume’s various remarks about “perceptions” and “discernments” of beauty, of our “judging” a work, and of critics who “give judgment” and who “give” or “pronounce” a “verdict” or “recommendation” (SOT, passim)? Hume seems to equate perception of beauty with the experience of the sentiment. (This equation underlies the problem of whether all tastes are equal). Does he distinguish between the critic’s experience of the sentiment and the judgment or verdict? If a verbal pronouncement that an object is beautiful is nothing more than an expression or report of the speaker’s sentiment, then Hume faces the difficulty that a critic’s verdict is not really a recommendation of the object. If your pronouncement that a piece of music is beautiful means no more than that you have felt a certain pleasure upon hearing it, then your verdict expresses your pleasure without saying anything about the music’s capacity to please others. So although critics issue judgments of taste based on their own sentiments, a judgment of taste must involve something more than a pleasing or displeasing sentiment. 