Kant on Sublimity and Morality

The sublime is the experience of what is great in power, size, or number. Historically, from ancient times to the present, this aesthetic experience has always been associated with morality, but in order to exclude evil, fascistic or terroristic uses of the sublime, we require a systematic justification of the claim that there are internal moral constraints on the sublime. The author argues that Immanuel Kant alone provides this account binding sublimity to moral ideas, the exhibition of freedom, the production of respect and violence toward inclinations.