However, notwithstanding all this difference between the pleasant and the good, they both agree in this that they are always bound up with an interest in their object. [This is true] not only of the pleasant(§ 3), and the mediate good (the useful) which is pleasing as a means towards pleasantness somewhere, but also of that which is good absolutely and in every aspect, viz. moral good, which brings with it the highest interest. For the good is the Object of will (_i.e._ of a faculty of desire determined by Reason). But to will something, and to have a satisfaction in its existence, _i.e._ to take an interest in it, are identical.
§ 5. _Comparison of the three specifically different kinds of satisfaction_
The pleasant and the good have both a reference to the faculty of desire; and they bring with them--the former a satisfaction pathologically conditioned (by impulses, _stimuli_)--the latter a pure practical satisfaction, which is determined not merely by the representation of the object, but also by the represented connexion of the subject with the existence of the object. [It is not merely the object that pleases, but also its existence.[16]] On the other hand, the judgement of taste is merely _contemplative_; _i.e._ it is a judgement which, indifferent as regards the being of an object, compares its character with the feeling of pleasure and pain. But this contemplation itself is not directed to concepts; for the judgement of taste is not a cognitive judgement (either theoretical or practical), and thus is not _based_ on concepts, nor has it concepts as its _purpose_.
The Pleasant, the Beautiful, and the Good, designate then, three different relations of representations to the feeling of pleasure and pain, in reference to which we distinguish from each other objects or methods of representing them. And the expressions corresponding to each, by which we mark our complacency in them, are not the same. That which GRATIFIES a man is called _pleasant_; that which merely PLEASES him is _beautiful_; that which is ESTEEMED [or _approved_[17]] by him, _i.e._ that to which he accords an objective worth, is _good_. Pleasantness concerns irrational animals also; but Beauty only concerns men, _i.e._ animal, but still rational, beings--not merely _quâ_ rational (_e.g._ spirits), but _quâ_ animal also; and the Good concerns every rational being in general. This is a proposition which can only be completely established and explained in the sequel. We may say that of all these three kinds of satisfaction, that of taste in the Beautiful is alone a disinterested and _free_ satisfaction; for no interest, either of Sense or of Reason, here forces our assent. Hence we may say of satisfaction that it is related in the three aforesaid cases to _inclination_, to _favour_, or to _respect_. Now _favour_ is the only free satisfaction. An object of inclination, and one that is proposed to our desire by a law of Reason, leave us no freedom in forming for ourselves anywhere an object of pleasure. All interest presupposes or generates a want; and, as the determining ground of assent, it leaves the judgement about the object no longer free.
