Abstract: The aesthetic skeptic maintains that it is futile to dispute about taste. A work of art might appear beautiful to one person but repellent to another, and there is no rational basis for adjudicating these conflicting verdicts. Hume argues that the skeptic, however, moves too quickly. The crucial question is whether qualified critics will agree on their evaluations, and the skeptic fails to provide sufficient evidence that their judgments will diverge. We have reason to expect that a critical consensus will emerge over time, moreover, since our core aesthetic values are based on principles of human nature. Skeptics might doubt that there is a natural foundation for taste, but this proposal is supported by recent work in experimental aesthetics and cognitive literary theory.