SS 37. What exactly it is that is asserted a priori of an object in a judgement of taste

The immediate synthesis of the representation of an object with pleasure can only be a matter of internal perception, and, were nothing more than this sought to be indicated, would only yield a mere empirical judgement. For with no representation can I a priori connect a determinate feeling (of pleasure or displeasure) except where I rely upon the basis of an a priori principle in reason determining the will. The truth is that the pleasure (in the moral feeling) is the consequence of the determination of the will by the principle. It cannot, therefore, be compared with the pleasure in taste. For it requires a determinate concept of a law: whereas the pleasure in taste has to be connected immediately with the sample estimate prior to any concept. For the same reason, also, all judgements of taste are singular judgements, for they unite their predicate of delight, not to a concept, but to a given singular empirical representation.

Hence, in a judgement of taste, what is represented a priori as a universal rule for the judgement and as valid for everyone, is not the pleasure but the universal validity of this pleasure perceived, as it is, to be combined in the mind with the mere estimate of an object. A judgement to the effect that it is with pleasure that I perceive and estimate some object is an empirical judgement. But if it asserts that I think the object beautiful, i.e., that I may attribute that delight to everyone as necessary, it is then an a priori judgement.