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Good looks as a rational value

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Ifat Glassman

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Alfa, Yeah, I was mostly just addressing your second question. Your first question was "Why not?" and I think it's more that the burden of proof may be on you to prove why it should be a factor given what romance is about. I've said a bit before about why I don't think it applies to what romance is about the same way other things in how a person looks may matter because those other things are more about expressions of the kind of person they are, not just dumb luck. It's unlikely somebody with a decent view of life and humans would make art that looks like the unlucky one you descibed, yes, but that's because you have total control to not have to have such bad luck come into things, you can make somebody who doesn't have all kinds of obvious health problems/hindrances. Outside of the purely visual arts though, you have an actual person in there, not just a look, and it's a person with a look which may have certain aspects which have almost nothing to do with what kind of person is in there, unlike how in art due to total control, you can draw many conclusions about the sense of life of who made that image.

ZSorenson, Yeah, Michael Jackson was doing unhealthy things when you get to the point you're basically told anymore surgery and your nose may collapse (I think this is what I've heard, if I'm not recalling correctly, my apologies.) I also suspect though he may have had some bad ideas making him insecure if he was actually going through that much surgery again and again on some of the same body parts and maybe if he was trying to change his skin color too, he may have not been entirely comfortable with races really being equal, still feeling like he may be a bit inferior. So, his motives may not have been the kind I support getting surgery for.

"Otherwise, virtues ought to be able to make up for that negative attention." Sure, your virtues can damn well render any less than optimal physical features meaningless. However, since when does the fact that you don't need something mean necessarily you shouldn't get it? You may have a car that works just fine as it is, fine enough you don't need to get rid of it, but does that mean you shouldn't get a dented door fixed or get a new coat of paint if you've got the spare cash and you'd like the look better that way? You can be fine with yourself as you are basically and still like to get something you'd see as an even further improvement. As for distracting other people and it being minor enough virtues can make up for it, remember I'm not talking about doing it for what other people think, so I agree trying to look how other people would like to get people to like you better is a bad reason to get surgery, really low and pathetic actually. It's like building second-handness right into your very physical form.

Not all cosmetic surgery involves adding foreign materials though, just as a side note, though you probably did know that already anyway. ;)

"Let me make a distinction - looks, chosen appearance, reflects character (neat, clean, dressed properly). Beauty - how you were born, that which causes sexual attraction - does not." Your wording at least is poor here, using "looks" versus "beauty." Beauty is here describing a type of looks (visual appearance) after all. Also, that wording at least makes it sound like sexual attraction is just the result of things that have nothing to do with a person's character. If you are looking for a way to express your sense of life though in physical appearance, down to shape of nose and such even, you don't have to seek or reject certain people for things that have nothing to do with their character in romance -- you could just make yourself look how you want, maybe even including cosmetic surgery. ;o

Since you bring up a car comparison again at the end, I'd argue it may be a bit like looking for somebody else on the basis of what car they have instead of working on getting your own car how you want it. :P

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Why not? Do you think a woman with a clubfoot, dwarfism and a hunchback could be as beautiful as, say, Megan Fox?

I'd have to say yes, based on what I've said earlier. It would just be different than what you're used to. It would probably be difficult to look beautiful due to the extent of their physical disadvantages, though. Megan Fox isn't beautiful by default due to her genetically determined features, and I'm not exactly sure if I'd call her beautiful in the first place, at least not based on her physical features alone.

Edited by Eiuol
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Alfa, Yeah, I was mostly just addressing your second question. Your first question was "Why not?" and I think it's more that the burden of proof may be on you to prove why it should be a factor given what romance is about. I've said a bit before about why I don't think it applies to what romance is about the same way other things in how a person looks may matter because those other things are more about expressions of the kind of person they are, not just dumb luck. It's unlikely somebody with a decent view of life and humans would make art that looks like the unlucky one you descibed, yes, but that's because you have total control to not have to have such bad luck come into things, you can make somebody who doesn't have all kinds of obvious health problems/hindrances. Outside of the purely visual arts though, you have an actual person in there, not just a look, and it's a person with a look which may have certain aspects which have almost nothing to do with what kind of person is in there, unlike how in art due to total control, you can draw many conclusions about the sense of life of who made that image.

The "why not?" was to be read as "why should not physical features determined by genetics be taken into account when judging a person beauty?". As far as romance goes I think Ifat has made a very good case of why beauty is important.

Yes, it's unlikely that someone with a decent view of life and man would depict our dwarf lady as something beautiful, or ideal, in a work of art. The simplest reason for that is, she isn't. And no matter what she does she's never going to be as beautiful as someone born without those defects. That's just a fact, no matter what her character is like.

The value of a persons beauty in real life is the same as in art; it's a physical concretization of our ideals.

I'd have to say yes, based on what I've said earlier. It would just be different than what you're used to. It would probably be difficult to look beautiful due to the extent of their physical disadvantages, though. Megan Fox isn't beautiful by default due to her genetically determined features, and I'm not exactly sure if I'd call her beautiful in the first place, at least not based on her physical features alone.

No, it's not just different - the dwarf lady would be ugly. Plain and simple. Due to her physical disadvantages she would be very limited in this regard. That's why you don't see hunchback dwarfs in men's magazines, that's why you don't see them in beautiful paintings or sculptures, and that's why noone - except perhaps for a few very strange people - hold them as their ideal.

Your argument is like comparing a retard and a genius and saying that it's their choices and amount of work that determine how smart they are. While that certainly is important there's no way the retard could compare with the genius. Just like dwarf ladies cannot compete with the most beautiful actresses.

As far as Megan Fox's genetcially determined features, she has atleast got nice proportions and facial features. But trying to isolate what's determined by genetics and what's determined by her choices is an exercise in futility. When judging a persons beauty you take everything into account as an integrated whole. You take in shapes, forms, features, expressions, body language, grooming, make-up, style. It's a mixture of genetics and choices.

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I've explained why I have different things I'd fine nice in purely visual art versus real life - What makes art of the deformed/handicapped ugly to me is not about just what the portrayed person looks like on its own, it's about that being presented by somebody as proper for humanity given the fact that they had total control to portray things however they wished, and that's what they decided should be. So I don't find a real life person ugly in the same way even if they looked the same as the painting I'd find ugly because there's nothing about a person who just so happens to have wound up looking that way due to bad luck basically that says anything about how they think people should be given the option to be any which way. Art, full control = everything is significant, real life = work with what you've got, that's how I see it. The one case where something that can't be helped looks just downright unappealing to me is when the person looks to be unhealthy in a rather dangerous/painful way, and it's that acute unwellness in that case which is bad to me. Otherwise, a great person who is well managing their physical set backs which they can't just entirely fix is encouraging to me. If you look at it differently, well then that's just the facts of things as they stand, but in any case, at least I'd like to register the fact that not everybody finds things beautiful the same way at least and give my reasons perhaps. I don't look at things others can't control as having to do with concretizing my ideals for reasons that are basically like the car analogy I used in an earlier post and I'd argue them more now normally, but I probably shouldn't have decided post before I'd gotten enough. ^^; If need be, I'll say more later after more sleep.

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The "why not?" was to be read as "why should not physical features determined by genetics be taken into account when judging a person beauty?". As far as romance goes I think Ifat has made a very good case of why beauty is important.

I certainly would say that beauty is the aesthetic evaluation of something. When it comes to actual people, I do not think physical features taken alone should be part of an objective evaluation of their beauty. I understand your point, but judging the beauty of people in art is different than the evaluation of beauty in real people. A clubfooted person may indeed be considered ugly in a piece of artwork, but that is only declaring such physical abnormality (since the examples you gave are actually not good for one's body) is not a good thing. It is declaring in some manner that it is not something one should want to have. It is not something to celebrate. In art, all aspects of a person are created, everything is up to choice. But as soon as something leaves the realm of choice, it should not be considered part of beauty when we are talking about people. To expand on that a little more, why should it be that what you happen to be born with should be taken into account of beauty?

As you said, when judging a person's beauty, you take into account everything, but that doesn't mean each of those aspects must be used as something that is marked down on the "beautiful" or "ugly" column. I would think of the body you are born with like a blank canvas. It is what it is, neither ugly nor beautiful. It certainly affects what you put onto the canvas, but the canvas itself is not part of the judgment on the overall finished piece of artwork. You may not want to use watercolors on a typical canvas, though. The work can *become* ugly. This is only an analogy, so don't overanalyze what I am saying. Bottom line, one's physical features are neither ugly nor beautiful, they just are. But if one wants to be beautiful, they must realize what their body type/skin tone is before going out to buy clothes/etc.

Edited by Eiuol
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But as soon as something leaves the realm of choice, it should not be considered part of beauty when we are talking about people.

Beauty is not a moral concept.

To expand on that a little more, why should it be that what you happen to be born with should be taken into account of beauty?

Because beauty exists. Because there are people who are born with beautiful features. Ignoring the existence of beauty, pretending it doesn't exist, to the point that we form our concepts around it, is absurd and exactly the esthetic judgement of an artist who paints a deformed figure to represent man in his work.

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Because beauty exists. Because there are people who are born with beautiful features. Ignoring the existence of beauty, pretending it doesn't exist, to the point that we form our concepts around it, is absurd and exactly the esthetic judgement of an artist who paints a deformed figure to represent man in his work.

Exactly!

bluecherry and Eiuol, notice how you have already implicitly accepted that our hunchback dwarf lady is ugly; this is why it is improper to depict her as an ideal in a work of art. Had she not been ugly this would not have been a problem.

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No, an actual hunchback person is not necessarily ugly as such I wouldn't say, but art of one would be because the artists could do anything at all and decided to make a person have physical deformities. Being a hunch back is certainly suboptimal as far as health and functioning goes is why I think it you have a simple choice in the matter it is something to not want to be or wish on any decent person. Supposing being a hunch back was completely up to choice in real life too, I'd find somebody who chose to remain a hunch back when they could easily not be one to be a bad decision and thus then it would reflect an ugliness in the person much like the ugliness of an artist choosing to make the person they paint be a hunch back. But, since that isn't something simple to fix in actual people like it is simple to change in art, I don't find the same kind of ugliness in a real person with a handicap like that the same way I'd be repulsed by art of such.

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Beauty is not a moral concept.

Because beauty exists. Because there are people who are born with beautiful features. Ignoring the existence of beauty, pretending it doesn't exist, to the point that we form our concepts around it, is absurd and exactly the esthetic judgement of an artist who paints a deformed figure to represent man in his work.

By no means am I trying to suggest that it is a moral concept. I am suggesting that since choice is such an important and defining aspect of people that it ought to be the (only) way in which you judge if a person is beautiful. There is no choice involving sunsets, but the color seen is an important and defining aspects of sunsets; that color is what you'd use to judge if the sunset was beautiful or not. So even things without any ability to choose can be judged for beauty. I am not trying to redefine beauty as anything other than aesthetic quality. One's physical features are merely what you take into account when trying to "look good", as in, "beautiful". I think bluecherry's previous post explained well anything else I would have said in this post.

Edited by Eiuol
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By no means am I trying to suggest that it is a moral concept. I am suggesting that since choice is such an important and defining aspect of people that it ought to be the (only) way in which you judge if a person is beautiful.

Again, that is not what beautiful refers to. There already is a word for that: moral.

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No, an actual hunchback person is not necessarily ugly as such I wouldn't say, but art of one would be because the artists could do anything at all and decided to make a person have physical deformities. Being a hunch back is certainly suboptimal as far as health and functioning goes is why I think it you have a simple choice in the matter it is something to not want to be or wish on any decent person. Supposing being a hunch back was completely up to choice in real life too, I'd find somebody who chose to remain a hunch back when they could easily not be one to be a bad decision and thus then it would reflect an ugliness in the person much like the ugliness of an artist choosing to make the person they paint be a hunch back. But, since that isn't something simple to fix in actual people like it is simple to change in art, I don't find the same kind of ugliness in a real person with a handicap like that the same way I'd be repulsed by art of such.

You're splitting hairs now. You're saying it's ugly in art because the artist chose to depict physical deformities, yet somone born with them is not ugly because it wasnt their choice. Still you're making the same judgement as anyone with a pair of working eyes would make, if it wasn't "suboptimal", deformed - yes, even ugly, though you refuse to admit that - then there's no way you could make that negative judgement of the artist. If you really did not think it was ugly you could as well have tried to pull some BS about it being "another form of beauty". But the fact is that it is deformed; it's twisted, ill proportioned and lacks harmony. And therefore, it also lacks beauty. That's why it's so disgusting and appalling to portray it as something else, as something beautiful. My question is; why do you keep doing that?

As Jake has already pointed out, choice only matters when morally juding someone. But we're talking beauty here, not moral stature.

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Let me make a distinction - looks, chosen appearance, reflects character (neat, clean, dressed properly). Beauty - how you were born, that which causes sexual attraction - does not. By this definition, beauty is not a rational value, but a tool in sexual attraction. Beauty makes attraction 'happen', but is only proper in the context of rational love. When you admire someone, admiring their beauty is a sort of bonus that helps you further express your love for them. Choosing someone you are not attracted to removes some of this 'bonus'. If you really admire and love the person, then it is worth the absence of that bonus.

It's like driving a car. A muscle car might help you feel alive, in control of nature, speed, etc. But a really reliable Honda might have much better gas mileage. The 'thrill' of the first car is a bonus which supports the expression of rational values. Ultimately, the Honda might be the more rational choice, and be of higher value.

That distinction is wrong. Looks is a wider concept of which beauty is a part of. Some aspects are determined by what we are born with. You don't choose to be short or tall, if you're going to have a nice jaw-line or high cheekbones etc. That's the basic framework, which can be beautiful or not, that you have to work with. The rest is up to your choices, it can either add or subtract from your looks or beauty, and it most certainly also plays a role in sexual attraction.

If beauty is a "tool" in sexual attraction it's also a rational value, because sex is a great value. You're talking about platonic love here, devoid of sexual attraction, which is more akin to friendship than romantic love. Pursuing that for romantic purposes is a sure way to misery.

Personally, i'd go for the thrill of being alive and living passionately. And so I swear, by my life and love it, that I will never own a mini-van. :P

Edited by Alfa
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You're splitting hairs now. You're saying it's ugly in art because the artist chose to depict physical deformities, yet somone born with them is not ugly because it wasnt their choice. Still you're making the same judgement as anyone with a pair of working eyes would make, if it wasn't "suboptimal", deformed - yes, even ugly, though you refuse to admit that - then there's no way you could make that negative judgement of the artist. If you really did not think it was ugly you could as well have tried to pull some BS about it being "another form of beauty". But the fact is that it is deformed; it's twisted, ill proportioned and lacks harmony. And therefore, it also lacks beauty. That's why it's so disgusting and appalling to portray it as something else, as something beautiful. My question is; why do you keep doing that?

As Jake has already pointed out, choice only matters when morally juding someone. But we're talking beauty here, not moral stature.

You seem to have missed my point about judging art. What repulses me in making art of people deformed is the nasty sense of life of the artist that is being portrayed, since they could control everything in their art. A real person's aspects of their looks that they can't control betray no bad character.

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I don't think there is anything particularly rational in seeking out only beautiful women. (Just the same as there is nothing rational in avoiding them.)

Morally, this seems to be intrincism.

Beyond the obvious of taking care of your face and body, and most critically, living towards an integrated and mostly moral life which will result in 'inner' beauty, great looks are a lucky accident of birth.

The need to 'have' beauty is much more psychological, and biologically hard-wired, than it is rational.

I cannot understand how it can be any more virtuous to be beautiful, and to pursue it. (Excluding beauty in art naturally.)

Handsome is as handsome does.

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You seem to have missed my point about judging art.

Both you and Euiol have repeated it too many times already for anyone to miss it. He didn't miss anything. He recognized and pointed out the obvious contradiction between refusing to acknowledge the concept beauty, and attacking artists who refuse to acknowledge it.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
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I'm curious as to how beauty isn't a moral concept, as I assumed that beauty was precisely that which is moral, i.e. that which is good. It sounds like you're regarding beauty as something intrinsic, not to put any words in your mouth.

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Morally, this seems to be intrincism.

It sounds like you're regarding beauty as something intrinsic

The claim that the unchosen (what some in this thread are mistakenly referring to as accidental) can have objective value is not intrinsicism.

Here's what intrinsicism is:

http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Evil_Intrinsicism.html

I'm curious as to how beauty isn't a moral concept, as I assumed that beauty was precisely that which is moral, i.e. that which is good

You assumed based on what? All the talk of pretty choices?

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I don't think there is anything particularly rational in seeking out only beautiful women. (Just the same as there is nothing rational in avoiding them.)

Morally, this seems to be intrincism.8

What's rational is seeking out women(or men) with the characteristics that you're attracted to. Beauty is usually somewhere among those characteristics, and it is a rational value.

Regarding intricism, I think this is a good quote from Leonard Peikoff:

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/beauty.html

Beyond the obvious of taking care of your face and body, and most critically, living towards an integrated and mostly moral life which will result in 'inner' beauty, great looks are a lucky accident of birth.

Luckily for most people though, our choices can make a huge difference. Often beauty, or good looks, is a choice and an achievment(especially as we age).

The need to 'have' beauty is much more psychological, and biologically hard-wired, than it is rational.

I cannot understand how it can be any more virtuous to be beautiful, and to pursue it. (Excluding beauty in art naturally.)

Handsome is as handsome does.

If it's a psychological and biological need then it IS rational, because it means following our nature.

Beauty is virtous insofar as it follows from being virtous.

Both you and Euiol have repeated it too many times already for anyone to miss it. He didn't miss anything. He recognized and pointed out the obvious contradiction between refusing to acknowledge the concept beauty, and attacking artists who refuse to acknowledge it.

Yep, thank you!

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If one looks at all the random constructs of nature - a 'beautiful' scenic view, an eagle in flight, a 'beautiful' face, the colours of dawn, etc., there is value to the eye and emotions, that I'm not denying.

But if one looks at what Man can and has accomplished, - a steel bridge, a noble sculpture, an electronic circuit board, etc, here is Rational Value, that serves as an example of what you and I can attain. Now this is (what I call) "Soul Food."

For me personally, the beauty of a woman is just the introduction to her - if what I perceive as the rest of her becomes known, does not match that visual pleasure, she is a dull and empty disappointment, to me. (And that's happened often.)

OTOH, those whose minds are alive and questioning, who radiate integrity, independence and courage; now that's a beautiful woman! Despite a few imperfections of looks, it's her "self made soul" that is attractive - rationally.

To call anything that Mother Nature 'designed' a RATIONAL value is puzzling me. Yes, I like to see natural beauty, but is it going to sustain my life? It hasn't and doesn't.

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To call anything that Mother Nature 'designed' a RATIONAL value is puzzling me.

Everything that furthers one's life is a value. And they all have something to do with "Mother Nature", so I'm puzzled how you figure you'd survive without Oxygen or plant life for instance.

And yes, just because beauty is something only humans can appreciate, it doesn't make it any less of an objective value than food or air.

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Both you and Euiol have repeated it too many times already for anyone to miss it. He didn't miss anything. He recognized and pointed out the obvious contradiction between refusing to acknowledge the concept beauty, and attacking artists who refuse to acknowledge it.

If you haven't missed the point, you sure sound like you have anyway. :/ I know it's been explained again and again what the difference is between why we'd not like a painting of a badly deformed person and why we'd not be similarly repulsed by a person in real life like that. We hold different standards for beauty in art and in real life because there are different possibilities, different things you can control, in art versus real life and in both cases we are judging only that which is in one's control. The art is judged to be ugly not just for having a hunch back in it as if hunch backs were just inherently nasty in our view, but because it was something in easy control and chosen, it's the CHOICE of it that we find ugly. I've also already said if a real life person could fix significant physical hindrances as simply as an artist could, then I'd judge a real life person who chose to stay that way to be ugly much like the art and for the same reason. So no, we're not in a contradiction. In both cases we have the same limits (only that which is in the person's control, especially without it being very dangerous and expensive) on what we are judging as beauty or ugliness, but the different mediums have different limits where that which we are judging is applicable.

Why do basically I only care about the chosen when deciding ugly or beautiful when it comes to people? I judge things by their natures pretty much. Everything else in existence that we have ever come across is pretty deterministic by its nature - it just is what it is and can only be this one way it inevitably comes out based on whatever happens to it. In a certain portion of other animals which have a little more ability to do things a little differently within a certain range, there's a little more of what they did do given some options that is involved, but mostly, they're pretty limited to one way they can be too. Those kinds of things for the most part I'm just judging the overall category they're part of, because there's little difference as far as I'm concerned between that leaf and the other one right next to it on the tree. One of those leaves and the other are not very different in how they look also because they aren't very different in what they do. If I find them beautiful or ugly depends on basically the same thing which will probably apply exactly the same way to both of them. Maybe they're both kind of star shaped and I like stars, so I like them. Maybe I don't care much for stars and I'm allergic to them or they're carrying some disease it looks like which may infect the other nearby trees soon. In any case, I'm judging mostly an overall category and what the whole category means to me and my well being with little distinction between one member of the category and another. When it comes to humans though, we are volitional creatures who can use reason by our natures, so each member of the overall category of humans for that reason can have significantly different ways they look because they had much more choice in the matter, how they would choose to looks says a lot about who they are and what value or lack thereof they may have in relation to my well being. What little differences there are between one human and the next when it comes to the things we don't really control are really practically insignificant in comparison to what aspects are in their control for what I can gather for what that person may mean in relation to me, except maybe that the existence of some of those things may help me in regularly identifying when I've come across a particular person. Other objects that are the product to any extent of a person's choices, I basically end up judging the choices that went into producing it for what it says about that person and both what that person and their product mean to me (more emphasis on the product itself's value than what kind of character made it if the object has more utility than just being something to be looked at.) Some things you can see in people that are not products of their choice, like maybe some kind of birth defect, may be unpleasant to see to some extent because it makes you think about things like what kind of difficulties it creates and maybe what kind of pain and danger comes with it, but the more that somebody is able to overcome these things and live on well, the more it mitigates the unpleasantness and thus renders it less significant in estimates of how they look.

So what is the standard and what is the point in that standard in some of the kinds of estimates of physical beauty in people that some of you others here are making about things that have little or no impact on a person's character and what kind of life they can and do lead?

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To call anything that Mother Nature 'designed' a RATIONAL value is puzzling me. Yes, I like to see natural beauty, but is it going to sustain my life? It hasn't and doesn't.

Raw insentient Nature does not design anything. Design is something done by sentient beings capable of intending something. Attributing design to Nature is the basic error of the Intelligent Design people who are in reality stealth Creationists. In raw Nature stuff happens and nothing is intended.

Bob Kolker

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Everything that furthers one's life is a value. And they all have something to do with "Mother Nature", so I'm puzzled how you figure you'd survive without Oxygen or plant life for instance.

And yes, just because beauty is something only humans can appreciate, it doesn't make it any less of an objective value than food or air.

I take your point. Maybe I should have phrased this "To call anything VISUAL, 'designed' by Nature, a rational value is puzzling..."

We are talking Beauty here, not air and food - how much does raw, physical, beauty (not man-made) actually have to do with furthering one's life? And remember I am not denying some value in even this. It just seems there is a large value differential between the two.

Robert: I am in complete agreement. I hoped to make this clear by using quotes on 'design'. How else can one avoid that old 'creation', and 'pre- determined' fallacy? I can't think of another way of putting it right now.

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You assumed based on what? All the talk of pretty choices?

I assumed based on the nature of what beauty and morality are as concepts. Morality is the code of values that guides our choices and actions. A value is that which benefits the individual whom is valuing. Something that is beautiful is precisely that which reflects values, i.e. that which is moral. Beauty is based upon morality and is, in itself, moral. Therefore, beauty is a moral concept. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you meant by "Beauty is not a moral concept," your statement is incorrect.

The claim that the unchosen (what some in this thread are mistakenly referring to as accidental) can have objective value is not intrinsicism.

I neither said nor implied it was. My statement was in the context of my entire post. Beauty devoid of morality and values implies beauty devoid of a valuer, taken in the context of your posts, which imply there is such a thing as beauty where one thing is necessarily more beautiful than another. Beauty devoid of a valuer implies intrinsicism.

I agree that unchosen things can be of value. My hands are extraordinarily valuable to me and I didn't choose to have them.

Edited by Gramlich
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