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.
I’m referring to Jake Ellison in the above post.
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?
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!
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
Wow, this has certainly evolved into a big discussion.
Regarding finding beauty appealing even when it does not communicate a moral character - It is normal to enjoy and find physical beauty attractive because (like in art) it is an expression of perfection and can serve as an expression of spiritual perfection since the spiritual only has expression through the material things. Art testifies to that - the heroes of romantic art are physically appealing, not just morally appealing precisely because of this need of integration.
However, if one is attracted to a person based on nothing more than their looks then they are projecting a certain character onto them. I’m sure many can testify that attraction to a beautiful body cannot outlast the discovery of a corrupt spirit (unless one finds a corrupt spirit a turn on, but I am not talking about that).
In any case… I’ll be leaving the discussion for now.
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.
I am uncertain if I am willing to call beauty a moral concept. But I would label it as something similar to moral concepts. Beauty is something that can only be evaluated. It does not exist as an attribute of something. Beauty is a judgment of a particular aesthetic in a positive way, whatever that aesthetic may be. A positive judgment would be to say that whatever is you are judging is something valuable in a visual way. It is valuing something about the object. I think this is where any disagreement occurs. Some seem to be suggesting that beauty is something more than just a value judgment, that beauty is is an attribute of some entity much like green is an attribute of leaves. I don’t think about it in that way one bit.
Establishing what is beautiful varies for whatever it is you are evaluating. Beauty in art is one thing, in people it is another. And in sunsets it is different still. No one can apply “principles of beauty” in the same way to all those categories. It is probably easiest to judge beauty in things not produced by humans: the things found in nature.
Why *should* anyone care and value something unchosen about a person? It is in the nature of humans to have volition. One should make judgments about a person based on choices and nothing else. It is *only* in this way my idea of beauty is a “moral concept”. To say something is beautiful, you are saying that object is a positive value. Just as one should not say something unchosen is immoral, neither can one say something unchosen is ugly. Even still, if a person is ugly by the standard I’ve made very clear, they are not necessarily immoral. Why should I value or not value something visual about a person if they never chose it? Why say any humans are beautiful? If something simply is beautiful or is not, I would rather say all people are ugly and tigers are beautiful. The reason I do not judge beauty in tigers the same way I judge beauty in people is because volition is part of the nature of humans.
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?
It’s irrelevant how much, it only matters that it does, to some more than to others. I appreciate harmony. You’re arbitrarily excluding the ‘visual and natural’ from the category of things I should appreciate for their harmony, and I don’t care. I still appreciate them, and the standard by which I appreciate them is still objective. Since harmony is something that clearly and objectively pleases humans in general, beauty, in all its forms, is undeniably a rational value.
If you wish to admit that now, then we can discuss where, in a person’s hierarchy of values, should their or their partner’s physical appearance rank, and at what point does the rational valuing of physical beauty becomes the irrational over-valuing of it, and how that spot in the hierarchy can change from person to person.
your posts, which imply there is such a thing as beauty where one thing is necessarily more beautiful than another.
Yes they do, and I stand by that. That’s not intrinsicism. The suggestion that there aren’t things that are necessarily more beautiful than others, would be subjectivism.
Some seem to be suggesting that beauty is something more than just a value judgment
You should rethink your premises. Beauty obviously doesn’t fit into the category you’re trying to force it into, so there’s no point on insisting further that it does. It’s not a value judgement. Something ‘beautiful and valuable’ is a value because it’s beautiful, not beautiful because it’s valuable.
that beauty is is an attribute of some entity much like green is an attribute of leaves.
It’s not that either. Must be a third option. An esthetic evaluation.
One should make judgments about a person based on choices and nothing else.
What if I’m a coach in the NBA? How exactly am I gonna pick a team unless I’m allowed to judge how high a fella’s head is from the ground?
You’ve made a persuasive argument, Jake Ellison, and I’ve been reconsidering my position.
Despite the randomness of Nature’s “gifts” (why this face, and not that?), I admit that I’m starting to be more inclined to elevating natural Beauty to a place in my own hierarchy of objective value.
I suppose one could say that it doesn’t matter how or why it came into being - it just is.
There are still some elements of subjectivism/intrincism I haven’t dealt with yet.
Still thinking on it…
There are values and then there are benefits, as Tara Smith explains on page 84 of Viable Values
There are values and then there are benefits, as Tara Smith explains on page 84 of Viable Values
Well, Rand defines value as that which one acts to gain OR keep. Even those examples Tara Smith gives must be recognized as value, and some amount of choice is required to keep them (for rain, you have to stay out of the desert, and a child has to hang around its parents, he can’t run away and still benefit from the food and clothing). There doesn’t seem to be a definite distinction, only one in the degree of action required to gain or keep something.
Also, I browsed ahead a few pages, and she doesn’t seem to do anything with the distinction. I assume you’ve read the whole book, so if you know of further mentions of this concept “benefits”, please point me in the right direction.
What she does with it is rule out objects of action that are not beneficial from being values. The other distinction of ‘value’ from the genus ‘benefit’ is that value must be understood by consciousness as a result of a logical process. One can benefit unknowingly, but one cannot value unknowingly.
The relation to beauty is, people can benefit from beauty subconsciously without considering it. I say this because beauty is at least partly objective, people do agree to a remarkable extent what beauty is when they consider it. Mindfulness is better than ignorance, so people should consider beauty and appreciate it when they come across it to get more out of it.
What she does with it is rule out objects of action that are not beneficial from being values. The other distinction of ‘value’ from the genus ‘benefit’ is that value must be understood by consciousness as a result of a logical process. One can benefit unknowingly, but one cannot value unknowingly.
Ok, makes sense now, and that’s a great point.
I may just be totally lost, but, I’m deeply disturbed by the idea that Objectivism would paint a more “objectively beautiful” person (naked, as they are genetically) as more moral. Or in any application like it, say as in the mentally challenged example, as mental handicaps (including mental illness) could be considered intellectually ugly. Are some people here actually saying that a ‘more objectively beautiful’ person by purpose of genetics alone is actually more moral, or that a genius is somehow more moral when compared to ‘objectively ugly’ people or those of sub-optimal intelligence?
And if moral isn’t the right word, am I still safe to assume that we are then talking about ‘objectively valuable’ as moral ideals?
I am not turning a blind eye to the fact that certain aspects of individuals can be more appealing than others in some cases, particularly those involving a great intellect, or attractive features, but I will never accept that somehow dwarfs, hunchbacks, Down’s Syndrome sufferers, fat people suffering from thyroid imbalances, and those with below average IQs are somehow less valuable (or able to be valued) as human beings simply because they don’t conform to some artistic standard. That’s some serious context dropping.
To use an example of Atlas Shrugged: Dagny was described in one section (and no, I can’t cite it, sorry) as not being particularly beautiful except for having a great set of legs. Does that make her less able to be valued than Lillian who in one section was described as very pretty except for eyes that did not match her face?
I knew a kid who had big eyes, suffered from seizures, and couldn’t talk because of a lack of control over his mouth and a constant stream of drool running down his shirt. He was an absolutely amazing person, and I would never trade him for some more ‘objectively beautiful’ version of himself. That wouldn’t make him more ‘valuable’ to me.
Reality is the basis for art, it is the source from which we can draw upon to make perfect statements under our control. Reality isn’t art itself, and in no way must somehow conform to all of its standards or else it’s not worthy.
If that’s what has been forgotten here, I have to say this thread disgusts me.
I may just be totally lost, but, I’m deeply disturbed by the idea that Objectivism would paint a more “objectively beautiful” person (naked, as they are genetically) as more moral. Or in any application like it, say as in the mentally challenged example, as mental handicaps (including mental illness) could be considered intellectually ugly. Are some people here actually saying that a ‘more objectively beautiful’ person by purpose of genetics alone is actually more moral, or that a genius is somehow more moral when compared to ‘objectively ugly’ people or those of sub-optimal intelligence?
No. Beauty and intelligence are both objective values. That doesn’t mean people who have them are more moral than those who don’t, it means that people who value them in the context of their lives (recognize them as objective values) are more moral (in that respect, but could be less moral in other respects of course) than those who don’t.
Morality pertains to choices, but beauty doesn’t. Using the two interchangeably is what caused your confusion, but please note that I didn’t say beauty is the same as morality, only the people arguing against physical beauty as a value implied that.
I am not turning a blind eye to the fact that certain aspects of individuals can be more appealing than others in some cases, particularly those involving a great intellect, or attractive features, but I will never accept that somehow dwarfs, hunchbacks, Down’s Syndrome sufferers, fat people suffering from thyroid imbalances, and those with below average IQs are somehow less valuable (or able to be valued) as human beings simply because they don’t conform to some artistic standard. That’s some serious context dropping.
Context dropping is extracting a concept from the context it is defined in, using it without it. For instance, value is defined in the context of a valuer with a purpose. You dropped the context of the act of valuing just now, by failing to specify the valuer and his purpose , when determining something’s worth. You treated value as an out of context absolute. I’m lazy so I’ll just reuse the same old example from a few posts back: if the context of valuing is a basketball coach looking for a team to make it in the NBA, turning a blind eye to any of those features you listed would lead to failure to achieve the purpose, due to some seriously irrational value judgments.
P.S. On the other hand, someone recasting the Willy Wonka movie should place a lot less value on tall, handsome athletes than singing and dancing (preferably already green) dwarfs. 