Does such a thing as "objective beauty" exist in humans?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Every four point five days, someone (frequently me) starts a superficial thread in Cafe Society alleging that a given celebrity is or is not hot/beautiful/pretty/whatever, or arguing that there’s a difference between hot and being beautiful, or some other silliness. Every time such a discussion begins, people start throwing around the phrase “objective beauty,” alleging that a given person – say Adele Atkins – while attractive to many persons, is so because of personality rather appearance; while another another person – say Cobie Smulders is virtually certain to be judged attractive by all persons of the opposite sex. Put differently, some persons hereabouts think that such a thing as objective beauty exists.

I’m not going to be coy as I sometimes am. I don’t think any such thing as objective beauty exists, even within a specific culture (unless you definite culture so narrowly as to make it meaningless).

I’m not sure how many of y’all will agree with me. But that’s what the poll is for, isn’t it?

Public results because I’m a big jerk, which, unlike beauty, has some objective basis. :wink:

2

Perception of beauty is an evolved adaptation to facilitate mating. (I have been called a biomechanical reductionist and I am still not quite sure if I was being insulted.) Also, perception of beauty, like most other human traits, probably forms a normal distribution. That is, there are probably examples of people who would be deemed beautiful by people within a couple of standard deviations of the mean, but I doubt that there is a universal beauty that 100% of everybody would agree with. What’s beautiful to me may be different than what’s beautiful to you, or to a person from another culture, or someone with a nose fetish.

How is humankind going to agree on a universal objective definition of beauty if there isn’t even universal agreement on scientifically proven theories? Not even among the scientists?

There can’t be an objective beauty, nor an objective anything else if human judgement is involved. Pretty much the only thing that is objective is math.

3

Not sure why this is a poll–the question has only one answer.

If a quality is objective, then it can be ascertained by mechanical means with no human judgment involved. A subjective quality is the opposite–it takes human judgment.

So, the temperature of a glass of water, the height of a person, and the weight of a rock are objective. The beauty of anything (including a person) is subjective.

However:

  1. We can measure certain objective things about people that others say are beautiful and test a person to see whether they have those objective things. If we define “beautiful” as “having the objective things that others have defined as making a person beautiful,” then beauty (as so defined) is objective.

  2. We can also discuss beauty (or anything else subjective) in terms of what a majority of people or any reasonable person (or whatever) would say on the subject. The subjective thing is still subjective, but the discussion is broader than any one person’s perception.

4

I strongly suspect some aspects of attraction are biologically intrinsic and cross-cultural, possibly including such features as facial symmetry and youth ( health ).

I think a majority of what goes into any person’s zeitgeist of what is attractive is a combination of cultural influences and individual quirks.

5

No cite but I’ve read that very young babies gravitate to symmetrical faces and studies to determine “beauty” largely favor symmetry.

6

I don’t know. I only know whether I think someone is attractive. I can’t make blanket statements and put words in the mouths of others. Symmetry may be a common factor in perceptions of beauty, though, regardless of whether it’s objective or subjective.

I did a symmetry study of a picture of myself, like this guy did. Not very elaborate as I just used mspaint, but I found out I’m not very symmetrical (neither are most people, apparently). It’s pretty cool, I look like two totally different people (source image). My eyes actually appear to be two different colors, but that could just be due to poor lighting.

7

I don’t think there’s such a thing as objective beauty.

Ugly, on the other hand…

8

Even with a quality that requires judgment, you can get universal (or universal for all practical intents and purposes) agreement.

I think that, among people with normal hearing, you’re going to have universal agreement that a sound at around 130 decibels is “loud,” although whether a sound is loud is entirely subjective. The OP is asking if such a thing can exist for beauty–beauty that is “…certain to be judged attractive by all persons…”. I think the OP’s choice of the word “objective” is not quite correct, and perhaps “universally perceived” might be better.

9

Yes, of course. Healthy, fertile humans have traits that are universally attractive - YOUTH, clear smooth skin, healthy teeth, fairly symmetrical, well-formed, and well-arranged facial features - and sex-specific traits like height, a well-developed jaw, deeper voice, broad shoulders, lower body fat and well-developed musculature for men and higher body fat, a curvy figure (smaller middle, round breasts and hips), smaller jaw, fuller lips, and larger eyes for women.

There is no culture where anything but an invisible minority would consider an acne-afflicted, rotten-toothed, unfortunately featured, short, chinless, high-pitched, round-shouldered, chubby and pencil-armed man more sexually attractive than his direct opposite (though if he has a great personality he will probably have sex and find love just fine - with someone at a similar level of physical attractiveness). That is objective beauty.

People in the entertainment industry who benefit from being as attractive as possible, are rather remarkably similar the world over. Things like body hair, weight/body composition, hair styles, body type (for women mostly - especially small breasts/butt vs large being idealized), certain facial features, the ‘prettiness’ of male heart-throbs (in terms of having slightly more femme features like large eyes and full lips), are subject to trends, and the ease of plastic surgery has been a game changer in some ways, but despite all that ‘beauty’ doesn’t appear to have changed very much from 100, 500, 1000 years age (based on what I’ve read anyway).

I can see that someone is an attractive person ‘objectively’ or conventionally, and yet not be at all sexually attracted, because I have a strong type (dark, thin men -preferably who ‘don’t look white’ - with pretty eyes and very nice teeth) and I’m not all that flexible. But if I had to have random sex, I would choose any objectively attractive person in a second over everyone who wasn’t.

10

This pretty much sums up my feelings. I’ll also add that, as rhubarbarin says, I can separate my perception of a person’s “beauty” from my personal level of attraction to that person. In other words, I’ll readily agree that, for instance, Jesse Spencer and Jennifer Garner are beautiful people, while I don’t find either of them personally attractive. Conversely, I’m hot for Hugh Laurie, and find Maggie Gyllenhaal appealing, but would argue that neither of them is very beautiful.

Therefore, I’m even more inclined to think beauty is something that can be judged, if not totally objectively, then at least with far more universal agreement than mere personal preference.

11

OK, well, several people are confused about what “objective” means it seems. If someone is generally perceived as beautiful, then they have the qualities that a great many people generally perceive as beautiful, but they are not beautiful objectively because that is impossible.

12

[COLOR=black][FONT=Trebuchet MS]I think it is important to separate “physical beauty” from “I am attracted to that person.”

I think that “attracted to” can change a lot based on how we perceive that person personally and may include things such as how they perceive us.

For example, there may be a moderately attractive person at work, but that person is the biggest stuck-up snob that everyone hates. You and that person have had fights and the past and you both don’t get along. Obviously you will not be “attracted” to that person in a sensual way, but that has no bearing on that person’s objective physical beauty.

Since no post can become great without a dividing stereotype:
My personal beliefs is that women are more swayed by this than men. Many men can say something like “I hate that woman more than any other person on Earth, but dang, she is smoking hot.” Whereas it seems to me that more women seem to let their personal opinions of someone color their opinions on that person’s physical attractiveness. [/FONT][/COLOR]

13

Men are most attracted to female figures where the waist is 70% of the hips.

More information from the study.

14

Male, no.

There are plenty of women I find ridiculously beautiful that my male friends would find odd looking, and mainstream celebrities rarely ever do ANYTHING for me. I get accused of trying to be cool or trendy when I say that Jessica Alba or Scarlet Johanssen or Angelina Jolie are not attractive to me.

15

But I suspect you’re conflating “beauty” and “attractiveness”. I totally accept that you’re not attracted to Jessica Alba, but for the sake of discussion, compare her with someone else you’re not attracted to, such as (just a guess) Rachel Dratch. (Both have minimal makeup on in those photos.) They may be equally unattractive to you, but would you also say they are equally not beautiful?

Personally, I find them both appealing, and about equally so, albeit in different ways, but at the same time, I can still say that Jessica Alba is hands-down more beautiful.

16

I think there are only three criteria of beauty that are near universal. Clear skin, youth and symmetrical features.

17

:eek: I am familiar with this, but you are a striking example of the phenomenon. Your nose! You sort of look like the mother and the child…which kinda cosmically trippy, if you wanna go there.

I want to do that with my face. Neato.

18

I know, right? The asymmetrical hair kinda cements the impression. I’d like to do another one with more even hair and a more even smile. I was kinda doing a tilted mona lisa smile in that one.

19

Hrmmmm… I have to say you’ve given me some food for thought. I think part of the problem is that to me, I don’t really pay any attention to “beauty”. I look at what I am attracted to, and pretty much ignore the looks of those I am not. For example, I have a very hard time evaluating the attractiveness of men, because I am a very straight male. If you asked me to rank my male friends in order of beauty I would literally not be able to do it.

But at the same time, I can see something is “better” about Jessica Alba’s look than Rachel Dratch’s, even though I don’t find either attractive…but I suspect it might be that when picturing if I had to pick one, part of the attraction of a partner is what other people think about their looks, and with Jessica Alba you’re definitely going to have people thinking “You did well!”, so it’s hard to seperate that. But considering Rachel Dratch is hilarious, I would probably pick her to marry. :eek:

Very good point though, I’m going to try to think about what you said…

20

Speaking assymetry, it would be pretty funny if I used my straightdope pic. I should do it just for a laugh.