Objectivity of Beauty

Great Debates
1

It is oft suggested that beauty is subjective. We have many famed quotations to express that beauty really comes from the inside, and shines on the outside. I don’t want to argue against that, but I would like to put forward a few questions about the nature of beauty. As always, these questions are by no means original to me; there is no such thing as originality in philosophy, particularly in areas such as aesthetics.

We all seem to have a gradation of beauty. With regard to physical attraction, we can quite easily deduce whether someone is beautiful or if they are not. In fact, a superfluity of scientific studies among philosophers, sociologists and psychologists verify the supposition that we tend to all find the same people beautiful, based generally on the form of their face. Of course, people have then set out to find the “perfect face”. A great link on the studies and a general intriguing read can be found here. It is shown that Phi (the golden – “beautiful” – ratio) is pretty vital to the “perfect” face.

Putting humans aside, there are other things that are, generally, considered to be universally beautiful, regardless of race or ethnic origin. For example, the sky. We all find it beautiful and there really isn’t any materialistic reason for why we do. Other key points in this area are about the fact that we all have a gradation, and while some of what we find aesthetically pleasing might be subjective, our gradation is not. Thoughts? :slight_smile:

2

Hi, ex animo. Welcome to SDMB.

I’m not really clear on what you mean by gradation. Would you explain more?

Beauty is an interesting topic in the abstract. One of the first things that I thought of was fractals.

3

Thinking the sky is beautiful is not universal. I think the sky is hideously ugly, and try to avoid going outside whever I can.

4

The most universally beautiful thing you can think of could be made ugly to you by cultural conditioning and context. Beauty is 100% subjective.

5

Just the face? People who were considered the height of beauty in the middle ages would be thought tubby to the point of unattractive today.

6

During the renaissance, perhaps. But during the “classical” middle-ages, the beautiful woman would rather be thin and always would have a pale skin.

7

I tend to subscribe to this line of thinking.

I think there are certain things that most people might consider beautiful – a golden sun setting on an ocean vista. But even then there’d be some people who’d go “meh, does nothing for me”.

Even more so with physical beauty. It amazes me the wide variety of opinions that exist regarding the beauty of certain people. For example, a recent thread on Jennifer Garner had responses ranging from gorgeous to ugly. I think Jessica Alba is beautiful, yet scratch my head when people claim Nicole Kidman is pretty. Huh?

Yep. Beauty is subjective. I suspect that any agreement at all is due to cultural factors.

8

Oh. I apologize for not welcoming you ex animo. Welcome. I hope you decide to stick around.

9

I think a re-assessment of the OP title is in order. In fact, I don’t think beauty is objective at all – that was the wrong term. I should have said intersubjective; we are the judges of what beauty is. I should probably also mention that I’m not necessarily going anywhere divine or transcendental with this, I’m merely trying to explore the possible points.

Thank you for the welcome; you’re a lovely bunch of people. :slight_smile:

Looking at the dictionary, I think I’m pretty satisfied with, “Any degree or relative position in an order or series.” I don’t necessarily think our gradation is objective, but the fact that we all have one—that we see order—is something to take notice of. The fact that we all have a gradation is objective.

I entirely agree, and it’s interesting that you should suggest fractals; I find them beautiful. I believe I saw some interesting stuff with fractals and the golden ratio (I could be wrong), but that would be an intriguing combination – considering that the golden ratio seems to have some association with our idea of “beauty”.

I don’t doubt that we’ll get a few exceptions; I think we’d get even more if we included wackos :D. Your dislike of the sky, I don’t doubt, is a later concept. Isn’t it? We can be scared, detest or feel abhorrence to these things now because of the associations with them (for example, I might hate the moon because a friend of mine died there), but these are secondary. A young child not having these would surely think it one of the most marvellous things in the world.

I’m sorry, but all recent, modern and scientific research is really not in your favour. The most beautiful faces adhere to an obvious proportional template; the same face structure is continuously seen as the most beautiful from huge surveys with thousands of people, of varying cultures. We can always easily tell apart a person who is [physically] aesthetically pleasing, from one who’s appearance is less pleasing and, consequently, unattractive.The thing is, we make our statements of beauty as objective statements. We say, “she’s beautiful”, and we always expect them to agree with us if we are speaking the truth. If someone tells you that 1+2=8, you’ll probably dismiss him as a madman. In the same way, if someone tells you that a rotten cat on the pavement is more attractive than a beautiful woman, you will again dismiss him as a madman. We don’t argue about our aesthetics ;). Check that link I posted, it provides some interesting research that has been made.

I believe this was true for the men, but I don’t recall them being thought of as “attractive”, but rather, the association was “wealthy”. Being overweight and, even obese, was a sign that you could afford a lot of food – that you were rich. Tell me, was that not the association? And, were obese/ugly woman preferred to slimmer/attractive woman? Nevertheless, it is not the physical beauty here, it is that associated with it; in this case, wealth. Correct me if I am wrong. :smiley:

But this is a problem that modern research is showing. Huge surveys and tests have been conducted by sociologists, asking a wide range of people from dramatically different cultures. No doubt, the people from the other side of the world – from a closed off tribe, seem to recursively see the same face as “beautiful”, with comparison to another. See that link :D. Furthermore, this presupposition is strengthened by the idea that we find the same face-structures attractive as those from 3000 years ago; and, culture changes quite significantly.

10

Are you implying that every idea in the history of philosophy **always **existed, and was never originated by anyone?

And more to the point, in my experience there is absolutely no universal consensus whatsoever regarding beauty. It varies widely from culture to culture, and even more widely among individuals.

11

Obviously not. That was just an exaggeration; but, you would be surpsrised how many ideas/concepts in Philosophy were thought of by thinkers who came hundreds of years ago.

Thank you for your opinion. However, with all due respect, I have argued exactly the opposite - that beauty doesn’t change much between cultures and that, particularly with regard to the human face, it is intersubjective. Furthermore, I provided evidence. I don’t really understand why people here are so against this presupposition; in the field, it’s common knowledge. I wanted to put forward questions about how and why this might occur, but it seems like we won’t get round to that. :slight_smile:

12

The scientific hypothesis that the sense of beauty arises fundamentally from our evolutionary heritage has been compellingly presented and documented by evolutionary psychologists and similar scientists and philosophers over the last couple of decades. (Of course, like all or nearly all other biological traits/attributes, it doesn’t arise purely from genetics, but rather from our long history of gene/environment interactions).

There is powerfully compelling evidence in favor of this hypothesis. I think it’s almost certainly true. I’ve never encountered a sufficiently plausible argument or assemblage of persuasive evidence against it. This is what accounts for the actual or near universality of so many aesthetic archetypes as well as the fundamental and very sharp limits to the possible range of what we humans find beautiful.

Sure, culture plays a large role in influencing precisely what a given individual finds beautiful, but these come as fairly minor variations (even if they can seem huge) on top of the human evolutionary baseline.

13

I’m in complete agreement with you on this. The people here who’ve insisted that beauty is mostly or completely subjective are simply unschooled on this issue, and as a result they’re mistaken.

They really need to at least read some popular expositions of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, such as:

On Human Nature, by the amazingly brilliant E.O. Wilson,

The Selfish Gene (new edition) and other works by Richard Dawkins,

The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture, by Barkow, Tooby, and Cosmides (eds),

How the Mind Works, by Steven Pinker (even though I can’t agree with Pinker, Tooby, Cosmides, et al on the issue of massive modularity; see instead Jerry Fodor’s brilliant logical analysis on that point in his book: The Mind Doesn’t Work That Way),

and particularly for all these extreme environmentalist (subjectivists) here:

The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, also by Steven Pinker

Subjectivity is mostly an illusion.

14

With respect, the fact that you suffer from the psychological malady known as agoraphobia does not mean that finding the sky beautiful is not a human universal, and I don’t even think it means you necessarily genuinely find the sky ugly, it just means you have a (mild) form of mental illness. It doesn’t follow that the fact that some people suffer psychopathologies that such human universals are non-existent.

Please understand that I mean no insult. I’m just trying to be factual.

15

I don’t think this is true, although I agree with the concept. I think that we can objectively recognise things which are considered universally beautiful (probably due to an inbuilt aesthetic response to symmetry), and not have an emotional response to it, just as we can see beauty in “imperfection” due to an emotional response.

Have a look at the women painted by Rembrandt, among others. Those women didn’t work out.

16

Thank you. Finally someone agreed on the basics. :wink:

Heh, nice one. But interestingly, I found her mildly beautiful. I’d describe her much more as “plump” rather than “obese” in any fashion. Of course, I never meant to imply that those not adhering to the idea of the “perfect” face/body are necessarily ugly; that is certainly not the case. And sure, overweight people can be attractive.

It should be fairly evident that the woman there, Rembrandt, has a “beautiful” face; that is, we can certainly see how it might/is aesthetically pleasing. The face is the most important part of the human body. It is the primary feature by which we recognize each other, it’s the primary device through which emotion is expressed and the vast majority of other forms of social interaction. Most studies also show that even young infants begin to differentiate between faces at an early age.

If we’re finally agreed that beauty is intersubjective, we might be able to ask “why”? And “how”? This is near enough the essence of aesthetics; why do we find the sky “beautiful”? I can’t say I know of any other animal that gazes up at they sky; the fact remains that we all find these things beautiful, and there’s really no materialistic reason for why. Enough whys brings us to a halt.

17

ex , zeph, you’re missing my point. I don’t care how symmetrical or universal your chosen example is, it would be relatively easy using suggestion, conditioning, or just peer pressure to convince someone that it’s ugly. The fact that one’s perception of beauty is so flimsily defined and easily changed by external factors proves, to my mind, that there’s nothing hardwired about it. If ugliness so demonstrably subjective, it stands to reason that beauty is too.

I can’t imagine an example of anything whose consideration as “beautiful” would be 100% immune to cultural factors.

An individual’s concept of beauty is so ill-defined and malleable that it’s simply inconceivable that any one image could be defined as objectively beautiful.

18

And ambushed, I’ve read most of those titles, and I can’t see how they’re even relevant to this discussion, much less probative.

19

Ok, liss, I take your point, and I guess I agree with you. But what does condition our response to finding something beautiful, then (apart from culturally conditioned responses)?

20

ambushed, I think you’re misunderstanding what is generally meant by the statement, “beauty is subjective.”

I’d agree with the above statements, but they simply don’t speak to the universality of beauty. Rather, they speak to the source of the general concensus regarding what is and is not attractive. To say that there is general agreement about a thing’s beauty, however, is not at all the same as saying that the thing is intrinsically beautiful, which is what most people understand to be the definition of “objective beauty.”

In fact, saying that “the sense of beauty arises fundamentally from our evolutionary heritage” would argue, to my mind, in favor of the subjectivity of beauty. Surely there is at least some divergence among individuals regarding genetic predispositions to judgements about beauty. Further, even if we were to posit complete gentic uniformity among humans in this regard, in seems arbitrary to limit ourselves to considerations of human predispositions. Animals may not experience the world in the same way that we do, but assuming with any degree of certainty that they do not have their own sense of beauty is foolish.

If judgement about a thing’s beauty varies from person to person and species to species – as it clearly does – then I don’t think we can say with any confidence that the thing is inherently beautiful, and that is what is generally meant by objective beauty. That is, objective beauty means that the beauty resides solely in the thing itself, while subjective beauty means that the beauty exists in the eye of the beholder, or as a relationship between the subject and object (my preferred terminology).

I know you meant no offense, but this statement lends itself (rather strongly) to accusations of arrogance. I’d suggest being more circumspect in the future.