What is beauty? In the last two weeks I made the case that morality - our definitions of what is "good" - can ultimately be anchored to the natural world by recognizing that morals must be rules that help all of life survive over the long term. They could not be anything else or these rules themselves would not survive. Ethics therefore have an objective measure - one that may be difficult to know over a long timescale filled with immense complexity - but an objective measure nonetheless. What about aesthetics then? The longstanding and pervasive view that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" seems to suggest that aesthetics something different, that aesthetics is a subjective field filled with personal judgments from sensitive souls set inside an influencing landscape of cultural relativism. When you travel around the world or look at the development of art through history, you see very different representations of beauty: Vogue's rail thin models, Gauguin's plump Polynesians, Japanese Zen gardens, Jackson Pollock's paint drippings, a delicate rose, a powerful stallion, a touching novel, an elegant spreadsheet. (Or am I the only one who has ever exclaimed, "That's beautiful!" during an annual budget meeting?) The obvious question arises - how can these beautiful things have anything in common? At its heart though, beauty is just a word we use to name a quality that we like, that moves us, that pleases us. If we've already defined good as "that which promotes the long term survival of life," how can we really like something that is bad, that is against that? Does beauty, does aesthetics, like morality, like good, have its roots in the natural world? Before I state my case as to why I think this is true, let's look at a few beautiful or ugly pictures.
What does this photo make you think of? Vivid colors? Cool temperatures? The fire of life? Dying leaves? Raking? Shortening daylight? Death and decay? Schmaltzy sentiment? Approaching holidays? Shallow depths of field? Derivative and ubiquitous picture blurring? All of this and more? Now tell me, is this photo beautiful or ugly?
And what about this one? Strong chin? Excellent realism? State propaganda? Revolutionary ideas? Mass murder?
Chaos? Impossible passage? Mangrove swamps as life's nursery? Rich soils dense with plants? Mosquitoes? Sun dappled vistas? Dark corners? Deadly snakes? Tasty fish?
Austere landscapes? Safe views? High ground in the distance? Hot and dry? Tasty minerals? Lack of shade? Nowhere to hide?
All four of these pictures - like most everything in life - have elements of good and bad within them. It is up to us to focus on the beautiful qualities that please us or the ugly characteristics that do not. In my Evolutionary Philosophy though, I point out what these beautiful and ugly things have in common.
What promotes the long-term survival of life? Knowledge. Health. Progress. Stability. Exploration. Efficiency. Brightness. Abundance. Comfort. Security. Fecundity. Clarity. These are beautiful and good. What threatens the long-term survival of life? Ignorance. Disease. Stagnation. Conflict. Chaos. Isolation. Waste. Darkness. Scarcity. Discomfort. Vulnerability. Barrenness. Obscurity. These are ugly and bad. Objects have many qualities. Depending on the context, focus, and cognitive appraisal of the observer, objects can be either beautiful or ugly. This is why the idea of beauty is objective to general reality, but the beauty of an object is subjective to the specific observer.
Just as morals grow in depth as timespans lengthen, beauty can be said to deepen the more it endures. Even if you believe it is better to burn out than to fade away, those are not the only two choices. Best of all is to burn strongly, providing more and more warmth as the decades or centuries roll by.
So ethics and aesthetics are intrinsically linked and objectively based on what promotes our survival. Once again, the evolutionary perspective yields deep understandings about ourselves and the world we live in. Isn't that a beautiful thing?
What promotes the long-term survival of life? Knowledge. Health. Progress. Stability. Exploration. Efficiency. Brightness. Abundance. Comfort. Security. Fecundity. Clarity. These are beautiful and good. What threatens the long-term survival of life? Ignorance. Disease. Stagnation. Conflict. Chaos. Isolation. Waste. Darkness. Scarcity. Discomfort. Vulnerability. Barrenness. Obscurity. These are ugly and bad. Objects have many qualities. Depending on the context, focus, and cognitive appraisal of the observer, objects can be either beautiful or ugly. This is why the idea of beauty is objective to general reality, but the beauty of an object is subjective to the specific observer.
Just as morals grow in depth as timespans lengthen, beauty can be said to deepen the more it endures. Even if you believe it is better to burn out than to fade away, those are not the only two choices. Best of all is to burn strongly, providing more and more warmth as the decades or centuries roll by.
So ethics and aesthetics are intrinsically linked and objectively based on what promotes our survival. Once again, the evolutionary perspective yields deep understandings about ourselves and the world we live in. Isn't that a beautiful thing?
