beautiful lives
i have tried to say something about (or rather, to point at) a kind of beauty that attaches to actions in virtue of their being morally/spiritually excellent. just as we can perceive actions to be beautiful in this way, it also seems that we can perceive/describe lives to be beautiful in this way.
my initial suspicion is that in describing a life as beautiful, we will inevitably be making a kind of narrative judgment about that life. that is, we will be viewing the life as a story, a narrative whole. and what makes a life (perhaps we should say lifetime) beautiful will be features of that lifetime viewed as a narrative -e.g the way that earlier actions and events can be frustrated or redeemed by later actions and events.
perhaps the basic thought here is that beauty is a matter of proportion, or relation between parts, and thus the beauty of a lifetime is a feature of how the 'parts' of that lifetime fit together into a coherent (narrative) whole. but then seems too broad, because there is a kind of coherance to a very evil and very ugly life -we can construct meaningful narratives of cruel and petty lives as well as kind and noble ones.
on the one hand, lifetimes which are beautiful seem to be ones which are long and full and well-lived. this fits with the idea that moral beauty is connected to the human τελος -a long, full, well-lived life is one that involves many of the goods internal to a human life, a life that realizes the over-arching human good of happiness (in the aristotelian sense). such a life, we might say, 'looks' the way a human life ought to look, and that it looks this way is what makes it seem beautiful to us.
to call such a life 'beautiful' is (in part) to express our sense of the fittingness or appropriateness of such a life. as an illustration of this sense, consider the following burial practice of the people of ghana (as told to me by a ghanaian man in chicago): if the deceased is 70 years or older, it is customary to wear white as a celebration of the person's full life. if the deceased is much less than 70 years, it is customary to wear white, as an expression of mourning over the fact that the person did not receive his full complement of years.
on the other hand, however, it also seems that a life can be beautiful even if it is cut short. for christians, the paradigm case is surely jesus. and in addition to jesus, we can look also to the lives of the martyrs and saints, whose lives we find beautiful, even though many were cut tragically short. in fact, in these cases, it the nature of their deaths seems to contribute (somehow) to the beauty of their whole lives.
thus, if a long and full life has a kind of beauty, a life cut short does not seem to be ugly so much as tragic (though, perhaps not ultimately tragic). and a life that is tragically short may also be beautiful, if it is well-lived.
a life that is poorly lived, however, may be ugly. this is especially the case, i think, if the life is marked by: 1) selfishness, small-minded focus on oneself, or 2) cruelty, coldness, bitterness toward others. for example, a life whose culminating moment was the betryal of a loved one or a selfish power grab seems to me to be especially unattractive. (note: these two qualities are more-or-less the opposite of the qualities of actions which in my last post i said seemed to have a particular beauty).
perhaps our perception of the beauty of a lifetime depends of the kind of moral evaluations that we see as 'basic' or 'fundamental' to the person's character as her character was expressed in the various parts of her lifetimes. such evaluations will be connected to (part and parcel of?) the narrative description of a person's life. thus, reflecting on a lifetime, including both mundane and major events, we can ask was did she become a caring and thoughtful person, and do the parts of her life reflect this? or did she grow increasingly into a very bitter and heartless, and did this come out in the most important moments?
there also seems to be a close connection between living a beautiful life and living a meaningful life. it is hard to know what 'meaningful' means here. but it is strange to imagine a life being called beautiful if that life seemed absurd, or we thought of it as a 'wasted life.' and part of what makes the lives of the saints beautiful is the way they are connected to a process of redemption that is larger than themselves. isn't one reason the life of christ is beautiful is what that life means?
my initial suspicion is that in describing a life as beautiful, we will inevitably be making a kind of narrative judgment about that life. that is, we will be viewing the life as a story, a narrative whole. and what makes a life (perhaps we should say lifetime) beautiful will be features of that lifetime viewed as a narrative -e.g the way that earlier actions and events can be frustrated or redeemed by later actions and events.
perhaps the basic thought here is that beauty is a matter of proportion, or relation between parts, and thus the beauty of a lifetime is a feature of how the 'parts' of that lifetime fit together into a coherent (narrative) whole. but then seems too broad, because there is a kind of coherance to a very evil and very ugly life -we can construct meaningful narratives of cruel and petty lives as well as kind and noble ones.
on the one hand, lifetimes which are beautiful seem to be ones which are long and full and well-lived. this fits with the idea that moral beauty is connected to the human τελος -a long, full, well-lived life is one that involves many of the goods internal to a human life, a life that realizes the over-arching human good of happiness (in the aristotelian sense). such a life, we might say, 'looks' the way a human life ought to look, and that it looks this way is what makes it seem beautiful to us.
to call such a life 'beautiful' is (in part) to express our sense of the fittingness or appropriateness of such a life. as an illustration of this sense, consider the following burial practice of the people of ghana (as told to me by a ghanaian man in chicago): if the deceased is 70 years or older, it is customary to wear white as a celebration of the person's full life. if the deceased is much less than 70 years, it is customary to wear white, as an expression of mourning over the fact that the person did not receive his full complement of years.
on the other hand, however, it also seems that a life can be beautiful even if it is cut short. for christians, the paradigm case is surely jesus. and in addition to jesus, we can look also to the lives of the martyrs and saints, whose lives we find beautiful, even though many were cut tragically short. in fact, in these cases, it the nature of their deaths seems to contribute (somehow) to the beauty of their whole lives.
thus, if a long and full life has a kind of beauty, a life cut short does not seem to be ugly so much as tragic (though, perhaps not ultimately tragic). and a life that is tragically short may also be beautiful, if it is well-lived.
a life that is poorly lived, however, may be ugly. this is especially the case, i think, if the life is marked by: 1) selfishness, small-minded focus on oneself, or 2) cruelty, coldness, bitterness toward others. for example, a life whose culminating moment was the betryal of a loved one or a selfish power grab seems to me to be especially unattractive. (note: these two qualities are more-or-less the opposite of the qualities of actions which in my last post i said seemed to have a particular beauty).
perhaps our perception of the beauty of a lifetime depends of the kind of moral evaluations that we see as 'basic' or 'fundamental' to the person's character as her character was expressed in the various parts of her lifetimes. such evaluations will be connected to (part and parcel of?) the narrative description of a person's life. thus, reflecting on a lifetime, including both mundane and major events, we can ask was did she become a caring and thoughtful person, and do the parts of her life reflect this? or did she grow increasingly into a very bitter and heartless, and did this come out in the most important moments?
there also seems to be a close connection between living a beautiful life and living a meaningful life. it is hard to know what 'meaningful' means here. but it is strange to imagine a life being called beautiful if that life seemed absurd, or we thought of it as a 'wasted life.' and part of what makes the lives of the saints beautiful is the way they are connected to a process of redemption that is larger than themselves. isn't one reason the life of christ is beautiful is what that life means?
posted by micah at 11:15 AM
2 Comments:
Hey Micah. I wrote a reply to something Michael said a couple of posts ago--in which he was, I thought, misunderstanding what an appeal to "grammar" means for a Wittgensteinian--then previewed it. Then, when I tried to change it, it was lost. How do I change something that I've previewed?
I won't preview this.
-DF
Oh--ok. Nevermind. I think my mistake was to hit the back button on my browser.
-DF
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