seeking beauty, teaching beauty, contesting beauty
it seems to me that the perception of moral beauty plays an especially important role in both: 1) moral motivation, and 2) moral education. with regard to the former, i think that some actions have a certain 'shine' to them, and it is because of their beauty that we are drawn to do them. likewise, a certain way of life can have that 'shine' and thus motivate us to act in a certain way -e.g. upon being struck by the beauty of st. francis' simplicity and humility, one becomes a fransciscan. or, perhaps more frequently, we also have an awareness of what a certain action 'looks like' -to others and to ourselves- or what a person who does such a thing 'looks like.' this (aesthetic?) sense guides us in our actions, both in seeking to perform particular actions and in avoiding certain kinds of actions (for example, because one would feel 'ugly' or 'gross' if one treated another person that way).
thus, i want to say that, in various ways, moral beauty provides us with reasons for acting. that is, one of the reasons we can intelligibly and appropriately give for doing something is, 'because doing so was beautiful.'
with regards to moral education, beauty's role seems to involve the training of a person to see certain actions and ways of living as beautiful -as having a kind of moral beauty which makes them lovely, attractive, praiseworthy, valuable, in contrast to actions and ways of living that are ugly, jarring, painful even to look at. in shaping a person's moral aesthetic, moral education provides a person with the kinds of perceptions of moral beauty that will then form the basis for moral motivation and moral reasoning.
i suspect that a large part of our education into moral beauty comes from biography (whether of relatives, or famous people, or 'fictional biography' -i.e. a life a character in a fictional story) we first get a grasp on what a good and beautiful life is by learning about lives that are good and beautiful, or evil and ugly. then, even at a young age, we are able to picture a human life as a whole, and this gives us a (pre-theoretical) sense of what a good and beautiful life looks like, and this directs us in the kind of life that we want to live for ourselves.
of course, even if 'acting this way is beautiful' can be an acceptable reason for acting, such a reason can be rejected as illegitimate. in fact, it is one of the features of moral beauty, both as it is ascribed to actions and as it is ascribed to lifetimes, is that it tends to be contested. an action or a lifetime that strikes one person as beautiful may seem unimpressive or even ugly to another person.
and one way to reject someone's evaluation of an action as beautiful is to reject the moral worth of that action. for example:
A: "that was truly beautiful how she put him in his place."
B: "that wasn't beautiful. it was cruel."
that this kind of reasoning is intelligible to us is further evidence that we apprehend a kind of beauty that is irreducibly connected to the morality or virtue of certain actions.
i suspect that many of the most interesting disagreements about how one ought to live -that is, what kind of life is a good life- can be described as aesthetic disagreements. i do not mean to say that the 'moral' or 'ethical' disagreements can be reduced to the 'aesthetic.' nor do i want to say that disagreements about moral beauty can be reduced to disagreements about some kind of 'non-aesthetic moral matters.' and yet, the disagreements between, say, a stoic and a christian and a nietzschean notion of the good life seem to center on disagreements about what kind of life is beautiful. this aesthetic aspect of the disagreement is highlighted, perhaps, when we say that they are competing pictures or visions of the good life.
perhaps it is one of the core insights of virtue-ethics that moral perception precedes the giving of reasons. thus, there is a sense in which moral aesthetics precedes moral argument. and that is why great modern virtue-ethicists (such as nietzsche on the one hand, and c.s. lewis on the other) have been concerned to paint a picture as much as to make arguments -because any acceptable argument will depend on the picture, will 'fall out' of the picture, as it were. and likewise, any moral or spiritual conversion will also mean a conversion into an new moral and spiritual aesthetic.
thus, i want to say that, in various ways, moral beauty provides us with reasons for acting. that is, one of the reasons we can intelligibly and appropriately give for doing something is, 'because doing so was beautiful.'
with regards to moral education, beauty's role seems to involve the training of a person to see certain actions and ways of living as beautiful -as having a kind of moral beauty which makes them lovely, attractive, praiseworthy, valuable, in contrast to actions and ways of living that are ugly, jarring, painful even to look at. in shaping a person's moral aesthetic, moral education provides a person with the kinds of perceptions of moral beauty that will then form the basis for moral motivation and moral reasoning.
i suspect that a large part of our education into moral beauty comes from biography (whether of relatives, or famous people, or 'fictional biography' -i.e. a life a character in a fictional story) we first get a grasp on what a good and beautiful life is by learning about lives that are good and beautiful, or evil and ugly. then, even at a young age, we are able to picture a human life as a whole, and this gives us a (pre-theoretical) sense of what a good and beautiful life looks like, and this directs us in the kind of life that we want to live for ourselves.
of course, even if 'acting this way is beautiful' can be an acceptable reason for acting, such a reason can be rejected as illegitimate. in fact, it is one of the features of moral beauty, both as it is ascribed to actions and as it is ascribed to lifetimes, is that it tends to be contested. an action or a lifetime that strikes one person as beautiful may seem unimpressive or even ugly to another person.
and one way to reject someone's evaluation of an action as beautiful is to reject the moral worth of that action. for example:
A: "that was truly beautiful how she put him in his place."
B: "that wasn't beautiful. it was cruel."
that this kind of reasoning is intelligible to us is further evidence that we apprehend a kind of beauty that is irreducibly connected to the morality or virtue of certain actions.
i suspect that many of the most interesting disagreements about how one ought to live -that is, what kind of life is a good life- can be described as aesthetic disagreements. i do not mean to say that the 'moral' or 'ethical' disagreements can be reduced to the 'aesthetic.' nor do i want to say that disagreements about moral beauty can be reduced to disagreements about some kind of 'non-aesthetic moral matters.' and yet, the disagreements between, say, a stoic and a christian and a nietzschean notion of the good life seem to center on disagreements about what kind of life is beautiful. this aesthetic aspect of the disagreement is highlighted, perhaps, when we say that they are competing pictures or visions of the good life.
perhaps it is one of the core insights of virtue-ethics that moral perception precedes the giving of reasons. thus, there is a sense in which moral aesthetics precedes moral argument. and that is why great modern virtue-ethicists (such as nietzsche on the one hand, and c.s. lewis on the other) have been concerned to paint a picture as much as to make arguments -because any acceptable argument will depend on the picture, will 'fall out' of the picture, as it were. and likewise, any moral or spiritual conversion will also mean a conversion into an new moral and spiritual aesthetic.
posted by micah at 10:30 AM
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