What makes something beautiful?
The experience of beauty is a subjective experience of aesthetic pleasure. I don’t think beauty can be grounded with absolute, metaphysical objectivity (i.e., existing independently of human beings). If I find a sunset beautiful, I can’t say for sure whether a dog or a cat would find it beautiful;
nor, for that matter, can I know for sure whether an extraterrestrial being of superhuman intelligence would find it beautiful; nor, finally, can I know for sure whether every other human being must, of necessity, find it beautiful.
Nonetheless, I appreciate efforts that have been made to explain why humans *tend * to find certain things beautiful, and not others. Most humans derive aesthetic appreciation through symmetry, for example. A proportional face is generally perceived as more beautiful than a lop-sided face.
Similarly, Emerson says somewhere that, “there are few things on earth that, if suffused with intense light, would not thereby become beautiful.” Light tends to be perceived as beautiful, as does vibrant color.
Then again, humans are wonderfully complex. The lopsided face of the puppy for example, with the droopy ears, can be perceived as “cute” or “adorable.” Indeed, Ayn Rand says somewhere (in
The Fountainhead) of one character’s face that “he had a big head and a face so ugly it become almost fascinating.” Some of us find pugs to be ugly dogs; others find them to be “cute” or adorable, like beautiful little monsters
Few parents would ever find their own offspring ugly (“a face only a mother could love”). I tend to side with the mother, but that’s just me
What makes something good?
Without metaphysics, something is “good” if it promotes the end that one wants to achieve. Eating dirt and swallowing nails is bad – not
objectively bad, but bad if your goal is to stay alive and to avoid excruciating pain. Most of us have this goal; therefore, eating nourishing food is good, and eating noxious food is bad.
Killing one’s neighbor is viewed as bad by a society–indeed, is illegal–because it does not promote the goal of that democratic society, which is to protect the life, freedom, and happiness of its citizens (killing one’s neighbor is thus the social equivalent of eating dirt and swallowing nails). This goal is not an objective metaphysical necessity; but, nonetheless, it is what most humans want, even if only for themselves and their loved ones. If for no other reason, they recognize that, unless they forfeit killing others for their own advantage, others will not forfeit killing them for their own advantage. It’s a social contract, a kind of peace treaty between complete strangers.
On a more personal level, causing pain to others is bad because it will not give you pleasure, happiness, or peace of mind, even if you think that it will. Let’s take the most pragmatic reason – if I hurt someone you love (assuming it were not illegal), I run the risk of being hurt by you. I cannot have peace of mind, if I have to worry that the family or friends of someone I have hurt will take revenge (if hurting others is illegal, of course, then it’s also the police that I have to worry about).
This is the most pragmatic argument, though it is not without importance. Indeed, how many people refrain from killing only
because it is illegal. If that’s their only reason for refraining from doing it – because it will land them life in prison–then so be it. Where desire is not a sufficient motive, fear and avoidance of pain picks up the slack (similar to the Christian who is good not only out of love of God, but of fear of hell).
But now consider it from a more subtle, psychological level. This is the Buddhist insight that, “the way to be happy is to make others so.” Speaking for myself, hurting others would not give me pleasure, because I could too easily empathize with their suffering, especially if that suffering were intense. It’s just the way it is; it is an intellectual, perceptual dimension to my emotional life, that enables me to be “sensitive” to the pain of others, on some level. I don’t
want to punch somebody in the face, because it hurts, and there is a part of me that would feel the pain I am causing. Granted, this is being “sensitive.” Similarly, if someone takes a hit to that particularly vulnerable part of the male anatomy during a sporting event, a good number male spectators will instinctively reach (or want to reach) for that part of their anatomy, protectively. They can feel that suffering as if it were their own (in this sense, to have empathy is more “natural” than to be a sociopath). I’ve also heard anecdotes that the first day in surgery for surgeons in training can often be very slow going; using the required force to saw off a limb, for example, is not something that comes naturally. Very few would not wince in psychological pain or discomfort (empathy). They just can’t do it without *feeling *it, like that proverbial nails on the chalkboard effect.
Those who don’t feel the pain of others are insensitive–and, indeed, need laws and prisons to, pragmatically keep them in line!–and I suspect (though cannot easily prove, perhaps) that those who are insensitive to others’ pain are also less sensitive to their *own *pleasure – in short, less happy. An Epicurean (not in the lower case “e” sense, but in the capital “e” sense) would say that even if it were possible to be happy while causing others pain, they would be even happier if they loved their neighbor (the Buddhist or the Epicurean promise). I can vouch for the fact that it feels good to do a “good deed” – to help the delivery man open the door, for example, if I see him struggling. Granted, part of this is social reinforcement and social reward (“good deeds” tend to be praised and socially rewarded). Nonetheless, this still exists independently of objective metaphysical validation.
There are also intellectual limitations to sensitivity; if I do not see the children in the sweat shop, for example, I can enjoy my designer clothing unimpeded (“out of sight, out of mind”). If someone helps to show that suffering, to make me vividly aware of it, then it is more likely I can respond in compassion and that my enjoyment of that product will be impeded by the painful contemplation of how it was produced (this is the same logic behind methods used in pro-life initiatives, to vividly
show that a fetus is alive).
The Dalai Lama, I believe, has also looked at the relationship between happiness and altruism – that is, if you are *already *happy, you will tend to have no desire to cause pain to others. We all know this, in the sense that the boss who is in a “good mood” is more approachable for that day off, or that vacation, than the boss who is in a lousy mood. If he’s just given birth to a daughter, and is overjoyed, it’s probably a good time to ask him for that generous request. If he’s frustrated and angry that his daughter has just crashed his BMW (though she herself is unharmed, say), it’s probably a bad time to ask him for the special favor, all other things being equal. If he’s happy, he’s inclined to be more alruistic, more generous; if he’s miserable, he’s more inclined to throw the book at you.
Another example - few Catholics could be happy if they knew that their mother, or sister, or daughter, were in hell. This is theoretically possible, that they would be in hell, but it would be a source of great pain for their Catholic relatives to contemplate this.
In connection with this, Aristotle said, “when there is true love and friendship, laws become unnecessary.” The same goes for moral duty. If I love my mother, sister, wife, or daughter, I do not need “moral duty” to dictate that I want them to be happy and do not want them to experience pain. If, like the Buddhist, I extrapolate this intellectually, and realize that all of us are brethren (part of the same speck of dust, hurtling through the cosmos; all of us having once occupied the same “locus” of infinitesimally concentrated energy, in the moment before the Big Bang), then I don’t need moral duty to know that I love my neighbor and do not want to cause my neighbor pain. My neighbor
is my brethren, because I can see myself in him. Where love
is, “ought” becomes unnecessary, and flows naturally.
So I grant that “good” becomes non-objective, without metaphysics, but that doesn’t mean it becomes completely arbitrary or subjective, either. Pragmatically, it is grounded in the goal I am seeking to achieve, and the objective necessity of what it takes to achieve that goal. Emotionally, it is grounded in my nature – in my emotional constitution, my make-up.
As my wife put it: “a baby does not need metaphysics to smile at its mother.”
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