Instigator / Pro
7
1593
rating
21
debates
66.67%
won
Topic
#3202

THW Prefer A World Where Aesthetic Beauty Doesn't Exist

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
0
Better sources
2
2
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

Nyxified
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
25,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
4
1687
rating
555
debates
68.11%
won
Description

This resolution was taken directly from a debate tournament I once participated in. I'll try to emulate it as best I can.

THW = This house would

'Would prefer a world where' implies that this is a world where aesthetic beauty doesn't exist and does not indicate that we should remove aesthetic beauty from this world. Any arguments stemming from the transition period between having aesthetic beauty and not having aesthetic beauty are invalid as the resolution envisions a hypothetical world where it doesn't and hasn't existed. Moreover, any arguments discussing the ability of a world like this to exist are also invalid, as the resolution is, again, hypothetical.

'Doesn't exist' means that humans do not perceive it.

What exactly constitutes 'beauty' is up for debate. While it's safe to assume a person's appearance, visual art, or things relating to vision can be beautiful as beauty is most often non-metaphorically used to describe what involves vision, but does music or a story also count as beautiful? Who's to say. The definitions I included refer to 'the senses', but as to what senses or what actions that relates to is up for debate. I only mention this because I think the question of "what is beauty" beyond mere dictionary definition has the potential to be interesting.

The resolution doesn't imply that a sense/senses wouldn't exist, only that we would only be unable to perceive the things that are pleasurable to the sense(s).

Aesthetic: Appreciative of, responsive to, or zealous about the beautiful / responsive to or appreciative of what is pleasurable to the senses
Beauty: The quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses
Sense(s): Could, but, in the context of the resolution, does not necessarily refer to vision, taste, physical feeling, hearing, and/or scent.

This debate is fairly abstract and I'm not particularly confident in how I modelled it, but I think I did okay (let me know if this isn't fair/doesn't make sense). Comment to request changes or ask questions, constructive feedback always welcome!

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@RationalMadman

Haha, yeah, I suppose so. It's just something I was given in a debate tournament once.

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@Nyxified

That may be because you found it interesting enough to debate in the first place.

I'm very surprised I won this, but it is still one of the most interesting debate topics I've ever seen.

RationalMadman 09.14.21 10:23PM Forfeited

Nyxified 09.21.21 10:23PM Forfeited

Nyxified 10.05.21 05:42PM Forfeited

RationalMadman 10.12.21 05:42PM Forfeited

This is a case of the Croissant calling the palmier flakey.

However note below “Con mostly shot himself in the foot, as in the penultimate round, he could well have defended the claims, or refuted pros objections - but really just restated his case. As a result; this debate was really two rounds of pro vs one of con - which is very hard to come back from.”

nice, can always rely on ramshutu to secure my defeat even when opponent flaked

That without aesthetic beauty, one could not love ones parents or friends as much. This is paraphrasing a little, but the primary gist. I don’t feel con actively justifies why he thinks this is true, making this a bit of a stretch. As con goes on, he seems to undermine his position by attributing the love to non-aesthetic beauty; and then sort of trying to tenuously link the two back together by stating one has an impact on the other, such that what starts out as a stretch, but a valid point ends up getting less valid and more muddled. This is perhaps linked in with the definitions that con put forward perhaps - that con was trying to argue that anything that gives pleasure counts as aesthetic beauty; it’s not entirely clear as con does not explicitly link everything together - but as the definitions went pros way, trying to figure out how it applies to cons definition isn’t necessary.

I think pro does well enough simply separating the love for a parent vs what they visually look like; typing back to the non-aesthetic aspect, and helps nullify cons point; regardless of whether this is linked to the definitions or not

The next thrust con makes; though is never fully fleshed out into an argument revolves around dullness and lack of pleasure if there was no aesthetic beauty. Pro counters here saying that the lack of aesthetic beauty doesn’t require a lack of appreciation or lack of enjoyment; that seems inherently valid on its face: this really boils down to which definition we take; as we have taken pros definitions, there is nothing about absence of aesthetic beauty that would prevent things being enjoyable, so it would appear pro does enough on this point.

The final aspect where con attempts to justify their position is better; is the attempt to point out that without suffering there can be no pleasure. This is a pretty valid (albeit a little labored) point; I think this was the better of cons argument - but was justified over perhaps two lines; with the remainder being linked back to the dullness argument I just referred to.

To me it’s not fully clear whether this is a new argument; or the same argument sort of justified a different way. As a new argument, pro points out that the pleasure of one person doesn’t justify the suffering of another, it seems to have at minimum rebuttal. Given this, and given that pros rebuttal was not challenged; it doesn’t meet cons burden.

Note: as with pro, there was a lot of description and text that fed into remarkably few individual points, I’ve omitted much of the specific detail from cons first reply as the bulk of it appears mostly reiterating the same point, with the bulk of the definition simply leading to the conclusion that aesthetic beauty covers a broader set of things. Likewise the majority of the remainder is talking about ugliness, aesthetic beauty, suffering, etc - with a whole ton of words being used to effectively justify pros position. The remainder really boils down to the three points above. I did not feel it necessary to talk explicitly about each one of the examples con gives, as they all fit into those limited sets of arguments.

In this respect - all that being said: pro gives me a reason why aesthetic beauty causes clear harms. Con provides reason why aesthetic beauty is necessary, but this appears based on overly broad definitions that pro countered and was not defended. The remaining case con made primarily had the effect of bolstering pros position ; with the remainder neatly disposed of in pros reply.

Con mostly shot himself in the foot, as in the penultimate round, he could well have defended the claims, or refuted pros objections - but really just restated his case. As a result; this debate was really two rounds of pro vs one of con - which is very hard to come back from.

Because of this: arguments to pro.

All other points tied.

Reading the resolution and the description; the debate itself seems a fairly interpreting proposition. Pro must show me that the net benefits of a world in which AB does not exists exceed the net harms - and vice versa.

Pros central argument, is fairly simple: that there is a great of suffering caused by holding up aesthetic beauty ideals - emotional, social etc; even economic harm by people spending money living up to a standard of beauty. Anorexia, discrimination, etc.

This central plank from pro, seem pretty reasonable as a starting point; and if there were no other argument, it’s sufficient to meet the burden. Pro shows the principle of aesthetic beauty is harmful.

Note: there was a lot of thought out into explanation and justification - which I felt added a fair amount of clarity - but all boils down to the very narrow points. As I think the main point is we’ll covered, I didn’t go into all the detail on each sub point.

Con starts off challenging the definitions a little. Nothing about the definition seemed inherently unreasonable. Though it does appear that he’s trying to cast a very broad net on the definition to include anything that gives pleasure. I think pros response to limit “beauty” to physical aesthetics only (ie: physical aspects of something that are considered beautiful). Pro goes to great length to justify the original definitions by separating beauty as a physical attribute vs beauty as a description of an experience. As this clarification seems reasonable - and was unchallenged by con, I have to go with pros definitions.

Con then starts by largely agreeing with pro - that aesthetic beauty causes harm and hardship - in fact, the vast majority of cons first round is basically spelling out pros case: there’s no need to spend so much time on it - and it times it felt pretty gratuitous for no appreciable reason. One of the main thrusts con makes is that those that are beautiful suffer also due to their beauty - but as Pro points out, in the next round, this actually bolsters pros position.

There were a few other places where con appears to try and justify their burden:

I do not require assistance. I will win or lose this debate on my own merit.

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@Intelligence_06

Of course I would agree that cars and houses both have a function that need to be served. Unfortunately, due to my time constraints, I wasn't able to flesh this point out nearly as much as I wanted to (and I intend to in my next speech if I get the chance), but almost nobody ever really needs to go from 0-100mph in under 10 seconds or to go 200mph. When it comes to houses, having a bigger house serves a function up until a point. Idealizing a mansion that is needlessly large and decadent for the sake of it's aesthetic beauty would seem to me to be wasteful.

A world without comfort would be an interesting debate, but I fear it's far too weighted on the side of whoever debates for the existence of comfort. If we could come up with something similar/fairer, I'd be willing!

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@TheUnderdog

Well, I mean, I'm a lesbian, but were I straight, I suppose so. If he had a good personality and this was a world where aesthetic beauty did not exist.

I'm not claiming that aesthetic beauty doesn't matter, only that a world where it does not exist is preferential.

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@Nyxified

"Were aesthetic beauty not to exist, we as a society perhaps could stop idealizing the fast cars and the luxury mansions and the inhumanly perfect bodies of super models."

The supermodels could have a point, but fast cars and luxury mansions actually have utilities: One transports you fast and the other makes you comfortable. Unless you are open to a debate in which you would prefer a world without time or comfort, in this case I am open.

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@Nyxified

If Aesthetic Beauty shouldn't matter, are you fine with dating a 75 year old? I mean, he's ugly but if that doesn't matter, would you be willing to date him?

I mismanaged my time SO badly on this one. I'll make up for it in the next one, I promise

Mark my words, but even if humans cannot perceive aesthetic beauty, we will probably find something in replacement to it that does the same to our brain to when we see aesthetically beautiful things. Aesthetics are built in to some of us and they will find a work-around. If we are to keep removing layers from the world, then what is left of us anymore?

Sounds boring and possibly dead.