Instigator / Con

1500

rating

debates

37.5%

won

Topic

#4139

Is Beauty a Objective or Subjective element?

Status

Finished

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

Winner & statistics

Better arguments

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After 2 votes and with 2 points ahead, the winner is...

YouFound_Lxam

Tags

Philosophy

Parameters

Publication date: 02.06.2023 07:14PM
Last updated date: 03.06.2023 02:36AM
Type: Standard
Number of rounds: 2
Time for argument: One week
Max argument characters: 10,000
Voting period: Two weeks
Point system: Multiple criterions
Voting system: Open

Contender / Pro

YouFound_Lxam

1472

rating

debates

48.44%

won

Description

Pro will argue that beauty is subjective and con will argue that beauty is objective.

The use of beauty in this debate constitutes not only human beauty but nature, architecture, poetry, literature, and abstract ideas. Below is a link to a poster that will better explain the different things that hold beauty.

https://i0.wp.com/scenicsolutions.world/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Aesthetics.jpg?resize=685%2C404&ssl=1

Subjectivists believes that beauty is not universal and changes from individual to individual.

Objectivists believes that everything has beauty and is not something that man can manipulate.

Round 1

Phaneron

02.07.2023 06:43AM

Con

Below is a list of famous objectivist philosophers with their respective argument of what beauty is.

Plato

The objectivists argue that although beauty is not best served in human physicality, it still exists as a manifestation unlike the subjectivists who denounce all beauty as a mere illusion. Plato, the father of western philosophy stated that "Forms are beautiful, the perfect being is beautiful, and among these forms, the form of good is the most beautiful.”(HZT4U 1) Beauty in humanity is morality and it is a part of human nature and culture. It should not be tossed away as a primitive virtue, on the basis that beauty only instills animal-like need to attract mates. After all beauty is what gives the men the bravery to fight for their homeland and beauty gives pleasure to its onlooker. The objectivists argue that humans are dependent on beauty in order for society to develop and grow with a proper cultural identity.

Aristotle
Essentially, Harvard University professor of philosophy Richard Moran summarized Aristotle’s understanding of beauty. Aristotle believes that beauty originates from nature and the arts try to imitate the pure and natural beauty that the world offers for free. Aristotle believed that the human mind when thinking, corrupts the true nature of beauty because beauty is simple. And overthinking the idea of beauty and taste will only cause chronic confusion in the individual.

George Hegel
On the other hand, George Hegel, a well known Western Philosopher who is famous for his revolutionary works on Aryanism believed that everything has beauty to some degree. If an object did not have beauty then that object is non-existent. In his view, God is what tuned humanity's perception of beauty so that one can understand and appreciate the beauty around us.

The mistaken difference between taste and beauty

Beauty is a strict element and it explains why a boring concrete walls is not as pleasant as the vast mountainscapes of Scandinavia or the tropical paradise of the Pacific. But man has free will and he is able to individually rank the beautiful things of this world, this is called taste. Man can favor some beauties over others which explains men's tendency to favor some women better then others while disregarding other women. Although all women have a unique beautiful features, man is what creates hierarchy not nature. In a absolute sense, God is beauty and he is the very essence of what beauty comes from.

The importance of beauty on society

During the postmodern era, the industrial world has the popular belief that beauty is a physical quality and a characteristic in the external world. Unlike popular thought from objectivist philosophers, man puts a much more emphasis on beauty for the sake of not love but for lust and their egotistic culture. Industrial societies have been embracing this doctrine called materialism and what follows is the decline of tradition and national identity. Materialism discredits the existence of the soul and God and puts full faith in physical properties, turning the sacred man into a savage.

Furthermore, the obliteration of divine virtues is what caused the social and philosophical concept, hyper reality, a term coined by Jean Baudrillard, an expert in postmodern and poststructuralist theory. Hyper reality is caused when the individual is bombarded with simulations of reality. By putting absurd amounts of makeup and plastic surgery, it creates a simulation of reality in both the individual and the environment. The individual will have a distorted view of reality as they will see their current self that is created from unnatural means a part of reality. The environment then will also have a false view of reality on the individual because the environment will regard the individual’s beauty real but in reality it is invalid. They replace their loss of cultural identity with materialism and hedonism. If the embracement of tradition is the key that is lacking then all that must be done to solve the problem is to embrace traditional values. To be able to understand and appreciate beauty as a universal and constant element of all objects will humble man and save our morally degenerate society.

Sources:

“Chasing Beauty: Aesthetics, Society and Science: The Theory of Beauty.”HZT4U. Accessed on 18 September, 2022. lah.elearningontario.ca/CMS/public/exported_courses/HZT4U/exported

Moran, Richard. “Kant, Proust, and the Appeal of Beauty.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 38, no. 2, Winter 2012, pp. 298–329. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.hccproxy.lib.hawaii.edu/10.1086/662744.

"Plato’s Aesthetics.”Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 22 June, 2022. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-aesthetics/

ZIMMERER, JARED. “Beauty, Order, and the Moral Imagination: The Aesthetics of Russell Kirk.” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought & Culture, vol. 24, no. 4, Fall 2021, pp. 88–115. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.hccproxy.lib.hawaii.edu/10.1353/log.2021.0027.

YouFound_Lxam

02.13.2023 12:52AM

Pro

Thank you, Con for your argument.

Just to clarify, some things for voters I will provide clarification of certain words for voters/viewers, to base their votes/opinions on.

Con did provide explanations for what subjective and objective mean, but I will provide a clear-cut definition, and one that I think Con will agree with.

Objective:

"(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts: Contrasted with subjective."

Oxford Dictionary.

Subjective:

"based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions: Contrasted with objective."

Oxford Dictionary.

Beauty:

Beauty is something that not all of us can't exactly agree on. If beauty were to be subjective, then that would assume that someone's feelings, or opinions would not be considered, when calling something, or someone beautiful. Now there are many types of beauty, like physical beauty and emotional beauty and many people have similar views on what they call beautiful in a man, or in a woman, but they are not all exactly the same. If they were to be all exactly the same, then all men would be after one particular woman, and all women would be after one particular man. If they were the same, then there would be billions of people without love. Every person is distinctively different in some way, yet almost everyone has legitimately been called beautiful by their husband/wife, boyfriend/girlfriend.

David Hume:

"On the contrary, a thousand different sentiments, excited by the same object, are all right: Because no sentiment represents what is really in the object. It only marks a certain conformity or relation between the object and the organs or faculties of the mind; and if that conformity did not really exist, the sentiment could never possibly have being. Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others. To seek the real beauty, or real deformity, is as fruitless an enquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or real bitter."

Immanuel Kant:

"Kant believes he can show that aesthetic judgment is not fundamentally different from ordinary theoretical cognition of nature, and he believes he can show that aesthetic judgment has a deep similarity to moral judgment. For these two reasons, Kant claims he can demonstrate that the physical and moral universes – and the philosophies and forms of thought that present them – are not only compatible, but unified."

Rebuttals:

In a absolute sense, God is beauty and he is the very essence of what beauty comes from.

This is true. Given that Pro agrees that a God does indeed exist, but this doesn't mean that beauty has to be objective. God gave us free will (to choose) and in doing so, gave us all of his beautiful creation to live and thrive in. I would say that beauty is whatever gives man the pleasure in the senses of beauty. I know it is a sort of circular definition, but it is difficult to define true beauty without excluding something that someone else might find truly beautiful. If beauty is truly to be objective, then there must be some sort of a clear-cut definition, yes? Otherwise, it would be what others perceive beauty to be. Now of course God is beauty, and God specifically created all things good, there has to be a line where we draw from sinful, lust or immoral beauty, but again it is difficult to determine what others perceive as beautiful.

Where do we truly draw the line of objective?

To be able to understand and appreciate beauty as a universal and constant element of all objects will humble man and save our morally degenerate society.

So, should we be worried about understanding beauty, rather than admiring it? Of course, there is sinful, lust and immoral beauty, but true good, God given beauty exists, for the purpose to show Gods love for us. So, the real question is, should we seek to understand beauty and cage it into specified areas? Because from what I understand God's beauty is beyond comprehension, so we can't cage it into what we perceive it to be.

If God is to be beauty, and we can't fully comprehend God's beauty, then who are we to object it to certain areas?

Sources:

https://iep.utm.edu/kantaest/

https://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/david-hume-beauty

Round 2

Phaneron

02.20.2023 12:52AM

Con

Forfeited

YouFound_Lxam

02.20.2023 02:36AM

Pro

Thank you Con for making this debate, though I am rather confused why you never made a counter argument.

Con forfeited, vote Pro.

Melcharaz

02.20.2023 04:50AM

i cant weight the oll libertyfund link on davidhume on par with other sources presented. as that one is a commentary and synopsis of his writings. if you directly used his book as the source, it would have been better.
i dont consider that synopsis to be scholarly level

Melcharaz

02.20.2023 04:24AM

tldr you are both right and both yalls sources verifies both subjective and objective beauty. in the writings mentioned

ugh, i really dont want to vote on this. plato uses the word forms in 2 ways. essence and idea. that and theory of forms IS mentioned in the link under 1:3 beauty of forms. but isnt cited.

this is a good debate, but honestly im getting a headache just trying to award sources.

also i am biased toward objective beauty, though i do recognized subjective beauty ie taste. and this circles back to essence or idea distinction AGAIN.

to understand my grief, i give this link. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/real-essence/
basically john locke defines real essence as plato defines form as essence. and defines nominal essence as plato defines form as idea.

Sir.Lancelot

03.05.2023 10:02PM

Criterion

Con

Tie

Pro

Points

Better arguments

3 point(s)

Better sources

2 point(s)

Better legibility

1 point(s)

Better conduct

1 point(s)

Reason:

Neither side does a particularly good job at arguing their case.

Con cites the views of philosophers to argue that beauty is objective, but he would have done better by laying out the framework for what is objectively beautiful. A hierarchy of standards. Then he should have laid out empirical evidence indicating that either the majority of society perceives this the same way, or somehow demonstrate it is true. Now Con does a good job at explaining the differences between taste and beauty, arguing that exploring the diversity of beauty of different things is how the perceiver develops his taste. But nothing conclusive that suggests to me objective beauty is even a thing. As I don't even know what meets the standard for objective beauty.

Pro wisely lays out the definitions and explains that beauty manifests in different forms/categories. He even slightly elaborates on how not all women chase after the same man and the point he goes for suggests that beauty is relative, differing from person to person. However, he would have done better by providing more examples and situations to demonstrate how differently people think. He should have explored this a little more in depth. As this doesn't really retort Con's position about 'taste,' which would have been an epic comeback retort if Con hadn't forfeited.

As both sides rely only on their own personal opinions and anecdotal evidence and agree that God exists. I am simply left to conclude that arguments are a tie.
Sources are a tie.

But Con forfeited, so Pro wins the conduct point.

Barney

02.21.2023 06:06AM

Criterion

Con

Tie

Pro

Points

Better arguments

3 point(s)

Better sources

2 point(s)

Better legibility

1 point(s)

Better conduct

1 point(s)

Reason:

Pro missed half the debate, leaving everything dropped.