What Is Beauty?

Beauty is the quality of an object or idea that pleases our aesthetic senses – especially sight. This is usually combined with other qualities such as harmony, proportion, or symmetry. It has been the subject of numerous philosophical debates and is often linked to values such as goodness, truth, or freedom.

Some philosophers have argued that the experience of beauty is originally spontaneous, but that it needs to be cultivated as a cognitive disposition in order to be recognised. This is a process that is similar to the cultivation of the moral virtues of justice and goodness.

Others have argued that the experience of beauty is inherently subjective and that what is beautiful to one person may not be so to another. David Hume (1711 – 1776), for example, explains that what makes something beautiful to us depends on our feelings and emotions. He also argues that beauty is not found in things themselves but in our thoughts about them and that each of us will perceive something different.

For some, beauty is seen as the ultimate expression of love, a divine and perfect relationship between mortal and divinity. This allegory, embodied in the ancient story of Psyche and Cupid, offers a vision of beauty as the fluidity of pleasure that moves between material differences such as sex and gender, transforming human relationships. It is in this way that beauty joins justice in seeking equality in fair relationships. This is the kind of beauty that can sustain the world and is a key part of the divine plan.