Moralizing Beauty – Some Critical Observations
Vol.26,No.1(2025)
In this paper, I intend to criticize an argument, made by the philosopher Panos Paris, claiming that moral goodness is both a necessary and a sufficient condition of beauty. I will argue that Paris’s idea of functional beauty, on which his argument relies, does not work, as it misrepresents judgements of beauty, in fact reducing them to moral judgements. I will argue that judgements of beauty and moral judgements should be understood as distinct and independent of each other. That is, the morally good is not necessarily beautiful, and the beautiful is not necessarily morally good.
functional beauty; Panos Paris; moral judgements; judgements of beauty
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