The Beautiful as the Ethical
By
Martin L. Cowen III
Years ago with indignation, after a forgotten philosophical claim, I protested to my teacher that he was confusing ethics with aesthetics. Now, after years of study, I believe that ethics and aesthetics are closely related. The goal of ethical action is, in fact, the Beautiful. This idea is new to us and it will require some unpacking. The idea, though, is as old as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. We have recently rediscovered the Beautiful and its relationship to the ethical thanks to a new translation of Aristotle's great work by Joe Sachs, formerly of St. Johns College, Annapolis, Maryland.
Those of you who have been attending FOR Sunday school will be familiar with my excitement about the Beautiful as an ethical concept. We look forward exploring the Beautiful in the months and years to come. Let us begin today.
The word being translated from the Greek is kalon. In prior, authoritative translations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics the word has been rendered as “noble.” The translation is incorrect and misleading. Aristotle means “beautiful,” as we presently understand that word, when he says kalon.
Aristotle says that "it is up to us to act when it is a beautiful thing... and to refrain from acting when this would be an ugly thing." 1113b8.
A common reaction to the concept of beauty as some kind of standard is that the beautiful is subjective. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," they say. Not so. The judgment that an object of perception is beautiful is not arbitrary or viewer dependent. The judgment of the beauty of an object of perception belongs to the serious person schooled and widely experienced in the domain of the object to be judged. The judgment that a painting is beautiful or not belongs to the serious person schooled and experienced in the subject of art history. In other words, aesthetic judgments are the domain of experts. So, too, are ethical judgments.
Not to say that most of us are not experts or at least qualified amateurs in many aesthetic and ethical domains. Most serious adults are experts in many things. It is true that no expert can tell us what we like. In fact, we do like or do not like a particular painting upon which we gaze. We assert here only that the judgment that a thing is “beautiful” or not is not an arbitrary judgment or viewer dependent. “Beautiful” is an aesthetic term. “Like” merely labels an emotion.
Once, an acquaintance of mine with whom I was having a philosophical conversation said: "Who is to say whether this coffee cup in my hand is or is not a hammer?" His position was that of the extreme relativist. No meaningful conversation can be had with the extreme relativist for whom the referents and meanings of words can change at will. Our conversation, therefore, ended abruptly. A similar consequence befell Cleitophon in Plato's Republic (340a), who, after asserting the extreme relativist position, is never heard from again in the dialogue. Admittedly, denying identity to the referents of "coffee cup" is more extreme than denying identity to the referents of the Beautiful. The point here is that philosophers do not deny identity to the referents of the words we use. Sophists and extreme relativists do that.
Our opinions about what we like are subject to philosophical exploration. A great current example is FOR's study of James Joyce's Ulysses. The work is not one that some of us "like." We have questioned our judgment, though, by entering into the study of Ulysses. Some of us who are studying the work are trying to learn whether the novel ought to be "liked". We are wondering, "Is it beautiful?" A different issue. We shall see.
So, what is the beautiful? The beautiful has three aspects: wholeness, harmony, and radiance. In our informal discussions about the Beautiful we have discovered that context is very important to the Beautiful. Context and wholeness are related. Is the object under consideration whole, meaning: is the object being understood in its full context?
A rose floating tranquilly in clear, clean water in a small oyster-white ceramic bowl in a spot of sunshine might be thought beautiful. But what judgment would we make if the bowl itself was floating in a septic tank? Not so beautiful, then. Context matters.
Consider a sexually charged encounter with a beautiful Other. The act of sexual union might be thought beautiful. But what judgment would we make if the full context is that the actor is married, the beautiful Other has AIDS, the disease is transmitted to the actor, the spouse of the actor discovers the infidelity, they divorce, and the children are ruined for life. Not so beautiful, then. Context matters.
Some examples now will be helpful in understanding the relationship of the Beautiful to ethical action.
Vivid, dramatic examples are useful for understanding. So, we begin with the subject of a beautiful death.
Clint Eastwood's film Gran Torino concludes with a great example of a beautiful death. Because it is beautiful, we conclude that his actions were the right thing to do. Eastwood's character was drawn to the beautiful and that is why he acts as he does.
Clint's character, Walt Kowalski, is an old, widowed curmudgeon. He befriends a teenaged neighbor who is threatened with gang violence. Walt himself has little life left. He is coughing up blood suggesting some terrible disease with a long period of unpleasant treatment and ultimate death. Walt's family is useless to him, involved as they are in their own lives. After a crisis of gang violence, Walt conceives a plan to permanently solve his young friend’s problem. Walt lures the gang into gunning him down in public. Walt dies in a hail of bullets. The gang is arrested. The young boy inherits Walt's Gran Torino and lives happily ever after. Walt enjoys a beautiful death. Purposeful, bold, and quick. On another level, too, the scene is beautiful. Clint Eastwood, the actor, is actually old now. He is 81 at this writing. Clint Eastwood's characters are mostly tough men who tolerate no foolishness and meet out justice brutally. Fans (this fan at least) cannot picture Clint Eastwood plugged up to IVs living in a nursing home waiting years to die of natural causes. Clint Eastwood's characters ought to die in a hail of bullets.
Like Patton says in the movie, "There is only one proper way for a professional soldier to die: the last bullet of the last battle of the last war." The same is true of a professional tough guy like the characters Clint Eastwood has portrayed.
The most famous beautiful death is the death of Socrates as told in Plato's dialogues: Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, and Phaedo. Socrates is charged by the City of Athens with impiety and corrupting the young. During his trial he defends himself with courage and equanimity. He is tried and convicted. After conviction, offered the chance to escape, he declines. Socrates goes serenely to his death, much to the consternation of his less philosophical friends.
A final example of a beautiful death is provided by the movie Man on Fire starring Denzel Washington. Denzel’s character, Creasy, is a burned out professional soldier/assassin. He is an alcoholic and cannot hold a job. He goes to visit a former colleague in Mexico and gets a job as bodyguard for a young child, Pita, played by Dakota Fanning. Pita is kidnapped and, apparently, killed. After killing most of the bad guys in revenge, Creasy gets a chance to get Pita back alive at the cost of his own life. Creasy gladly exchanges his own life for Pita's. Creasy enjoys a beautiful death. He is redeemed.
Familiarity (by having seen them) with these examples will greatly assist the appreciation of the claim that these deaths are beautiful. As Aristotle says, "the judgment is in the perceiving." 1126b4
Referring back to “context matters,” consider the incident of the death of Clint Eastwood’s character in a hail of bullets alongside the rose floating in a ceramic bowl. Walt’s death by gunfire taken narrowly from the point-of-view of the 20 seconds of gunfire is not a beautiful thing. The rose and bowl considered narrowly are a beautiful thing. Only in the whole context of the movie is Walt’s death beautiful. In the full context of the sewer, the rose and bowl are not beautiful. So we see that a thing considered narrowly—the rose in the bowl or the 20 seconds of gunfire—can be beautiful or ugly. Only when considered in the full context—Walt’s brutal death by gunfire in the context of the whole movie or the rose floating in a bowl which is floating in a septic tank—can the judgment Beautiful or not be made.
Regarding ethical action as related to the Beautiful solves a long enduring philosophical problem. Some philosophers and lay people object to the very common analysis of an ethical action in terms of payment. Some ethical theories hold that people are ethical in order to receive some reward or to avoid punishment. Ethics under this theory is venal (mercenary, subject to bribes, or subject to purchase). Good people sense that ethical action ought, somehow, to be an end in itself. Even Christian ethics is subject to the charge of venality. One complies with God’s commands in order to avoid Hell or to gain Heaven.
This problem is solved, though, if the goal and motive of ethical action is the Beautiful. The Beautiful is an end in itself. One enjoys a beautiful sunset as an end in itself. One listens to a great symphony as an end in itself. One smells a rose as an end in itself. One tastes a great wine as an end in itself. One caresses the body of the Other as an end in itself.
Walt, Socrates, and Creasy perform their beautiful deaths as ends in themselves, because the actions are beautiful.
Under this theory ethical action is completely self-contained. The motive is within the actor. While there may be an incidental reward or avoidance of punishment, the reward and the punishment are not the motive of the ethical action. The actor seeks the Beautiful for the sake of the Beautiful. Ethical action is an end in itself.
The three components of the Beautiful are wholeness, harmony, and radiance. We have considered wholeness. Let us now consider harmony.
We have already recited an instance of lack of harmony: the rose in clear, clean water in a bowl in a septic tank. Clear, clean water and sewage water together are inharmonious. A giant, ugly wart on the face of an otherwise beautiful woman in a painting is inharmonious and might deny the judgment “beautiful” to the work. In fact, such a work is likely to be classified as vicious, if the artist’s intention is to deny the Beautiful.
Harmony in music is often regarded as beautiful. Dissonance, while often used in musical composition, is usually followed by resolution into harmony.
In general terms, harmony means that all of the parts of the whole are related in some intentional pattern and are used together by the artist to achieve a unified purpose. So when a novelist writes there is no element in his story that is not related to his purpose. For example, while modern human characters in novels are presumed to brush their teeth in the morning, the recounting of the morning “necessaries” is not often a part of the novel, unless the poison intended to kill the character is to be delivered via the toothpaste.
Harmony will be a fruitful concept in considering what ethical behavior is. If we think of our lives as stories or paintings of which we are the author or painter, we can see that attending to our own work, or “minding our own business,” is an important concept. A fellow painter beside whom we are painting is not likely to tolerate our reaching over and painting a happy face in the middle of his Mona Lisa. Our intrusion will disturb the harmony of his work. “Minding your own business” is an important ethical lesson from Plato’s Republic and can be elaborated using Aristotle’s conception of the Beautiful in ethical behavior. More on this in later essays.
The final component of the Beautiful is radiance. What a glorious conception is radiance. Some months ago members of the Fellowship of Reason were discussing various artists who seemed to have a mysterious quality that we called “IT.” Heather Morris, a dancer who plays Brittany S. Pearce on Glee, was my example. There are people who can adequately perform the motions required of the dance and there are true dancers. When an ensemble of people is performing choreography it is not uncommon that one of the performers will stand out especially. She is often the true dancer. One can “just see” that she is great. This is true of Heather Morris. I saw this during the Atlanta Opera’s presentation of Porgy and Bess. The ensemble cast was dancing, but one performer stood out. A review of the pictures in the program revealed that the standout dancer was, in fact, the choreographer. She had “IT.”
Our FOR members did not think of it at the time but the quality “IT” is radiance. The emotional response to radiance is an experience of the sublime, an aesthetic term. Radiance arrests the soul of the viewer and she is transfixed by the object of perception.
When we see a great work of art, a beautiful work of art, we are stopped in our tracks, our souls are arrested, and we can only stop and take the experience in for as long as circumstances and the duration of the emotion permit. There is peace in the feeling. Neither desire nor loathing is evoked. The emotion is not kinetic. No action is demanded by the experience. The experience is an end in itself.
The realization of Walt’s intention is arresting when perceived. His actions are Beautiful. Watching Heather Morris dance (on the rare occasions when the producers of Glee permit it) is arresting. Listening to opera singer Renee Fleming perform is often arresting. Listening to Leila Josefowicz play the violin is often arresting. Ernest Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is arresting. All of these Beautiful objects of perception have “IT,” that is, they have radiance.
Aristotle lists courage as the first virtue in his list of about thirteen virtues (or excellences) in the Nicomachean Ethics. Courageous acts resulting in death of the actor are often invested with radiance. The sacrifice by a soldier of his life to shield his comrades from the explosion of a hand grenade thrown into their midst is an example. Consider the contrary, the ugly scenario. The soldier sees the grenade and runs over his comrades to escape the blast. They die and he dies with shrapnel in the back of his head. That is an ugly scene. This reminds one of the rule of the ancient Spartans: Come back with your shield or on it. To come back home without one’s shield means that one jettisoned his weapons and armor and ran from the battle. The ultimate shame for a Spartan.
Plato says that the purpose of philosophy is to learn how to die. Perhaps an updated statement would be that the purpose of philosophy is to learn how to live beautifully.
The discovery of the relationship between the Beautiful and ethical action is empowering. We now understand how it is that ethical action is an end in itself, a long sought after philosophical goal. We have a tool for analyzing ethical action and we will be able to specify ethical behavior in various hypothetical situations in future essays. Our new power is a Beautiful thing.
To be continued.
