Download or read book Perfect Me written by Heather Widdows and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How looking beautiful has become a moral imperative in today's worldThe demand to be beautiful is increasingly important in today's visual and virtual culture. Rightly or wrongly, being perfect has become an ethical ideal to live by, and according to which we judge ourselves good or bad, a success or a failure. Perfect Me explores the changing nature of the beauty ideal, showing how it is more dominant, more demanding, and more global than ever before.Heather Widdows argues that our perception of the self is changing. More and more, we locate the self in the body--not just our actual, flawed bodies but our transforming and imagined ones. As this happens, we further embrace the beauty ideal. Nobody is firm enough, thin enough, smooth enough, or buff enough-not without significant effort and cosmetic intervention. And as more demanding practices become the norm, more will be required of us, and the beauty ideal will be harder and harder to resist.If you have ever felt the urge to "make the best of yourself" or worried that you were "letting yourself go," this book explains why. Perfect Me examines how the beauty ideal has come to define how we see ourselves and others and how we structure our daily practices-and how it enthralls us with promises of the good life that are dubious at best. Perfect Me demonstrates that we must first recognize the ethical nature of the beauty ideal if we are ever to address its harms.

Download or read book Reason Morality and Beauty written by Bindu Puri and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2007 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description

Download or read book Aesthetics and Morality written by Elisabeth Schellekens and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aesthetic and moral value are often seen to go hand in hand. They do so not only practically, such as in our everyday assessments of artworks that raise moral questions, but also theoretically, such as in Kant's theory that beauty is the symbol of morality. Some philosophers have argued that it is in the relation between aesthetic and moral value that the key to an adequate understanding of either notion lies. But difficult questions abound. Must a work of art be morally admirable in order to be aesthetically valuable? How, if at all, do our moral values shape our aesthetic judgements - and vice versa? Aesthetics and Morality is a stimulating and insightful inquiry into precisely this set of questions. Elisabeth Schellekens explores the main ideas and debates at the intersection of aesthetics and moral philosophy. She invites readers to reflect on the nature of beauty, art and morality, and provides the philosophical knowledge to render such reflection more rigorous. This original, inspiring and entertaining book sheds valuable new light on a notably complex and challenging area of thought.

Download or read book Al Ghaz l and the Idea of Moral Beauty written by Sophia Vasalou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-23 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Al-Ghazālī and the Idea of Moral Beauty rethinks the relationship between the good and the beautiful by considering the work of eleventh-century Muslim theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111). A giant of Islamic intellectual history, al-Ghazālī is celebrated for his achievements in a wide range of disciplines. One of his greatest intellectual contributions lies in the sphere of ethics, where he presided over an ambitious attempt to integrate philosophical and scriptural ideas into a seamless ethical vision. The connection between ethics and aesthetics turns out to be a signature feature of this account. Virtue is one of the forms of beauty, and human beings are naturally disposed to respond to it with love. The universal human response to beauty in turn provides the central paradigm for thinking about the love commanded by God. While al-Ghazālī’s account of divine love has received ample attention, his special way of drawing the good into relation with the beautiful has oddly escaped remark. In this book Sophia Vasalou addresses this gap by offering a philosophical and contextual study of this aspect of al-Ghazālī’s ethics and of the conception of moral beauty that emerges from it. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in Islamic ethics, Islamic intellectual history, and the history of ethics.

Download or read book Art Emotion and Ethics written by Berys Gaut and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-05-24 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a good work of art be evil? 'Art, Ethics, and Emotion' explores this issue, arguing that artworks are always aesthetically flawed insofar as they have a moral defect that is aesthetically relevant. This book will be of interest to anyone who wants to understand the relation of art to morality.

Download or read book The Ethics of Beauty written by Timothy G. Patitsas and published by St. Nicholas Press. This book was released on 2020-01-15 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chaste and ardent eros for the Beautiful is the first task of human life, and falling in love with Beauty is the beginning of every adventure that matters...The original task of Ethics was to guide us to the most just and meaningful life possible. Today, ethicists define their discipline more narrowly as "the rational investigation of morality." This reduces Ethics to an examination of the Good by the True, tacitly suppressing the deep human need for the Beautiful.In The Ethics of Beauty, Orthodox Christian theologian Timothy Patitsas first considers Beauty's opposite, the dark events that traumatize victims of war and other ugly circumstances, and then invites us to rediscover the older Beauty-first approach to moral reasoning and the integrity of the soul.Covering topics ranging from creation to political theory to the Jesus Prayer, including war, psychology, trauma, chastity, healthy shame, gender, marriage, hospitality, art, architecture, theology, economics, urban planning, and complexity theory, The Ethics of Beauty lays out a worldview in which Beauty, Goodness, and Truth are recognized as indispensable elements of the best possible human life.

Download or read book Morality for Beautiful Girls written by Alexander McCall Smith and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma Ramotswe—with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi—navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea. In Morality for Beautiful Girls, Precious Ramotswe, founder and owner of the only detective agency for the concerns of both ladies and others, investigates the alleged poisoning of the brother of an important “Government Man,” and the moral character of the four finalists of the Miss Beauty and Integrity Contest, the winner of which will almost certainly be a contestant for the title of Miss Botswana. Yet her business is having money problems, and when other difficulties arise at her fiancé’s Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, she discovers the reliable Mr J.L.B. Matekoni is more complicated then he seems.

Download or read book Merit Aesthetic and Ethical written by Marcia Muelder Eaton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-04 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To "look good" and to "be good" have traditionally been considered two very different notions. Indeed, philosophers have seen aesthetic and ethical values as fundamentally separate. Now, at the crossroads of a new wave of aesthetic theory, Marcia Muelder Eaton introduces this groundbreaking work, in which a bold new concept of merit where being good and looking good are integrated into one.

Download or read book God Morality and Beauty written by Randall B. Bush and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-07-01 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Randall B. Bush analyzes the ways unacknowledged axiological assumptions (e.g., about what is important, why human beings are valuing creatures, and where the capacity to value comes from) prejudice the perspectives and approaches of various academic disciplines, especially in the social sciences and the humanities. The disciplines of ethics and aesthetics provide the most useful tools for a philosophy of value, but academic overspecialization has compartmentalized and segregated these disciplines from others, threatening to unravel the unity of conceptions of the moral and the beautiful in human existence. Bush argues that a dialectical approach to conflicts between ethics and aesthetics can point to a broader, axiological vision––informed by a Trinitarian conception of reality––in which the whole, a coherent theory of value, is more than the sum of its parts.

Download or read book Understanding the Beauty Appreciation Trait written by Rhett Diessner and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-11-22 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes the reader on a grand tour of the empirical research concerning the personality trait of appreciation of beauty. It particularly focuses on engagement with natural beauty, engagement with artistic beauty, and engagement with moral beauty. The book addresses philosophers’ thoughts about beauty, especially the special emphasis on the intimate relationship between love and beauty; appreciation of beauty from an evolutionary standpoint; and the emerging science of neuroaesthetics. The book concludes with a consideration of beauty and pedagogy/andragogy, as well as methodologies to increase appreciation of beauty.

Download or read book Kant s Theory of Freedom written by Henry E. Allison and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-09-28 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative and comprehensive interpretation of Kant's concept of freedom analyzes the role it plays in his moral philosophy and psychology and considers critical literature on the subject.

Download or read book Pilgrimage as Moral and Aesthetic Formation in Augustine s Thought written by Sarah Stewart-Kroeker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-26 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Augustine's dominant image for the human life is peregrinatio, which signifies at once a journey to the homeland (a pilgrimage) and the condition of exile from the homeland. For Augustine, all human beings are, in the earthly life, exiles from their true homeland: heaven. Some, but not all, become pilgrims seeking a way back to the heavenly homeland, a return mediated by the incarnate Christ. Becoming a pilgrim begins with attraction to beauty. The return journey therefore involves formation, both moral and aesthetic, in loving rightly. This image has occasioned a lot of angst in ethical thought in the last century. Augustine's vision of Christian life as a pilgrimage, his critics allege, casts a pall of groaning and longing over this life in favor of happiness in the next. Augustine's eschatological orientation robs the world of beauty and ethics of urgency. In Pilgrimage as Moral and Aesthetic Formation in Augustine's Thought, Sarah Stewart-Kroeker responds to Augustine's critics by elaborating the Christological continuity between the earthly journey and the eschatological home. Through this cohesive account of pilgrimage as a journey toward the right ordering of the desire for beauty and love for God and neighbour, Stewart-Kroeker reveals the integrity of Augustine's vision of moral and aesthetic vision. From the human desire for beauty to the embodied practice of Christian sacraments, Stewart-Kroeker develops an account of the relationship between beauty and morality as the linchpin of an Augustinian moral theology.

Download or read book An Inquiry Into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue written by Francis Hutcheson and published by . This book was released on 1726 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Beauty A Very Short Introduction written by Roger Scruton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2011-03-24 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a book that is itself beautifully written, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores this timeless concept, asking what makes an object--either in art, in nature, or the human form--beautiful.--From publisher description.

Download or read book Saving Beauty written by Byung-Chul Han and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beauty today is a paradox. The cult of beauty is ubiquitous but it has lost its transcendence and become little more than an aspect of consumerism, the aesthetic dimension of capitalism. The sublime and unsettling aspects of beauty have given way to corporeal pleasures and 'likes', resulting in a kind of 'pornography' of beauty. In this book, cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han reinvigorates aesthetic theory for our digital age. He interrogates our preoccupation with all things slick and smooth, from Jeff Koon's sculptures and the iPhone to Brazilian waxing. Reaching far deeper than our superficial reactions to viral videos and memes, Han reclaims beauty, showing how it manifests itself as truth, temptation and even disaster. This wide-ranging and profound exploration of beauty, encompassing ethical and political considerations as well as aesthetic, will appeal to all those interested in cultural and aesthetic theory, philosophy and digital media.

Download or read book On Beauty and Being Just written by Elaine Scarry and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-21 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have we become beauty-blind? For two decades or more in the humanities, various political arguments have been put forward against beauty: that it distracts us from more important issues; that it is the handmaiden of privilege; and that it masks political interests. In On Beauty and Being Just Elaine Scarry not only defends beauty from the political arguments against it but also argues that beauty does indeed press us toward a greater concern for justice. Taking inspiration from writers and thinkers as diverse as Homer, Plato, Marcel Proust, Simone Weil, and Iris Murdoch as well as her own experiences, Scarry offers up an elegant, passionate manifesto for the revival of beauty in our intellectual work as well as our homes, museums, and classrooms. Scarry argues that our responses to beauty are perceptual events of profound significance for the individual and for society. Presenting us with a rare and exceptional opportunity to witness fairness, beauty assists us in our attention to justice. The beautiful object renders fairness, an abstract concept, concrete by making it directly available to our sensory perceptions. With its direct appeal to the senses, beauty stops us, transfixes us, fills us with a "surfeit of aliveness." In so doing, it takes the individual away from the center of his or her self-preoccupation and thus prompts a distribution of attention outward toward others and, ultimately, she contends, toward ethical fairness. Scarry, author of the landmark The Body in Pain and one of our bravest and most creative thinkers, offers us here philosophical critique written with clarity and conviction as well as a passionate plea that we change the way we think about beauty.

Download or read book Aquinas on Beauty written by Christopher Scott Sevier and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-02-12 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aquinas on Beauty explores the nature and role of beauty in the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Beginning with a standard definition of beauty provided by Aquinas, it explores each of the components of that definition. The result is a comprehensive account of Aquinas’s formal view on the subject, supplemented by an exploration into Aquinas’s commentary on Dionysius’s Divine Names, including a comparison of his views with those of both Dionysius and those of Aquinas’s mentor, Albert the Great. The book also highlights the tight connection in Aquinas’s thought between aesthetics and ethics, and illustrates how Aquinas preserves what is best about aesthetic traditions preceding him, and anticipates what is best about aesthetic traditions that would follow, marrying objective and subjective aesthetic intuitions and charting a kind of via media between the common extremes.