OB

Module 7: Beauty and the Good Life

A Duty to be Beautiful Unpacked

  • The history of beauty and morality

    • for plato, beauty is the only spiritual thing we love by instinct

      • only beautiful women were allowed to speak

    • ugliness is equated to evil

    • our stories capture this connection (disney)

  • Weren't we told that it's what's on the inside that counts for our moral character?

    • widdows argues that in an increasingly virtual and visual culture, its often the outside that counts

      • beauty is not a moral agent but its perceived as such

    • “judgements about the inside, about the person, are made on the evidence of the outside”

  • What four elements feature in the beauty ideal as put forward by Widdows?

    • Thin and Slim

    • Firm and Buff

    • Smooth and Luminous

    • Young and Youthful

  • How does the beauty ideal function as an ethical ideal?

    • moral frameworks provide the background that determines what’s right and good or wrong and bad

    • these frameworks are action guiding and require use to align our values with our actions

    • beauty success is now deemed moral success

    • gym behavior seen as doing something good in general rather than just doing something for their bodies

    • beauty is valued more and more, and beauty is accepted as a value

    • daily achievements of beauty ideal are embedded into our everyday habits

    • as the ideal becomes more dominant, beauty becomes an ethical duty (like promises are)

  • What are two important points Widdows wants us to know about beauty as an ethical ideal?

    • its a collective ideal (a large amt of the collective follow the ideal)

    • as beauty functions as an ethical ideal, it becomes more dominant than a social norm

    • transgressions for violating moral norms are more severe in nature

  • What is the difference between a social norm vs an ethical norm?

    • widdows argues that there are no clear line between the two

    • social norm: mints are supposed to be consumed after your dessert not before your dessert

      • no one at the table judged professor walsh as a terrible person for eating the mint

    • if the mint eating was akin to lying, it would’ve been an ethical norm and professor walsh wouldve been seen as a bad person

  • Why does Widdows argue that failures to live up to the beauty ideal result in moral shaming?

    • failure in beauty are now being viewed as ethical failures

      • not just a failure to beauty, but failure that colors every part of your life

    • involves a failure of the self

    • “she has let herself go”

    • moral language is invoked by ideal

      • you ought to do X otherwise Y

      • you ought to look after your body, otherwise your partner may leave you for someone else who does

    • most potent example of beauty becoming an ethical ideal is fat shaming

    • shame is closely connected with moral responsibility

      • we feel ashamed when we know in our hearts we could have acted differently and we should’ve

      • widdows argues that shame is invoked by the beauty ideal

      • “you should be ashamed showing up like that” is akin to “you should be ashamed of lying”

  • Why does she think that failing to tidy your room is different than failing to engage in the practices required of the beauty ideal?

    • compare failing to tidy your room to failure to conform to the beauty ideal

    • widdows argues in the latter the failure is attributed to the whole self, in the way the former is not

  • What is a summary of Widdow's core argument?

    • Beauty is no longer a social norm

    • It functions as an ethical ideal

    • Ethical ideals are unique because they make performing certain actions duties

    • They are also unique because you are often shamed for failing to live up to a moral framework

    • Beauty in these ways delivers the goods: material goods, relational goods, lifestyle goods, and happiness

A Defense of the Unmodified Body

  • not against tattoos, shaving, being transgender

  • the “unmodified body” isn’t a body devoid of change bc everything changes our body

  • the unmodified body is a body that’s allowed to be how it is

  • we deserve to be in a society that’s not constantly telling us our body is wrong

  • these demands to change serve a political purpose

    • reflect class, age, gender, race and disability

  • very visual culture with social media

    • epidemic of appearance anxiety

  • 70% of women feel pressure to have a perfect body and 2/3 of men feel ashamed of their body

  • often times changing to our body is good to be demanded

    • want to be healthy, avoid illness, aid disability

    • the idea of a normal body (reference class)

      • can do what other bodies can do

      • bodies are very different in what they can do (male and female)

  • people who have disabilities in their bodies from birth, their body is normal to them

  • being born with an additional finger could be seen as an ability rather than a disability

    • what is viewed as an ability or a disability is all cultural

  • “get your body back” after pregnancy implies your current body is an imposter, abnormal and inauthentic

    • thought of as post puberty, pre pregnancy

  • some body modification may enhance peoples quality of living, and there is nothing wrong with that

  • shametinence

    • common to keep menstruation as tattoo

    • makeup and body building