Beauty
One difficulty in understanding beauty is that it has both objective and subjective aspects: it is seen as a property of things but also as depending on the emotional response of observers.
[2] It has been argued that the ability on the side of the subject needed to perceive and judge beauty, sometimes referred to as the "sense of taste", can be trained and that the verdicts of experts coincide in the long run.
This suggests the standards of validity of judgments of beauty are intersubjective, i.e. dependent on a group of judges, rather than fully subjective or objective.
[3][9] The source of this debate is that judgments of beauty seem to be based on subjective grounds, namely our feelings, while claiming universal correctness at the same time.
[4] Adherents of both sides have suggested that a certain faculty, commonly called a sense of taste, is necessary for making reliable judgments about beauty.
[9] But this account makes the possibility of genuine disagreements about claims of beauty implausible, since the same object may produce very different ideas in distinct observers.
[10] There is no general agreement on how "ideal observers" are to be defined, but it is usually assumed that they are experienced judges of beauty with a fully developed sense of taste.
This suggests an indirect way of solving the antinomy of taste: instead of looking for necessary and sufficient conditions of beauty itself, one can learn to identify the qualities of good critics and rely on their judgments.
[3][4][7] A pleasure is disinterested if it is indifferent to the existence of the beautiful object or if it did not arise owing to an antecedent desire through means-end reasoning.
[12] For example, a cold jaded critic may still be a good judge of beauty because of her years of experience but lack the joy that initially accompanied her work.
Similarly, kallos was used differently from the English word beauty in that it first and foremost applied to humans and bore an erotic connotation.
[34] He wrote of how people experience pleasure when aware of a certain type of formal situation present in reality, perceivable by sight or through the ear[35] and discovered the underlying mathematical ratios in the harmonic scales in music.
[35] In other words, Diotoma gives to Socrates an explanation of how love should begin with erotic attachment, and end with the transcending of the physical to an appreciation of beauty as a thing in itself.
[49] In his Summa Theologica, Aquinas described the three conditions of beauty as: integritas (wholeness), consonantia (harmony and proportion), and claritas (a radiance and clarity that makes the form of a thing apparent to the mind).
[50] In the Gothic Architecture of the High and Late Middle Ages, light was considered the most beautiful revelation of God, which was heralded in design.
[83] Zhu Xi said: "When one has strenuously implemented goodness until it is filled to completion and has accumulated truth, then the beauty will reside within it and will not depend on externals.
This was first noticed in 1883, when Francis Galton overlaid photographic composite images of the faces of vegetarians and criminals to see if there was a typical facial appearance for each.
[91] It is argued that it is evolutionarily advantageous that sexual creatures are attracted to mates who possess predominantly common or average features, because it suggests the absence of genetic or acquired defects.
[92][93][94] Since the 1970s there has been increasing evidence that a preference for beautiful faces emerges early in infancy, and is probably innate,[95][96][97] and that the rules by which attractiveness is established are similar across different genders and cultures.
For instance, in some non-Western cultures in which women have to do work such as finding food, men tend to have preferences for higher waist-hip ratios.
[102][103][104] Exposure to the thin ideal in mass media, such as fashion magazines, directly correlates with body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, and the development of eating disorders among female viewers.
[105][106] Further, the widening gap between individual body sizes and societal ideals continues to breed anxiety among young girls as they grow, highlighting the dangerous nature of beauty standards in society.
[107] A study using Chinese immigrants and Hispanic, Black and White American citizens found that their ideals of female beauty were not significantly different.
[115] East Asian men and white Western women were found to have the highest levels of body dissatisfaction in the United States.
[116] A study of African American and South Asian women found that some had internalized a white beauty ideal that placed light skin and straight hair at the top.
[117] Eurocentric standards for men include tallness, leanness, and muscularity, which have been idolized through American media, such as in Hollywood films and magazine covers.
[118] In of the United States, African Americans have historically been subjected to beauty ideals that often do not reflect their own appearance, which can lead to issues of low self-esteem.
One of the most common criticisms of Barbie is that she promotes an unrealistic idea of body image for a young woman, leading to a risk that girls who attempt to emulate her will become anorexic.
[126] Studies among teens and young adults, such as those of psychiatrist and self-help author Eva Ritvo show that skin conditions have a profound effect on social behavior and opportunity.
[130] Conversely, being very unattractive increases the individual's propensity for criminal activity for a number of crimes ranging from burglary to theft to selling illicit drugs.
