Plotinus: The Enneads

Gerson, Lloyd P.; Boys‐Stones, George; Dillon, John; King, Richard A.; Smith, Andrew; Wilberding, James

doi:10.1017/9780511736490

Cited by 13 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Finally, there is a rich tradition of historical evidence and philosophical theorizing that argues that beauty and goodness are closely linked with each other (see Henderson, 2015). For example, Plotinus proposed that virtue leads to the ultimate form of beauty by purifying the soul (Gerson, 2017) and Kant claimed that beauty is the "symbol of morality" (Kant, 1790(Kant, /2000.…”

Section: Moral Character and The Beauty-is-good Stereotypementioning

confidence: 99%

Physical Attractiveness Biases Judgments Pertaining to the Moral Domain of Purity

Klebl

Rhee

Greenaway

et al. 2021

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

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Research on the Beauty-is-Good stereotype shows that unattractive people are perceived to have worse moral character than attractive individuals. Yet research has not explored what kinds of moral character judgments are particularly biased by attractiveness. In this work, we tested whether attractiveness particularly biases moral character judgments pertaining to the moral domain of purity, beyond a more general halo effect. Across four preregistered studies ( N = 1,778), we found that unattractive (vs. attractive) individuals were judged to be more likely to engage in purity violations compared with harm violations and that this was not due to differences in perceived moral wrongness, weirdness, or sociality between purity and harm violations. The findings shed light on how physical attractiveness influences moral character attributions, suggesting that physical attractiveness particularly biases character judgments pertaining to the moral domain of purity.

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Section: Moral Character and The Beauty-is-good Stereotypementioning

confidence: 99%

Physical Attractiveness Biases Judgments Pertaining to the Moral Domain of Purity

Klebl

Rhee

Greenaway

et al. 2021

Pers Soc Psychol Bull

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“…The finding that people attribute more moral standing to beautiful compared to ugly animals and humans is also consistent with theorizing and evidence suggesting beauty and morality are linked more generally. For example, Kant considered beauty to be the 'symbol of morality' (Kant, 1790(Kant, /2000 and Plotinus believed that virtue leads to the highest form of beauty through the purification of the soul (Gerson, 2017). Consistent with this, 'beautiful' is colexified with 'good' in at a least 101 languages, for instance, in ancient Greek (ka'los; Rzymski et al, 2020).…”

Section: Beauty As a Contributor To Moral Standingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond aesthetic judgment: Beauty increases moral standing

Klebl¹,

Luo²,

Bastian³

2020

Preprint

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Researchers have identified several factors that may increase the moral value that people place on various entities (e.g., mind perception), yet the role of aesthetic judgment has never been investigated. We suggest that perceptions of beauty extend beyond mere preference, also signalling that beautiful targets possess a moral value that is worthy of protection. Across four studies (N = 1,162) we found that people have a greater desire to protect beautiful (vs. ugly) animals (Study 1), humans (Study 2), landscapes (Study 3) and buildings (Study 4). Furthermore, we found purity intuitions to mediate the effect of beauty on the desire to protect, suggesting that beauty increases the moral value individuals place on targets through evoking moral intuitions of purity. We also observed that, in addition to purity, perceived utility helps to explain the link between beauty and a desire to protect, consistent with the view that beauty signals non-moral value.

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