Virtuous Beauty

“Beauty without virtue is like a rose without a scent” ~ Proverb quote [A]
In a world so consumed by the beautiful, we are constantly redefining what it means to be beautiful. We define it as a physical characteristic, a feeling of attraction, and an abstract concept one possesses. We have attempted to commercialize it and create standards by which we can compare one beautiful thing with another to rank them. We have tried to establish a subjective order by saying that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Where does it end? Or more importantly, where did it begin?
The Greek word kalon means beautiful, admirable, and noble. Kalon is typically the object of eros (passionate or romantic love) in classic literature and art; however, it is interesting that the both “beautiful” and “noble” would be used in the same definition. I first noticed this in Isocrates’ discussion of Helen’s beauty [1] when he says that “She had the most beauty, which is the most venerated, most honored, and most divine quality in the world… and virtue is especially esteemed because it is the most beautiful of qualities.”
Beauty, or kalon, is appropriated by Plato as being equivalent to the good and these are the objects that humans ought to strive for an understanding of. By uncovering the good and the beautiful, one is uncovering one of the properties of the universe and existence. Plato transforms eros, a form of love, into a desire for whatever is truly desirable and good for the human agent. [2] In the Symposium Socrates argues that the good and the beautiful are the same inasmuch as the beauty of something is ultimately due to its manifesting its intrinsic perfection; the truly beautiful is identical with the truly good. Aristotle goes even farther to say that it is associated with the truly pleasant. [3] The Aristotlian “good” man acts “for the sake of the beautiful (to kalon).” [4] This leads way for the basis of the idea that a human agent acting “for the sake of the beautiful” is acting morally.
The “good life,” or the moral life means that we cannot live without certain virtues. A “good” human soul, on Socrates’ account is a just soul, a well-ordered and virtuous soul, and only such a soul is a beautiful soul. The just is beautiful and the beautiful is virtuous. Socrates also claims that the good and beauty of these things is neither subjective nor relative, but must be understood in terms of their own intrinsic perfection; these thing alone will make us truly happy. [5] We desire goods because obtaining them will make us happy. Lasting happiness is found only in obtaining those goods that are always good. These are the highest objects of beauty. The most beautiful things, then, are those things that are always good, those things whose specific perfection is eternal and unchanging.
Thus beauty is not a physical characteristic as “beauty is destroyed by time or marred by disease,” [6] but rather kalon, or the noble and the admirable. To keep us in check, St. Augustine proposes that “Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.” [7]

[A] Proverb quote. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/beauty_without_virtue_is_like_a_rose_without/149091.html. Retrieved 20 September 2009.
[1] Isocrates. Encomium of Helen, 54.
[2] Plato. Symposium, 201c.
[3] Aristotle. Eudemian Ethics, I.1.
[4] Aristotle. Nicomachaen Ethics, IV.2.
[5] Plato. Symposium, 204e.
[6] Isocrates. To Demonicus, 6.
[7] St. Augustine. City of God, 15.22.