Reality of Beauty

I agree with Denis Dutton's statement that, humans see beauty in things that are well done, namely the arts. There is beauty in skilled performances that demonstrate traits such as, "Intelligence, fine motor control, planning ability, conscientiousness, and sometimes access to rare materials." and that all of these have deep roots in evolutionary theory.

Dutton claimed that beauty has a Darwinian component to it. This means that the reason why we see things as beautiful is because our "primitive" ancestors saw these things as beneficial to them. For example, the reason why we like paintings of beautiful landscapes with flowing rivers and climbable trees is that our ancestors saw it as a habitable area and one that would protect them from predators. This is also to say that the definition of beauty also crosses cultures, meaning that what is beautiful to a certain culture, is also beautiful to another one.

Despite his claims, I still can't help but feel that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is still the best way to describe people's perceptions around beauty.  The reason why I agree with his analysis on beauty is because, as a pre-med student, I find beauty in the skills physicians demonstrate to bring patients back to complete health, or close to it. Not only is it the skill or work that is appealing to me and perhaps others, but it can be as simple as seeing a person transition from a status of illness to that of a healthy person. In a Future Physicians course that I took, an internal medicine doctor gave her testimony that although it holds true that her specialty was rooted in scientific practice, an equal amount of her practice revolved around arts & humanities, and to me and others that is beautiful. To other people, however, they might not see that as beautiful. If this is the case, then why doesn't it hold true that those with intelligence and fine motor controls should be seen as beautiful or to doing beautiful work? A better example is that a long time ago overweight males and females were seen as attractive because they could afford to eat good food. Today, on the other hand, it is safe to say most men and women want a more lean/ muscular look to their bodies. This then disproves that the definition of beauty follows an evolutionary origin and that we all share similar perspectives around beauty.

I personally believe that we have our own bias towards what we consider aesthetically pleasing that we can't possibly backtrack it to a reason to why we think it is beautiful by simply looking back at certain aspects of our "primitive lives." It is important to not simply say that due to our ancestors having some advantage to something is why we see it beautiful because we are then forced to believe that beauty is limited to the experiences of those before us.