Is Beauty Skin Deep?

Beauty can be considered skin-deep. As we know, the beauty of appearance is what is being known to some as "looking good." This has little to do with personality, character, wit or morality, and that is because anything which applies to how things look is not necessary a reliable guide to many of their other qualities.

It is impossible to love someone or something that you do not find beautiful. And so, since most people in the world are not, by the standards applicable to beautiful people of either gender beautiful, that there is more to beauty, so to speak, than meets the eye.

The easy way out is to say that there is such a thing as "inner" or "psychological" beauty, to be contrasted with the beauty of appearance. For even if you love someone on account of their character or wit or whatever, these features will manifest themselves in the appearance of the person in question: you will literally perceive them in their face, their posture, their voice and their behavior. That is, a person you love will not appear to you as they do to others who don't love them.

Unlike perceived "aesthetic appearance" of the sort psychologists investigate, such beauty is very controversial, which might be why we keep asking ourselves what our friends see in the people they love, but whom we can't stand. The sense in which beauty is more than meets the eye is not about the "inner" aspect of it, but of it not likely to meet many eyes.

That is, beauty, generally considered, is a product of love and not, in general, its antecent cause. That's what locates it in the eye of the beholder. For example, to deem a person beautiful, depends largely on the personal experiences, chemistry, and overall feeling of comfort with the person involved. Beautiful is subjective. Therefore it can be concluded that beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder.


I find the topic of beauty philosophically interesting and important. It applies equally to people and things, particularly works of art. It certainly is valuable, although I am not sure its value is intrinsic. But its value, along with the value of all the "aesthetic" features that are associated with it, is very different from the moral values that seem to have acquired a monopoly over human life in philosophy and public discourse. Moral values, broadly speaking, depend on the similarities and connections that require us to treat each other impartially, fairly and equally. The values associated with beauty, by contrast, depend on the differences between various human beings and give preference to individuality, autonomy and personal style.