Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:53:04.012Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beauty, virtue, and religious exemplars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2015

IAN JAMES KIDD
IAN JAMES KIDD*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK
*
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the beauty of religious exemplars – those special persons whose conduct and comportment marks their life out as one that exemplifies a religious life. Such exemplars are consistently described as beautiful, but it is not clear how or why. I suggest that we can make sense of the aesthetic aspect of religious exemplarity by adopting a ‘virtue-centric’ theory of beauty that understands the beautiful in terms of the expression or manifestation of virtues. Religious exemplars are those who have cultivated their virtues to an advanced degree and are beautiful for that reason. Attending to the beauty of religious exemplars can enrich exemplarist virtue theory, the aesthetics of character, and our understanding of the nature of a religious life.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 171 - 181
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Balthasar, H. U. von (1982) The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, I: Seeing the Form (Edinburgh: T&T Clark.)Google Scholar
Buddha, The (1995) The Long Discourses of the Buddha, Walshe, M. (tr.) (Boston, MA: Wisdom, 1995).Google Scholar
Chawla, N. (2003) Mother Teresa: The Centenary Edition (New Delhi: Penguin), 285–286.Google Scholar
Cooper, D. E. (2008) ‘Beautiful people, beautiful things’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 48.3, 247–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, D. E. (2010) ‘Edification and the experience of beauty’, in Keping, W. (ed.) Diversity and Universality in Aesthetics (Beijing: Institute for Transcultural Studies), 62–80.Google Scholar
Cooper, D. E. (2014) ‘Religion without faith?’, paper read at the workshop Faith, Trust, and Religious Belief, Durham University, 16 July 2014.Google Scholar
Cooper, D. E. (forthcoming) ‘Buddhism, beauty, and virtue’, in Sikka, S., Maira, S., & Higgins, K. (eds), The End of Art and the Promise of Beauty (Dordrecht: Springer).Google Scholar
Cottingham, J. (2005) The Spiritual Dimension: Philosophy, Religion, and Human Values (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, O. (2004) ‘The theological aesthetics’, in Oakes, E. T. & Moss, D. (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs von Balthasar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 131–142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankfurt, H. (2005) On Bullshit (Princeton: Princeton University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harcourt, E. (2001) ‘Nietzsche and the “aesthetics of character”’, in May, S. (ed.) On the Genealogy of Morality: A Critical Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 265–284.Google Scholar
Inayat Khan, H. (2013) The Heart of Sufism: Essential Writings of Hazrat Inayat Khan (Boston: Shambhala Press).Google Scholar
Kirwan, J. (1999) Beauty (Manchester: Manchester University Press).Google Scholar
Moss, D. (2004) ‘The saints’, in Oakes, E. T. & Moss, D. (eds) The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs von Balthasar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 79–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mothersill, M. (1984) Beauty Restored (Oxford: Clarendon).Google Scholar
Mrozick, S. (2007) Virtuous Bodies: The Physical Dimensions of Morality in Buddhist Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nārada, M. (ed. and tr.) (2007) A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: The Abhidhammattha Sangha of Ācariya Anuruddha (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society).Google Scholar
Nehru, J. (1962) An Autobiography (Bombay: Allied Publishers).Google Scholar
Novitz, D. (1991) ‘Love, friendship, and the aesthetics of character’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 28.3, 207–216.Google Scholar
Rūmī, J-D. (2012) Selected Poems of Rūmī (New York: Dover).Google Scholar
Samuels, J. (2010) Attracting the Heart: Social Relations and the Aesthetics of Emotion in Sri Lankan Monastic Culture (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartwell, C. (2004) Six Names of Beauty (London: Routledge).Google Scholar
Scruton, R. (2009), Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).Google Scholar
Scruton, R. (2014) The Soul of the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherman, N. (2005) ‘Of manners and morals’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 53.3, 272–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wijayaratna, M. (1990) Buddhist Monastic Life: According to the Texts of the Theravada Tradition, Grangier, C. & Collins, S. (trs) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, B. (2002) Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Wynn, M. (2013) Renewing the Senses: A Study in the Philosophy and Theology of the Spiritual Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zagzebski, L. (2010) ‘Exemplarist virtue theory’, Metaphilosophy, 41, 41–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar