About the Darwinian Concept of Beauty

Julio Munoz-Rubio
Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Sciences and Humanities, UNAM

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     Last modified: June 15, 2005
     Presentation date: 07/14/2005 2:00 PM in MACK 237
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Abstract
A not so frequently mentioned problem of Darwin’s theory of evolution is that referred to beauty and its role in the process of evolution. For Darwin, beauty in certain animals, like birds and even human beings, plays an important role in sexual selection, orienting both males and females to make the best choice of their partners. In this theory it is admitted that beauty is symbol of youth, strength and health.
For Darwin, beauty, first of all, fulfills a reproductive function. When the darwinian concept of beauty is analyzed it is possible to find that there is not a remarkable difference between beauty in human beings and in other animal species, like some birds, with their attractive plumage. Darwin conceives beauty as something that inherently is present in certain individuals. It is not the result of human consciousness or a consequence of the labor performed by human beings. Beauty is one among many other biological properties.
In this work I argue that this treatment of the aesthetic values in animals and in humans, leads us to conceive the human being as estranged and alien to any active role in the conception and in the construction of basic criteria of beauty. Through Darwin´s idea, the human being behaves passively in relation to the aesthetic values surrounding him. He is not able to decide what is beautiful and what is not in other human beings, animals and in nature in general. Therefore, beauty appears as a kind of fetish that controls and leads, by misterious ways, the sexual behavior of animals and humans. This is one of the elements in which it is clearly revealed the darwinian thesis about the separation between the organism and the environment as well as the adaptive role that the first plays in relation with the second.
With this conception of beauty, Darwin introduces a contradiction inside his theory, because for him, beauty is always scarce. So, Darwin is unable to explain why, despite of the adaptive advantages that a population composed of beautiful individual would possess over another not possessing this property, beauty has not spread among all populations and, conversely, remains a property restricted to a few individuals in some populations. According to the darwinian model the spreading of an advantageous characteristic would be the natural consequence of its possession, but actually, in many populations, especially human populations, there is not even a slight tendency in the increase of the numbers of the beautiful individuals. So, in this point there is some inconsistency not satisfactorily explained by Darwin.