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ABSTRACT
The aim of this article is to show that an aesthetics of exemplarity could be a useful component of projects of moral self-cultivation. Using Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarism, I describe a distinctive, aesthetically-inflected mode of admiration called moral attraction whose object is the inner beauty of a person—the expression of the ‘inner’ virtues or excellences of character of a person in ‘outer’ forms of bodily comportment that are experienced, by others, as beautiful. I then argue that certain moral traditions deploy inner beauty within their practices of moral self-cultivation—a good example being Confucianism. Advocates of exemplarist moral education should therefore take seriously the ways that an aesthetics of exemplarity can play roles within projects of moral self-cultivation.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to an audience at the University of Genoa and two anonymous referees for their encouragement and comments, to the editors for their kind invitation and to Linda Zagzebski for inspiring my initial interest in this topic.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. References to the Analects are to book and section.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ian James Kidd
Ian James Kidd is assistant professor of philosophy at theUniversity of Nottingham. His research interests include exemplarism, aesthetics, ethics, and Chinese philosophy. His website is www.ianjameskidd.weebly.com