Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal - Softcover

Widdows, Heather

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691197148 ISBN 13: 9780691197142

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2020

Synopsis

How looking beautiful has become a moral imperative in today's world

The demand to be beautiful is increasingly important in today's visual and virtual culture. Rightly or wrongly, being perfect has become an ethical ideal to live by, and according to which we judge ourselves a success or failure. Perfect Me explores the changing nature of the beauty ideal, showing how it is more dominant, demanding, and global than ever before. Arguing that our perception of the self is changing, Heather Widdows shows that more and more, we locate the self in the body. Nobody is firm enough, thin enough, smooth enough, or buff enough-not without significant effort and cosmetic intervention. To understand these rising demands, we need to recognize their ethical aspect and seek out new communal responses.

About this title

About the Author

Heather Widdows is the John Ferguson Professor of Global Ethics in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham. Her books include Global Ethics, The Connected Self, and The Moral Vision of Iris Murdoch. Twitter @ProfWiddows

From the Back Cover

"Innovative and original."--Anne Phillips, author of The Politics of the Human

"Widdows brings much-needed subtly to current conversations about the moral and social role of physical appearance in our daily lives."--A. W. Eaton, editor of Talk to Her

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691197148
• ISBN 13: 9780691197142
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368