Abstract

Might aesthetic imperfections play an edifying role in the lives of moral agents? Drawing on the work of Aurel Kolnai, R. F. Holland, Yuriko Saito, and Soetsu Yanagi, this paper argues that aesthetic imperfections, especially of the everyday variety, can sustain our sense that life is worth living, thereby ethically edifying our lives. Cultivating the ability to find beauty in everyday aesthetic imperfections helps to preserve us in dark times. The beauty of the chipped, gnarled, and otherwise blemished can reveal the goodness of a flawed world, indeed in a more powerful way than can the beauty of less flawed objects.