Shaftesbury’s Claim That Beauty and Good Are One and the Same

Shaftesbury is famous for claiming that “Beauty and Good” are “one and the same.” This claim is central to Shaftesbury’s philosophy, and it exerted great influence on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European thought. At the same time, the claim has long been criticized as being ill-conceived, unclear, and confused. I explicate the meaning of Shaftesbury’s claim and show that it is not susceptible to many of the long-standing criticisms that have been leveled at it. In its canonical form in The Moralists, the beauty-good claim is intelligible, and Shaftesbury has cogent reasons for advancing it.