NO ROOM FOR EGO:

Shaftesbury's view of nature as sublime, beautiful, and precious still resonates with us today. This view was contrary to the predominant perspective of his time, found in such writings as those of Thomas Burnet and John Locke, in which nature was a threat to human survival. Shaftesbury instead argued that nature is beautiful, but he does it in an indirect and meandering way, or, as Gill explains, "his view emerged as a solution to a problem he took to be of the deepest philosophical and personal importance: the problem of how worship of God can be both transportingly emotional and entirely rational."

Shaftesbury's solution to this problem is beauty. To accomplish this, Shaftesbury argues that we need to cultivate an attitude towards nature that is appreciative of its beauty rather than frightened of its power. According to Shaftesbury, beauty is a "Unity of Design"--or, as Gill states, "A beautiful thing is beautiful because all of its parts 'concur in one.'" Shaftesbury believes we are naturally designed to have a positive response to beauty which is both emotional and rational. Appreciation of architecture is an example: a person sees how the building is proportionally designed and delights in knowing these facts. Nature, likewise, invokes such a response when the person's knowledge of nature leads to a greater and deeper appreciation of the beauty of God's creation. Thus our worship of God is at the same time both rational and emotional.

If we come to love God because we appreciate the beauty of nature, then likewise we come to love humanity because we appreciate the moral beauty of virtue. For Shaftesbury, internal harmony, or integrity, is a key attribute of moral beauty, i.e., when one acts according to one's own principles and "all of one's psychological aspects cohering with each other." But internal harmony is not enough. A person must be in harmony with the rest of humanity so that morally beautiful people harmonize with each other. For Shaftesbury, no person is an island entirely of oneself. 

Our appreciation of moral beauty is not merely aesthetic but also moral. Shaftesbury argues for this equivalence--moral beauty and moral goodness--on two grounds. First, "the happiness of a life of moral beauty is based on moral beauty's being constant and in our control." Second, "the happiness of a moral beauty is based on moral beauty's naturalness." As long as moral beauty is constant, by our choice, and rooted in our nature, then it is moral. What we should avoid are the dangers of egoism and partiality because egoism destroys internal harmony while partiality ruins one's relationship with humanity.

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