Ugliness and Evil?

A recent study showed that physical attractiveness is negatively correlated to criminal behavior. In other words, the uglier a person is, the more likely he or she is to perform criminal behavior. I discovered this study quite a while ago on "The Right Questions," a radio show that used to be on Relevant Radio hosted by Sheila Liaugminas. Sheila's problem with the study seemed to be mostly her objection to the idea of the researcher’s comment that "people who are below-average attractive" are more likely to commit criminal behavior. She wondered why the researcher couldn't just come out and say "ugly." Sheila was also piqued by the idea of ugliness - who sets the standard of attractiveness and ugliness? Sheila asked some great questions, such as "How did the researchers collect their subjects?" and "Who were the subjects?" I would like to take an even deeper look at this study and others like it (this is actually a very old idea) from a Catholic perspective.

Now, to be fair to Sheila, the segment of her show this story appeared on was the "news language" segment, in which she focuses on the way people use language. I'm not criticizing her coverage of this story in any way. Nonetheless, I think it is important to take a closer look at studies like this and apply some Catholic moral thinking to it.

First, let’s take a look at the implication of the study. There are two ways to read such a correlation. Throughout history, ugliness had been paired with evil and beauty has been paired with goodness. I don’t think anyone has translated this analogy to real-life in such a way that anybody with a big nose and a wart is assumed to be evil. However, a student of mine took issue with Mel Gibson’s use of the ugly = evil motif. The student did not think it was fair to use children who looked mentally retarded to signify Judas’ demonic tormentors. Where does this motif come from? Its roots are in St. Augustine’s definition of evil: a distortion or a lack of a good that should be present. How does an artist show evil defined in such a way? The artist depicts someone who lacks normal human appearance – it’s not even necessarily lacking beauty, but rather a distortion of “normal” human appearance. Is this motif unfair to those who do have birth defects or who are judged to be “ugly” according to societal standards? Perhaps. Yet, I think the motif is instructive and powerful.

Where we need to be sure we do not make the mistake is to reverse the motif and use it as a real standard. If anything can be said about physical ugliness in the real world, it is simply that due to Original Sin the body fails to truthfully reflect the soul. In Heaven, we believe that our bodies will perfectly reflect the soul – the core of who we are.

I think Sheila Liaugminas may have mistaken the point of the study. Why would anybody even bother to institute such a study? My suspicion is that the study was meant to draw doubt on a jury by one’s peers. The point of the study was probably that people are unjustly judged based on their looks rather than on their true guilt or innocence. On one hand, if this is a true problem and if there is a true solution being offered, such a study could prove to be very valuable. Perhaps justice should truly be blind, and a jury should hear the evidence of a case without seeing the defendant.

On the other hand, there is a problematic line of thinking among modernists that tries to prove that no truth can ever be known for certain. Modernists see courts as part of the power structure that attempts to force its version of truth onto the populace. Modernists cast doubt on all claims to objective truth. This study may be doing that in the area of justice. Does justice really exist? Are people really found guilty based on objective evidence, or are we just slaves to subjective perceptions with no basis in an objective reality that probably doesn’t exist anyway?

There are many questions that I would need to ask about such a study in addition to the very good questions Sheila asked. My first question would be, what’s the point? Why was this study done in the first place? Next I would have to ask what cause – effect relationship was actually discovered by this study. A correlation doesn’t necessarily mean a cause-effect relationship exists. There could be a shared cause or the cause-effect relationship could be indirect. For example, is it possible that people who are considered ugly find it more difficult to make it in society because of a cultural prejudice, and are therefore more likely to be poor and are therefore more likely to commit crime. Finally, I would have to ask what conclusions the researchers would like us to draw about this study.

Chances are pretty good that this study will fall into obscurity exactly because the researchers haven’t shown us why it is significant. I sure would like to know what is behind such a study, though.

In the love of Christ,

Brother Thomas
See Also:
"The Ugly Face of Chrime" from the Washington Post
"Ugly Criminals" from Althouse