Why Looks is Important in a Partner | Plato Explained

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]It's probably not a good idea to marry someone or to have a relate to have a committed relationship with someone simply because you think they're a good person >> [snorts] >> or you recognize the goodness in their character. There needs to be a physical attraction and that will not that will change if you carry on through life with that person but you can always refer back to and take strength from how that how you felt back in the day when you were at your most romantic together.

[00:00:32]And that's why this is a that's why there is this physical component of physical beauty mixed with the characterological component because there's a kind of because physical beauty can transform the mere animals that we are into something into something into something divine.

[00:00:53]So as Plato puts it.

[00:00:55]Let me try to describe the the phenomenology what the the true lover experiences when he sees this beautiful boy.

[00:01:02]Which is he sees the beauty completely overwhelmed by it.

[00:01:07]The sexual urge doesn't disappear but he channels that drive into a committed and loving relationship in helping the boy become better himself. Is that is that roughly right?

[00:01:22]>> Uh yes uh you know not that the energy of the black horse is somehow directly it's not like a Freudian >> Right right. But yes. I see.

[00:01:33]Importantly Socrates says the true lover doesn't actually have sex with the boy. Right?

[00:01:40]What what why is that? Why why can't it be a committed but then they don't live the philosophic life. Right? But but why can't there be a committed relationship between two lovers who both want to improve each other and have sex? Because the sacred part wasn't the sex.

[00:01:57]>> [laughter] >> Right right. But but why does sex prevent the sacred part from from coming out? Right? Like cuz surely like in a committed relationship you would say the best part of a relationship is the actual relationship we have and not the sex itself. But but sex can be a nice cherry on top. Right? Like like why is sex almost prohibited in this relationship? Well because sex is too powerful to just be a cherry on top. When I'm teaching this in class I would go to the blackboard and draw little stick drawings with these two stick men are looking adoringly into each other's eyes and contrasting it with two stick men that are holding hands but facing out from the blackboard and just facing out to the world or in the case of philosophic lovers facing out to the realm of the forms. But what's important is the philosophic life that you are living for yourself and happy to share with this other person for the sake of your formal love but you don't want like the people that they drink a little bit too much at a symposium then they have sex with each other and once they've done that they're going to keep on indulging it from time to time he says and they'll get they'll get the souls will get their wings for the sake of each other when they do get their wings. The philosophic lovers um get over that they you know that that falling in love is something that actually seems seems to be you if you're going to do the grand thing >> Right.

[00:03:15]>> going to do the highest right the grand thing uh you're going to have to get over that.

[00:03:20]>> I see. So the intuition is there are certain pleasures that are just too strong merely to be a cherry on top. And and again a good example here is like heroin. No no one would think like oh yeah heroin is a pleasure I'll just do it once in a while and my life will just be exactly the same ceteris paribus right outside of that.

[00:03:44]Remember as you said friends with privileges.

[00:03:46]>> Right.

[00:03:47]>> strong to be a privilege. I see.

[00:03:49]>> Cherry on top is like a privilege.

[00:03:50]Friends with benefits it's too strong to be a benefit.

[00:03:52]>> Um however there are other pleasures I need to correct my dating jargon.

[00:03:58]>> Yes. There are other pleasures like eating a cheesecake and no one thinks eating a cheesecake with their significant other is going to ruin the relationship because the relationship won't be able to focus on anything but cheesecake eating. And so he's simply making a judgment that sex is something that is more like heroin than it is cheesecake eating. That that once you indulge a little bit that's what the entirety of the relationship's going to be like. That's kind of the intuition.

[00:04:22]Is that right? Yeah. So is he making the strong claim that in a in any committed relationship and let's project this back to our modern times of a heterosexual or homosexual marriage in such a relationship do you is the advice that to not have sex even if you really love each other so that you can both be oriented towards a higher good?

[00:04:46]Well in the in in the Republic as you know they he has the class from which philosophers come they have sex in in mating festivals for the sake of the city you know >> Right. But only procreative only for procreation. Yeah it it gets a now here he that's cuz he's being very political in the Republic. Here he is giving romantic love its due uh by saying romantic love true love makes philosophers of us all for a while uh but we shouldn't uh we shouldn't pretend that it could uh make actual philosophers of us. It can give us an entree into the philosophic life and we can cling to how that feeling was as a sort of we want to extend that if only we he says beauty shines brighter than any of the other forms if only uh you know the the the form of justice shone as brightly as that imagine how we might live in that in in inspired way. You want to get inspired by all of existence in the way that the true lover is inspired by his beloved and then you're living the full philosophic life. So this is how far the critique of friends with benefits or casual sex goes.

[00:06:04]The best type of romantic relationship not only is not just friends with benefits just an exchange of sex. It's not even a committed relationship with sex. The best form of romantic relationship is when both parties do not have sex with each other and instead use that brief period of romantic divine madness flash to redirect it to philosophical contemplation. Is that the claim?

[00:06:30]>> Apparently. I see.