Young Writers Society

(It has to be objective, obviously, or then all senses of morality falls apart. A burning pile of corpses is objectively less beautiful than a baby.)

I see your point, and to a certain extent it can be objective - but, to flies and gross things like that, a burning pile of corpses is probably very appealing. So, it depends on if we're talking about humanity's perspective on beauty or beauty as a whole. Even in humanity's perspective, there are infinite different perspectives and thus infinite different universes. Most human beings are raised to believe in certain morals which would then shape one's worldview to the point where a burning pile of corpses would seem ugly and terrible, but that still comes about from a human and moral point of view, which is not every point of view. From a conqueror's point of view, maybe the pile would seem beautiful as a symbol of victory.

but if we start saying every point of view as is equally valid as every other, all claims to morality fall apart. If we go with that, a Nazi can say 'this concentration camp is quite beautiful from the perspective of all the fleas'
I think you are mixing up the word pleasing and beautiful. What pleases one is entirely subjective, but I believe beauty to be a thing which exists above experience, like right and wrong. If we do not allow that, there are no great artists, there are no saints or villains, no improvement of failure. From that point of view, objectively, I have never gotten better at writing; from that point of view, Vincent Van Gouph would have made just as much beautiful art if he had decided to burn down orphangaes instead of paint beautiful paintings.

you make a really good point + I am reconsidering my view. I think the depth/level of beauty is subjective, definitely - a sunset that takes someone's breath away can just the same be an object of indifference to another person. I guess it really depends on what we are defining as beauty. is beauty an inherent quality of something, or is it what a person finds to be beautiful? is beauty something that provokes a depth of emotion or something that provokes positive emotion? I have found many things which make me profoundly sad to be beautiful. I think there is definitely a degree of objectivity in beauty, but generally beauty exists to be seen by humans (or sentient beings in general, which is a whole different conversation). some things are beautiful in different ways than others, and everything has a different effect on different people. this is much more difficult to put into words than I thought it would be but I think you get what I mean