An Argument Against Beauty As A Transcendental

 Sir Roger Scruton presents an argument in his book Beauty: A Very Short Introduction against the transcendental nature of beauty. To be clear, he is only presenting it, not endorsing it. He writes, "Why believe p? Because it it is true. Why want x? Because it is good. Why look at y? Because it is beautiful. In some way, philosophers have argued, those answers are on a par...Someone who asked 'why believe what is true' or 'why want what is good' has failed to understand the nature of reasoning...Does the same go for beauty?...To say as much is to overlook the subversive nature of beauty. Someone charmed by a myth may be tempted to believe it: and in this case beauty is the enemy of truth...A man attracted to a woman may be tempted to condone her vices: and in this case beauty is the enemy of goodness...Goodness and truth never compete...The pursuit of beauty, however, is far more questionable."

The argument states that since transcendentals have this quality of not competing with each other, and beauty does compete, beauty is not a transcendental. But the antecedent seems false. There do seem to be cases in which truth and goodness do compete. A man may be tempted to be plugged into a pleasure machine, in which his reality will be false but attains some goods of pleasure. And so, good is the enemy of truth, to use Sir Rogers language. Witnessing your beloved kin commit a murder and testifying against him in court may tempt a man to lie, for he does not want to break unity with his family, and so, truth becomes an enemy of goodness. 

To be clear, and the point of Sir Roger bringing this up is to be clear, it isn't that these transcendentals are actually competing against one another, but rather, certain relations of the transcendentals take precedence over another depending on the situation. There is a hierarchy which needs to be respected. In a court room setting, truth takes precedence over the other transcendentals, even though they cannot strictly be divorced from one another. But that's a point to be developed elsewhere, I suppose. My point here is that the antecedent premise is false.