Beauty is a value associated with an innate and emotional perception of life's affirmative and meaningful aspects within objects in the perceived world —ie. vitality, fertility, health, happiness, goodness, and love. Cognition of "beauty" involves the interpretation of objects as being in balance and harmony with nature, which in turn elicits a sense and experience of attraction, affection, and pleasure.

In its most profound sense, beauty is said to engender a salient experience of positive reflection with regard to the meaning of one's own being within natural life. An "object of beauty" may be anything that reveals or resonates with a personal meaning. Hence religious and moral teachings have often focused on the divinity and virtue of beauty, to assert natural beauty as an aspect of a spiritual beauty (ie. truth) and to define all self-centered or materialistic pretensions as based in ignorance. The ancient story of Narcissus for example, deals with the distinction between recognizing beauty and falling into vanity. The presence of the self in any human context means that beauty is naturally tied to its human meaning, wherein human beauty is often the dominant aspect of a greater natural beauty. Otherwise, objects can be defined as belonging to any of various types, such as "artificial," or "intellectual" beauty.

In the modern context, the usage of beauty as means to promote an ideology or dogma has been a focus of societal debates which center around issues of prejudice, ethics, and human rights. The usage of beauty for purposes of commercialism is a controversial aspect of the "culture wars," wherein feminism typically claims such usage promotes a dogmatic (ie. "The Beauty Myth") rather than a virtuous understanding of beauty. The literal opposite of beauty is ugliness —ie. the perceived lack of beauty, which stimulates displeasure and engenders a deeper negative perception of the object.