**1. Introductory remarks**

In terms of a pragmatist view of life, our being human is often reduced to merely a mechanistic producer of things: man as *homo faber* (man as a producer of things; the making human being). In terms of an atomistic approach in medicine, the human body is perceived as a skeleton with

muscles, tissue, organs and chemical processes. Due to utilitarian moral theories, the human body is often in bioethics degraded to the status of a functional object. However, more and more a biomedical model, very specifically, an analytical approach to human embodiment with the danger of fragmentation and instrumentalisation, is being replaced by a more humane, spiritual and aesthetic approach. The shift is from an aggressive approach to a more qualitative and holistic approach [1]; i.e., to view the human body as an integral part of life and an ingredient of soulful embodiment (corporeal beautification): *I am my body, I don't merely 'have' a body*.

This shift towards a more aesthetic approach to human life is even detectable in processes of high-tech digitalisation and information technology with its emphasis on 'big data'. Man is also the creator of beauty: man as *homo aestheticus*. For example, Steve Jobs, the digital entrepreneur of Apple, introduced aesthetics to the computer business. He combined his slogan 'Let's make a dent in the universe' [2] with the aesthetics and art of design. While his youth companion Steve Wozniak could see 'a sonnet in a circuit', Jobs, by contrast, could look at a beige box and see beauty [3]. 'He imagined a computer that was graceful and elegant as it was useful, an intersection of technology and art that resulted in something truly special' [3].

Steve Jobs changed a possible bankrupt company, Apple, into a financial miracle. The secret? He stayed true to his original vision for Apple: He believed there was room for beauty and art amid technology and commerce [4].

If one transfers the notion of beauty to human life, very specifically the naked human body, what would be the implication for theory formation in anthropology and the human quest for meaning and significance? Thus, the aesthetic question: For what purpose is the human body designed?

In a more moral approach anthropology, the fundamental question is often an ethical one: What is good and what is bad/evil? In many philosophies of life and religious circles, as influenced by Platonic dualism (the body is merely an inferior prison of the human soul), there is immediately the association that the human body, with its sensual needs, is from a lower order and should be suppressed in a Stoic way. Due to the Stoic principle of *apatheia*, emotions are rendered as obstacles to true knowledge. "So the passions (*pathē*) must be overcome in order that the ideal of 'dispassionateness' (*apatheia*) may be attained" [5].

Scepticism regarding the value of the sensual human body with its passions and sexual needs can be traced back to what one can call the *Platonic dualism in anthropology*. For example, Plato [6] provides us with the idea that a soul can be deprived of its body; that it does not come fully into its own until it has been separated from the body, and that it is immortal. The body is therefore merely clothing for the soul, a kind of prison from which it should escape and be liberated [7].

In general, the human body was in many religious circles and philosophies of life excluded from 'soulfulness' and reduced to the realm of 'flesh' (*sarx*). The genitals were not part of the beauty of the human soul and viewed as irrelevant for maintaining spiritual excellence. Beauty was therefore more an abstract spiritual category than an explicit corporeal and sensual category.

**Figure 1.** Depiction of human sinfulness and hell in the Last Judgement. Baigio da Cesena, a papal master of ceremonies, criticised Michelangelo's work saying that nude figures had no place in such a sacred place and that the paintings would be more at home in a public tavern. Michelangelo included da Cesena in the Last Judgement as Minos, one of the three judges of the underworld. When Baigio complained to the Pope, the Pontiff explained that he had no jurisdiction over hell and that the portrait would have to remain. In Greek mythology, Minos was the king of Crete and was the son of Zeus and Europa. He became one of the three judges of the underworld after his own death, and Michelangelo has depicted Minos with ass-ears and wrapped in serpent's coils. The coils indicate to what circle of hell the damned are destined. The serpent's bite on the genitals of Minos (da Cesena) illustrates Michelangelo's disdain for the Cardinal and the fact that official ecclesiology always connected human sinfulness to sexuality and the area of the human genitals. Public domain: for research purposes only.

What is most needed is a paradigm shift: From the body as object exposed to abusive exploitation, to the body as subject: corporeality and physicality as icons of embodied soulfulness and compassionate caring (**Figure 1**).1, <sup>2</sup>
