The paper discusses philosophical accounts of the ancient Greek ideal of education - kalokagathia - and the idea of 'inverted kalokagathia' developed by Ingomar Weiler, which shows that proposing the ideal of kalokagathia can give rise to problems, such as, for example, social prejudice - on the one hand idealizing those who were beautiful, and on the other hand demonizing those who were ugly, blemished or ill. Thus, when setting ideals it is important not just to define the ideal appropriately for the given culture, but also to make clear what it means to be an ideal, and not to confuse that with judgements about reality.