Abstract
Aldo Leopold famously observed that a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. In this chapter, we pursue Leopold’s insight by investigating the relationship between aesthetic appreciation and nature preservation. We note that in general there is a strong link between our aesthetic appreciation of an object and its preservation, but that in the case of nature it is important to understand the role of ecological concepts, such as integrity and stability, in this link. Examining the place of such ecological knowledge in the relationship between aesthetic appreciation and nature preservation requires pursuing the question of the nature of aesthetic appreciation itself. We first consider traditional answers to this question, grouping them into what we call the formalist/picturesque approach and the relativist/postmodern approach. We argue that these approaches not only exclude or belittle ecological knowledge, but also give somewhat inadequate accounts of the true nature and scope of our actual aesthetic experience of nature, specifically concerning the link between appreciation and preservation. We then introduce a cognitive approach to aesthetic appreciation, arguing that, in granting a significant role to ecological knowledge in the appreciation of nature, this approach not only gives a more adequate account of our actual aesthetic experience of nature, but also strongly supports the link between aesthetic appreciation and nature preservation. Moreover, it provides an elaboration of Leopold’s insight.
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Notes
- 1.
Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, p. 55.
- 2.
Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, pp. 56–57.
- 3.
As will be evident later in this chapter, aesthetic experience does not always lead to preservation of nature in an unproblematic manner. Much depends on the particular account of aesthetic appreciation. For discussion of how the aesthetic can count both for and against preservation, see Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, pp. 58–65, and Yuriko Saito (2007b), as well as Sheila Lintott (2006). For a general discussion of the relationship between the aesthetics of nature and environmentalism, see Allen Carlson (2010).
- 4.
J. Baird Callicott, “Leopold’s Land Aesthetic,” in Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism, ed., Carlson and Lintott, pp. 105–118, p. 106, previously published with the title “The Land Aesthetic” (Callicott 1994).
- 5.
If this is indeed a case of moving from aesthetic value to another evaluation of worth, then there may be no problem here concerning bridging the traditional fact/value distinction.
- 6.
- 7.
The main theoreticians of the picturesque and their classic works are William Gilpin, Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty, On Picturesque Travel, and On Sketching Landscape [1792]; Uvedale Price, An Essay on the Picturesque [1794]; and Richard Payne Knight, The Landscape [1794], Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste [1805].
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Within the tradition of Western aesthetics, it has frequently been held that anything that can be perceived can be aesthetically appreciated. For example, see Paul Ziff (1979).
- 12.
Saito defends the relevance of both “folk narratives” and scientific information in “Appreciating Nature on Its Own Terms.” She writes: “Both scientific explanation and folk narratives are our attempts at helping nature tell its story to us concerning its own history and function through its sensuous surface” (p. 147). In this article, Saito also attempts to distance her own position from what she calls “associationist appreciation,” which is similar to what we call the postmodern approach. However, in Everyday Aesthetics she somewhat retreats from this position for some “natural objects and environments” such as the Gettysburg battlefield. See Everyday Aesthetics, p. 80, note 80. It is worth noting that her example is not a clear case of a simple natural environment, but rather a landscape of great historical and cultural significance, for which cultural information is certainly relevant to its appropriate aesthetic appreciation.
- 13.
The initial presentation of scientific cognitivism is Allen Carlson (1979). For elaboration of the position, see Allen Carlson, Aesthetics and the Environment. For a comparative analysis of several of the contemporary position concerning the aesthetic appreciation of nature, see Glenn Parsons (2008).
- 14.
Here again the traditional fact/value problem is perhaps avoided, since when ecological facts are embedded within aesthetic appreciation, there is no direct movement from facts to values. The movement is from aesthetic value, not directly from ecological facts.
- 15.
Callicott, “Leopold’s Land Aesthetic,” p. 116.
- 16.
The issues here are not as simple as this would suggest. First, the stand of dying pine might be aesthetically stirring even if not in a straightforwardly positive way, perhaps, for example, as a tragic or a sublime landscape. Second, our aesthetic reaction may well be influenced by whether the beetle infestation is a naturally occurring phenomenon or the product (or byproduct) of human action. It seems that a negative aesthetic response would be more appropriate in the latter case than in the former. Concerning the second point, see Allen Carlson (1984).
- 17.
Callicott, “Leopold’s Land Aesthetic,” p. 109.
- 18.
Rolston, “From Beauty to Duty,” p. 141. An earlier version of this chapter, with the title “The Aesthetic Dimension of the Interrelations between Ecological Science and Ethics: The Other Leopoldian Bridge,” was presented at the 2011 Cary Conference, Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World: Values, Philosophy, and Action. We thank those present at the conference for valuable feedback concerning the issues here addressed.
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Lintott, S., Carlson, A. (2013). The Link Between Aesthetic Appreciation and the Preservation Imperative. In: Rozzi, R., Pickett, S., Palmer, C., Armesto, J., Callicott, J. (eds) Linking Ecology and Ethics for a Changing World. Ecology and Ethics, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7470-4_10
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