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Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature and Environmentalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2011

Allen Carlson
Allen Carlson
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Extract

There can be no doubt that aesthetic appreciation of nature has frequently been a major factor in how we regard and treat the natural environment. In his historical study of American environmental attitudes, environmental philosopher Eugene Hargrove documents the ways in which aesthetic value was extremely influential concerning the preservation of some of North America's most magnificent natural environments. Other environmental philosophers agree. J. Baird Callicott claims that historically ‘aesthetic evaluation… has made a terrific difference to American conservation policy and management’, pointing out that one of ‘the main reasons that we have set aside certain natural areas as national, state, and county parks is because they are considered beautiful’, and arguing that many ‘more of our conservation and management decisions have been motivated by aesthetic rather than ethical values’. Likewise environmental philosopher Ned Hettinger concludes his investigation of the significance of aesthetic appreciation for the ‘protection of the environment’ by affirming that ‘environmental ethics would benefit from taking environmental aesthetics more seriously’. Callicott sums up the situation as follows: ‘What kinds of country we consider to be exceptionally beautiful makes a huge difference when we come to decide which places to save, which to restore or enhance, and which to allocate to other uses’ concluding that ‘a sound natural aesthetics is crucial to sound conservation policy and land management’.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 69 , October 2011 , pp. 137 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2011

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References

1 Hargrove, Eugene C., ‘The Historical Foundations of American Environmental Attitudes’, Environmental Ethics 1 (1979), 209–240Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson, A. and Lintott, S., eds., Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism: From Beauty to Duty (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

2 J. Baird Callicott, ‘Leopold's Land Aesthetic’, in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism, 106.

3 Hettinger, Ned, ‘Allen Carlson's Environmental Aesthetics and the Protection of the Environment’, Environmental Ethics 27 (2005), 57–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 76.

4 Op. cit., note 2, 106.

5 Conron, John, American Picturesque (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), 17–18Google Scholar. A classic discussion is Hipple, W. J. Jr., The Beautiful, the Sublime and the Picturesque in Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetic Theory (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1957)Google Scholar.

6 Perhaps another reason for the pre-eminence of the picturesque as a model for nature appreciation is that, in spite of Conron's way of putting the three fold distinction, the beautiful and the sublime, at least initially, were seemingly intended to characterize states of the appreciator, while the picturesque appears even from the outset to be more a characterization of the object of appreciation. I thank Alex Neill for making clear the importance of this point.

7 The key works include Gilpin, William, Three Essays: On Picturesque Beauty, On Picturesque Travel, and On Sketching Landscape; to which Is Added a Poem, On Landscape Painting (London: R. Blamire, 1792)Google Scholar; Price, Uvedale, An Essay on the Picturesque, as Compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful; and on the Use of Studying Pictures, for the Purpose of Improving Real Landscape (London: J. Robson, 1794)Google Scholar; Knight, Richard Payne, The Landscape: A Didactic Poem (London: Printed by W. Bulmer and Co. for G. Nicol, 1794)Google Scholar, and Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste (London: Printed by L. Hansard and Sons for T. Payne and J. White, 1805)Google Scholar. A standard treatment is Hussey, Christopher, The Picturesque: Studies in a Point of View (London: G. Putnam's Sons, 1927)Google Scholar.

8 Bell, Clive, Art [1913] (New York: G. Putnam's Sons, 1958), 30Google ScholarPubMed.

9 Ibid., 45.

10 Although I relate what I call traditional aesthetics of nature to the historical developments of the idea of the picturesque and the formalist theory of art, certain aspects of this kind of view are defended in some recent work on the aesthetics of nature; for example, see Stecker, Robert, ‘The Correct and the Appropriate in the Appreciation of Nature’, British Journal of Aesthetics 37 (1997), 393–402Google Scholar; Crawford, Donald W., ‘Scenery and the Aesthetics of Nature’, in Carlson, A. and Berleant, A., eds., The Aesthetics of Natural Environments (Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 2004)Google Scholar; and Leddy, Thomas, ‘A Defense of Arts-Based Appreciation of Nature’, Environmental Ethics 27 (2005), 299–315Google Scholar. Formal aesthetic appreciation of nature is defended in Zangwill, Nick, ‘Formal Natural Beauty’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 101 (2001), 209–224Google Scholar; for follow-up concerning formalism, see Parsons, Glenn, ‘Natural Functions and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Inorganic Nature’, British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (2004), 44–56Google Scholar, and Zangwill, Nick, ‘In Defence of Extreme Formalism about Inorganic Nature: Reply to Parsons’, British Journal of Aesthetics 45 (2005), 185–191Google Scholar.

11 Leopold, Aldo, A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation from Round River [1949, 1952] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), 179–180Google Scholar; relevant selections are reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism.

12 It is important to note that not all environmental thinkers agree with this assessment of traditional aesthetics of nature. Some offer a reinterpretation of the picturesque that is more in accord with environmentalism; see, for example, Brook, Isis, ‘Wildness in the English Garden Tradition: A Reassessment of the Picturesque from Environmental Philosophy’, Ethics and the Environment 13 (2008), 105–119CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Some of these criticisms, especially that traditional aesthetics of nature tends to be superficial and scenery-obsessed, have been noted since the beginnings of the renewed interest in the aesthetics of nature; see, for example, Sagoff, Mark, ‘On Preserving the Natural Environment’, Yale Law Journal 84 (1974), 205–267Google Scholar, and Carlson, Allen, ‘On the Possibility of Quantifying Scenic Beauty’, Landscape Planning 4 (1977), 131–172Google Scholar.

14 I consider at least seriousness and objectivity to be general adequacy requirements for an aesthetics of nature; see Carlson, Allen, ‘The Requirements for an Adequate Aesthetics of Nature’, Environmental Philosophy 4 (2007), 1–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Saito, Yuriko, ‘Appreciating Nature on Its Own Terms’, Environmental Ethics 20 (1998), 135–149, 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments.

16 Rees, Ronald, ‘The Taste for Mountain Scenery’, History Today 25 (1975), 305–312, 312Google Scholar.

17 Godlovitch, Stan, ‘Icebreakers: Environmentalism and Natural Aesthetics’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 11 (1994), 15–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 16; reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments.

18 Ibid. Godlovitch's acentrism reflects some of the ideas in Nagel, Thomas, The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

19 On wetlands in particular, see Carlson, Allen, ‘Admiring Mirelands: The Difficult Beauty of Wetlands’, in Heikkila-Palo, , ed., Suo on Kaunis, (Helsinki: Maahenki Oy, 1999)Google Scholar; Rolston, Holmes III, ‘Aesthetics in the Swamps’, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 43 (2000), 584–597Google Scholar; and Callicott, J. Baird, ‘Wetland Gloom and Wetland Glory’, Philosophy and Geography 6 (2003), 33–45Google Scholar.

20 Saito, Yuriko, ‘The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998), 101–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 101; reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism.

21 Rolston, Holmes III, ‘Aesthetic Experience in Forests’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998), 157–166CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 162; reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments.

22 Op. cit., note 2, 108–109.

23 Hepburn, Ronald, ‘Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty’, in Williams, B. and Montefiore, A., eds., British Analytical Philosophy (London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1966), 305Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments.

24 It can be argued that formalism underwrites a degree of objectivity of aesthetic value; see Parsons, Glenn, Aesthetics and Nature (London: Continuum, 2008), 41–43Google Scholar.

25 Ned Hettinger, ‘Objectivity in Environmental Aesthetics and Environmental Protection’, in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism, 414.

26 Thompson, Janna, ‘Aesthetics and the Value of Nature’, Environmental Ethics 17 (1995), 291–305, 292CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism.

27 Ibid.

28 Carroll, Noël, ‘On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History’, in Kemal, S. and Gaskell, I., eds., Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 257Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments.

29 Op. cit., note 16, 312.

30 Andrews, Malcolm, The Search for the Picturesque (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 59Google Scholar.

31 Matthews, Patricia, ‘Scientific Knowledge and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60 (2002), 37–48Google Scholar, 38; reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism. Discussions concerning bringing aesthetic appreciation and moral obligation in line with one another include Nassauer, Jane Iverson, ‘Cultural Sustainability: Aligning Aesthetics and Ecology’, in Nassauer, J. I., ed., Placing Nature: Culture and Landscape Ecology (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Marcia Eaton, ‘The Beauty that Requires Health’, in Nassauer, Placing Nature; and Lintott, Sheila, ‘Toward Eco-Friendly Aesthetics’, Environmental Ethics 28 (2006), 57–76Google Scholar; all reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism. On this same topic, although more focused on human environments, is Saito, Yuriko, ‘The Role of Aesthetics in Civic Environmentalism’, in Berleant, A. and Carlson, A., eds., The Aesthetics of Human Environments (Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

32 See Carroll, op. cit., note 28. Despite the centrality this model grants to emotional arousal, it is considered by some to be a cognitive rather than a non-cognitive approach, since Carroll accepts what is known as the cognitive theory of emotions, by which emotional responses can be judged appropriate or inappropriate. Likewise, although Emily Brady's work, which is noteworthy for its treatment of environmental issues, is typically classified as non-cognitive, its central component, that of imagination, is not clearly non-cognitive in any straightforward sense; see Brady, Emily, ‘Imagination and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998), 139–147Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments; and especially Brady, Emily, ‘Aesthetic Character and Aesthetic Integrity in Environmental Conservation’, Environmental Ethics 24 (2002),75–91Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism; and Brady, Emily, Aesthetics of the Natural Environment (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

33 See Godlovitch, op. cit., note 17; see also Godlovitch, Stan, ‘Valuing Nature and the Autonomy of Natural Aesthetics’, British Journal of Aesthetics 38 (1998), 180–197CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism.

34 See Berleant, Arnold, The Aesthetics of Environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992)Google Scholar, especially Chapter 11, ‘The Aesthetics of Art and Nature;’ reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments; Berleant, Arnold, Living in the Landscape: Toward an Aesthetics of Environment (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997)Google Scholar; and Berleant, Arnold, Aesthetics and Environment: Variations on a Theme (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005)Google Scholar.

35 Op. cit., note 34, Aesthetics of Environment, 169–170.

36 Op. cit., note 15, 135–149.

37 See Eaton, Marcia, ‘Fact and Fiction in the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998), 149–156CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments.

38 For example, see Saito, op. cit., note 15; Sepänmaa, Yrjö, The Beauty of Environment: A General Model for Environmental Aesthetics (Helsinki: Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, 1986Google Scholar; Second Edition, Denton, TX: Environmental Ethics Books, 1993); and Heyd, Thomas, ‘Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories about Nature’, British Journal of Aesthetics 41 (2001), 125–137Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments.

39 See Carlson, Allen, ‘Appreciation and the Natural Environment’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 37 (1979), 267–276Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Berleant, The Aesthetics of Natural Environments; Carlson, Allen, ‘Aesthetic Appreciation of the Natural Environment’, in Botzler, R. G. and Armstrong, S. J., eds., Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence, Second Edition (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 1998)Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism; and Carlson, Allen, Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture (London: Routledge, 2000)Google Scholar.

40 Op. cit., note 2, 116.

41 For a classic illustration of this difference, see Muir, John, ‘A View of the High Sierra’, in The Mountains of California (New York: Century Company, 1894)Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism.

42 Godlovitch explicitly challenges this claim in op. cit., note 17.

43 See Carlson, Allen, ‘Nature, Aesthetic Judgment, and Objectivity’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 40 (1981), 15–27Google Scholar. For follow up, see Parsons, Glenn, ‘Freedom and Objectivity in the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature’, British Journal of Aesthetics 46 (2006), 17–37Google Scholar.

44 See the discussion of Bambi in Eaton, op. cit., note 37.

45 Other philosophers also suggest that non-cognitive and cognitive approaches are not necessarily in conflict; for example, in presenting his arousal model, Noël Carroll remarks: ‘In defending this alternative mode of nature appreciation, I am not offering it in place of Carlson's environmental model [aka scientific cognitivism].…I'm for coexistence’; see op. cit., note 28, 246.

46 Arnold Berleant seemingly would not accept this conclusion, for he apparently holds not only that a cognitive component is not necessary for appropriate aesthetic experience, but also that engagement is both necessary and sufficient for such experience. I point his out and argue that engagement is not sufficient in Carlson, Allen, ‘Critical Notice: Aesthetics and Environment’, British Journal of Aesthetics 46 (2006), 416–427CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Rolston, Holmes III, ‘From Beauty to Duty: Aesthetics of Nature and Environmental Ethics’, in Berleant, A., ed., Environment and the Arts: Perspectives on Environmental Aesthetics (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 141Google Scholar; reprinted in Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism. Rolston's acceptance of the importance of both scientific knowledge and engagement in appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature is especially evident in op. cit., note 21, in which he explicitly discusses both scientific appreciation of forests and aesthetic engagement in forests. For an overview of Rolston's aesthetics, see Carlson, Allen, ‘“We see beauty now where we could not see it before”: Rolston's Aesthetics of Nature’, in Preston, C. and Ouderkirk, W., eds., Nature, Value, Duty: Life on Earth with Holmes Rolston, III (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006)Google Scholar.

48 In addition to Rolston's work, some other constructive attempts to combine elements of cognitive and non-cognitive approaches include Eaton, op. cit., note 31; Fudge, Robert, ‘Imagination and the Science-based Aesthetic Appreciation of Unscenic Nature’, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 59 (2001), 275–285Google Scholar; and especially Moore, Ronald, Natural Beauty: A Theory of Aesthetics Beyond the Arts (Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

49 Some of the points made in this essay are treated in more detail in the introduction to Carlson and Lintott, Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism. A longer version of the essay with the title ‘Contemporary Environmental Aesthetics and the Requirements of Environmentalism’ appears in Environmental Values 19 (2010), 289–314CrossRefGoogle Scholar.