Holmes Rolston, “Valuing Aesthetic Nature”, Env.
Ethics 1988
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Two issues
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Is Beauty in the world or in the eye of the beholder?
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Objectivity/subjectivity in nature beauty
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Positive Aesthetics
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Is all nature beautiful?
Objectivity/subjectivity of beauty
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Two senses of
subjectivity/objectivity
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One: Beauty (aes value?) is in experiencer, not
world
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Rolston yes
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Two: No better/worse, no appropriate or
inappropriate aes responses to nature
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Rolston no
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Believes in
objectivity in aes responses to nature
Miscellaneous
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Rolston’s is a Humean position?
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Suggests human exp of beauty is accidental,
epiphenomenal
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“By chance nature echoes our aes taste”
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Ignores that natural selection might have helped shape
our aesthetic tastes
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Carroll’s idea
Biophilia hypothesis
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Gordon H. Orians
and Judith H. Heerwagen, "Evolved Responses to Landscapes," in Jerome
H. Barkow, Leda cosmides and John Tooby, eds., The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary
Psychology and the Generation of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press,
1992), pages 555‑ 579.
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Judith H.
Heerwagen and Gordon H. Orians, "Humans, Habitats, and Aesthetics,"
in Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson, eds., The Biophilia Hypothesis
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993), pages 138‑172.
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Roger S. Ulrich,
"Biophilia, Biophobia, and Natural Landscapes," in Stephen R. Kellert
and Edward O. Wilson, eds., The Biophilia Hypothesis (Washington, DC: Island
Press, 1993), 73‑137.
What is in nature?
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Sci processes (and values they carry!)
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Predator/prey regulation, photosynthesis
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Nutritional value of the potato
Some value in nature, beauty not
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Beauty, like ethics, in human response to world and not
in world
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Beauty a subjective value, not model for all value, as
some value (biological value) is objective
Aes properties in nature “call for” certain
responses (objectivity)
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We are not projecting these properties; they are there
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What is out there is aes worthy
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World is beautiful like it is mathematical
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Math experience comes from us, but mathematical
properties are there and we map on to them with our mathematics
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So aes properties are in world and appro aes exp
responds to them
Aes value does not depend on humans;
nonhumans have aes exp
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Aes exp comes in diverse forms
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Higher aes exp (scenic beauty, sublime) only had by
humans
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If aes exp accompanies physical satisfaction
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Eating a tasty meal
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Enjoying warmth of sun
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Surely some animals have these exp
Big-Horn Sheep Ram
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If we admire
muscular strength and power of ram
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Ewe who is
attracted to him and permits mating
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Experiences
nothing of this?
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Consistent w/ Nat
Sel that it registers in her experience
Peacock
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Peahen is
attracted to peacock’s tail or it would be liability and nat selection would
have never preserved it
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Unless deny an
have exp at all, hard to deny have nascent, precursor to aes exp
All Nature Beautiful?
Elk bottom
Zebra
John Muir’s Positive Aes
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“None of nature’s
landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild”
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“When you try to
pick out one thing in the universe you will find it hitched to everything else
in the universe”
Rolston’s Characterization of Positive Aes
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Landscapes always
supply beauty, never ugliness
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Unfailingly
generate favorable experience in the suitably perceptive
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Obviously, some
don’t like swamps, deserts, prairies
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To say desert,
tundra, volcanic eruption is ugly is to make a false statement and behave
inappropriately
•
Like clouds are
never ugly, only more or less beautiful, so too, mountains rivers, forests,
seashores, grasslands, cliffs, canyons cascades
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Never called for
to say such places bland, dull, boring, chaotic
Rolston’s Pos Aes
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Not claiming
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All equally beautiful (equal beauty thesis)
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Nature perfectly beautiful-perfect beauty thesis
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Artificial reefs can increase beauty
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“Nature’s landscapes, almost w/o fail, have an
essential beauty.”
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Area level judgment:
Not every small piece of nature beautiful; applies to landscapes
Contras with other + aes views
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Carlson’s stronger view
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“Each natural
thing, either with appropriate appreciation or at many, if not almost all,
levels and conditions of observation, has substantial positive aesthetic
value and little, if any negative aesthetic value.”
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Not just natural kinds, not just “essential beauty,”
not just a little beauty.
Rolston grants some nature ugly
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Allow that some items in nature ugly when viewed in isolation
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“There is itemized individual ugliness in nature”
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Not embracing “programmatic nature romanticism”
Consider possible counter-examples to + nature aes
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“Failures in nature are omnipresent, all organisms and
ecosystems fare finally ruined”
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Tourists take no pictures of these
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They are not picturesque
Putrid rotting elk carcass, full of maggots is revolting
In nature, as much is ragged and marred as beautiful
Bear Scat Aesthetically negative?
Ugliness diminished/overcome when viewed in proper context
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Move beyond a utilitarian perspective and see nature in
own terms
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Seen from a landscape and ecosystem perspective these
are not ugly; ugliness transformed in ecosystem perspective
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From a informed, systemic perspective only get positive
aes response
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Each item must be seen in env. Context
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Judgment of ugliness is like looking at piece of a jigsaw
puzzle and saying pieces are misshapen
Humans selected to find some things
repulsive (rotting carcasses, excrement)
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But not ugly in the system of nutrient recycling
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Systemic beauty of body decaying
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Rotting Elk returns to humus and is recycled; maggots
become flies, food for birds; natural selection leads to better adapted elk
Cognitive dimension necessary
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Such beauty is not so much viewed as experienced after
ecological understanding gained
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Many of life’s riches aes exp not able to put on canvas
or take picture of
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Natural history/science allows to aes app what might
otherwise be aes neg
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Allows us to move beyond scenery cult
Lamb killed by Bobcat
Coyote Bloodthirsty killer?
Predation
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“Fierce and cruel
they appear to us, but beautiful in the eyes of God”
John Muir on Alligators
Tiger
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Local disvalue to
prey is value to predator and is systemic value
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Ugliness here is
only a projection; like big bad wolf
Forest fire
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Recovery
from forest fire
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Releases
nutrients, resets succession, helps regenerate shade intolerant trees.
Worrisome counterexamples to positive aesthetics
Three-Headed Frog Disfigured
monstrous animals
Mt. Saint Helens
Infrequent catastrophes
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Nature can’t adapt and evolve in response to
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Ugly events as anomalies challenging general paradigm
of nature’s landscapes w/o fail having essential beauty
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Helens recovery
Rolston general strategy
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Reinterpret local intrinsic ugliness as systemic
instrumental beauty
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Shifting reference frames on us?
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No, insisting on context
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Ecology makes these intelligible, but not beautiful?
• How
get from instrumentally valuable/nec to aes positive?
Positive aesthetics thesis not plausible for
art
•
Implausible to say artworks never badly done
–
Yet does say this for virgin landscapes; more or less +
formed
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Can be no failures in nature (whereas there can be in
art), as no artistic intention
–
Nature, unlike artist, can never fail as never tried
+ Aes for art at category level?
• Just as Rolston limits his + aes to landscape level,
systemic perspective
• What if we limit + aes claim for art to the category
level
• Each type of art is aes positive: Jazz music, folk, impressionism, ballet,
surrealism
– Some instances of these are ugly
• But unlike Rol account for itemized ugliness in
nature, don’t want to say that bad artwork looses its ugliness when viewed in
broader context
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That nature isn’t
picturesque, doesn’t mean it is not beautiful
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Biological sense
of aes value
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Inappropriate to
drive through a park and harvest scenic resources only
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“As if nature
that can’t serve us must please us”
Scenery cult as a bad reason for rejecting
positive aes
Fall Color
Are Lawns Beautiful? Deserve A
Positive Aes Response?
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Need ecological
knowledge to know why not.
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Relies on env.
unfriendly herbicides, pesticides
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Insensitive to
indigenous plants
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Ignores local
climate (water use)
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“As long as people want large, green, closely mowed
yards no matter what the climate or soil or water conditions, they will
continue to use polluting gasoline mowers and a toxic cocktail of fertilizers,
herbicides and pesticides.” Marcia Eaton