Summary of Environmental Aesthetics: Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature and Environmentalism
The beauty of nature is an important aspect of protecting the environment. The theory of art and picturesque are the traditional aesthetics of nature and the two developments that help to understand the relationship between Aesthetics and environmentalism. The picturesque origins are from the eighteenth century and believe that nature is the right piece of aesthetic experience. Its appreciation is divided into three forms which are beautiful, sublime and picturesque. According to John Conron, the beautiful form is delicate, smooth, and small and has a fair color. The sublime form is powerful, huge, and fierce contrary to the beautiful form. The picturesque form neutralizes the other two forms because it is uncommon and complicated, rich, vibrant and not regular. Picturesque which means pictures like had a great impact on nature and even attracted tourists. It continued to be popular even in the twentieth century when the theory of art was developed. Clive bell developed the theory which is about the nature of art that makes the work of art beautiful by a combination of colors, lines, and shapes. He also had in mind how nature would look in landscape paintings done by artists. Despite the theory of art and picturesque having different artistic traditions, both have combined features that add up to the traditional aesthetics of nature.
The traditional aesthetics of nature had limitations and for aesthetic appreciation of nature to keep up with the environmentalists, the aesthetic worth has to be in line with environmental values. According to environmental thinkers, traditional aesthetics had five major failings in terms of nature appreciation being anthropocentric, having lots of sceneries, superficial, morally vacuous and subjective. The solutions for the failings are appreciation that is acentric, focuses on the environment, seriously engages morally and is subjective.
Contemporary aesthetics of nature are classified into two types which are non-cognitive or cognitive. The first type includes emotional and feeling related responses such as affection, engagement, mystery, motivation, and admiration. The second type which is contrary to the first includes the awareness of objects of appreciation which is a requirement of their proper aesthetic appreciation. In the cognitive approach, engagement is the fully developed aesthetic and rejects most of the traditional aesthetics of nature. Scientific cognitivism stresses that nature must be appreciated as nature and no as an art. Aesthetics of engagement and cognitivism are both superior compared to the traditional aesthetics of nature in terms of acentrism, focus on environmentalism and seriousness, engagement, and objectivity respectively.
In the moral dimensions of natural beauty, the aesthetics judgments of natural beauty are like moral judgments. They express a character towards action on the part of the person making the judgment. In environmental cognitivism, the acknowledgment that the judge of natural beauty is a human being, part of nature has already been involved in the issues of its health and preservation. It is the link between aesthetic judgment and moral obligation. Also important is the acknowledgment that in natural beauty judgments, many of the objects that are judged are living things. Treating the natural world properly leads to the recognition of many of the objects we find attractive will not be available for the generations to come. Non-cognitive factors indicate that not all aesthetics of nature interprets into moral respect. Patterns, contracts, and harmonies experienced in nature may mean the different forms of arranged choices developing a good life. According to Plato, lessons of living a good life could be gotten from the perceived patterns of balance and harmony. Imagination according to Emily Brady is another part of aesthetic appreciation of natural beauty since it recognizes patterns of association between elements. Moral maturity is the reflection of a person’s place in the world being part of nature and also being apart from it.
Strong aesthetic preservation is the idea of saving natural areas or things from being destructed. Weak aesthetic preservation is the idea of saving things and areas only when they are threatened by human actions. The whole idea of preservation is that it can be enjoyed by other people. Before the preservationist decides to preserve an area, she first points out the aesthetic value of the area. The strong and weak preservation aesthetics and weighing the aesthetic value topics emphasize the need to know the aesthetic value of an area before preserving it.
