Positive Aesthetics of Nature
Draft, Ned Hettinger 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
a. Unscenic nature/scenery cult
b. Knowledge supports positive aesthetics:
c. Who supports positive aesthetics?
d. Not pos aes for art (rewrite)
2. No negative judgment thesis
a. Not intentionally designed argument (and nature appreciation not aesthetic)
b. Nondiscriminating appreciation, equal beauty, and degrees of aesthetic value
c. Incommensurable value
d. Summary
3. Versions of positive aesthetics
a. Holism/individualism
b. Rolston’s aesthetic holism
c. Individualism
d. Carlson’s version
e. Hargrove’s version: No negative aesthetic qualities in nature
4. Evaluating positive aesthetics
a. Examples of negative aesthetic qualities
b. Negative qualities, but not negative value (as in grotesque art)?
c. Do negative aesthetic qualities disappear with appropriate appreciation?
d. Are all natural items aesthetically positive on balance?
e. Saito’s psychological objection
f. Moral worries about positive aesthetics
5. Arguments for positive aesthetics
a. A priori or empirical?
b. How Rolston’s account is an empirical account (need to write)
c. Hargrove’s arguments for positive aesthetics
d. Naturalness and positive aesthetics
e. Is naturalness an aesthetic quality? (includes Elliot’s ideas)
f. Carlson’s arguments for positive aesthetics
g. Parson’s beauty-making argument for positive aesthetics and an assessment of the alleged problem of category relativity that it addresses
h. Positive aesthetics and conservation
6. Leftovers (points to add?)
a. Counter arguments to pos aes, mainly (all?) Budd’s
b. Argument for positive aes of all living things:
c. Miscellaneous?
1. Introduction
Positive aesthetics holds that nature is specially and thoroughly beautiful. According to this doctrine, “nature is aesthetically privileged as a storehouse of unending, unbending aesthetic goodness” (Godlovitch, VNANA–Valuing Nature and the Autonomy of Natural Aesthetics" BJA 38, 2 (1998): 192). With roots in romantic attitudes toward nature in the 19th century, it flourishes today among many who appreciate, think and care deeply about the natural world. Given the human onslaught on the natural world, accepting the universal beauty of nature is one way to affirm and justify the importance of its preservation.
One of the first to formulate positive aesthetics was the naturalist founder of the Sierra Club John Muir. Muir claimed that “None of nature’s landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild.” [[(Muir) : “everything in natural world, all nature, esp all wild nature, is aes beautiful and ugliness exists only where nature is despoiled by human intrusion” “none of Nature’s landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild” 73 Carlson]] His contemporary William Morris argued that “Surely there is no square mile of earth’s inhabitable surface that is not beautiful in its own way, if we men will only abstain from willfully destroying that beauty. ” The close connection evidenced here between positive aesthetics and environmental preservation (viz., protecting nature by leaving it alone) continues today. (Be good to find e.o Wilson quotes or other modern enviros who support P. Aes) [Morris quote is from Carlson; does Rolston have better quotes?]]
According to positive aesthetics, those who find ugliness in nature are making a mistake,
perhaps due to ignorance or a myopic vision. Consider a mid 19th century proposal to drain the
Florida Everglades to facilitate agriculture because “the Ever Glades are now suitable only for
the haunt of noxious vermin, or the resort of pestilent reptiles . . . millions of acres . . . now
worse than worthless.” (Fudge: 1). But the notion that wetlands are worthless, monstrous, foul,
even evil places– Carlous Linnaeus describes muskegs as “more horrible than hell”(Rolston
swamps: 1)
–manifests ignorance of their manifold values (wildlife habitat and nursery, pollution
filtering, and flood control) including their beauties. Or consider Muir’s assessment of aesthetic
responses to alligators that were typical in his day:
“Many good people believe that alligators were created by the Devil, thus accounting for their all-consuming appetite and ugliness. But doubtless these creatures are happy and fill the place assigned them by the great Creator of us all. Fierce and cruel they appear to us, but beautiful in the eyes of God” (Rolston EE, 240)
(Henry David Thoreau even saw swamps as sacred places [Thoreau quote].)
a. Unscenic nature/scenery cult
According to positive aesthetics, it is not only a mistake to find natural items repellant. Those who find parts of nature dull or aesthetically uninteresting are also failing, even if they are lovers of nature’s grand attractions. Aldo Leopold, often considered the father of modern environmental philosophy, argues that “In country, as in people, a plain exterior often conceals hidden riches” 276. Just as focusing on superficial surface features results in missing much about human beauty, so much is missed by those who can only find beauty in nature’s spectacular scenery. Positive aesthetics opposes the “scenery cult,” a type of nature appreciation that is limited to nature’s “show pieces” (Saito) or to an appreciation of nature’s “easy beauty.” According to positive aesthetics, what Yuriko Saito calls “the scenically-challenged” parts of nature that many find boring and tedious (e.g., the plains and deserts) also have a subtle, “inner” beauty that is aesthetically appreciable. Saito believes we have a moral obligation to listen to unscenic nature’s own story and drop the demands of “entertainment seekers” who insist on getting their “aesthetic kicks” solely from nature’s easy beauty.
b. Knowledge supports positive aesthetics:
Many who defend positive aesthetics argue that as we learn more about nature, we find
more to appreciate, just as when we learn more about people, we find more to appreciate in them.
[drop: Sure the bog stinks, but the smell is of decaying plants returning nutrients to the soil, a
recycling process that is essential to healthy ecosystems and flourishing life on earth.] Positive
aesthetics is thus typically allied with a cognitive focus in the aesthetics of nature whereby
knowledge of nature is central to its proper appreciation. According to Rolston, the beauty in the
unscenic, perhaps even prima facie ugly parts of nature “is not so much viewed as experienced
after one reaches ecologically tutored understanding. It is not so much a matter of sight as of
insight into the drama of life. In many of life’s richest aesthetic experiences there is nothing to
put on canvas, nothing to take snapshots of” (EE 241). Natural history and science allows for
the aesthetic appreciation of what might otherwise seem to be aesthetically negative.
c. Who supports positive aesthetics?
Many contemporary environmental philosophers defend positive aesthetics, including some of the most prominent figures in environmental ethics and aesthetics. Holmes Rolston, III, a founder and leading figure in the field of environmental ethics was an early proponent:
The Matterhorn leaves us in awe, but so does the fall foliage on any New England hillside, or the rhododendron on Roan Mountain. Those who linger with nature find this integrity where it is not at first suspected, in the copperhead and the alligator, in the tarantula and the morel, in the wind-stunted banner spruce and the straggly box elder, in the stormy sea and the wintry tundra. . . . This value is often aesthetic and invariably so if we examine a natural entity at the proper level of observation or in terms of its ecological setting. The ordinary rock in microsection is an extraordinary crystal mosaic. The humus from a rotting log supports an exquisite hemlock. . . . Should we say that we find all life beautiful?” (COFN, p. 44-45) [Better Rolston quotes, perhaps need to as I later quote rolston as allowing individual ugliness and the “invariably” language here is a problem for that]
Allen Carlson, the leading figure in environmental aesthetics, has advocated positive aesthetics in one form or another for over twenty years. Here is his first formulation:
The natural environment, in so far as it is untouched by humans, has mainly positive aesthetic qualities; it is graceful, delicate, intense, unified, orderly, not dull, bland, insipid, incoherent, chaotic. All virgin nature in short is essentially aesthetically good. The appropriate or correct aesthetic appreciation of the natural world is basically positive and negative aesthetic judgments have little or no place” (72).
Gene Hargrove, the founder and editor of the journal Environmental Ethics argues that nature’s purposeless creativity insures that “nature is always beautiful and never ugly” because whatever is created in that way “always brings with it compatible standards of goodness and beauty. Put another way, nature is itself its own standard of goodness and beauty, making ugliness impossible as a product of nature’s own creative activity” (FEE,184). Other environmental philosophers who embrace positive aesthetics include Robert Elliot (“I endorse . . . ‘positive aesthetics’; namely, the view that all natural objects have aesthetic value” (p. 61, Faking Nature), Janna Thompson (“The idea that all of nature, above all, wild nature, should be judged to be beautiful is extremely appealing, and not one that I want to dispute” (p. 296)), and environmental aesthetician Glenn Parsons who argues that “the essential and universal beauty of nature is not a dubious idea that we must argue for based on whatever our conception of appropriate aesthetic appreciation happens to be, but rather part of the intuitive data that we use in constructing our theories of appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature.’ (PA, p. 294)
d. Not pos aes for art (rewrite)
As is evident from the above formulations, there are many different versions of positive aesthetics. One thing they agree about is that nature’s thorough beauty is not shared by art: Not all art is aesthetically positive. Evaluations of artworks are often as negative as positive. Some movies are second-rate, some songs are trite, some paintings are boring and so on. If positive aesthetics for nature is to be a thesis worthy of discussion, it must be formulated in such a way that it does not apply to the rest of the world (including art). If landscape painter John Constable was right when he said "No, madam, there is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life,”(Carlson 95 for references), then there would be nothing special about nature’s beauty. Further, the connection between positive aesthetics and environmental preservation would be weakened or broken, for one could not truthfully say that environmental destruction produced ugliness.
2. No negative judgment thesis
Positive aesthetics is a controversial thesis and many who work in environmental aesthetics have rejected it. For example, Emily Brady, Malcolm Budd, perhaps Stan Godlovitch are all critics of the thesis. Let us begin our evaluation of positive aesthetics by considering Carlson’s claim that “The appropriate or correct aesthetic appreciation of the natural world is basically positive and negative aesthetic judgments have little or no place.” Call this the “no negative judgment thesis.” Are negative aesthetic responses ever appropriate for nature? Let us examine several rationales suggesting they are not
a. Not intentionally designed argument (and nature appreciation not aesthetic)
One reason why negative aesthetic judgments about nature might be inappropriate is
because, unlike art, nature has not been intentionally designed.
As Budd points out, nature “is
immune to all the defects to which art is liable in virtue of being the product of intelligent
design” (p. 98, fn 6). For example, nature can’t be trite, sentimental, crude, derivative, or
shoddy–whereas works of art can be any of these. To move from these correct observations to
the no negative judgment conclusion, we need the premise that all negative aesthetic judgments
critically assess an object’s design and the extent to which the design is successfully embodied in
the object. According to this supposition, if there is no design to critically assess, then no
negative aesthetic judgments are possible.
A broader thesis that supports this assumption has been held by those who claim that the appreciation of nature is not aesthetic. For example, Robert Elliot once argued that “an apparently integral part of aesthetic evaluation depends on viewing the aesthetic object as an intentional object, as an artifact, as something that is shaped by the purposes and designs of its author.” On whether responses to nature are aesthetic, he says, “I agree that they are not.” (Throop, p. 79). Obviously, if nature can’t be aesthetically evaluated, then negative aesthetic judgments about nature are impossible. But this not only short-circuits negative aesthetic judgments about nature, but positive ones as well, and so it will obviously not do as a defense of positive aesthetics. [[FN: Unless, aesthetic appreciation is possible without aesthetic evaluation; see below.]] Additionally, it is abundantly clear that aesthetic responses to nature are possible (because they are actual) and, furthermore, that not all aesthetic response to art are responses to design. Consider aesthetic responses to formal features in both nature and art: Pleasing shapes and colors can be aesthetically appreciated independently of any considerations about their being designed.
Could it be that only negative aesthetic evaluations require critical assessment of design while positive aesthetic response do not? This would explain why the no negative judgment thesis applies to nature and not to art, while allowing positive aesthetic response to nature. But why this lack of parallelism should exist is unclear: if assessment of design is required for negative appraisals, why it is not required for positive appraisals? In general, it would seem that if one rejects negative appraisals of a subject matter, then one must reject positive appraisals as well. Additionally, there are clear examples of negative aesthetic judgments that do not critically assess design. Consider the judgment that a landscape (e.g., a desert) is boring or uninteresting. Even if such judgments are mistaken, this is not because they fail to critically assess design. The argument for rejecting negative aesthetic judgment about nature based on its lack of design seems unsupportable.
b. Nondiscriminating appreciation, equal beauty, and degrees of aesthetic value
[[I’m not clear that cramming equal beauty discussion into no neg judge discussion makes sense.]]
A second line of argument for the no negative judgment thesis is that negative judgments involve (implicitly or explicitly) discriminating between degrees/levels of aesthetic value in nature and that this is problematic because it is either not possible or inappropriate. Examples of negative judgments that involve comparative judgments of differential amounts of aesthetic value include criticizing an awkward impala in light of her more graceful cousins or downgrading a recently-emerged avian species in comparison to the ancient lineage represented by the crane.
One way to reject such comparative judgments is to embrace an “equal beauty thesis” for nature, according to which, all natural items are of equal aesthetic value. Surprisingly, this equal beauty thesis has had some currency in the literature and positive aesthetics is sometimes even assumed to involve the claim that natural items have equal beauty. [[FN-Budd does this.]] Carlson has argued that nature appreciation involves appreciating the order in nature (“order appreciation” in contrast to the “design appreciation” of art) and this led him to the equal beauty thesis (a thesis he now explicitly rejects):
All of nature necessarily reveals the natural order. . . It is present in every case and can be appreciated once our awareness and understanding of the forces that produce it and the story that illuminates it are adequately developed. In this sense, all nature is equally appreciable and therefore selection among all that the natural world offers is not of much ultimate importance. As Arp observes, “in nature a broken twig is equal in beauty and importance to the clouds and the stars.”(120)
In his critique of positive aesthetics, Malcolm Budd often takes aim at the equal beauty thesis. He builds the equal beauty thesis into what he calls “the most ambitious version of positive aesthetics–that each individual natural item, at each moment of its existence . . . has roughly equal positive overall aes value” (127). Stan Godlovitch also ties positive aesthetics to equal beauty when he characterizes the idea that “all aspects of the environment are to be deemed of equal appreciative value and cannot thus be differentially treated, at least on aesthetic grounds” as “an expression of positive aesthetics” (ENA 113). Even Emily Brady, ties the two: “Because I do not follow positive aesthetics, I believe that some natural and modified environments or objects will be judged to have more value than others. One waterfall is more dramatic than another (Brady 214). [[Godlovitch’s and Budd’s focus on a positive aesthetic that embraces equal value is surprising given that the three main contemporary philosophic defenders of positive aesthetics--Carlson, Rolston and Hargrove-- all accept degrees of natural beauty. Cite references or quotes?]]
What can be said for the equal beauty thesis and, more generally, for the notion that natural beauty does not come in degrees and thus that we may not discriminate between amounts of natural beauty? One reason to worry about degrees of natural beauty is because when natural beauty is considered in environmental policy, the focus tends to be on “areas of outstanding natural beauty” (e.g., Niagra Falls); more modest beauties (e.g., small waterfalls) are ignored. A belief in differential aesthetic value in nature accounts for environmental policy that requires great sacrifices to preserve charismatic megafauna (e.g., wolves) and ignores potentially more ecologically important “creepy crawlies” (e.g., endangered snails). Godlovitch worries about the fact that friends he was visiting felt the need to apologize for the small stature of the waterfalls they were to pass on a hike (EVA, 113). Once we allow differential aesthetic value in nature, Godlovitch suggests, we will end up with negative aesthetic judgments about nature that are on a par with critical judgments about art: “Just as there are rotten violinists, so there must be pathetic creeks; just as there is pulp fiction, so there must be junk species, just as there are forgettable meals, so there must be inconsequential forests” (God ENA 121). Allowing degrees of natural beauty leads us to a rejection of positive aesthetics.
Many think it unenlightened to prefer certain species to other species, [[FN: There has
been significant criticism aimed at the implementation of the endangered species act for its focus
on the charismatic megafauna.]] arguing instead for an egalitarianism based on their alleged
equal importance to the functioning of ecosystems or their being equally miraculous or equal in
the eyes of God.
Precluding degrees of natural aesthetic value can be seen as part of a laudatory,
non-judgmental attitude toward nature. Unlike the art world--a world we created, which belongs
to us, and were critical judgment is appropriate–the natural world created us and continues to
sustain us, it does not belong to us, and it is something to which we owe love and respect
(VNANA 194?). A refusal to differentially grade and rank natural items acknowledges this
relationship. Just as we should not grade and rank our parents or our children, so too we should
not grade and rank nature. The suggestion might be made that we should appreciate natural
items without evaluating them.[FN Godlovitch’s discussion of whether or not this is possible].
To evaluate and then rank them aesthetically amounts to “playing God.” It is to put a value or
price tag on something that is should not be priced: “How many dollars is your mother’s life
worth?” deserves a response of disdain. So too, the argument goes, we should reject the attempt
to differentially rank the aesthetic value of natural items.
Perhaps part of the intuitive appeal behind rejecting degrees of natural beauty comes from
an analogy between morally ranking persons and aesthetically ranking natural items. It is
arguable that one should not morally rank people for we are all equal in inherent moral worth and
have equal human rights. But it is a mistake to shift the plausibility of this idea to the aesthetic
ranking of natural items. Not only are natural items not persons, but the ranking is an aesthetic,
not moral one. Just as ranking people aesthetically as more or less beautiful need not be morally
inappropriate, so too one can rank natural items aesthetically while maintaining an appropriate
moral attitude toward them.
Not only is it morally permissible to distinguish between degrees of beauty in natural items, but doing so is far more plausible than embracing the equal beauty claim. Budd, for example, credibly argues that given the tremendous diversity of natural items (clouds, seashells, gusts of wind, birdsongs, snake skins, etc.) and the variety of scales on which we can focus, “it would be remarkable if everything in nature, no matter how nature is cut at the joints, were to have a roughly equal positive overall aesthetic value” (127).
Note as well that the three main contemporary philosophical defenders of positive aesthetics--Carlson, Rolston and Hargrove--all accept degrees of natural beauty. In response to Budd’s attack on positive aesthetics as claiming all natural items have equal positive aesthetic value, Carlson writes, “I am inclined to interpret the doctrine [positive aesthetics] . . . not as attributing equal positive aesthetic value to all natural things” (Resp to Hargrove, fn 27). “Positive aesthetics . . . holds not that all natural things have equal aesthetic value, but only that all have only positive aesthetic value” (Brady/Budd, 112). [Worry that this suggests they have no negative aes qualities at all.]] Rolston claims that “Rather like clouds, which are never ugly, only more or less beautiful, so too, mountains, forests, seashores, grasslands, cliffs, canyons, cascades, and rivers. . . [Positive aesthetics] does not find all places equally or perfectly beautiful; it maps them on a scale that runs from zero upward but has no negative numbers” (EE, 237). Hargrove argues that “There are degrees of beauty, and that some objects are more beautiful than others, and that the more beautiful objects ought to be given priority for preservation over less beautiful ones” (Hargrove 179).
It is true--as Godlovitch suggests--that once we start ranking natural items aesthetically, those items with the lower aesthetic value will get less environmental protection, at least on aesthetic grounds. All other things being equal, the big waterfalls will get protected on aesthetic grounds before the little ones, the wolves before the snails. Godlovitch is mistaken, however, when he argues that such discrimination amounts to giving up on positive aesthetics:
“If Positive Aesthetics accepts the notion of ‘degrees of beauty,’ . . . the effect of such discrimination is tantamount to the denial that things all have positive value . . . Because, as far as protection goes, to declare something to be the least value is tantamount to saying it is the least worth saving. Where not all can be saved–and that is the practical reality--that which is the least worth saving is indistinguishable, for all intents and purposes, from that which is not worth saving” (195 VNANA).
But all that follows from degrees of natural beauty is that things of lower aesthetic value are not as worth saving (on aesthetic grounds) as things of greater aesthetic value, and that they should not be saved when saving them involves sacrificing natural items of greater aesthetic value. But natural items of lower aesthetic value may well be worth saving when the opportunity costs are not so high. Further, differential aesthetic value is compatible with differential positive aesthetic value (and even a high degree of such value). Godlovitch’s suggestion that degrees of beauty will lead to natural items with exceedingly low (or negative) aesthetic value (“pathetic creeks,” “junk species,” “inconsequential forests”) does not follow. Although degrees of beauty do allow for the possibility of negative comparative judgements about nature (this gazelle is less graceful that one or wolves are aesthetically more stimulating than snails), it does not entail that natural items have low or negative aesthetic value. Whether there are any natural items with such value is importantly an empirical question. Additionally, the way to respond to the practical worry that once we allow degrees of natural beauty, the less beautiful parts of nature will get left out of consideration is not to deny that there are differential amounts of beauty in nature, but to advocate positive aesthetics and to educate people about the beauties in all natural items, including the less beautiful ones.
c. Incommensurable value
A related challenge to the possibility of differential comparative judgments about natural beauty comes from the suggestion that natural beauty involves incommensurable values. This view not only rejects differential aesthetic value judgments about natural items, but also judgments of equal beauty, for if the beauty of natural objects is incommensurable, they can’t be judged in the same terms. On the incomensurability view, the beauty of natural items are sui generis, and thus claiming they have equal value is as incoherent as claiming they have differential value. David Ehrenfeld hints at this challenge: “Many critics would say el Greco was a greater painter than Norman Rockwell, but is the Serengeti savanna artistically (i.e., aesthetically) more valuable than the New Jersey Pine Barrens”(p. 206 of Arrogance)?” [Quoted in Godlovitch] The suggestion is that we cannot aesthetically compare dramatically different natural items. Trying to aesthetically compare a birdsong with a glimpse of a gazelle is like trying to compare a piece of music with a painting. The aesthetic qualities of sound and sight are so radically different that they cannot be compared, much less ranked. So too with comparing a blue whale with a limestone pebble, or according to this argument, any other two natural items: The beauties involved cannot be put on a common scale and ranked.
This argument is much less persuasive if we consider comparing two entities of the same
kind. One could easily choose two waterfalls that were not difficult to compare and rank them in
terms of expressive power, sound quality, scale, and general ambience.
Furthermore, while it is
true that individual aesthetic qualities of different kinds of entities (such as the brilliant color of a
painting and the sadness of a piece of music, the grace of an gazelle and the majesty of a
mountain) are not easily compared (or ranked), in many cases, overall aesthetic value judgments
comparing two very different kinds of things are easily made. For example, I doubt any one
would object to the aesthetic judgment that a Karoke rendition of the Beatles “She Loves You”
has less aesthetic value than Edouard Manet’s Olympia. Nor should anyone doubt that Mt. Saint
Elias has greater aesthetic value than does a small drop-off in a creek after a rain shower.
One certainly should worry about the appropriateness of the standards used for making such judgments. With waterfalls, for example, one might worry that the standards of judgment are macho, unjustifiably privileging size and power over other aesthetic qualities. If degrees-of-beauty judgments always result in scenic nature outranking the unscenic parts of nature, one should suspect that easily accessible visual qualities are being given unacceptable priority over more subtle, multi-sensory or cognitive qualities. Some (perhaps Godlovitch) might argue that standards for ranking natural beauty will invariably be anthropocentric or humanly parochial in some unacceptable way [FN Icebreakers]. Godlovitch also suggests that the only standards we can use for such ranking would be standards transported directly from art evaluation and this seems problematic. [[This claim is mistaken. Wildness, is an aesthetic value of nature, and it is not a standard used in art evaluation.]] Specifying and defending standards for differential judgments about degrees of natural beauty will not be an easy task, but this should not lead us to reject the possibility of such widespread and important judgments. [[I might want to look at Godlovitch where he argues that we ought to rank things by relative standards –Brady 214; Leagues of major versus minor waterfalls.]]
Perhaps the strongest reason to accept judgements about degrees of natural beauty (including claims of equal beauty in nature) is that such views are necessary if natural beauty is to play a role in conservation decisions. Despite the energy Godlovitch puts into exploring the anti-ranking position, in the end, he too accepts ranking and rejects equal beauty. “No account of appreciating nature convincingly does away with differential evaluative judgement and grading so familiar and fitting in our appreciation of cultural things” (ENA 121). A failure to discriminate between natural beauties means “the aesthetic dimension will simply be canceled out as an effective factor in nature conservation policy (ENA113). “If Positive Aesthetics resists the ranking of nature’s things, then Positive Aesthetics alone cannot discriminate between the aesthetic value of aspects of nature. But if Positive Aesthetics cannot thus discriminate, it cannot offer anything decisive in conservation deliberations where choice of a favoured site is forced upon us, as it always is” (VNANA 195). Ambivalent to the very end, Godlovitch concludes that, however necessary, such ranking “is utter madness” (ENA 123).
d. Summary
We have considered two arguments against the possibility of negative aesthetic judgment about nature, neither of which were found to be supportable. Negative aesthetic judgments about nature do not require that nature be designed. Further, even if such negative judgments depend upon accepting degrees of beauty in nature, such differential aesthetic ranking of natural items is–while not unproblematic–possible, acceptable, and necessary.
[Not clear I want this para and argument structure]] No negative aesthetic qualities in
nature?: Of course that negative aesthetic judgments about natural items are possible and that
such judgments are appropriate when comparing two items with differential beauty leaves open
the possibility that natural items are nevertheless thoroughly aesthetically positive. This gazelle
may be less graceful than her cousins, but she still may lack negative aesthetic qualities. Thus a
version of the no negative judgment thesis that claims that natural items possess no negative
aesthetic qualities remains to be evaluated. We examine this claim below in the context of a
discussion of the different versions of the positive aesthetics held by environmental
philosophers.
3. Versions of positive aesthetics
Advocates of positive aesthetics typically moderate the view by limiting its scope in various ways. Most limit positive aesthetics to pristine nature, allowing negative aesthetics only in human-influenced nature (and typically insisting that such influence necessarily reduces aesthetic value). Some have suggest that positive aesthetics be limited to inorganic nature in order to avoid counterexamples presented by diseased, deformed, or dying organisms.
[[Budd claims that nature has a positive overall aes value is questionable, “holding true for at most items that are not or do not containing forms of life”; Parsons also seems to buy this?]],[[Parson argues that positive aes is more plausible for nonliving nature than living nature: “For the idea that nothing in nature is ugly is vastly more plausible when applied to non-living things and environments, such as lakes, rocks and clouds, that it is when applied to the organic world” He got this from Budd, see book p 125-26.]]
a. Holism/individualism
One important difference [[in scope]] is between those who advocate what might be called a holist type of positive aesthetics and those who advocate an individualist account. The individualist suggests that each item in nature (or possibly every natural property) is positive aesthetically. In contrast, the holist claims that nature as a whole (or perhaps ecosystems, species, or other natural kinds such as landscapes) are positive aesthetically. This view allows for “Itemized individual ugliness in nature” (Rolston 240) while insisting that nature more generally is aesthetically positive. Budd worries about this holist/individualist distinction by asking if we can make sense of “the idea of a kind possessing a positive aesthetic value which does not reduce to the idea that each instance of the kind has that value” (127). But as Budd himself notes, the claim of positive aesthetics for kinds might be the claim that “normal instances of the kind have positive aesthetic value.” It might also be the claim that the vast majority of instances of the kind do, or that they do on average. Holism of this sort is immune to objections to positive aesthetics based on counterexamples such as “monstrosities” and deformed instances of kinds (e.g., amphibians with missing, malformed, or extra limbs or digits).
A very modest version of holist positive aesthetics would be the claim that nature as a whole (on balance) is aesthetically positive. This view would allow for significant aesthetic disvalue in nature that was outweighed (possibly only barely) by positive value. Such a view would not distinguish nature from art, which is undoubtedly “beautiful on the whole” as well.
b. Rolston’s aesthetic holism
A far stronger type of holistic positive aesthetics is one advocated by Holmes Rolston. Rolston’s overall judgment about nature is that it has substantial beauty (nature, he often says, is “a wonderland”). Though Rolston allows individual instances of ugliness in nature, he argues that we should accept “these ugly events as anomalies challenging the general paradigm that nature’s landscapes without fail have an essential beauty”(243 EE). “Landscapes,” he says, “always supply beauty, never ugliness.” He also claims that all individuals of many other natural kinds are beautiful: “Like clouds, seashores, and mountains, forests are never ugly, they are only more or less beautiful; the scale runs from zero upward with no negative domain.” (Forest paper 164.) [Wasn’t the previous quoted before?] “Never called for to say such places are bland, dull, boring, chaotic.” “To say of a desert, the tundra, a volcanic eruption that it is ugly is to make a false statement and to respond inappropriately.” Interestingly, although Malcolm Budd mainly criticizes positive aesthetics, he makes similar claims: “Many biotic kinds (all flowers, perhaps) undoubtedly possess a positive overall aesthetic value. There are even kinds of natural object (galaxy star, ocean) or occurrence (exploding volcano) which are such that . . . each instance of them is sublime” (Budd 103).
Rolston’s holism also involves the claim that nature itself has a “systemic beauty,”(241, EE) that is, a tendency toward beauty that turns ugliness into beauty.
“Virgin nature is not at every concrete locus aesthetically good: consider a crippled fish that has escaped an alligator. Those who are not programmatic nature romantics will admit this and go on to recover what beauty they can. But ugliness, though present at times in particulars, is not the last word. . . regenerative forces are already present. . . nature will bring beauty out of this ugliness . . . this tendency is already present and aesthetically stimulating now. . . when the point event, which is intrinsically ugly, is stretched out instrumentally in the process, the ugliness mellows–though it does not disappear–and makes its contribution to systemic beauty and to beauty in later-coming individuals. . . There is ugliness, but even more, there are transformative forces that sweep toward beauty . . . disorder and corruption are the prelude to creation, and in this perpetual re-creation there is high beauty. Nature’s beauty can be costly and tragic, yet nature is a scene of beauty ever reasserting itself in the face of destruction.
Rolston’s positive aesthetics has been criticized by both Saito and Budd. They allege that Rolston’s views result either in the unappealing conclusion that “the only legitimate object for our aesthetic experience of nature is the global ecosphere” (Saito, Unscenic 104) or that his position involves the fallacy of division. As Budd puts it, “The idea that each ecosystem (or other natural system) has a positive overall aesthetic value implies nothing about the aesthetic values of the natural items it contains considered in themselves–in particular, that these are always positive” (106).
Both these criticism are off target. Rolston does say that: “Every item must be seen not in framed isolation but framed by its environment, and this frame in turn becomes part of the bigger picture we have to appreciate–not a ‘frame’ but a dramatic play.” 239. But Rolston’s point is not that we should stop aesthetically appreciating individual items or events in ecosystems (and turn our aesthetic attention instead to the wholes they are a part of), but that we need to appreciate these natural items in light of the larger systems of which they are a part. When we do so, he argues, we will come to appreciate that “the ugly parts do not subtract from but rather enrich the whole. The ugliness is contained, overcome and integrates into positive, complex beauty” (Rolston 1988, p. 241). He supports this claim thus:
Any landscape looked at in detail is as filled with dying as with flourishing things. Everything is in some degree marred and ragged–a tree with broken limbs, a crushed wildflower, an insect-eaten leaf. An eagle chick plagued with ticks is not a pretty thing. Sometimes there are disfigured, even monstrous animals. So why is this not ugliness in the landscape? It is! . . . If we enlarge our scope. . . we get further categories for interpretation. The rotting elk returns to the humus, its nutrients recycled; the maggots become flies, which become food for the birds; natural selection results in a better-adapted elk for the next generation. The monstrous mutants, unless by luck better fitted for some new niche, are edited out of the system, and the system continues to track new environments by casting forth further mutants. . . . The momentary ugliness is only a still shot in an ongoing motion picture. . . The clash of values, pulled into symbiosis, is not an ugly but a beautiful thing. The world is not a jolly place, not a Walt Disney world, but one of struggling, somber beauty. The dying is the shadow side of the flourishing. (EE 239).
Although one can dispute Rolston’s positive account of what goes on in nature (i.e., that the ugliness is always instrumental to greater beauty), one ought not dispute the importance of context in aesthetic appreciation. Just as an appropriate appreciation of a part of an artwork requires that we appreciate its role in the entire work, so too an appropriate appreciation of natural items requires that we consider them in light of their role in the system of which they are a part. (But this leads to Saito’s objection...) Rolston’s holism is not only aesthetic, but ontological as well. For example, he often claims that a tiger is what it is in its ecosystem; it is not the same tiger when transported to the moon or put it in a cage. One does not successfully preserve tigers by ensuring an ongoing population in a zoo. The aesthetic appreciation of a tiger should be cognizant of its context, just as the aesthetic appreciation of “individualized ugliness in nature” needs awareness of the roles that the ugly natural item plays in the larger natural systems of which it is a part. Insisting on contextualization of the aesthetic appreciation of a natural item is not the same as changing the subject of appreciation to the system that provides the context.
[It might be worth acknowledging the passages in Rolston where he does seem to shift the focus to the whole and also where he seems to take back claim individual ugliness? How get from instrumentally valuable/necessary to aes positive?]
The charge that Rolston is committing the fallacy of division misses the mark even more clearly . It mistakenly assumes that Rolston is trying to defend the positive aesthetic value of each individual natural item. But Rolston is a aesthetic holist and he repeatedly states that there is individual ugliness in nature. Systemic nature on his view overcomes this ugliness and turns it into beauty. Appreciating individual ugliness in its systemic context can even “mellow” the individual ugliness itself and it may become “less ugly than before.” But it does not “disappear.” [Some quotes above could be used here.]] Rolston is not trying to defend the positive aesthetic value of each individual natural item and so he has no need of (fallaciously) arguing that because the whole system of nature is beautiful, that each individual item is as well.
c. Individualism
In contrast to holistic positive aesthetics, individualist positive aesthetics focuses its
claim about natural beauty on individual natural items or events and asserts that they are positive
aesthetically.
A weak version of the individualist positive aesthetics would claim that there is
some aesthetic good in any natural thing. As with the weak holist claim that nature on balance is
positive aesthetically, the “claim that every natural item has some aesthetically valuable quality
or qualities” is “a claim that would appear to be almost as plausible for artefacts as for nature”
(Budd, 98). In addition to failing to distinguish positive aesthetics for nature from the aesthetics
of anything else, this view is weak because it is compatible with all natural items having negative
aesthetic qualities, even ones that outweigh their positive qualities.
Budd suggest a somewhat stronger version of individualist positive aesthetics: “Positive aesthetics with respect to nature would be more plausible if it were to maintain that each natural thing, at some level of observation, has a positive aesthetic value” (107). Here Budd is relying on his idea that nature can be legitimately viewed from a variety of different perspectives. (For example, one can look at a grain of sand with the naked eye or through a microscope. Budd claims that the latter provides for more aesthetic appeal.) This version is stronger if we take Budd as suggesting that we can always perceive a natural item in some (legitimate) way so that its aesthetic value turns out to be positive overall or on balance (at least from this perspective).
d. Carlson’s version
In response to Budd’s suggestion, Carlson maintains that this individualist account of positive aesthetics is not sufficiently strong:
“This version seems plausible enough, but is, I think, too weak. It does not accommodate what seems to me undeniably true: that whether we maintain a notion of appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature or grant Budd’s promiscuity concerning not only “levels of observation” but also “conditions of observation and time,” 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.” (Carlson repeats this footnote in his more recent-2006-- paper on Rolston.....Footnote 62, pp. 122-23)
This view is stronger than Budd’s proposed version because it suggests that in
appreciating natural items from many (and perhaps almost all) perspectives, those items have
substantial aesthetic value on balance (that is, after subtracting any negative aesthetic value
which is at most a small amount). Note as well the increase in strength of this version of positive
aesthetics from Carlson’s original, more holistic, formulation (see above)
where he merely
claimed that nature was “mainly” or “basically” positive aesthetically. Carlson’s latest
formulation claims positive aesthetics not just for natural kinds but for “each natural thing” (his
individualism).
He no longer uses the language of “essential beauty,” which can be interpreted
as allowing for accidental ugliness (though in some contexts, it seems clear that he means
necessarily beautiful). And he explicitly rejects a possibility left open in his original formulation
that the beauty in question is minor, by now insisting that it is substantial. Carlson has explicitly
denied the strongest version of positive aesthetics, namely, “perfect beauty thesis,” which holds
that nature is maximally aesthetically valuable. “For all we know, the natural world also could
have been different, could have been aesthetically better than it is. In fact, that it could have been
seems very likely” (80, 1984).
e. Hargrove’s version: No negative aesthetic qualities in nature
Because of its individualism and its denial of significant negative aesthetic in nature,
Carlson’s version of positive aesthetics seems stronger than Rolston’s holism. It is not, however,
as all encompassing as Hargrove’s version of positive aesthetics. Hargrove denies the presence
of negative aesthetic qualities in nature entirely: “According to positive aesthetics, nature, to the
degree that it is natural (that is, unaffected by human beings), is beautiful and has no negative
aesthetic qualities” (177). His argument for positive aesthetics, for “why nature is always
beautiful and never ugly” (184) also seems to entail the lack of negative aesthetic qualities in
nature. Because “nature’s indifferent creativity . . . always brings with it compatible standards of
goodness and beauty. . . Nature is itself its own standard of goodness and beauty, making
ugliness impossible as a product of nature’s own creative activity” (184).
Budd points out that attributing an overall positive aesthetic value to nature requires only “a very small step” beyond the claim that nature possess no negative aesthetic qualities, because “the kind of freedom that characterizes the aesthetic appreciation of nature . . . guarantees that any natural item will offer something of positive aesthetic value, something that is aesthetically rewarding, even if the rewards are very small” (125). While Hargrove does not explicitly mention the degree of positive beauty he attributes to nature (as does Carlson with his claim of “substantial” aesthetic value), the beauty Hargrove attributes to nature is not minimal. He writes about “the superiority of natural beauty” (185) and argues that “all human standards of beauty are derived from nature” (191) so that natural beauty is the “well spring” of artistic beauty. “It is not true, of course, that all natural beauty is superior to all art. There are degrees of beauty both in nature and in art, and some of the best works of human art compare favorably with, and are perhaps superior to, many of nature’s creations” (191). Hargrove also thinks nature’s beauty gives us a strong reason for protecting it: “Natural beauty . . . is, in most cases, as valuable as artistic beauty and therefore as worthy of being promoted and preserved” (198).
4. Evaluating positive aesthetics
That nature lacks any negative aesthetic qualities is an exceeding unbending version of positive aesthetics and one whose plausibility is seriously open to question. This is not the claim that everything in nature has positive aesthetic value overall or that nature is (or natural items are) on balance aesthetically valuable. Such a view allows for natural items to possess negative aesthetic qualities that are outweighed by more substantial positive ones. Instead, the claim is that none of the features or dimensions of natural items have any aesthetic qualities that have a negative value considered in themselves. This view amounts to the idea that all of nature, perceived from all possible perspectives and using all senses, is invariably aesthetically positive in every detail!
a. Examples of negative aesthetic qualities
Counterexamples to this view are not hard to come by. Some natural items (or dimensions of natural items) seem boring, clumsy, chaotic, dangerous, deformed, dirty, disgusting, destructive, grotesque, merciless, painful, terrifying, or unpleasant. In so far as natural items or properties can be so characterized, nature would seem to possess negative aesthetic qualities.
Budd argues against the no negative aesthetic quality thesis by focusing on defective instances of living kinds:
A negative aesthetic quality is a quality that, considered in itself, makes a negative contribution to an item’s aesthetic value and so constitutes an aesthetic defect in the item. . . . for a natural item to possess a negative aesthetic quality it must be defective as a product of nature. . . . a member of a species can be a defective instance of that species, malformed, unable to function in one or more ways normal for the species, perhaps disabling it from flourishing in the manner characteristic of the species, and only living things can be in an unhealthy state, be ill, decline, and die. Hence an adherent of the view that a natural thing cannot possess a negative aesthetic quality would need to show that none of the ways in which organisms can be defective instances of their kinds could be manifest in their appearance in such a way as to display a negative aesthetic quality. It does not seem possible to establish this (126).
In addition to deformities in plants and animals, it is arguable that all animals (and plants)
possess negative aesthetic qualities at some point in their lives. They get dirty, become sick,
decline, and die, in the process losing their attractive colors and gracefulness of movement.
Rolston conveys the ugliness of diseased animals with this example: “Once as a college youth I
killed an opossum that seemed sluggish and then did an autopsy. He was infested with a hundred
worms! Grisly and pitiful, he seemed a sign of the whole wilderness, . . . too alien to value”
(1986, p.128-29, quoted in Carlson 2007, p. 107). Rolston also powerfully expresses the idea
that seeing only beauty in animals is Pollyannaish:
The critic will complain against admirers of wildlife that they overlook as much as they see. The bison are shaggy, shedding, and dirty. That hawk has lost several flight feathers; that marmot is diseased and scarred. The elk look like the tag end of a rough winter. A half dozen juvenile eagles starve for every one that reaches maturity. Every wild life is marred by the rips and tears of time and eventually destroyed by them (1987, p. 192).
One might conclude from this that only animals in their prime or animals that live up to the ideal of their species are thoroughly beautiful and possess no negative aesthetic qualities.
Even Ronald Hepburn, whose 1966 article “Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect
of Natural Beauty,” started the renaissance in nature aesthetics suggests that some parts of nature
may be “irremediably inexpressive, unredeemably characterless and aesthetically null.”
The implausibility of the claim that nature has no negative aesthetic qualities becomes even clearer when one considers the variety of ways one can aesthetically attend to nature. Many have argued that, unlike much art appreciation, nature appreciation is multi-sensory. Let us consider the smell, taste, or feel of some natural items. If one comes across a “rotting carcass of an elk, full of maggots”–“a putrid elk” (238, EE) as Rolston calls it– one encounters a negative olfactory quality. Or consider the taste in ones mouth after bitting into a rotten apple: Is it not indubitably negative? Both Budd and Rolston have generalized these examples: Budd writes: “Smells or tastes that all human beings find physically nauseating” require placing “restrictions on the scope of the doctrine of positive aesthetics” (Budd 107). Rolston points out that “We can expect that humans, like other animals, will have been naturally selected to find certain things repulsive, those things (rotting carcasses, excrement) that they as individuals need to avoid in order to survive” (EE 241). Qualities of nature that are universally found to be nauseating or repulsive seem to be reasonably good candidates for negative aesthetic qualities (assuming that one countenances tastes and smells in the realm of aesthetics).
Fisher objected to my use of disgust because not cognitive?
Some affective responses are primitive reactive and not cog based (disgust) this is Davies ch 6.
Does it matter to my argument that disgust is a non-cog emotional response?
Some tactile encounters with nature seem clearly negative as well. Consider the
unpleasant physical sensations experienced by those who stumble into a hot spring, break
through the ice while attempting a winter crossing of a river, or are suffocating while buried
under an avalanche. Perhaps the pain involved in such experiences may not be compatible with
aesthetic contemplation of these events.
Consider a less extreme and more frequent encounter
with nature: Weather can be exceedingly hot, sticky, and buggy. While some may claim not to
mind hot, humid weather, it is hard to imagine that they have no problem with the sting of bug
bites or the annoying itch that follows.
b. Negative qualities, but not negative value (as in grotesque art)?
It is true that displeasure, discomfort, or even disgust resulting from attending to an aesthetic object is not necessarily a sign of negative aesthetic value, for some works of art elicit these reactions and yet are nonetheless judged to be aesthetically positive. For example, consider depictions of explicit battle scenes in films or descriptions of the suffering of loved characters in novels. These can provoke such negative feelings but we often judge these works to be aesthetically positive, in part because of (and not in spite of) the “negative aesthetic qualities” that provoke these feelings. Similarly, there are art genres that emphasize the grotesque, the shocking, the morbid, the horrifying, and the ugly, and works of these sorts are not necessarily aesthetically negative.
We might draw a distinction between negative aesthetic qualities and negative aesthetic value to help us understand these examples. The sadness of a piece of music need not be of negative aesthetic value even if we categorize the aesthetic quality as a negative one. As Fudge puts it: “Even when the content of an aesthetic object is sad, tragic, scary, we can nevertheless delight in perceiving the object” (277). Could it be that nature’s putrid smells, disgusting tastes, and unpleasant sensations are similarly not of negative aesthetic value, despite their “negative” aesthetic quality?
One explanation for this distinction is available for art but not nature: An artist can show
great artistry in the creation of disgusting, grotesque, or otherwise “ugly” artworks. For example,
the performing artist Stelarc is known for suspending himself with fishhooks. While his works
might make one’s skin crawl, one can legitimately judge these performances to be ingenious and
amazing. Thus artworks with negative aesthetic qualities might be judged to possess positive
aesthetic value because they instantiate creative genius. Since nature does not have an artist
(whose artistry we could praise and value), “ugly” nature can not be redeemed in this fashion.
It is not clear however that it is simply the artistry that we value when we value art that
shocks, unsettles, disturbs or disgusts us. Even though experiencing these artworks does not give
us a pleasurable state of mind, we might judge them of positive aesthetic value because we
intrinsically value the experience of engaging with them (separate from our admiration of the
artistry that produced them).
We might find Damien Hirst's bisected cows "repellent but
curious" and this might have nothing to do with our views about the quality of the artistry that
when into them.
Now it could be that some of nature’s negative aesthetic qualities are of this sort:
Experiencing them is unpleasant, but we nonetheless find (intrinsic) value in the encounter with
them. Watching a wolf pack kill an elk is disturbing, but nonetheless it is an experience sought
by many and appreciated for its own sake. Nevertheless, if we are careful to distinguish the
different dimensions of our aesthetic experiences of nature, it does not seem plausible that all of
the suggested negative aesthetic qualities we experience in nature are ones that we intrinsically
value for their own sake. There might be much in our encounter with a rotting carcass in the
wild that we can intrinsically value, but the putrid smell is not one of those dimensions.
The
doctrine that any aesthetic experience of nature-- perceived from any possible perspective and
using any sense modality–is invariably aesthetically positive in every detail seems unsupportable.
Nature, it seems, has negative aesthetic qualities that have negative aesthetic value.
c. Do negative aesthetic qualities disappear with appropriate appreciation?
One might try to salvage the claim that there are no negative aesthetic qualities in nature by invoking the distinction between better and worse aesthetic appreciation of nature and by claiming that the experience of negative aesthetic qualities invariably involves an impoverished type of nature appreciation, perhaps because it is uninformed or biased. If we locate the experience of the putative negative aesthetic quality in a broader context and add aesthetically relevant information, the negative experience will dissipate. (This approach is similar to the one Rolston uses to contextualize intrinsic ugliness in nature.) Now while this maneuver may work to make the case that natural items are aesthetically positive on balance, it is hard see how it could remove the aesthetically negative quality entirely. What kind of bias is one showing when revolted by the smell of a decaying carcass or what information could one add that would make the taste of a rotten apple itself aesthetically appealing (or at least neutral)?
Once running in the Yukon, we came across feces on the trail. Upon examination, it turned out to be fresh bear scat containing partially digested berries. The encounter was aesthetically stimulating and by no means totally negative. Many would consider feces clear refutations of positive aesthetics. But we judged the encounter to be significantly positive overall. We marveled at the size of the pile. We looked around for the source of the red berries the bear had been eating. The fact that a bear had been in the area recently leant a seriousness to the mood: Running in the presence of bears is not a good idea. Nonetheless, the smell of the scat was disgusting. Although in its broader aesthetic context, the smell sensation might have been different than the smell of bear scat in a zoo (or unidentified in a room), its aesthetic quality was not changed from negative to positive. Nonetheless, the overall experience of the bear scat was an aesthetically positive one, for the negative smell was outweighed by cognitive interest and emotive depth.
Fudge develops a similar example: (Fudge before my example?)
Consider rotting plant material in a bog. . . . its scent is not particularly pleasing , and it does not possess scenic value. Science (especially botany and ecology) instructs us about how the decaying plants help to return nutrients back to the soil, contributing to the bog’s continued health. Science, then, teaches us about the systemic or relational properties that hold between the plants and other parts of the bog, which ideally leads to a newfound appreciation of the bog” 277.
Note that Fudge does not suggest that this scientific information makes the scent of the
bog pleasing or aesthetically positive. Placing the smell of the bog in its broader ecological
context by providing information about it can change the valence of one’s response to the bog
from negative to positive. Before, one’s response to the bog was based solely on the negative
smell. With the additional information, the bad smell is backgrounded and other features of the
bog are noted and highlighted. Given the smell is caused by plants returning their nutrients to the
soil, a sensitive observer will not be particularly bothered by it. Further, in its
expressive/representative dimension, the smell is now positive, not negative: It represents
ecologically important recycling activity. Nonetheless, the smell still stinks, but it doesn’t just
stink.
d. Are all natural items aesthetically positive on balance?
These examples suggest that an informed appreciation of negative aesthetic experiences of nature can transform them into positive aesthetic experiences. This phenomenon, while not supporting the claim that nature has no negative aesthetic properties, does provide some support for the idea that natural items are aesthetically positive on balance (i.e., after considering both their positive and negative aesthetic qualities). This is Glenn Parsons’ understanding of positive aesthetics: “I take positive aesthetics to be, roughly, the claim that any natural object, appropriately aesthetically appreciated, is on balance aesthetically good” (p. 288, 2002 BJA). (As we shall see below, Parsons holds this version of positive aesthetics on apriori grounds.) When seemingly aesthetically negative natural items (e.g., carcasses, scat) are placed in an informed context that specifies what they are, how they came to be, and in what way they relate to other natural items, frequently the negative dimensions are either transformed and/or outweighed by positive aesthetic features. Saito, for example, argues that there are always scientifically interes