HYELEMENTSPHILOSOPH

TSPHILOSOPHYELEMENT
AESTHETICS AND
THE PHILOSOPHY

An Introduction

Robert Stecker
Second Edition
OF ART
AESTHETICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART ROWMAN &
Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art
 Elements of Philosophy

The Elements of Philosophy series aims to produce core introductory texts

in the major areas of philosophy, among them metaphysics, epistemology,
ethics and moral theory, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, aesthet-
ics and the philosophy of art, feminist philosophy, and social and political
philosophy. Books in the series are written for an undergraduate audience
of second- through fourth-year students and serve as the perfect cornerstone
for understanding the various elements of philosophy.

Editorial Advisory Board

ROBERT AUDI, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME,

SENIOR ADVISORY EDITOR
William Alston, Syracuse University
Lynn Rudder Baker, University of Massachusetts
John Deigh, Northwestern University
Jorgé Garcia, Rutgers University
R. Douglas Geivett, Biola University
Philip Kain, Santa Clara University
Janet Kourany, University of Notre Dame
Hugh McCann, Texas A&M University
Alfred Mele, Davidson College
Louis Pojman, United States Military Academy
Ernest Sosa, Brown University
Eleonore Stump, St. Louis University

Moral Theory: An Introduction by Mark Timmons

Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses by Laurence Bon-
Jour
Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: An Introduction by Robert Stecker
Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art

An Introduction

Second Edition

Robert Stecker

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK
Published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com

Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2010 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stecker, Robert, 1947–

Aesthetics and the philosophy of art: an introduction / Robert Stecker. -- 2nd ed.
p. cm. — (Elements of philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7425-6410-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7425-6411-4 (pbk. : alk.
paper) — ISBN 978-1-4422-0128-6 (electronic)
1. Art—Philosophy. 2. Aesthetics—Philosophy. I. Title.
BH39.S74 2010
111’.85—dc22
2009039334

! ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

To Naseem
 !

Contents

Preface ix
Chapter 1 Introduction 1

PART I: AESTHETICS
Chapter 2 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty 15
Chapter 3 Conceptions of the Aesthetic: Aesthetic Experience 39
Chapter 4 Conceptions of the Aesthetic: Aesthetic Properties 65

PART II: PHILOSOPHY OF ART

Chapter 5 What Is Art? 95
Chapter 6 What Kind of Object Is a Work of Art? 123
Chapter 7 Interpretation and the Problem of the
Relevant Intention 145
Chapter 8 Representation: Fiction 163
Chapter 9 Representation: Depiction 185
Chapter 10 Expressiveness in Music and Poetry 201
Chapter 11 Artistic Value 221

vii
viii ! Contents

Chapter 12 Interaction: Ethical, Aesthetic, and

Artistic Value 247
Chapter 13 The Value of Architecture 275

Conclusion 289
References 293
Glossary 305
Index 309
About the Author 315
 !

Preface

One of the major themes of this book is that aesthetics and the philosophy
of art are two distinct, though overlapping fields. The former was launched
in the eighteenth century as the study of beauty and sublimity, art and na-
ture. As the categories of beauty and sublimity proved too constricting, a
more wide-ranging and variously defined category of the aesthetic emerged.
Aesthetics is the study of a certain kind of value. This value derives from
certain kinds of experience, and is identified in judgments that an object
possesses this value in virtue of its capacity to deliver the experience. The
philosophy of art, for the most part, developed from aesthetics, but is distinct
from it in two important ways. First, the philosophy of art deals with a much
wider array of questions; not just those about value, but issues in metaphysics,
epistemology, the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, the philosophy
of language and symbols in general. Second, art is too complex and diverse
to be explicable in terms of a single category such as the aesthetic. “Artistic
value” is constituted by a set of different kinds of value. The modes of ap-
preciating art, the means to understanding art, the kinds of objects that are
artworks are also all plural.
For this reason, the present work has two parts, each devoted to one of
these fields. Part I is about the aesthetic. Part II attempts to give a sense of
the range of issues addressed in the philosophy of art.
The aim of this book is to give an overview of the current state of the
debate on numerous issues within these two broad main topics. In addition,
it takes a stand on each issue it addresses, arguing for certain resolutions and

ix
x ! Preface

against others. In doing this, my goal is not just to present a controversy but
help to advance it toward a solution. I hope the reader will enter into the
debates set out in each chapter, taking his or her own stand which may well
be different from the author’s.
There is one more aim that should be mentioned. Many individual is-
sues are addressed in the following pages, and it is easy to ignore, or become
confused about, how they fit together. This work sets out several ways they
might fit together, and once again argues that some offer a better approach
than others. Regarding Part I, there are two main messages. First, that the
aesthetic should first and foremost be understood in terms of a certain type of
experience; second, that there are no privileged providers of the experience,
such as art. The aesthetic is something that can pervade our experience, be-
cause virtually every compartment of life contains objects that have aesthetic
value. Regarding Part II, there are also two main messages. One is the plu-
ralism about value, understanding, and appreciation mentioned above. The
other is that one approach to the philosophy of art—contextualism—works
better than its rivals in resolving issue after issue.
Material from several chapters appeared previously in the form of journal
articles or book chapters. Chapter 2 greatly expands material found in “The
Correct and the Appropriate in the Appreciation of Nature,” British Journal
of Aesthetics, 37, no. 4, 1997, 393–402. Chapter 5 is a revised and expanded
version of “Definition of Art” in the Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics, edited by
Jerrold Levinson (Oxford, 2003), 136–54. Chapter 6 is based on “The On-
tology of Art Interpretation,” in Art and Essence, edited by Stephen Davies
and Ananta Sukla (Greenwood Press, 2003), 177–91. Chapter 7 is a revised
version of “Interpretation and the Problem of the Relevant Intention,” in
Contemporary Debates in Aesthetics, edited by Matthew Kieran (Blackwell,
2006, 269–281). Chapter 10 includes material from “Expressiveness and Ex-
pression in Music and Poetry,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 59, no.
1 (2001), 85–96. Chapter 12 contains material from “Immoralism and the
Anti-theoretical View,” British Journal of Aesthetics, 48, no. 2 (2008), 145–61.
Chapter 13 includes material from “Reflections on Architecture: Buildings
as Environments, as Aesthetic Objects, and as Artworks,” Architecture and
Civilization, edited by Michael Mitias (Rodopi, 1999), 81–93. I am grateful to
the publishers of these pieces for permission to reprint material from them.
I am also grateful to several people who read parts of the book. Allen
Carlson provided very useful feedback on chapter 2. Berys Gaut offered valu-
able comments on chapters 3 and 4. Paul Guyer gave helpful advice on the
material on Kant in chapter 3. Parts of chapter 7 were read at conferences in
Manchester, England (2003) and Pasadena, California (2004). I thank the
 Preface ! xi

audience at the conferences for their questions and am especially grateful to

Kent Bach, my commentator at Pasadena. Stephen Davies and Ted Gracyk
provided helpful comments on Chapter 8. Last, but not least, I am grateful to
an anonymous referee for many good suggestions for improving this book.

Preface to 2nd edition

The 2nd edition of Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art preserves the major
themes and conclusions of the original while expanding its content, provid-
ing some new features, and enhancing accessibility.
Most chapters have been updated in some way. Many chapters have new
material discussing significant new work or a topic omitted from the first
edition. Most significantly, there are now two different chapters on top-
ics related to representation instead of the one chapter in the 1st edition.
Chapter 8 on fictional representation now includes a substantial discussion
of emotional responses to fiction and the apparent paradox engendered by
these responses. The nature of pictorial representation is treated at greater
length in this edition with a chapter devoted to this topic. Chapter 12 on the
interaction of ethical and aesthetic value has also been substantially enlarged
by a discussion of immoralism—the view that ethical defects in an artwork
can make it aesthetically better.
New features consist of study questions at the end of each chapter and a
glossary to help students keep track of the more technical terms used here.
Finally, I have attempted to rewrite passages where the intended thought
seemed hard to grasp. Hopefully, this will make for a more accessible work
without making it an unchallenging one.
 CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Historical Underpinnings
It may seem surprising but it is widely believed that both the concept of art
and the discipline of aesthetics didn’t exist before the eighteenth century.
This supposed twin birth links these two concepts—art and the aesthetic—
in ways that have profoundly influenced subsequent thought about both. I
will say more about this influence in a moment. First we should ask whether
the widespread belief is true. To put it more colorfully, were the twins really
born at the suspected moment? Are they really twins?
The historical facts are complex. The existence of art—not the concept
but items that might plausibly be thought to fall under the concept, such
as paintings—date well back into human prehistory. By the time ancient
civilizations flourished in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, India, China, and
elsewhere art—painting, sculpture, poetry, music, architecture—existed
abundantly and individual works were created that are as wonderful as any
that have subsequently come to exist.
In the history of western thought about art and beauty (a concept closely
related to aesthetic value), there is much that precedes the eighteenth century.
For example, there are many discussions of beauty in ancient and medieval
philosophical writings. There are also discussions of what we now think of as
art forms: poetry, music, painting, architecture, and dance that also group these
things together. Interestingly, discussions of beauty, on the one hand, and
poetry, painting, music, etc., on the other, are distinct. While it is recognized
in these writings that a painting or sculpture can be beautiful, they are not the

1
2 ! Chapter One

clearest examples of beauty or the most beautiful things. What links these art
forms together in ancient thought is the fact that they represent other things
and do so in a way that grips us emotionally. It was not even assumed that their
capacity to do this is a good thing. Plato famously worried that the representa-
tion of reality in painting and poetry is unreliable and misleading and that the
emotions they evoke corrupt the soul.

Aesthetics versus the Philosophy of Art

Several things happened in the eighteenth century that promoted the idea
that the concept of the aesthetic and of art originate there. First, the study
of the beautiful and the sublime in nature, art, and other human artifacts
became a distinct philosophical topic, written about in works wholly devoted
to that subject matter. These works focused not only on the features of ob-
jects that make them beautiful (sublime), but also on our reaction to these
features and the properties of the human mind that make these reactions
possible. They attempted to characterize the judgments that an object is
beautiful and the kind of value being ascribed to objects by such judgments.
The philosophical topic came to be called “aesthetics” in the eighteenth cen-
tury, courtesy of Alexander Baumgarten in 1735. But writings on distinctly
aesthetic topics go back to the beginning of the century.
Second, what is known as the system of fine arts also came into existence
around this time. Although, as in ancient thought, one of the defining feature
of the arts was the fact that they are representations, they were now valued in
explicitly aesthetic terms. That is, they were considered paradigmatic objects
of judgments of “taste” (a common eighteenth-century name for aesthetic
judgments). They were evaluated for their beauty, independent of practical
functions that other artifacts served. For the first time, perhaps, a group of
objects were classified together in virtue of their aesthetic function.1 Deserv-
edly or not, it is from this eighteenth-century source that several alternative
conceptions of the subject matter of aesthetics have emerged.
One approach to aesthetics is to stick as closely as possible to the original
eighteenth-century project as just described. However, the conceptual shifts
that have occurred in the last three hundred years make it impossible to pur-
sue exactly the same project. For one thing, to confine it to the study of the
beautiful and sublime would now be regarded by most of us as too constrict-
ing. There are many artworks that are not well characterized by either predi-
cate. There is the art of the grotesque, the horrifying, the morbid, and the
shocking. There are ordinary objects in which, it could be argued, we take an
 Introduction ! 3

aesthetic interest but do not deserve to be characterized as either beautiful

or sublime. These include all kinds of artifacts ranging from hair clips and
tee-shirts to household appliances. Perhaps there are even aspects of nature
of which the same is true. Consider a smooth, gray stone one might find on
a beach. It is attractive to look at and touch, but not necessarily a beautiful
object as is the delicate and colorful scallop shell one also discovers in the
same location. For this reason (as well as others) the focus on beauty and
sublimity has given way to an attempt to formulate a broader notion of the
aesthetic, which then becomes the central focus of this approach. Underlying
it is an assumption that there is a special sort of experience, or a special set
of properties, about which we make a distinctive kind of judgment ascribing
a unique sort of value, all of which fall under the concept of the aesthetic.
Those who accept this assumption are in a position to explore the nature
of the aesthetic (aesthetic experiences, aesthetic properties, aesthetic judg-
ments, aesthetic values) wherever it occurs—nature, art, and artifacts.
Beginning in the nineteenth century, “aesthetics” gradually acquired a
new meaning, namely, the philosophy of art. Two further ways of thinking
about the subject matter of aesthetics derive from this long-standing ten-
dency. One approach is guided by the thought that art is the most significant
or the primary bearer of aesthetic value; it is the one kind of thing that is
made chiefly with the intention to create aesthetic value, and, hence, the
concept of the aesthetic is the key to understanding the nature and value of
art. One might say that this approach adapts the eighteenth-century project
into a philosophy of art. It sees art through the prism of the eighteenth-cen-
tury system of the fine arts.
The final approach claims that such an adaptation is a distorting lens
through which to look at art. Art is too complex and valuable in too many
ways to be grasped exclusively through the concept of the aesthetic. This ap-
proach sees art as something that has existed almost as long as humans have,
as something that fulfills many functions and has been conceived in diverse
ways. Hence “aesthetics,” understood as the philosophy of art, has to be freed
from an exclusive concern with art as a bearer of aesthetic value! Rather than
being an adaptation of the eighteenth-century project, this approach thinks
of the philosophy of art and “aesthetics,” understood as the study of aesthetic
value, as distinct, and, at best, overlapping disciplines or subject matters.
This book will examine all three conceptions of the discipline of aesthet-
ics, but let me say up front, that it is aligned with, and will argue for, the
last approach. To avoid confusion, we will use “aesthetics” to refer to only
the study of aesthetic value and related notions such as aesthetic experience,
4 ! Chapter One

aesthetic properties, and aesthetic judgments. Given this usage, aesthetics is

one thing, the philosophy of art is another, though this is not to deny that
some conception of aesthetic value will play an important, but not defining,
role in the philosophy of art.
The book will offer an introduction to both aesthetics as just defined in
Part I and the philosophy of art in Part II. Interestingly, once we distinguish
between aesthetics and the philosophy of art, the first approach mentioned
above, considered as a conception of aesthetics, is perfectly consistent with
the third approach. What is at odds with the latter is the second approach.

Aesthetics
The Concept of the Aesthetic
It is plausible that countless things possess aesthetic value in some degree.
Among these are artworks and natural objects, but also many everyday ob-
jects such as our clothes and other adornments, the decoration of our living
spaces, and artifacts from toasters to automobiles, packaging, the appearance
of our own faces and bodies, the artificial environments we create, the food
we eat, and so on indefinitely. Is it really true that all these things share this
value in common, and if so, how should it be characterized?
To illustrate the diversity of views about the nature of the aesthetic, con-
sider a meal at a restaurant. Such an occasion will appeal to us, particularly
to our senses, in a variety of ways. First, the restaurant will create a setting, an
ambience, in which we experience the meal, by the way it is decorated, the
amount of light provided to the diners, the seating arrangements, and so on.
An order (someone’s meal) will provide a variety of looks, tastes, smells, tex-
tures, to some extent presented sequentially (the different courses), to some
extent presented simultaneously (the different parts of a single course). Does
such a meal possess aesthetic value? Does it provide an aesthetic experience,
and does that experience potentially take in everything mentioned thus far?
Which properties of the occasion and of the food are aesthetic properties?
Are the tastes and textures of the dishes aesthetic properties of the meal? Are
any of the judgments we make about it aesthetic judgments? that it is good,
that the dishes compliment each other, that this is spicy, and that tastes of
ginger (or is gingery).
Does a meal have aesthetic value? The fact is that some would say of
course, while others would say, of course not. J. O. Urmson (1957) belongs
to the former camp, since he thinks that aesthetic value results from pleasure
caused by the way things appear to the senses. Hence, a judgment that food
is good based on the way it appears to the senses is an aesthetic judgment.
 Introduction ! 5

All the senses are potentially involved in the judgment. Taste and smell
are obviously involved, but the visual appearance of food is important, as is
texture which is discerned by the sense of touch activated in chewing. Even
the sense of hearing enters the picture as when eating crispy or crunchy food.
Imagine what it would be like to eat a raw carrot and hear nothing. On the
other hand, Immanuel Kant (1952), one of the most influential philosophers
on the aesthetic, while he might admit that a restaurant’s decor could be an
object of aesthetic judgment, would deny that the tastes, textures, and smells
of food are aesthetically valuable. They are merely agreeable or disagreeable.
Kant would say that the pleasure of food is pleasurable sensation (which may
be consistent with Urmson’s idea that it is pleasure derived from the way food
appears to the senses, the way it tastes, smells, looks, and so on). But this is
not aesthetic pleasure, which should be distinguished from the agreeable for
Kant, and the judgment that the food is good is not an aesthetic judgment.
Rather, Kant insists that aesthetic judgments are disinterested because, he
thought, we are indifferent to the existence of what is being contemplated,
caring only for the contemplation itself. The judgments of agreeableness are
interested because we care whether the objects of such judgments exist.
Kant and Urmson disagree about the characterization of aesthetic expe-
rience, but agree that aesthetic judgment has its basis in such experience,
which, when the judgment is positive, is some sort of pleasurable experi-
ence. Others locate the basis of aesthetic judgments more in the properties
of objects than the experience they cause. If food is an aesthetic object, it is
because of the tastes and textures we discern, or the relations among them,
rather than the experiences the properties might cause.

Aesthetic Value
Several further questions about aesthetic value must be considered. It is often
said that when we think something is aesthetically good, we value it for its
own sake or as an end, rather than for something else it brings about or as a
means. It is true that, when we listen to music, we are likely to focus on the
music, whereas as when we go shopping, we are more likely to focus on what
we can do with potential purchases. Of course, to say this is to oversimplify.
We may well focus on the design of an article of clothing, examining it on
its own “merits,” and, on the other hand, we may wonder whether the music
would be good to dance to, or suitable for a certain occasion.
There is, however, a more serious challenge to the idea that we value the
music for its own sake. Should we really say this of the music or the experi-
ence of listening to it (if either)? If what is crucial to aesthetic value is an
6 ! Chapter One

experience, perhaps we should say that it is valued for its own sake, in which
case the music itself would seem to have a kind of instrumental value.
This challenge concerns the way we value objects of aesthetic judgments.
There is another, equally important question about the objectivity of this
value. In the eighteenth century, aesthetic judgments were called judgments
of taste, and we seem to be torn about what constitutes taste. We feel both
that there is such a thing as good and bad taste and that there is no disputing
judgments of taste; to each their own. This mild form of schizophrenia is re-
flected in the views of two of the most important eighteenth-century writers.
Kant takes aesthetic judgments to be subjective and thus they do not make
truth claims, but he nevertheless thinks that they claim universal assent.
David Hume (1993), who wrote a little earlier in the century, also thinks
that judgments of taste have an essentially subjective aspect, being “derived”
from sentiment or reactions of pleasure and displeasure, yet he argues for an
(intersubjective) standard vindicating good taste over bad. Can one really
have it both ways, as Hume and Kant at least appear to want?
This question applies to even the most standard example of the subjectiv-
ity of taste. Consider taste in food. We allow to each their own preferences.
You may not like lobster at all, and that is just fine. If you do like it, but
insist that it should be boiled to a rubbery consistency, we are tolerant of
your idiosyncrasy but look on it as just that. Yours will never be the standard
of taste among lobster eaters. In this case, if we can talk of a standard, it is a
contingent, intersubjective, probably culturally relative one.
When we evaluate works of art, is there a similar standard, and is it more
or less contingent, more or less relative to the taste of a group?
In the chapters on the aesthetic that follow, we will attempt to evalu-
ate various conceptions of the aesthetic. Questions about the way we value
aesthetic objects and the objectivity or subjectivity of that value will also
be discussed below. We will begin in chapter 2 by taking a detailed look at
aesthetic appreciation in a particular domain: nature. This will supply many
concrete examples and a variety of views about what ought to be appreciated
in nature: views about which experiences and which properties of natural
environments are crucial to this appreciation. This will lay the groundwork
for and motivate a more theoretical evaluation of conceptions of aesthetic
experience, aesthetic properties, and aesthetic value in chapters 3 and 4.
At the end of this book, in chapter 13, we will return to the topic of envi-
ronmental aesthetics by examining the way we appreciate certain artificial
environments: buildings and their surrounding sites. We reserve this discus-
sion until the end because many, though by no means all, of these buildings
 Introduction ! 7

are artworks, and to understand our appreciation of them, it will be useful to

have the resources provided by the chapters on the philosophy of art.

The Philosophy of Art

The topic of Part II is the philosophy of art. Here we move beyond issues of
the aesthetic and of value, but without leaving those issues behind entirely.
We do so because artistic value is not confined to aesthetic value. We have
to explore what other properties of works contribute to their value as art, and
what conception of artistic value this leads us to. We also have to investigate
a whole new set of issues.

Central Issues
Aesthetics, at least as set out above, is primarily a topic within value theory.
In contrast, the philosophy of art deals with issues from a wide spectrum of
philosophical topics: metaphysics, the theory of knowledge, value theory,
and the philosophies of mind and language.
As I conceive of the philosophy of art, there are five central issues. One
issue concerns the value of art as art. Not every valuable property of a work
is part of its artistic value or its value as art. For example, most people don’t
think that a work’s monetary value is part of its artistic value. Similarly, the
fact that a work has sentimental value for me because it was present at a
significant moment in my life does not enhance its artistic value. So how do
we distinguish artistically valuable properties from other valuable properties?
Are the artistically valuable properties among the defining properties of art?
Are there properties that a work must have to be artistically valuable?
We have already mentioned that one way people answer these questions is
through an aesthetic conception of art. This approach identifies the artistic
value of art with its aesthetic value. If we can settle on a conception of the
latter kind of value, we have a simple and neat way of distinguishing artistic
from nonartistic value in art. Aesthetically valuable properties would be
properties a work must have to be artistically valuable.
However, we have also noted that the aesthetic conception of art has
come under strong criticism, and this applies to its theory of artistic value.
Some doubt that appeal to aesthetic value is sufficient to explain the cultural
significance of art. In recent years philosophers of art have explored the
cognitive value of art: the role of art in the acquisition of knowledge and
understanding. They have inquired into the ethical evaluation of art. There
has also been a great deal of work on art and the emotions. We ascribe value
8 ! Chapter One

to art that moves us in various ways. What sort of value is this? The nature
and kinds of artistic value is explored in chapters 11 through 13. Chapter 11
presents two contrasting theories of artistic value and argues in favor of one
that makes such value more contingent, more plural, and less unique than
the rival approach. Chapter 12 focuses on the ethical value of artworks and
ways this can interact with a works aesthetic value. Chapter 13 returns to a
theme with which we began this book: environmental aesthetics by examin-
ing the value of architecture and the artificial environments it creates. Both
chapters 12 and 13 offer further support for the conception of artistic value
defended in chapter 11.
A second issue is raised by the question: what is art? Most commonly, one
attempts to resolve it by providing a definition of art. A definition attempts
to identify the essential nature of art, or at least principles of classification
for distinguishing art from nonart. Traditionally it searches for character-
istics that all artworks share and nonartworks lack. Again, the aesthetic
conception of art has a neat answer: something is art if it is made to create
significant aesthetic value (or a significant aesthetic experience). However,
this is an answer that has carried less and less conviction as art has developed
through the twentieth and into the twenty-first centuries. We have count-
less examples of items put forward as art that aim for something other than
aesthetic satisfaction: ready-mades such as Fountain (a urinal) selected for its
very lack of aesthetic interest, a crucifix immersed in urine, pop art replicas
of soup cans, hamburgers, Brillo boxes, varieties of conceptual art such as a
postcard series recording the mundane aspects of life, specifications of geo-
graphical locations, lint scattered across a gallery floor, a bisected cow, or a
naked person hanging from hooks over a city street. Some of these works may
have an aesthetic payoff, but appreciation of it requires so much contextual-
ization that those looking for a straightforward aesthetic pleasure would do
better to ogle a new-car lot.
The seemingly strange turns art has taken over the recent past is only
one of several reasons why some way of reconceptualizing seems urgent. The
mere variety of art forms, and the vagueness of the boundaries between such
things as art and craft and art and entertainment, is another equally compel-
ling reason. Among those who reject traditional approaches to defining art
(such as the aesthetic definition), consensus has wavered between those who
claim that art cannot be defined and those who think it can if we look in less
obvious places. This debate is surveyed in chapter 5.
The third issue concerns the ontology of art. What type of object is an
artwork? This question should not be confused with the question: what is
art? At least one way of answering the latter question is to identify a set of
 Introduction ! 9

properties shared by all artworks and by no nonartworks. However, if all

artworks belong to a type of object, it hardly follows that no nonartworks
belong to that type. Consider a candidate answer. Artworks all belong to the
type: physical object. Obviously if this answer were correct, there would be
many nonartworks that belong to this type of object too. It also shouldn’t
be assumed that the question —what type of object is an artwork?—is the
right question to ask because the question presupposes that there is one type
of object that all artworks fall under, and this is far from obvious. Paintings
may be one type of object, novels a different type. The issue is to identify the
relevant type or types.
But why? If it is fairly easy to see why one might want a definition of art, it
is not so obvious what makes the ontological issue compelling. There are two
reasons why we should care about answers to such questions. First, it’s just
puzzling what kind of thing art is. Consider a piece of music such as Mozart’s
clarinet concerto or the Beatle’s “Yesterday.” It is not a physical object, since
there is no object one can uniquely point to and say, “That is the concerto.”
Nor is it a specific event such as a performance that occurs over an identifi-
able stretch of time for the same reason. Yet it is not something that exists
simply in someone’s mind, since no mind, not even the composer’s, has a
privileged possession of it. So what is it? Second, the way we answer this
question has profound consequences for most other issues involving the phi-
losophy of art: questions about the value as well as the meaning of artworks.
We can’t ignore this issue, which is the topic of chapter 6.
A fourth issue derives from the fact that artworks typically mean some-
thing, in a very broad sense of that term. For example, many works of art are
representational, that is, they use the medium of an art form to represent
aspects of the actual world, or of fictional worlds, or of both at once. Yet this
is clearly done in quite different ways in different art forms. In two dimen-
sional visual art, the chief, though not the only means of representation, is
depiction. This is something very different from the linguistic representation
found in literature, or even the three-dimensional mode of representation
found in sculpture. Is there a useful general theory of representation avail-
able for understanding these different modes of representation, or does each
need its own account? In addition to being representational, many works of
art are expressive of moods, emotions, attitudes, and other mental states. Is
this another way that artworks are meaningful? There are several competing
accounts of expression in art, which anyone interested in this topic needs to
sort out. Representation is the topic of chapters 8 and 9 and expression is
discussed in chapter 10.
10 ! Chapter One

Meaning and understanding are correlative notions. If artworks are

meaningful, they are the kind of thing in need of understanding. So it is not
surprising that a fifth issue concerns what it means to understand artworks.
A good chunk of this issue involves providing a theory of interpretation.
Artworks are among the things commonly in need of interpretation, and we
come to better understand and appreciate such works by interpreting them.
However, I would argue that not all understanding of art is interpretive.
Whether interpretive or not, there are a number of important questions
about artistic understanding. Are there right and wrong understandings (in-
terpretations)? Is there one right one or a plurality of acceptable interpreta-
tions of a work? What role does the artist’s intention play? These and other
questions will be discussed in chapters 6 and 7.

Central Approaches
So far we have been talking about the issues central to the philosophy of
art. Before concluding this chapter, we should say something about different
approaches.
One approach is essentialism. An example of this was mentioned at the
beginning of this chapter as the aesthetic conception of art. According to
this view, art is essentially something made to provide significant aesthetic
experience, and the fact that art has this essence is internal to the concept of
art. This approach also sometimes provides an essentialist conception of the
value of art. The value of an artwork as art is a function of the aesthetically
valuable experience it provides to those who understand it.
The aesthetic conception of art is not the only essentialist conception.
What all these conceptions have in common is that they claim that the sort
of properties that makes something an artwork and gives it value as art are
unchanging and that they can be known a priori by anyone who possesses the
concept of art. Hence these features of art are independent of the varying
contexts in which works are created.
One alternative to this sort of essentialism is contextualism. Contextual-
ism is the view that the central issues of aesthetics can only be satisfactorily
resolved by appealing to the context in which a work comes into existence:
the context of origin or creation. What makes something art does not de-
pend on a static essence, but on a relation a given work bears to other works.
Hence, contextualists believe that a satisfactory definition of art must be
relational. Contextualists also claim that the very identity of a work—what
distinguishes it from other works and from all other objects—depends, in
part, on the context in which it is created. Thus, two distinct works might
look or sound exactly alike but be distinguished by facts about the contexts
 Introduction ! 11

in which they originate. Further, reference to this context is equally crucial

for fixing the meaning of works and to their understanding. It is essential for
a proper assessment of their artistic value. Hence, all of the central issues of
aesthetics are resolved by appeal to the context of origin of the work.
Constructivists also deny that art has a fixed essence, but in addition they
believe that context of origin does not pin down the artwork once and for all.
Hence, constructivism is always incompatible with at least some of the theses
held by contextualism as well as with essentialism. For constructivists, what
occurs after an artist makes an artifact is at least as important for the creation
and meaning of an artwork as the context of origin. For many constructivists,
the evolving culture shapes the work at least as much as the artist does. Art
is the product of culture, for these theorists, as much or more than it is the
product of creative individuals, and insofar as it is the product of individuals,
they include critics and interpreters as well as artists.
Constructivism comes in different versions. I distinguish two such ver-
sions here. Moderate constructivists claim that artworks undergo changes
as they receive new interpretations, as they enter new cultural contexts, or
conceptual environments. Furthermore, these changes are not peripheral
ones that occur around a stable core fixed by the work’s origin. The distinc-
tion between core meanings and peripheral ones is rejected. Hence works
are things that are much more in flux than they are thought to be under
contextualism, and there is a consequent difference in views about the un-
derstanding and value of art. Some moderate constructivists claim that the
boundary between properties that belong to artworks and properties that do
not is indeterminate. Interpretive properties are imputed to works rather
than discovered in them.
Radical constructivists believe that works are created, not merely altered,
in the process of interpretation. Of course, this raises the question: the
interpretation of what? The answer cannot simply be the interpretation of
the created object, since an interpretation must begin with some object it is
directed at, and the created object is an end product, not in existence until
the interpretive activity is complete or at least well under way. There must be
an object that initially prompts and guides the interpretation, and this must
be different from the created object. Hence for radical constructivists, there
are always three objects involved in art interpretation: the initial object, the
interpretation, and the created or subsequent object.
There is a fourth approach to the philosophy of art that is gradually emerg-
ing, though at this point, it does not offer as clear a program for resolving
its central issues as the three approaches just mentioned. This last approach
is based on an appeal to the multifaceted discipline known as cognitive sci-
12 ! Chapter One

ence, which includes the area of computer science known as artificial intel-
ligence as well as cognitive and evolutionary psychology, the philosophy of
the mind, linguistics, and neuroscience. The basic thought underlying this
approach is that there are certain features of the human mind and body—its
evolution, its cognitive or perceptual structure—that shed light on art, our
concept of it, its value for us, its ability to represent or express that is inde-
pendent of context of origin of particular artworks or the changing cultural
context in which they are received. However, since cognitive science is
young, there is little in the way of firmly established theory one can appeal
to. Instead, there are still mainly competing hypotheses, and anyone who
appeals to cognitive science is making bets on which of these will turn out
to be the winners.
As we explore the issues mentioned above, the debate among these very
different approaches will emerge more sharply.

Note
1. The claim that the concept of fine art has its historical origin in the eighteenth
century was first made by Paul Oskar Kristellar in “The Modern System of the Arts,”
Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (1951), 496–527; 13, 1952, 17–46. This article has
been enormously influential. James Porter challenges both the claim that the con-
cept of art has its origin in the eighteenth century and that the system of fine arts
that did appear at that time was primarily organized by aesthetic criteria in “Is Art
Modern? Kristellar’s ‘Modern System of the Arts’ Reconsidered,” British Journal of
Philosophy 49 (2009), 1–24.
 PART I

AESTHETICS
 CHAPTER TWO

Environmental Aesthetics
Natural Beauty

In chapter 1, we said that aesthetics studies art and beauty and that these
are overlapping but different subject matters. When we think about the ap-
preciation of art, we find that beauty is one, but only one, among the several
things that we value. When we think about the appreciation of nature, it
is tempting to suppose that beauty is the main thing. It is also tempting to
suppose that beauty in nature is a simpler thing than beauty in art, because
it can be recognized without much understanding of structure or context.
It stares one in the face. Go to a beach and look where water meets sand.
Most everyone can see the beauty in that. However, if you encounter a dead,
discolored fish in a state of decay as you walk along the beach, you prob-
ably won’t think, “That is a thing of beauty.” When you encounter beauty
in nature, it stares you in the face, and when you don’t, it stares you in the
face—or so it might seem.
This chapter is concerned with the aesthetic appreciation of nature. Envi-
ronmental aesthetics, as this topic is also called, is a subject that is attracting
increasing attention, perhaps in part because of the potential connection
with environmental ethics, a connection that is explored later in the chapter
in the section titled “Are There Norms of Nature Appreciation?” Examining
a variety of concrete cases of aesthetic appreciation of this type will prepare
the way for the more theoretical examination of conceptions of the aesthetic
in chapters 3 and 4.
If we take it as literally as we should, the expression “environmental aes-
thetics” is a broader and more complex topic than one concerned only with

15
16 ! Chapter Two

natural environments. It should also cover the environments that human

beings construct and their interface with nature in the very common situa-
tions where they meet. We will return to this topic in chapter 13 where we
will discuss the aesthetic value of architecture.

Objects and Models

When it comes to art, it is obvious what objects are appreciated. They are the
artworks. Where works are performed, we also appreciate the performances.
People disagree about the characterization of these objects, and in what
proper appreciation of them consists, but not about these being the appropri-
ate objects of art appreciation.1
While the way we conceptualize nature divides it up into various parts
and objects—into flowers and stones, fields and forests, mountain ranges and
ridge lines, ecosystems and solar systems—it doesn’t tell us which units are
appropriate objects of appreciation. Are there appropriate units, or objects,
which would imply that others are inappropriate or incorrect?
There are a number of different views on this topic. Let us begin with a
survey, bearing in mind that it is not intended to cover all actual, much less
possible, proposals.
Some think that what we should appreciate in nature is not so much ob-
jects as properties or appearances that nature presents to us. For example, a
mountain range presents a constantly changing visual field. It changes with
the light because of weather or time of day, with the point of view of the
spectator, and with the seasons. Proper appreciation on this view consists in
getting a precise take on the visual appearance of the moment. This view
can be extended to the other senses as long as one is careful to focus on the
impression of the moment. Call this the impressionist model of nature ap-
preciation, obviously named after the mode of perceiving that is embodied in
the landscape painting of the impressionists, whose foremost exponent was
Monet. (Another painter, Cezanne, painted a particular mountain—Mount
St. Victoire—over and over again. Each time it has a different look though
one can recognize it as Mount St. Victoire.)
A second view tells us to focus on particular objects. Thus we may en-
counter a stone with lovely colors or an unusual shape or smoothness and
appreciate the stone for these pleasing qualities. We could do the same with
a pretty flower or with an animal say a monarch butterfly or a rainbow trout.
Notice that, on this view, we can appreciate natural objects in or out of their
natural setting because we are focusing exclusively on the object. It’s fine if
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 17

we encounter such objects “in nature,” but it is also fine if we bring them
home and appreciate them there. We can pin the butterfly and put it behind
glass; we can plant the flower in our backyard; we can put the stone on the
mantelpiece. Call this the object model.
This view resembles the previous one in some respects, but not in others.
When we focus on a particular object, we are likely to pick out for appre-
ciation surface properties, something also emphasized by the impressionist
model. But they may not be quite the same surface properties. We appreciate
the flower for its “true” color and shape, rather than for the momentary ap-
pearance it happens to present. We also conceive of the objects in terms of
categories such as flower, fish, and stone. We notice properties as properties
of objects on the object model, while this is more optional on the impres-
sionist model. In fact some proponents of the latter model advise us to try
to ignore the fact that we are seeing a certain object, so we can see what is
“really” before our eyes, rather than “see” according to a preconception of
what such an object should look like.
A third position treats nature as a landscape. It claims that we should
focus on a view rather than a single discreet object. A view or vista is an
object that can be seen from a relatively fixed point of view. Sometimes the
kind of vistas emphasized by the landscape model is the sort that prompts
the creation of “scenic turnouts” on highways: scenes of great, even breath-
taking, beauty. But there is nothing about the view that the object of ap-
preciation of nature is a landscape that requires that we exclusively focus on
such spectacular scenes. Just as the history of landscape painting is a history
of shifting emphases that range from the representation of dramatic storms
to quiet, ordinary agricultural scenes, our interest may vary in the views we
encounter in nature. Human beings have a natural tendency to find beauty
in what is available. If what is available are ridgelines with sweeping views
of lakes and mountains, one might have trouble finding much beauty in a
cornfield. However, if cornfields are what one has to look at, one will start
discriminating among them and find more to appreciate in some rather
than others, finding some, but not all, quite beautiful. (Availability is just
one determinant of our ability to discriminate beauty. Another would be
the aspects of nature celebrated, revered, or in other ways made salient by
a culture.)
Just as the impressionist and object models are not entirely disjoint, so
the landscape model partially overlaps with both of these alternatives. This
is because there are not only an enormous variety of views to which one can
attend, but there are different ways of looking at views. One way, of course,
18 ! Chapter Two

is the way recommended by the impressionist model. A different way bears

a kinship with the object model, since it involves the scrutinizing of specific
objects contained in the view. However, the landscape model is not com-
mitted to one such way of seeing and that, along with its fixation on views,
differentiates it from the other models.
All three of the models mentioned so far are sometimes associated
with a doctrine known as “formalism.” This doctrine is more commonly
directed at art appreciation and claims that, to properly appreciate an
artwork, one should attend to its form rather than content, where form is
conceived as something immediately available to the senses. (See chapter
5 for more on formalism in the philosophy of art.) Similarly, formalism in
nature appreciation claims that the proper appreciation of nature should
be confined to properties or appearances immediately available to the
senses, without reliance on background knowledge such as that provided
by science. Though the three models mentioned so far tend to emphasize
this kind of appreciation, it is not so clear that any of them make the
formalist’s claim that nature appreciation should be confined to the ap-
preciation of such properties. This issue is discussed further in the section
titled “A Modest Objection” below.
Before stepping back to take stock of the models mentioned so far, with
their favored objects of appreciation, I will introduce just one more model.
Call it the artwork model. Its main idea is that we should appreciate nature
as an artwork. There are two versions of this view: the literal version and
the “as-if” version. The literal version says that nature literally is an artwork.
One source of this version is religion: nature is God’s, or the gods’, artwork,
which, given traditional theological beliefs would require it being seen as
not only an artwork, but as the best artwork. Another possible source of this
version is the mistaken idea that something is art if it is beautiful.2
The “as-if” version does not say that nature is an artwork. In fact it
denies this, but nevertheless says that we should appreciate nature as if it
were an artwork. A rationale for this view claims that art appreciation is
our only real model of aesthetic appreciation, so if we desire to aestheti-
cally appreciate nature we have to treat it as if it were art.
This view bears some similarities with the landscape model, from which it
might draw inspiration. It is easy to drift from the idea that what we appreci-
ate in nature is a (natural) landscape to the idea that we appreciate nature
by treating a view as if it were a landscape painting. However, it is important
to recall that this is not what the landscape model actually says, nor is the
artwork model committed to treating landscape painting as the only art form
relevant to the enjoyment of nature.
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 19

The Distortion Objection

All these models have come in for a variety of criticisms. I will focus on two:
one severe, one modest. The severe criticism is that all these models distort
or misrepresent the proper of appreciation of nature and, thus, should be re-
jected.3 Let us explore this criticism first, before turning to the more modest
objection.
Perhaps it is easiest to see the force of the distortion claim by examining
how it applies to the last model that we discussed: the “as-if” version of the
artwork model. Here we are explicitly being asked to appreciate nature by
pretending it is something it is not. We imagine that a rock face is carved
with the intention of producing the shape on view, when in fact it was pro-
duced by natural forces such as erosion, forces that operate independently
of human intentions. This is actually a double distortion. First, we are being
asked to distort the object of appreciation by imagining (though not actually
believing) it is an artifact when it is no such thing. In addition, this model
distorts what actually happens, typically, when nature is an object of aes-
thetic appreciation. When you enjoy the sight of a beautiful sunset, is there
a pretense that you are looking at a painting? Would such a pretense enhance
your appreciation? This version of the artwork model is based on a faulty
understanding of “aesthetic appreciation” as a synonym for the appreciation
of art. Almost any object presented to the senses or the imagination can be
aesthetically appreciated. As noted at the beginning of this book, the con-
cept of the aesthetic developed historically as something that applied equally
to art and nature. Hence, the pretense is neither needed nor desirable, and
may justly be described as a distortion if it is presented as our characteristic
mode of aesthetic appreciation of nature.
Does the distortion objection apply to the other models we have men-
tioned so far? If it does, it must do so on somewhat different grounds, since
these other models require no pretense on our part. When we examine a
stone, we are not pretending that it is smooth, gray, and solid, that it has as
a graceful shape, and is unaccountably pleasant to touch. Nevertheless, the
distortion objection has been put forward against the object model as well.
What the objection claims is that when we attend to an object in isolation
from its natural environment, some of its properties become invisible, while
others take on a false appearance. Because a stone is such a hard and solid
thing, looked at in isolation, it may give us a sense of permanence. However,
if we see it in relation to and as part of its natural setting, we would be more
likely to realize that its current properties are molded by natural forces, which
were previously invisible to us, and we might be more impressed with its
20 ! Chapter Two

malleability and regard the sense of permanence as a false impression. So the

purported distortion that results from adhering to the object model is due to
its tendency to hide some aesthetically relevant properties from view while
falsely suggesting the existence of others. Or, to put the matter another way,
objects, both living and nonliving, possess an “organic unity” with its envi-
ronment, which is the source of much of the object’s aesthetic value and this
unity is destroyed when the object is viewed in isolation.
One can also criticize the landscape model and the impressionist model on
somewhat similar grounds. The former asks us to appreciate something that is
“arbitrarily” framed, that is “static” and “two dimensional.” It reduces nature
to something that is purely visual, cutting off the engagement of the other
senses. It requires a fixed point of view whereas nature is in fact something
in which we can move around, in which we are immersed. The impression-
ist model can be criticized for treating objects as mere patterns of light and
sound (a rushing river), or shape and color (a mountain in autumn).

Digression: Is Nature an Artwork?

Before evaluating the distortion objection and turning to the modest objection,
we will briefly digress to discuss the literal version of the artwork model, which
typically derives from a religious conception of nature appreciation. In order
to properly evaluate this view it is important to distinguish two claims that
it makes, the first purportedly lending support to the second. It is especially
important to distinguish these claims because it is easy to wrongly suppose that
they come to the same thing. The first claim is that nature is the creation of an
intelligent being or beings. The second claim, for which the first is purportedly
a reason, is that nature is like an artwork created by human beings, except that
it is a far superior one since it created by a far superior being or beings.
This view can only appeal to those who are willing to take seriously the
initial conception of nature as the result of intelligent design or an inten-
tional, voluntary act of creation. As such it has a more limited appeal than
the other models, which can be employed (even if improperly so, if the
distortion objection is correct) by anyone with or without a religious cast
of mind. Nevertheless, many people do accept the religious conception of
nature (as created by an intelligent being or beings) and the interesting
philosophical question is whether, it follows from this conception that nature
is an artwork. I will argue that the answer is no.
There are three reasons why this does not follow. First, not everything
that is created is a work of art, as is made obvious by inspecting the variety
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 21

of human artifacts. Hence, “x is created” does not imply “x is an artwork” any

more than does “x is an artifact” implies this. Second, there is good reason to
believe that the manner in which nature is created, if it is, is so very different
from the way artworks are created that it becomes positively implausible to
think of the former creation as the creation of art. Artists typically craft, or
at least select, the individual item that is the artwork, being guided in either
case by intentions toward that item. There is a very good reason to believe
that nature operates according to general laws. If we wanted to explain the
existence of beech trees along a ridge in a forest, we would refer to various
features of the forest environment, properties of beech trees, and laws of
biology. We would not mention the intentions of an intelligent creator.
Such intentions would come in at a very general level—in the intention
that nature operate according to the laws that in fact hold, and perhaps to
very distant initiating events. Finally, if we somehow became convinced that
each item that comes into existence is intended to do so by the intelligent
creator(s), the content of these intentions are hidden from us. Are objects in
nature intended to provide aesthetic relish? We may feel that they must be,
but we really don’t know.
Given these reasons blocking the inference from the createdness of nature
to nature being an artwork, the difference between the “as-if” version of the
artwork model and the literal version is less than it seems on first appear-
ance. There is still a difference, since the literal version of this model does
not involve pretense. What it does involve are large assumptions. I am not
thinking of the assumption that nature is created, but rather assumptions
about the intentions involved in the creation. Further, if these assump-
tions were to lead one to ignore the more immediate causes of the natural
world—natural events, forces, and laws—then the literal version might be
as open to the distortion objection as the other models considered so far.
However, we have yet to determine the force of this objection. It is to this
point that we now turn.

Evaluating the Distortion Objection

Do we distort the object of aesthetic appreciation by looking at it in isola-
tion from its surrounding environment, by focussing on a view for the visual
pleasures it provides, or by attempting to “capture” the impression of the mo-
ment? In other words, will employing the object, landscape, or impressionist
models of nature appreciation necessarily lead to such distortion? The simple
answer is no.
22 ! Chapter Two

Let’s begin with the object model. To appreciate some, but not other,
properties of an object is not to distort it but to appreciate it selectively.
Suppose I am admiring a wildflower, a pink trillium, which appears fairly
early in the spring in woodlands along riverbanks and other moist places. To
admire the pale pink color, the three petal, three-leaf pattern of the plant,
the shape of petal and leaf is so far to distort nothing. The plants with pink
flowers are those near the end of their bloom and people with this knowledge
might appreciate them differently than trillium whose flowers are still white.
I also might appreciate the flower more if I realized that I am lucky to catch
sight of it in its relatively brief early spring blooming period. I don’t know
what role the trillium plays in the ecology of its environment, but perhaps
such knowledge would also enhance my appreciation. To focus just on this
one flower may hide, make invisible, some of its appreciation-enhancing
properties, but it does not lead me to ascribe to it properties it does not have.
The same is true of the smooth gray stone discussed earlier. I may arrive at an
impression of permanence by scrutinizing it, but that would just be a possibly
faulty inference, and faulty only if, by permanence, I meant, implausibly, un-
changeability. Stones really are relatively permanent in their surface proper-
ties when compared to other things one finds in nature. The other properties
I appreciate in the stone are uncontroversially possessed by it.
The real issue raised by the object model and its criticism is not whether
it distorts the object of appreciation, but whether there is something im-
proper or inappropriate about the sort of selective appreciation this model
promotes.
It might seem more plausible that the landscape model really does distort.
The critics of this model claim that it requires us to treat nature as a static
two-dimensional representation—as a landscape painting. If this is correct, it
is certainly distorting since nature is none of the above: not static, not two di-
mensional, not a representation. The landscape model, so conceived, becomes
a version of the artwork model. But is the criticism correct? Is it fair? Not re-
ally. The landscape model directs us to appreciate views or vistas. In doing so,
it is also promotes a selective appreciation of a limited set of properties. First,
these are strictly visual properties. Second, the object of attention is framed by
a more or less fixed point of view. But the model does not claim either that
what we actually see is a two-dimensional object, or that we pretend it is a
representation. Further this model allows us to engage with a great variety of
views of nature from grand vistas to mundane agricultural scenes, from rela-
tively permanent natural features to the most fleeting effects of light. What we
see may be influenced by a particular style of landscape painting, but is not to
be confused with it. One can go further. There is an extremely fruitful interac-
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 23

tion between landscape painting and seeing natural landscapes. This is because
there are many ways of seeing, many different features of the visible world one
may actively seek to focus on, and the interaction just mentioned is what en-
ables us to explore these ways. This suggests another fact about the landscape
model. The landscape model is particularly good for noticing certain features of
the natural environment. For example, some mountains are very majestic and
the landscape model is ideal for seeing this property of them.
The impressionist model also may seem vulnerable to the distortion objec-
tion. In the most austere versions, one ignores the fact that one is perceiving
a certain kind of object and one is encouraged to merely take note of colors,
shapes, and sounds conceptualized only in terms of their sensory qualities.
Various shades of pink, gold, and gray stretch out before me. This is what I
see, ignoring that what is responsible for these colors is a winter field covered
with snow reflecting the sunset.
Again the temptation to call this distortion should be resisted. These
colors are really on view, accurately pinned down like a carefully displayed
moth. This way of pursuing the impressionist model raises a different ques-
tion: does the aesthetic appreciation of nature require perceiving natural
objects as those very objects: the perception of a field, rather than a mere
array of colors, as in the case at hand?
What is certainly true is that a less austere version of the impressionist
model is available and quite possibly preferable. The snowfield at sunset is a
more complex object of perception imbued with more aspects than snowfield
considered as a mere array of colors. The former is likely to create a richer
impression. For example, when one sees the pinks and golds as snow reflect-
ing light in the winter at sunset, these normally warm colors actually give
the scene a colder feel. But some would claim more, namely, that one is not
engaged in the appreciation of nature at all when following the austere ver-
sion because one is not appreciating objects of nature.
The distortion objection, while inapplicable to the three model of nature
appreciation, gives way to two others: that these models promote an incom-
plete or too selective kind of appreciation and that, to appreciate nature
properly, one has to appreciate natural objects as the natural objects they are
(rather that mere arrays of sensuous properties). We will discuss these new ob-
jections below in the section titled “Knowledge and Nature Appreciation.”4

A Modest Objection
First, we should articulate the more modest objection to the models mentioned,
but not stated, above. We will see that this objection is obviously correct, at
24 ! Chapter Two

least if each individual model is presented in a certain way. Suppose each

model claimed to provide the exclusively correct way to appreciate nature.
Then they would be open to the objection that there are at least equally good
alternatives provided by the other models. This objection to the models should
be accepted, since these models focus our attention on different, if overlapping,
aspects of nature, and there is no good reason to exclude one at the expense of
another. It is not, however, obvious that the models were ever intended to tell
the whole story about nature appreciation, to identify the uniquely correct way
to appreciate the natural world. The fact that they so obviously don’t makes it
implausible that they are so intended.
This, however, raises a question, if not an objection. The models are most
plausibly interpreted as providing several ways to partially appreciate nature.
Even if we set aside the issue of whether such partial appreciations are too
incomplete to be legitimate, there is still the question of whether there is
a model that provides a more complete picture of nature appreciation. We
will now look at the most ambitious and thorough attempt to provide such
a model.

The Environmental Model

The environmental model, unlike the models considered so far, claims to
be a comprehensive aesthetics of nature. It purports to identify the proper
object of appreciation of the natural world and the categories or concepts we
need to fully appreciate them.5 The model makes two central claims. First,
it claims that the object of appreciation is not confined to discreet objects,
views, or impressions but is an object-in-an-environment or a collection of
objects that form part of an environment. Second, the properties of these ob-
jects that are to be appreciated should be picked out by scientific, or at least
the commonsense, knowledge of the environment. If this second require-
ment is not met, the appreciation is malfounded or inappropriate.
Is this model superior to the others that we have considered so far? It
might appear superior in comprehensiveness in claiming that environments
(and what they contain) are the appropriate objects of appreciation. For en-
vironments contain the objects and views, and they provide the opportunity
for the impressions that we have so far discussed. But they also provide op-
portunities for many additional forms of appreciation. So the environmental
model appears to free us from any one narrow conception of the way nature
should be enjoyed. Thus interpreted, it provides a way of collecting together
and extending in important ways the models mentioned so far.
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 25

However, just how comprehensive this view is, and whether it gives us the
freedom just mentioned, depends on its positive account of the way environ-
ments are to be appreciated. Sometimes the proponents of this view favor
certain ways of appreciating an environment, which exclude some of the ways
already endorsed by the models above. Here then are three approaches favored
on different occasions by such proponents. The immersion approach tells us that
nature is to be appreciated by immersing oneself in it: wandering through it
with all one’s senses alive to what is on offer. Not one, but a constantly shifting
point of view is what is needed. The idea is to take in as much of a given en-
vironment as possible with as many senses as possible on any given occasion.6
The ecological approach recommends that one perceives in nature the relations
of dependence, sustenance, or conflict that constitutes an environment’s eco-
system, finding aesthetic satisfaction in the perceived relations and the balance
or harmony they create. Finally there is what is sometimes called order ap-
preciation, where one focuses on the order imposed on selected natural objects
by the causes that produce and sustain them (see Carlson 1993). The smooth
gray stone perceived as the product of forces of erosion would be an example
of order appreciation. Perhaps the ecological approach can be subsumed within
order appreciation, simplifying matters a little.
If we combine the immersion approach with order appreciation by say-
ing that nature is to be appreciated through one or the other, we have a
fairly wide array of possible appreciations. Notice, however, we achieve this
degree of comprehensiveness by agreeing to a disjunction, two alternative
approaches, as equally legitimate. If we can have two, we can have more,
supplied by the models discussed in the earlier sections. Whether we need
more depends on how leniently we apply the immersion approach and the
order appreciation approach. Does the former permit “minimal” immersions
in the environment consisting of perusing a clump of flowers or admiring a
view, which can but need not be parts of more extensive immersions? Or,
does it require more extensive and more strenuous immersions with multiple
perspectives that cover a stretch of countryside? If so, we want to make room
for other alternatives. Finally, notice no matter how comprehensive we make
the environmental model by being lenient about what falls within it, it may
never cover all appreciations of nature. Imagine looking back at the earth
from a spaceship and seeing the Americas spread out before one’s eyes. This
would no doubt be a beautiful sight, and if continents aren’t part of nature,
what are? Appreciating this sight does not fit any version of the environmen-
tal model. The same goes for looking at the myriad heavenly bodies that fill
the sky on a clear night in the country far away from city lights.
26 ! Chapter Two

The most controversial part of the environmental model is its invocation

of knowledge as the arbiter of appropriate appreciation. “To aesthetically
appreciate nature we must have knowledge of the different environments of
nature and of the systems and elements within those environments” (Carlson
1979, 273). This passage tells us that some knowledge is required to properly
appreciate nature. It also seems to tell us something about the knowledge
needed. It is knowledge of different environments, of systems and elements
within them. That looks like a fair sum of rather intimidating technical
knowledge.
But if the environmental model is not to be ruled out from the start, the
knowledge demanded needn’t be large or technical. This is acknowledged
by the proponents of the environmental model who admit that common
sense knowledge of the environment is an acceptable substitute for scientific
knowledge (Carlson 1995). If I know this is a woodland clump of flowers,
whose surface features are carefully observed, environment (woodland), sys-
tem (clump), and elements (observed features) have all been duly noted, and
all else being equal, this could lead to a presumably satisfactory appreciative
experience about which there is nothing improper or in need of correction.
But notice it is equally well chosen by both the object and environmental
models.
The environmental model might be seen as adding some important op-
tions (immersion, order appreciation) for appreciative experience that were
not made available by the models we considered earlier rather than finding a
way of unifying them all under a single idea or as revealing the inappropriate-
ness of those alternatives.
However, because of the ambitious claims that it makes, the environmen-
tal model also does something else that is of great interest: it raises a number
of important questions. When and how does knowledge enhance the ap-
preciation of nature? Is there some minimum of required knowledge for such
appreciation to be proper or appropriate? Are there norms of nature apprecia-
tion, so that we can say that some attempts at appreciation are malfounded,
improper, or inappropriate? Is the appreciation of nature that we have been
talking about throughout this chapter really aesthetic appreciation?

Knowledge and Nature Appreciation

There is no doubt that the acquisition of knowledge can both enhance and,
on some occasions, irrevocably alter our appreciative experience of nature.
Some knowledge enables us to perceive nature in more complex ways.
Someone who understands how tidal pools work sees a little interconnected
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 27

world in such an environment, whereas someone lacking this knowledge

may merely see a collection of objects. Naturalists, or, for that matter, people
who fish or hunt, see bodies of water or woodlands as habitats for different
species of animals, and in doing so, look at these areas in more fine-grained
ways than someone who merely looks at them for a view. One can enjoy a
flower simply for its surface properties, but one can “thicken” this enjoyment
by knowing that it indicates a certain stage of spring, when other items one
savors also appear, or that it indicates things to come, as blossoms indicate
fruit. Knowing that a pink trillium flower is a later stage in the blooming of
a white trillium makes one more appreciative of it, though I doubt knowing
the chemical basis of the change enhances appreciation. As one becomes
familiar with a species of plant or animal, one’s perception of what is normal
and what is unusual (including what is unusually fine and what is deformed
or diseased) will irrevocably alter. Notice that some of this knowledge that
has a bearing on appreciation clearly changes ones very perception of nature
(knowledge of a species). Some claim that this is the unique requirement
on knowledge that is relevant to appreciating nature (Matthews 2002).
However, this is not obvious because there is some knowledge that enhances
appreciation but does not so obviously enhance or alter perception (e.g.,
knowledge that the blooming of trillium foreshadows the appearance of
morels). This latter sort of knowledge enhances appreciation by enhancing
one’s immersion in a complex natural environment. Still other knowledge
seems to have no bearing on appreciation such as knowledge of the chemi-
cal basis of color variation in trillium, yet I doubt that we can conclusively
predict that it will never have such a bearing.
That knowledge can both enhance and alter the appreciation of nature for
individuals does not imply that it must do so uniformly across all individuals.
It is an interesting question whether the acquisition of pieces of information
has a uniform effect on the appreciative experience of similarly knowledge-
able individuals. I am inclined to offer a negative answer, because people are
differently disposed to be responsive to the countless aspect of nature capable
of aesthetic appreciation.
Another question, which we raised at the end of the previous section, is
whether there is some minimum of knowledge that one must bring to the ap-
preciation of nature for it to be proper or appropriate. When evaluating the
distortion objection, we discovered an intuition that some such minimum is
required. However, our subsequent discussion of the environmental model
raises doubts about what this minimum knowledge could be. We found noth-
ing inappropriate in the appreciation of the surface features of individual
natural objects such as a clump of wildflowers. So the thought that such
28 ! Chapter Two

appreciation might be too selective should be rejected. The same should be

said of the appreciation of a snowfield as an array of colors. While it is true
that we are not appreciating the snowfield as a snowfield, we are appreciating
it as something truly contained in nature: shape and color. These are indeed
features of nature that are abstracted from particular objects, but who is to say
that appreciating nature for its most elemental properties is an inappropriate
mode of appreciation?
Such properties as shape and color, and such things as edges, fields (as in
color fields, not cornfields), and patterns occur both in nature and in arti-
facts. In fact, a natural object and an artifact might share identical colors,
shapes, or patterns. So it might be argued that when we appreciate what we
just called elemental aspects of nature, we are not appreciating nature per se
because they are aspects of the world that are shared by nature and artifacts
alike. One can respond to this claim in a number of different ways. Certain
patterns of color or shape originate in the natural world (though they can
be transferred to artifacts). The pattern of crystals is an example, but so is a
pattern of colored light on a snowfield. One might say that as long as one
is appreciating a natural pattern that one encounters in nature as a natural
pattern, one is still appreciating nature. Or one might say that appreciation
of patterns of elemental properties is aesthetic appreciation, but it is not
nature appreciation because it occurs at too abstract a level. Which of these
responses do you think is better?
Instead of trying to identify a minimal sort of knowledge that we must
bring to nature, a good way to approach the question of whether we need
some knowledge to appreciate nature is to ask whether appreciation based
on false belief should be regarded as essentially flawed. If such appreciation
is flawed, then some knowledge is required for proper appreciation. Certain
sorts of false belief should be regarded as permitting genuine appreciation of
nature if one is faultless in holding them or, in other words, does so with good
reason. Imagine being transported to a planet which contains a substance
that looks and behaves just like water, but in fact has a very different chemi-
cal composition. At first, at least, one has no reason to doubt one is seeing
water, and as one looks down at, say a beach, one can be enjoying its beauty
while falsely believing that one is seeing water breaking over sand. Similarly,
there may have been a time when people were faultless in believing whales
and dolphins were fish. Should we say they were unable to see the beauty
of these creatures? We shouldn’t say so any more than we should think that
people of an earlier age could not see the beauty of the human body because
they radically misunderstood the nature of the body.
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 29

The art of the past shows us that people could appreciate human beauty,
even though we know that their understanding of the nature and workings of
the human body was deeply flawed, in fact riddled with false beliefs. If they
could appreciate this sort of beauty, with equally flawed beliefs, they could
appreciate beauty in nature (the rest of nature for surely we and our bodies
are part of nature). Of course, our ancestors had many true beliefs as well,
both about the body and nature. None of this proves that some knowledge,
or true belief, is unnecessary for proper appreciation. It only indicates that
some amount of false belief does not disqualify the appreciative experience.
Does the situation change when error is easily avoidable? Someone today
who cannot distinguish sea mammals from fish might be thought to bring
an inadequate set of distinctions or categories to the appreciation of nature.
Once one has the knowledge made possible by these distinctions, it might
be thought that one’s perception of the phenomena is bound to change
and only this more refined perception now counts as proper. I am not sure
that these claims are true, but they strike me as plausible, if the standard of
avoidable error or necessary knowledge is kept to a minimum. It is common
knowledge in our culture that whales are not fish, and so, to the extent that
this alters our perception of whales, it can be required of those who wish
to properly appreciate them. However, once we get to less widely available
scientific knowledge, we enter the arena where it becomes optional whether
we bring such knowledge to our appreciative experience. Such knowledge
can enhance our experience or change it, but it does not follow that the
experience of nature not informed by this knowledge is bogus. As long as we
pay careful attention to the appearance or perceptible properties of the part
of nature under observation, appreciating them as properties of the part of
nature in question, the most important bases will be covered.

Are There Norms of Nature Appreciation?

Norms tell us what we should do. The norms that you are probably most fa-
miliar with are norms of morality, sometimes embodied in such codes as the
Ten Commandments. You are also familiar with norms of prudence: norms
that tell you what to do if you want to pursue your own self-interest or get the
things you want. The most abstract or general of these prudential norms tells
us that if you choose a goal, you ought to also choose to do the things neces-
sary (the means) to achieve the goal. Aesthetic appreciation or enjoyment
is one of our ends, one of the things almost all of us want in our lives, and
so the general norm of prudence applies to its pursuit. The norms of nature
30 ! Chapter Two

appreciation are weak, though not nonexistent. Some knowledge of nature

is needed for proper appreciation, but this is mostly observational rather
than theoretical scientific knowledge, with the exception of scientific con-
cepts that have become part of common knowledge. Additional knowledge
can enhance or alter our appreciative experience, but it is usually optional
whether we employ such knowledge.
The following examples might be used to challenge such a claim. First
consider the plant, purple loosestrife. It is not native to the American Mid-
west, but has been introduced as a garden plant there because of its tall, spiky,
purple flower. Unfortunately, it has come to thrive in the wild, including in
wetlands, where it has the ability to take over and dry up the environment.
If you were to look at an area full of purple loosestrife in bloom without this
knowledge of its effect on the environment, you would find it very beauti-
ful. But what about after you have acquired this knowledge? Will you cease
to find the scene beautiful? Some people report that when they look at this
plant after learning what purple loosestrife does to the environment their
aesthetic experience changes. Has this knowledge corrected their judgment
of the scene’s beauty by changing their experience?7
Next, consider sunsets, something that seems a paradigm of harmless, but
considerable beauty. Apparently, however, the sunsets we would find the
most beautiful are caused by the refraction of light because of higher than
normal occurrence of certain kinds of particles in the atmosphere. A typical
cause of the increase in particles is air pollution. So the sunsets we typically
appreciate most are caused by air pollution. With this knowledge in hand,
does our experience of sunsets change, and would this change justify altering
our judgment of their beauty?
In the cases we are looking at, there are two distinct but noteworthy re-
actions among observers with the newly acquired knowledge of the effects
of purple loosestrife and the causes of sunsets. One reaction is to cease to
find these beautiful. Another reaction is to continue to find beauty in these
things, but to deplore them on ethical grounds. There just is not a uniform
change in experience across observers sensitive to environmental issues.
Given these different reactions, it is not clear what, beyond the reactions
themselves, should guide us in making a judgment of beauty about loosestrife
and sunsets.
Earlier we discussed two different bases for knowledge being relevant to
the aesthetic appreciation of nature. One basis was that the knowledge that
changes the way we perceive. Since the change varies from person to person
in the case at hand, it is an unreliable basis here (unless one could argue for
the superiority of one way of perceiving over the other). The other basis
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 31

was immersion in nature. If knowledge enhances the degree of immersion, it

is relevant to appreciation and to judgments of natural beauty. We usually
think of “enhancement” as something positive, but perhaps it has a negative
correlate. As we immerse ourselves in the natural world, we might experi-
ence the loosestrife flowers and the sunsets with a more negative attitude in
recognition of the effects of the former and the causes of the latter.
However, is this negative attitude aesthetic? The information about these
items that we have been pondering has its natural home in environmental
ethics. Loosestrife are purportedly bad for the environment, and those who
care about the preservation of wetlands possibly ought to be in favor of their
eradication. (See note 7 to understand the reason for the qualifications “pur-
portedly” and “possibly” in this sentence.) Air pollution is bad for the envi-
ronment, and those who believe that it is important that we have cleaner air
ought to be willing to sacrifice colorful sunsets. However, there is nothing
inconsistent in believing that such steps are necessary while also believing
that something is really being sacrificed, namely, beautiful sights. This claim
may seem paradoxical because we have a tendency to believe that it is ugly
things, not beautiful ones, that harm the environment, and that pollution
makes the world uglier, not more beautiful. Unfortunately, this tendency
may not uniformly lead us to the truth.
In this section, we have considered an objection to the claim that there
is enormous leeway in the knowledge we must bring to nature in order to
properly appreciate its beauty. We have tentatively rejected the objection,
concluding that the considerations it brings forward are more relevant to
environmental ethics and policy than to judgments of natural beauty. Those
who would defend the objection would have to argue for a tighter connection
between ethics and aesthetics than we have been able to establish here.8

When Is Nature Appreciation Aesthetic?

In the last section, an issue that was under the surface for much of this chap-
ter began to emerge more explicitly: when is the appreciation of nature aes-
thetic appreciation? Let us conclude this chapter by addressing this issue.
As we noted in chapter 1, the concept of aesthetic appreciation is compli-
cated by at least two different factors. First, it is intimately related to a num-
ber of other “aesthetic” concepts: those of aesthetic experience, aesthetic
property, and aesthetic value. What one takes aesthetic appreciation to be
depends on one’s understanding of these other concepts and on which of
these concepts one most emphasizes. Second, there are multiple conceptions
of the aesthetic, and, among these, there is no uniquely correct one.
32 ! Chapter Two

One theory of aesthetic appreciation has it that its proper objects are
aesthetic properties. These include general-value properties such as beauty
and ugliness; formal features such as balance or diversity; expressive proper-
ties such as sadness; evocative features such as power or being awe-inspiring;
behavioral features such as stillness, fragility, or grace; and second order
perceptual features such as being vivid or gaudy. Some of these, like being
graceful or gaudy, are also value properties, but are of a more specific variety
because they contain more descriptive content than general-value properties
such as beauty. Others, like being sad, seem to be purely descriptive. Further,
the theory claims that the recognition of the most general-value proper-
ties (such as beauty) are based on perceiving the other properties (formal,
expressive, evocative, behavioral, and second order perceptual) on our list.
These properties, in turn, are taken in by perceiving nonaesthetic perceptual
properties like color and shape (Goldman 1995, 17).
What is of immediate importance here is that, while we readily talk of
beauty in nature, so much of our experience of nature that we regard as
aesthetic appreciation does not seem to involve the less general aesthetic
properties, but rather judgments of beauty are either based directly on first
order perceptual properties or on second order properties of a nonaesthetic
character. For example, my appreciation of trillium is mainly bound up in
the delight in their color and shape closely observed. Even when an aes-
thetic property may appear to be the source of appreciation, this may not
really be so. Imagine looking, on a windless morning, at a lake the surface
of which is perfectly still and, as a result, reflects sky and shore line with a
mirrorlike quality. Part of what we appreciate here is the lake’s stillness, but
it is not clear whether we are referring to an aesthetic property of stillness,
or a first order perception of complete lack of movement, or a lack of sur-
face disturbance that is there for anyone to see. No “taste” or sensitivity is
required.9 Next consider the “order appreciation” endorsed by the environ-
mental model. If I see a stone as molded by forces of erosion, my appreciation
consists, in part, in noting a second order perceptual property—the stone’s
malleability—because seeing it requires seeing something else—the stone’s
smoothness. Malleability is not an aesthetic property.
This is not to deny that sometimes our appreciation of nature involves
aesthetic properties. We enjoy the vivid colors of a New England hillside in
autumn, the graceful movements of deer, the grotesque appearance of bare
apple trees. It is just that recognition of such aesthetic properties seems
optional, in the sense that other experiences of nature engage our aesthetic
appreciation without noting the descriptively “thicker” aesthetic properties.
This leaves the boundaries of such appreciation uncertain at least until an
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 33

alternative conception, not limited to engagement with aesthetic properties,

is proposed.
A more useful model of aesthetic appreciation of nature might be found
in a conception of aesthetic experience. One conception that we will exam-
ine in chapter 3 proposes that aesthetic experience is experience resulting
from attention to formal, sensuous, and meaning properties of an object
valued for its own sake. “Object” is used very broadly, so it is not confined to
the items emphasized by the object model of nature appreciation discussed
above. It would include whatever any of the acceptable models select as what
should be appreciated: from views to environments. Some items have formal
properties (in some sense of the term: individual flowers have arrangements
of parts, repetitions of shapes that can be looked on as formal properties).
Some items have natural meanings in the sense of causal connections of
human significance (as in blossoms indicating fruit). They also may have
cultural meanings or significance as cherry blossoms and autumnal maples
have in Japanese culture.10 In addition, we can add structural or etiological
properties emphasized by order appreciation. This conception of aesthetic
experience accounts for the various features of the aesthetic appreciation of
nature noted above: the importance of close observation and knowledge of
observable properties, the possibility of appreciation being enhanced by ad-
ditional knowledge, and the optionality or variable importance of aesthetic
properties.
An alternative conception of nature appreciation is modeled, not so much
on aesthetic experience, but on art appreciation. The claim is not that we
should appreciate nature as, or as if it were, an artwork (as the artwork model
considered earlier claims), but that there is a useful analogy between the two
kinds of appreciation. Many people think we have to bring certain categories
to art,11 those of intention, convention, style, period, genre, or context to
properly identify many aesthetic features of artworks. Further, artistic value is
not confined to aesthetic value. That is, the value proper to good art includes
aesthetic value, but also includes such things as cognitive value, art-historical
value, and so on. (We will elaborate on this in chapter 11.) If the model of
the appreciation of art is brought to the appreciation of nature, then we have
to find analogues of these artistic features for the natural ones. This will re-
quire a more complex set of criteria of proper appreciation. The result might
be a more constrained conception of appropriate aesthetic experience for
nature. However, we have found no good justification for such constraints,
if we focus strictly on aesthetic appreciation. Alternatively, the model of art
appreciation might suggest that the appreciation of nature is a more complex
practice than simply deriving aesthetic value from observing and interacting
34 ! Chapter Two

with nature. Like art, ethical, cognitive, and other considerations have to be
thrown into the mix to get a proper conception of the appreciation of nature.
This way of looking at it might provide a rationale for some of the points of
view we considered earlier: the environmental model as the correct model
of nature appreciation or the importance of ethical consideration in such
appreciation. However, what the proponent of such a view would have to
argue is that to properly appreciate nature, we have to bring this specific mix
of considerations to it, and I am skeptical that this can be done successfully.
A weaker claim, more in keeping with the main message of this chapter, is
that this hybrid form of appreciation based on several factors is yet one more
option we have in appreciatively taking in the natural world.

Summary
In this chapter we have examined a number of models of the aesthetic
appreciation of nature, which choose different objects of appreciation.
We have concluded that most of these models identify legitimate ways of
appreciating nature aesthetically, and that the best way to approach them
is to regard them all as providing a way, but not the way, to bring about
such appreciation. The hope to find the one correct model is doomed to
fail because the objects that can be appreciated in nature are so many
and various, and unlike the case of art, there are no guiding intentions or
conventions to narrow our focus. The legitimate models include, but are
not necessarily confined to, the impressionist model, the object model, the
landscape model, and the environmental model. If there is one approach
that is suspect, it is the artwork model just because it requires us either to
imagine patent falsehoods about natural objects or make highly speculative
assumptions about them.
In the latter parts of this chapter, we confronted some additional issues
concerning the role of knowledge in nature appreciation, the norms of
such appreciation, and the features that make such appreciation aesthetic.
We didn’t attempt to definitively resolve these issues, but rather to come
to some partial, tentative conclusions. We recognized that knowledge
of nature, both of the scientific and common sense varieties, could both
enhance or change our appreciative experience for the better. However,
we are not required to bring a great deal of scientific knowledge to nature
to properly appreciate it, and even a good deal of false (though faultless)
scientific belief is consistent with proper appreciation. Some knowledge of
nature is required for such appreciation, but this is confined to that part
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 35

of scientific theory that has become common knowledge and to observa-

tional knowledge. Close or careful observation of first order perceptual
features of natural things as features of those things are of special impor-
tance even if it is not completely independent of one’s theoretical beliefs.
This sums up the norms of appreciation with regard to the knowledge we
must bring to nature. We also tentatively concluded that the aesthetic
appreciation of nature seems to be more bound up with the observation of
first order perceptual properties than with the apprehension of so-called
aesthetic properties, though they have a role too. Finally, we distinguished
between aesthetic appreciation, on the one hand, and attitudes based on
the conclusions of environmental ethics on the other. We tentatively
concluded that items that are pernicious to an environment, and hence
are condemned from the point of view of environmental ethics, could still
be beautiful or have beautiful effects.
We now turn to a more theoretical examination of the notions of aes-
thetic experience, aesthetic properties, and aesthetic value.

Questions
1. What are the appropriate objects of the aesthetic appreciation of na-
ture? Is a stone, a flower, or an animal observed in isolation such an
object? Is a scenic view such an object? Do you think an ecosystem
is an object of aesthetic appreciation? Would you exclude any of the
objects discussed in the text?
2. Can you think of any additional models of nature appreciation beyond
those discussed in the text?
3. Imagine being transported to a land where you could not tell whether
you were looking at an artificial environment (say a garden) or a
natural one. Suppose you weren’t even sure what objects were in view.
For example, you could not tell whether the object fifty feet in front
of you was a cactus or a strangely organic looking sculpture? Could
you aesthetically appreciate this environment in your current state of
knowledge?
4. Suppose you are driving along a highway and see a wetland full of pur-
ple loosestrife blooms. You have learned that this plant is harmful to
wetland ecosystems by drying them up, choking out native plants, and
significantly reducing biodiversity. In the absence of this knowledge,
you might possibly find the loosestrife flowers beautiful. Would you do
so once you have this knowledge?
36 ! Chapter Two

Notes
1. Like many plausible claims, this one is for the most part true, but probably has
exceptions. Consider ballads like “Sir Patrick Spens,” folk songs like “John Henry,”
or popular songs like “Yesterday” or “I Shot the Sheriff.” The same ballad or song
has a number of variations or versions. Is the work the ballad or the song or the
individual variation? Whichever answer one gives there is an object of appreciation
which is not a work but something else related to the work, but different from it or a
performance of it. Literary cases are interestingly set out in Howell (2002a). Similar
issues regarding rock music are discussed by Gracyk (1996). Lydia Goehr (1992)
makes a more radical but less plausible claim that one does not find true musical
works until the beginning of the nineteenth century. For a critique of Goehr and
further discussion, see Stephen Davies (2001).
2. Why is this idea mistaken? There are many reasons. First, the relation between
art and beauty is rather tenuous, because there is plenty of nonbeautiful art, either
because its aim requires that it be other than beautiful or because it is just bad art.
Second, even among human artifacts, there are beautiful objects that are not art—
beautiful cars, utensils, mathematical proofs. Beauty in nature lacks one essential
feature of all art—unless one has a theological conception of nature—that it is made
or, at least put forward, by someone or some group. However, even if one thinks of
nature as the creation of an intelligent being and as beautiful, it doesn’t necessarily
follow that it is art. See the section below titled “Is Nature an Artwork?”
3. The most forceful proponent of the distortion objection is Allen Carlson (see
Carlson 1979).
4. Malcolm Budd (1996) argues that to properly appreciate nature one has to
appreciate it “as nature,” and to do this one has to conceive of the object of appre-
ciation as some natural thing (such as a snowfield). Allen Carlson’s post-1979 discus-
sions of the distortion objection emphasize the two ways of developing the objection
proposed here. See Carlson (1981, 1993) both reprinted in Carlson (2000).
5. Carlson is the chief proponent of the environmental model. His numerous es-
says setting out and defending this model are collected in Carlson (2000).
6. The immersion model, though not foreign to views like Carlson’s, is most
closely associated with Arnold Berleant’s (1992) “aesthetics of engagement.”
7. Actually, it is not so clear that purple loosestrife does damage wetlands in the
way just described. Apparently, it makes them somewhat drier, but I have heard dif-
ferent opinions about whether any wetland has been destroyed by this plant. It also
crowds out native species, but whether that in itself constitutes harm to the environ-
ment is debatable.
8. It seems plausible to me that policies that preserve the natural environment
and reduce threats to it like the ones we have been talking about will also make
the environment more beautiful in the long run. This claim, however, should not
be confused with, and does not resolve, the issue discussed in the main body of this
 Environmental Aesthetics: Natural Beauty ! 37

section, namely, whether the causes or effects of environmental deterioration can

themselves be beautiful things.
9. Frank Sibley (1959) suggested that aesthetic properties are marked by the fact
that taste or sensitivity is needed for their recognition.
10. Carlson (2001, 431–32) mentions the significance of the cultural meaning of
natural phenomena.
11. The locus classicus of the view that we have to bring such categories to art-
works in order to properly appreciate them is Walton (1970). The idea that we need
to find analogous categories to understand in what proper aesthetic appreciation of
nature consists is due to Carlson (1979), and it is this thought that motivates the
development of the environmental model.

Further Reading
Berleant, Arnold, 1992. Aesthetics of the Environment. Philadelphia: Temple Univer-
sity Press. Defends the immersion model.
Budd, Malcolm. 2002. The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press. The book collects all of Budd’s writing on the aesthetics of nature.
Carlson, Allen. 2000. Aesthetics and the Environment. New York: Routledge. Collec-
tion of essays by the most influential figure to defend the environmental model.
Hepburn, Ronald. 1996. “Landscape and the Metaphysical Imagination.” Environ-
mental Values 5:191–204. Defends a pluralistic approach to the appreciation of
nature.
Matthews, Patricia. 2002. “Scientific Knowledge and the Aesthetic Appreciation of
Nature.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 60: 37–48. Attempts to identify the
scientific knowledge needed to fully appreciate nature.