Eco-friendly Aesthetics

Eco-Friendly Aesthetics

Paul Knights

An aesthetic:The complete set of aesthetic tastes, preferences, ideals,

attitudes and values held by an individual or community

Eco-friendly:An aesthetic is eco-friendly if it is consistent with and respects our

ethical obligations to natural environments and non-human organisms

An eco-friendly aesthetic is desirable:

The holding of a particular aesthetic has significant attitudinal and behavioural consequences, such that:

1. We protect and create that which we find aesthetically pleasing

2. We transform or destroy that which we find aesthetically displeasing

Domain 1 of an eco-friendly aesthetic:

Natural environments and non-human organisms

An eco-friendly aesthetic will be one which finds natural environments

and non-human organisms aesthetically pleasing

such that

We are motivated to protect and preserve natural environments and

non-human organisms

An eco-friendly aesthetic will be one that endorses Allen Carlson’s

‘positive aesthetics’:

The natural environment, and all natural entities, insofar as they

are unmodified by humans, is essentially aesthetically good.

Appropriate appreciation is always and only positive, and negative

aesthetic judgments have no place.

Domain 2 of an eco-friendly aesthetic:

Human artefacts

An eco-friendly aesthetic will be one that:

1. Finds human artefacts that are ethically meritorious with regard to natural environments and non-human organisms aesthetically

pleasing;2. Finds human artefacts that are ethically defective with regard to natural environments and non-human

organisms aesthetically displeasing

Such that:• We are motivated to create artefacts

that are ethically meritorious with regard to natural environments and non-human

organisms • We are motivated to minimise

environmental harm caused by the creation, continuing existence, maintenance or use

of artefacts• We are restrained from engaging in the creation of human artefacts that are ethically defective regarding natural environments and non-human organisms • We are motivated to restore the

environmental damage caused by caused by the past creation, continuing existence, maintenance and use of human artefacts

Autonomist eco-friendly aesthetic:

One that determines an individual or community find aesthetic pleasure

and displeasure in artefacts ethically meritorious and defective with regard to natural environments

and non-human organisms respectively, but where the aesthetic evaluations are not

attributable to the environmental ethical status of the artefact

Moralist eco-friendly aesthetic:

One that determines an individual or community find aesthetic pleasure

and displeasure in artefacts ethically meritorious and defective with regard to natural environments

and non-human organisms respectively, and where the aesthetic evaluations are

attributable to the environmental ethical status of the artefact

Is this connection coherent?

The debate between moralists and autonomists in philosophical

aesthetics:

Is the ethical criticism of art a justifiable practice?

Does an ethical defect or merit ever constitute an aesthetic defect or

merit?

Moderate moralism:

Artworks are ethically defective insofar as they prescribe ethically

defective responses, e.g.• Finding violence glorious

• Finding sadistic torture comical• Endorsement of racism

• Feeling admiration or pity for a morally abhorrent character

Artworks are ethically meritorious insofar as they prescribe responses

that• Deepens moral understanding

• Provides moral insight• Exercises and enlarges moral

perception• Challenges moral doxa

Artistic form:

The ensemble of choices intended to realise the point or purpose of the

work

Points or purposes an artwork may possess:

• To advance a point of view• To convey a theme

• To communicate an idea• To display an expressive property• To engender affective responses such as pity, admiration, or visual

pleasure

Artworks are aesthetically defective insofar as the formal choices

intended to function to realise the point or purpose of the work fail, and possess aesthetic merit insofar

as these choices succeed

Therefore, a moral defect of an artwork may count as an aesthetic defect if it deters the responses prescribed by the work, and a moral merit of an artwork may count as an aesthetic merit if it mandates the responses prescribed by the artwork

Aesthetic endeavours:

S is engaged in an aesthetic endeavour if S principally intends the product of the endeavour to

primarily be the object of aesthetic appreciation

• Gardening• Interior design

•Attending to personal appearance

The points and purposes of non-artistic aesthetic endeavours:

• Gardening– to elicit visual pleasure in visitors

• Interior design– to increase social standing

• Attending to personal appearance– to attract the opposite sex

The form of non-artistic aesthetic endeavours:

The ensemble of choices intended to realise the point or purpose of the

endeavour

• Gardening– choices regarding plant species and

layout• Interior design

– choices regarding paint colours, ornaments, etc.

•Attending to personal appearance– choices regarding clothes and

accessories

The environmental ethical defects and merits of non-artistic aesthetic

endeavours:

• Gardening– use of pesticides, herbicides,

fertilisers, peat compost – use of organic pesticides,

fertilisers and compost; wildlife-friendly gardening

• Interior design– VOCs; wood from primary rainforest;

• Attending to personal appearance– animal testing; detergents; fur; gems

and precious metals

Environmental ethical defects and merits that may count as aesthetic

defects and merits:Formal choices, such as the choice to make the lawn particularly green and verdant, may ethically defective

regarding the natural world

It is a formal choice because it is intended to function to realise her purpose of eliciting visual pleasure

But it is defective (i.e. an aesthetic defect) because it is ethically defective – ethically

sensitive audiences will be deterred from responding in the prescribed

way

The prescription of responses ethically defective or meritorious regarding natural environments and

non-human organisms:

Prescribed responses may be straightforwardly ethically

defective or meritorious, or the content may be strictly neutral but the formal structure of the artwork

may be such that ethical defectiveness or meritoriousness is ‘pulled into’ the content of the

prescribed response

Say the content of the response intended by the gardener is ‘visual

and olfactory pleasure’

The environmental ethical defectiveness or meritoriousness of

the formal choices made by the gardener is transferred to this content, such that it becomes

‘Visual and olfactory pleasure at environmental harm’

Or‘Visual and olfactory pleasure at

environmental benefit’

Audiences sensitive to our ethical obligations to the natural world

will be deterred from manifesting a response of the first kind, and will have reason to manifest a response

of the second kind

Thus, the ethical defects and merits of non-artistic aesthetic endeavours may count as aesthetic defects or

merits

Conclusion: an eco-friendly aesthetic is a coherent notion regarding the products of non-artistic aesthetic endeavours

Non-aesthetic endeavour:S is engaged in a non-aesthetic endeavour if it is not S’s principal intention

that the product, P, of the endeavour primarily be the object of

aesthetic appreciation.

Environmental ethical defects and merits:

The same as for aesthetic endeavours

Aesthetic defects and merits:

The thin sense of being aesthetically pleasing:

Physical appearance

The thick sense of being aesthetically pleasing:

Expressive qualities (a function of a wide range of values, emotions and

attitudes associated with the object)

If an object is aesthetically displeasing in the thick sense (i.e.

it possesses negative expressive qualities) then it will be

difficult, if not impossible, to find it aesthetically pleasing in

the thin sense

The coherence of an eco-friendly aesthetic will depend on whether

this relation between thin and thick appreciation can be justified