Parsons, Aesthetic Preservation PDF

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CHAPTER 7 I Environmental Aesthetics

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can ultimately derive a"mountaineering ethics" from this, with substantive principles about how one may and may not climb.62 We see here an elegant illustration of Moore's insistence on the dispositive character of beauty judgments: the latte r provide motivation to pattern one's practical life in one way rather than another. Moreover, if one gets the beauty judgment right, oneshould also be motivated to do whatever is genuinely in the"interes»t of the relevant natural object(s).

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G) Aesthetic Weight and the Preservationist's Dilemma Acrucial question remains unresolved, however. We have seen throughout this book that the moral life is full of tensions and dilemmas. Tough choices often have to be made between

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beauty appreciation and (b) the right account of what motivates us to act in the interests of that which we find beautiful in nature, we still don't know how much weight to give such judg ments insofar as they conflict with other judgments. Our final article explores this problem.

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AESTHETIC PRESERVATION Glenn Parsons

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I. Reason or Rhetoric? In the minds of many, when a cherish ed nat• ural area is threatened with degradation or destruction, the issu e that springs most read ily to mind is the loss of its aesthetic value. As Holmes Rolston puts it,"Ask people, 'Whysave the Grand Canyon or the Grand Tetons?' and the ready answer will be, 'Because they are beautiful. So gra nd!"'6 Let's call this idea reser ving nature in its undeveloped state hk" for the _sa ke of its aesthetic value aesthetic q.,'\ p reser vat10n. Aesthetic values can havea powerful impact in preservation debates. Before-and-after photo graphs of a development project's alteration of a landscape can have an immediate emotional impact that isn't generated by charts and tables detailing long-term ecological impacts. But is maintaining the aesthetic value that we find (Q.. in nat ure really a rationally c-:impelli ng basis

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for preserving it from a proposed development that promises practical human benefits, such as employment, profit, and greater convenience? Or is it simply an effective rhetorical devic e: a way of"pushing people's buttons" and thereby mobilizing them to support a preservationist agenda?64 In this essay, I take up this question by exploring three issues facing aesthetic pres ervation. In my discussion, I will be assum• ing that at 1east in some instances, certain aestheticassessments of nature can be said to be more correct, or appropriate, than others. If this is not the case, aesthetic arguments for preservation will be useless: those who oppose preservation can simply deny that nature has aesthetic value, and there is nothing further to be said. In other words, I assume here that aesthetic value of nature is, at least to some degree, ob jecti ve.65

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PART II I Challenges and New Directions

11. Strong and Weak Aesthetic Preservation One important issue about aesthetic preserva tion is what exactly it entails. I have described it as the idea that we should save natural things or areas from degradation or destruc tion because of their aesthetic value. But this description fails to distinguish between two forms of aesthetic preservation. One form, let

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us call it trong aesthetic preservation, tells us simply to save natural things from destruction or degradation. A second form, which we can call weak aesthetic preservation, requires us to save natural things only when they are threat ened by human actions. Initially, strong aesthetic preservation may seemlike a silly idea.Theidea of trying toshield a forest from a volcanic eruption, for instance, seems lud icrous. But much of the destruction that nature brings upon itself is far smaller in scale than a volcanic eruption, and in these cases the idea of "saving nature from itself" is feasible. In fact, there are actual examples of this sort of preservation. Consider the pres ervation of Yew Tree Tarn, a small lake in the English Lake District. 66 At one point, the lake began draining because of the opening of an underground fault.The National Trust, a charit able organization that protects important nat ural areas in the United Kingdom, intervened in order to stop this drainage. The trust described its actions as aiming to preserve the beauty of the lake and the surrounding area; in their words,"the area has been landscaped to ensure its beauty is permanent.n In intervening to pre serve the tarn in its current state, the National Trust was not protecting its aesthetic value from human intrusion· but from nature itself.67 In fact, strong aesthetic preservation might seem the more logical of our two positions, if we reflect on the fundamental idea behind aesthetic preservation. That fundamental

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is that we should preserve the aesthetic treas ure of nature so that others might enjoy them. But if that is the aim, then why should it matter from whence threats to these aesthetic treas ures arise? Consider an analogy: imagine that an aesthetically valuable artifact, a great work of art, forinstance, or an expensive sports car, is entrusted to your care. If a vandal wanted to spray paint on it or take a sledgehammer to it, you would surelysee it as yourduty totry to pro tect it, given that it has been entrusted to your care. Ifthe threat arose from a natural sourcea hailstorm or an earthquake, say-why wouldn't you do the same? A threat is a threat, after all, and ifthe fundamental idea is to preserve what is aesthetically valuable, then it seems one ought to attempt to stop anythreat that onecan. However, there is an i ortan to strong aesthetic preservation: it 1s se -defeat- ; .A ing. The idea here is V that in preserving a natu ral thing or area in tnis way, we make certain of its aspects artifactual. Jn our previously men- ti ed example ofpreserving agreatartwork ora sports car, it seems reasonable to try to protect it against damage from things such as hailstorms and earthquakes. But this seems reasonable because natural forces are alien to the thing we are trying to protect, which is an artifact. But acting in the same way with respect to things such as lakes is not reasonable in ilie same way, because hailstorms and geological processes are :1ot alien to natural things such as lakes. On the contrary, lakes are created, and destroyed, by various geological processes. ln the case of Yew Tree Tam, blocking the nat urill geological processes that are destroying the lake rum it in·o something that has come about through the voluntary and mtentional a e uman beings- in short, an artifact. Conseque.ntl),Strong aesthetic preservation can n • d er what the environmentalist ultimately c preservation not just of things that

CHAPTER 7

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currently happen to be natural but the preserva tion of those things as natural. The upshotof this objection, then, is that only the weak version of aesthetic preservation is coherent as a form of nature preservation. This is not the end of the story, however. The proponen t of the strong version of aes thetic preservation can concede the foregoing objection but reply that only her versions of the position can be polemically useful in argu• ing for preservation. The thinking here is this. The preservationist's basic situation is that she wishes to preserve natural areas that others see as worthless. Before they will su_EPort keE:Ei._ng t he m, these_people first want to know what

I

Environmental Aesthetics

the one hand, there are the practical advan• tages that exploiting a natural area or spe cies will bring: more abundant resources for industry, jobs, more convenient travel, cheaper accommodations, cheaper food or goods for consumers, profit for producers, and so on. On the other hand, there is the aesthetic value that is lost through development. In order for aes thetic preservation to be a generally successful stra tegy, aesthetic value has to outweigh these pract'cal benefits, at least in some reasonable percentage of cases. But is this thecase? Here we confront the vexing task of ranking different kinds of value. One extreme view

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o ut ra nked by other forms of value, including the practical benefits typically associated with en ironmcntal aevtlopment. One justi fication for this view is that aesthetic merit is a super• ficial kind of value. In developing this sort of case, J. Robert Loftisdraws an analogy between our treatment ture andutreatment of persons.69 Loftis imagines a doctor with only one donor heart but two patients who need a heart transplant. In such a case, he points out, the doctor should appeal only to medical facts in making her decision. If she were to give the heart to one patient because that person was more physically attractive than the other, she would be mak ing a serious error. Further, the ground of that error would beclear: treating what is essentially a superficial and unimportant form of value aesthetic value-as outweighing other con siderations. On the basis of this sort ofanalogy, Lgfiis c;oncludes that "ae&thetic conside .ra.tions III. Weighing Aesthetic Value involving nature are weak anclci.IY!Qt motiv Another set of problems that besets aesthetic a tet he kind of substantial measures environ preservation involves the ignifi--a nce of the mentalists routinely recommend." "How,• he beauty of nature relative to the practical con as s, " can e n menta li s ts ask thousands siderations that are in a b arrayed against of lo gg ers to give u t eirjohs and wayof.!ife it in debates over preservat on . Discussion on the is o tic ?"70 of this issue generall)' shapes up as follows. On

is so valuable about these areas. In reply, the piservatiooist points to the aesthetic value of these areas. If things go well, th 1nces the doubters, who endorse preserving the areas in question on this basis.But when these areas are threatened by destruction from natural however, forces, the_preservationistobjects:"We ought not to save them now," she insists. When asked why, she answers: •Because then they will no longer be natural areas." But this will do noth in to sway the people that the reservationist is add,ressrng: eir startingpoint was an inabil ity tosee any value in natureper se. They do not care how much or how little nature there is; this was the entire reason that the preservationist needed to appeal to aesthetic value in the first place. If this line of thought is correct, aesthetic preservation may not alwayslineup tidily with the aims of environ menta lism.

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PART II

I Challenges and New Directions

The heart transplant analogy, however, is a us conclude that aesthetic preservation of the misleading one. It is surely correct to say that environment is simply too expensive. But the the aesthetic value of potential heart transplant financial comparison drawn here is apt to be recipients does not, and ought not, outweigh misleading, in two ways. medical considerations. But this is an extreme First,although theeconomic benefitofexploitcase in which the implications of favouring aes- ing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge may be thetic value are as strong as they could possibly substantial, at least according to Loftis's estibe:theyareliterally a matteroflife and death. But mate, this may not be the case in other instantypical cases of environmental preservation are ces. In some instances, developing a mountain not like that: choosingaesthetic value overother into a ski resort, for example, exploiting nature considerations does not typically place lives at may produce smaller benefits. Second, it is not risk. Choosing aesthetic value always has conseclear thateven when the costs ofenvironmental quences,ofcourse, and some of them are importpreservation are relatively substantial, as in the ant: it may reduce income for some or result in case of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they others having to move to find new employment, are too high. Loftis chooses the annual budget for example. We might accept that consideraof the National Endowment for the Arts as an tions of basic human viability always come first indication of the upper limit of sacrifice for aesand trump aesthetic value but still argue thc1:t in thetic value, but this number seriously undersome cases preserving aesthetic value is worth represents the sacrifice made foraesthetic value. the cost7 .1 The question forsuch a view is: In these For one thing, the National Endowment's budget cases,can wesaythat the aesthepc valueofa natrepresents only a part of the total all!..ount spent ural area justifies the cost of preserving it? annual!Y_ on art, which also includesotheq rnb\ One ,mon fo,thinking that it might u lie and private funds. We also need to consider that in other areas of life, we do make prac- here er ; pendi ng on aesthetic value: concal smifim fo, aesthetic value. We spend sid:.:!.for instance,the autification grams oth private and public money on artworks, run bi'. virtually everi sizable town and city, for example. These measures have costs: they consisting of the maintenan of local !@rdens reduce the income that citizens would other- and""archltectural repair and e.ston ti.Q!l. And wise keep for themselves or spend on other then there is seending onvarious othera thetthings. This seems to show that aesthetic value icallyvaluable items: furni4@hou s, is not so superficial that any other considera- cars, and sof h. tion trumps it: sometimes we do sacrifice other On balance, it seems that the view that aesvalua ble things to attain it. In his discussion, theticvalue is so weak thatit is never capable of Loftis acknowledges this point but objects that outweighing the pragmatic benefits of developthe costs of preserving natural beauty far out- mentis too extreme. How often it actually sueweigh the costs offunding art. He estimates the ceeds in doing so, however, would seem to be economic costs of forgoing oil development in something that we can assess only by examinAlaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for ing particular cases. example, at $800 million. This figure, he points out, is much greater than the annual budget of IV. The Preservationist's Dilemma the National Endowment for the Arts, which is In the preYious section, we saw that aesthetic around $100 million. Thus, Loftis would have preservation requires us to consider the practical

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CHAPTER 7 I Environmental Aesthetics

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variable: the a(:sthetic value of the developed site itself. Aesthetic preservation requires that sparing nature produce a gain in aesthetic value. In other words, it assumes that nature left untouched is more aesthetically v.1luable than the development tliat would replace it. This assumption is o pen to ques tion. One might argue thatstrip mines, urban sprawl, fac tory farms, and massive dams are actually as aesthetically good as, or better than, the nature they replace. Proponents ofone major dam pro ject, for example, defended the development by saying that it would create "one of the world 's great scenic wonders."72 At first glance, this may seem to be a cynical ploy by developers to advance their interests rather than an hon est aesthetic judgment . However, there might bea sound basis for the claim that strip mines, urban sprawl, and so on have aesthetic merit. To a first glance, a strip mine might appear aesthetically poor in virtueof beingahugegash in the earth, emitting a terrible din, and spew ing black smoke into thesky. But if we consider it notsimply as agash in the earth but as a large industrial mechanism, it might look quite dif ferent. The billowing smoke, loud noise, and roaring fires, rather than obtrusive and mar ring, may seem indicative of its power and vitality. After all, many industrial machines look aesthetically appealing. Further, even if one finds the smoke, noise, and fire obtrusive and jarring in relation to the landscape, one might even find aesthetic value in this very incongruity. As Yuriko aito points out, a s.1IDI· lar incong ruity is often aesthetically appreci ated in art, particularly in contemporary works th at employ disso na nce lietween elements of the artwork as an aru tic technique. And finally, such developments can often be viewed as expressive of certain po itive values: hard

their ilk might not look so bad after all.74 The proponent of aesthetic preservation will want to respond that even if these tions show that human considera developments like strip mines, urban sprawl, and industrial farms have some aesthetic value, this value will, generally speaking, bemuch less than theaestheticvalue possessed by thenatural areas that they replace. But thissupposed difference in value must rest on purely aesthetic grounds. If it turns out that the preservat1001st's aesthetic preference for nature, as opposed to strip mines, is ultimately based not on any difference in their aesthetic value per se but on the assumption that nature C) is more valuable than development, then the preservationist is no further ahead for appealmg to aesthetic considerations . The aesthetic assessments of the preservationist will then be "morally charged,• as Ned Hettinger puts it.75 The esthetic preservationist facesa dilemma ' On tjle onehand, she can assess aestheti A value purely on aesthetic considerations. In principle, these considerations are capable of persuading sceptics that nature has greater value than the development that would replace it, but in practice they turn out not to favour nature as unequivocally as one would like, for the reasons di scusse d above. O n the othe _/R\ hand , she can allow ethical jud ments to pla a role in shaping her aesthetic judgments. For example, she might hold that a natural area is aesthetically superior to a strip mine in part because it is more natural and what is natural is more valuable than what is artifactual. In that case, she can assert that nature generally has more aesthetic value than development, buther aesthetic assessments will cease to per suade thesceptic. For since thesceptic does not agree that nature has greater value, he will not generally find it more aesthetically appealing

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PART II I Challenges and New Directions

on this ethical basis. The dilemma means, in

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analogously, nature can force us to putourdaily short, that for the preservationist , the appeal to activities into broader perspective. Nature, as aesthetic value either fails to favour nature or Thompson puts it, "exists as a refuge, or at least else becomes a purely rhetorical device rathe as...