This paper explores the practice of rewilding and its implications for environmental aesthetic values, qualities and experiences. First, we consider the temporal dimensions of rewilding in regard to the emergence of particular aesthetic qualities over time, and our aesthetic appreciation of these. Second, we discuss how rewilding potentially brings about difficult aesthetic experiences, such as the unscenic and the ugly. Finally, we make progress in critically understanding how rewilding may be understood as a distinctive form of ecological restoration, while resisting (...) the assimilation of rewilding into wilderness discourses. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions of climate change have mainly conceived of it as a moral or ethical problem, but climate change also raises new challenges for aesthetics. In this paper I show that, in particular, climate change (1) raises difficult questions about the status of aesthetic judgments about the future, or 'future aesthetics'; and (2) puts into relief some challenging issues at the intersection of aesthetics and ethics. I maintain that we can rely on aesthetic predictions to enable us to grasp, in (...) some sense, aesthetic value in environments affected by climate change and, through a discussion of three hypothetical cases, I argue that, although moral considerations will press on aesthetic judgments, aesthetic value will not necessarily be trumped by them. (shrink)

The thesis that aesthetic testimony cannot provide aesthetic justification or knowledge is widely accepted--even by realists about aesthetic properties and values. This Kantian position is mistaken. Some testimony about beauty and artistic value can provide a degree of aesthetic justification and, perhaps, even knowledge. That is, there are cases in which one can be justified in making an aesthetic judgment purely on the basis of someone else's testimony. But widespread aesthetic unreliability creates a problem for much aesthetic testimony. Hence, most (...) testimony about art does not have much epistemic value. The situation is somewhat different with respect to aesthetic testimony about nature, proofs, and theories. (shrink)

How can we best understand our aesthetic appreciation of sky and space? This essay begins by outlining the nature of spatial experience through some examples. Then it examines how our responses can be shaped by art and myth. Here we see how themes, such as ascension, that were current in prehistory and developed religions, can be reappropriated as components of a justifiable aesthetic experience. However, the task of finding defensible aesthetic responses to space as both experience and abstract idea does (...) present paradoxes. For example, how are we to respond to scientific updates about the ever greater vastness of space? The way forward presented here is to endorse, but not with any sense of uniqueness of misplaced grandeur, our freedom to contemplate with due seriousness both the near and the far and our own capacities, such as imagination and love, as also part of the wonder and mystery of the universe. (shrink)

The ancient aesthetics of yijing has played a crucial role in traditional Chinese philosophy, literature and art since the eighth century CE. Defined variously by early and contemporary writers, yijing links an artist's emotional domain to objects in the world. This article conceptualises yijing as an ecological aesthetics and distinguishes it from an environmental aesthetics. In particular, two aspects of yijing render it an eco-aesthetics: subject-object correspondence (or 'engagement'); and empathic identification with the environment (or 'bio-empathy'). Three brief case studies (...) from urban planning, environmental conservation and the creative arts demonstrate the contemporary importance of yijing to ecological issues. (shrink)

The journal Environmental Values is thirty years old. In this retrospective, as the retiring Editor-in-Chief, I provide a set of personal reflections on the changing landscape of scholarship in the field. This historical overview traces developments from the journal's origins in debates between philosophers, sociologists, and economists in the UK to the conflicts over policy on climate change, biodiversity/non-humans and sustainability. Along the way various negative influences are mentioned, relating to how the values of Nature are considered in policy, including (...) mainstream environmental economics, naïve environmental pragmatism, the strategic role of corporations, neoliberalism and eco-modernism/techno-optimism. At the same time core value debates around intrinsic value in Nature and instrumentalism remain relevant, along with how plural environmental values can be articulated and acted upon. Naturalness, human relations to non-humans, and Nature as other, remain central considerations. The broadening of issues covered by the journal (e.g. covering social psychology, sociology and political science), reflect the need to address both human behaviour and the structure of social and economic systems to confront ongoing social-ecological crises. (shrink)

De-extinction technology aims to bring extinct species back into existence, often with the goal of releasing created organisms into natural environments. In this paper, I argue that there are aesthetic reasons to avoid engaging in de-extinction and release projects, even if they pass moral permissibility criteria. The strength of these reasons depends on conclusions regarding species authenticity - a problem that arises at the intersection of de-extinction technology and the 'species problem' in the philosophy of biology. Since species authenticity affects (...) the perceived naturalness of 'natural' environments, and thus the aesthetic judgments thereof, I contend that there will be negative aesthetic consequences of de-extinction efforts that ought to be further explored before such projects move forward. (shrink)

Climate change – if not averted adequately and in time – could cause serious disruptions in society including issues associated with global warming and sea-level rise. It has been argued that geoen...

For better or worse, places matter to us. Especially the familiar places we call home—the ones that embody our personal and cultural histories, give our lives a sense of stability, and support the routines of everyday life. Global Climate Change (GCC) poses an existential threat to these places, engendering nonmaterial losses that threaten subjective well-being and overall mental health. Unfortunately, these nonmaterial losses are often overlooked or underappreciated. My aim in this article is to counter this tendency and explore the (...) relationship between people and place in a way that sheds light on the nonmaterial threat of GCC. I approach this task from the lens of everyday aesthetics. While finding adequate compensation for these nonmaterial losses is unlikely, I suggest that sensitivity to the aesthetic texture of everyday life can provide a source of aesthetic consolation that can make the challenges of GCC easier to manage. (shrink)

This article engages in debates about the potential for aesthetics to be a positive, ethical, and moral frame for relating to the environment. Human‐environment relations are increasingly tied up with aesthetics. We problematize this trend by contending that aesthetics is an insufficient paradigm to motivate and shape environmentalism because it exceptionalizes some landscapes while devaluing others. This article uses four illustrative case studies to complicate aesthetic environmentalist frames. These case studies indicate that even when positive aesthetic qualities are deployed in (...) environmentalist advocacy, their usefulness is mitigated by a range of factors including: sensationalization, obfuscation, and further degradation. (shrink)