Abstract
In recent writings about environmental aesthetics a variety of proposals have been advanced about relevant norms that constrain appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature. Some of these norms are cognitive or epistemic. Others are moral. If these proposals are correct, then different kinds of value interact in the realm of environmental aesthetics. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate these claims. Such an evaluation inevitably has two parts. One first has to ask whether the purported norms exist. If they do, one has to assess their bearing on evaluative aesthetic judgments. This paper will argue that there are weak epistemic norms of nature appreciation but they lack important implications sometimes associated with them. It will also be argued that the situation is even less promising for moral norms. But I will suggest that it might be possible to show that some forms of appreciation might exhibit a morally problematic disrespect. I leave it to future work to pin this down and to explore other plausible constraints on the aesthetic appreciation of nature.
First Page
70
Last Page
77
Recommended Citation
Stecker, Robert. 2012. "Norms and Nature Appreciation." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 32, (5): pp.70-77. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol32/iss5/8
