The Aesthetic Dimension of the Interrelations between Ecological

Science and Ethics:The Other Leopoldian Bridge*

Sheila Lintott, Bucknell Universityand

Allen Carlson, University of Alberta

* This presentation is based on a plenary address that Lintott and Carlson will give at the 2011 Cary Conference on Ecology, Philosophy, and Environmental Ethics.

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

– Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation from Round River [1949/1953] (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 262.

Beauty?

From the perspective of ecological science, beauty, it is often contended, is subjective and relatively trivial, whereas integrity and stability are objective and relatively important.

How might the aesthetic dimension serve as a link between ecological science and ethics?

What is the nature of beauty, this “other Leopoldian bridge,” and how can it lead us from ecology to our obligations to preserve?

Considering the role of beauty in an ecological context

Aesthetic Appreciation and Preservation

Leonardo da VinciPortrait of Mona Lisa1503-06 http://www.artchive.com

A new conservation acquisition on the Washington coasthttp://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/washington/misc/art33147.html?src=news

Nature of Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature

formalistic/picturesque

scientific/cognitivist

relativistic/ postmodern

Jackson Pollock, Number 11950 http://www.nga.gov

Caravaggio,The Taking of Christ

1602 http://www.nga.gov

Imagine Two Stands of Trees