Aesthetic and spiritual values of ecosystems: Recognising the ontological and axiological plurality of cultural ecosystem ‘services’

Nigel Cooper,Emily Brady,Helen Steen,Rosalind Bryce

doi:10.1016/j.ecoser.2016.07.014

Nigel Cooper, Emily Brady + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2016.07.014

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Abstract

This paper explores spiritual and aesthetic cultural values associated with ecosystems. We argue that these values are not best captured by instrumental or consequentialist thinking, and they are grounded in conceptions of nature that differ from the ecosystem services conceptual framework. To support our case, we engage with theories of the aesthetic and the spiritual, sample the discourse of ‘wilderness’, and provide empirical evidence from the recent UK National Ecosystem Assessment Follow-on Phase. We observe that accounts of spiritual and aesthetic value in Western culture are diverse and expressed through different media. We recognise that humans do benefit from their aesthetic and spiritual experiences of nature. However, aesthetic and spiritual understandings of the value of nature lead people to develop moral responsibilities towards nature and these are more significant than aesthetic and spiritual benefits from nature. We conclude that aesthetic and spiritual values challenge economic conceptions of ecosystems and of value (including existence value), and that an analysis of cultural productions and a plural-values approach are needed to evidence them appropriately for decision-making.

Highlights

Aesthetic and spiritual values of ecosystem are frequently mentioned in the literature about the valuation of ecosystem services
The collective sense of these adjectives is that spiritual value is akin to the psychological benefit encounters with ecosystems can bring; a similar understanding is implied for aesthetic value
We argue that the core conceptual framework of ecosystem valuations is at odds with the conceptual frameworks for beauty and the spiritual that are in common use in Western cultures, dominated by economic thought these cultures appear to be

Summary

Introduction

Aesthetic and spiritual values of ecosystem are frequently mentioned in the literature about the valuation of ecosystem services. In the second Section (4) we advocate a method of interpretation of discourses and cultural productions, a method yet to be adopted by the VES community In this second section we first discuss the method before exploring the idea (trope) of wilderness and what that reveals about aesthetic and spiritual values of nature. Others in this special issue report on evidence of spiritual and aesthetic value in deliberative and interpretive-deliberative ecosystem service valuation exercises (in this issue: Bryce et al, 2016; Collins et al, 2016; Fish et al, 2016b; Kenter et al, 2016a; Kenter, 2016; Ranger et al, 2016), so in the third section we include some of this evidence to illustrate consilience with our analysis. We end by discussing our conclusions in relation to other VES work and join the chorus advocating maintaining a plurality of values up to the point of decision-making

Conceptual analysis

Nature and value in aesthetics

Spiritual conceptions of nature and value

Interpretive-deliberative evidence

Findings

Discussion