Abstract
In this paper I will start by assuming that positive aes- thetic experiences of damaged nature are possible and I will try to motivate the idea that the aesthetic pleasure derived from that con- templation might reveal something of the environment's overall character. I hope to show that, sometimes, positive aesthetic ex- periences help to promote emotional attitudes that can have an in- sightful role in the configuration of other non-aesthetic attitudes. In order to do so, I will critically appeal to some of the thoughts Kant articulated about the notion of aesthetic experience and its relation- ship to cognition and morality. I think the sort of experience I am after in this paper cannot be easily accommodated within a Kantian framework and that the possibility of positive aesthetic experience of damaged nature will show that the relationships between the aes- thetic and the cognitive or the moral are more complex and enrich- ing than they have been acknowledged. 1. The Possibility of Positive Aesthetic Experiences of Damaged Na- ture
Highlights
In this article I start by assuming that positive aesthetic experiences of damaged nature are possible and I argue for the idea that the aesthetic pleasure derived from that contemplation might reveal something of the environment’s overall character
If some damaged environments afford aesthetic pleasure,3 I would like to explore what sort of significance, if any, these experiences have in a broader sense
I suggest that sometimes our aesthetic experiences enrich our perceptual experience of those landscapes and qualify its character, casting them in a new light and enhancing their overall quality for us; this, in turn, could affect the ways we address these landscapes cognitively and morally
Summary
In this article I am interested in the aesthetic character that damaged or ecologically distorted environments – such as contaminated rivers or lakes, carved mountains, or spoiled valleys – might possess when their appearance is the result, directly or indirectly, of human activities. The reason for concentrating on natural environments damaged by human action is that with respect to these cases there might be moral considerations about the propriety of experiencing aesthetic pleasure which, apparently, render that sort of pleasure problematic It seems more or less a matter of agreement – or common sense – that damaged nature cannot afford positive aesthetic experiences at all.. If some damaged environments afford aesthetic pleasure, I would like to explore what sort of significance, if any, these experiences have in a broader sense This search is motivated by a twofold concern: in the first place, it is a concern about some of the connections between the experience of beauty and other moral or cognitive experiences Kant introduced in the Critique of Judgement.. I am not so much interested in exploring the plausibility of these connections in general as in assessing whether the examples of beautiful damaged nature which I have been exploring might cast new light on these thoughts or introduce some tensions that could be inadequately solved within a Kantian framework
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