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The Aesthetic Dimension of the Interrelations between Ecological Science and Ethics : The Other Leopoldian Bridge*. Sheila Lintott, Bucknell University a nd Allen Carlson, University of Alberta
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The Aesthetic Dimension of the Interrelations between Ecological Science and Ethics:The OtherLeopoldianBridge* Sheila Lintott, Bucknell University and 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. 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. Beauty?
Considering the role of beauty in an ecological context 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?
Aesthetic Appreciation and Preservation A new conservation acquisition on the Washington coast http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/washington/misc/art33147.html?src=news Leonardo da Vinci Portrait of Mona Lisa 1503-06http://www.artchive.com
Nature of Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature formalistic/ picturesque relativistic/ postmodern scientific/cognitivist
Jackson Pollock, Number 1 1950 http://www.nga.gov Caravaggio,The Taking of Christ 1602 http://www.nga.gov