ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the grand and in many ways plausible and supportable ideas by ecological aestheticians and aesthetic ecologists are based on an insufficient or confused analysis of the notion of 'what is aesthetic'. The really interesting and controversial cases are those in which a positive aesthetic appreciation is not supported by biological and ecological facts. There are cases in which aesthetic considerations overrule ecological factors. However, the larger the possible ecological damage might be, the less the role that aesthetic values play in decision making. The interesting thing in everyday aesthetics is that it is not tied to any particular kind of object, but can appear in respect to artefacts and natural scenes of all kinds. The ecological aestheticians have tried to make is based on a mistaken conception of the varieties of the aesthetic. Art aesthetic cannot be applied to nature aesthetic.