Abstract
For many members of contemporary western societies, the environment is either the theatre upon which we plan and play out our own aspirations, or a basket of resources from which to extract, produce and commercialize consumable ‘goods.’ Infrequently noticed, thought about, or cared for in any substantive way, it is merely the theatre upon which we plan and play out our own aspirations. The same might be said of many ‘sustainability enterprises,’ as the environment is taken, quite literally, as a place-less basket of resources from which to extract, produce and commercialize consumable ‘goods. There is a need, then, for continued work in reframing how we see, interact with, and respond to the environment.
Within the world of environmental conservation, one powerful tool employed to motivate care for the environment is drawn from the field of aesthetics. The attractive qualities of the natural world have long played a crucial role in shaping environmental policy and public concern. Even a cursory overview of the history of conservation work amply demonstrates the motivational leverage of beauty in stimulating significant change to environmental policy and even societal values. However, reliance upon the aesthetic realm also holds its own set of difficulties; employed as a designator of value, it can be overly anthropocentric, exclusionary and unjust, and its ethical purchase weak. What, then, are we to do with beauty and the aesthetic realm? Is it extraneous, representative of elitist ephemera, and even damaging in its influence upon ethical questions?
Against those who are critical of the use of aesthetics in environmental ethics, I take the position that drawing upon aesthetics is crucial if we hope to change human behavior. However, in a departure from the use of aesthetics as a designator of value in service of environmental ethics, I argue that the aesthetic-moral notion of ‘fittingness,’ useful for its familiarity in everyday language, holds normative potential for directing our manner of seeing and relating to the world around us. It holds particular value for the manner in which it directs attention to the local ecology, and challenges our manner of being within that ecology, or, more specifically, an ecological neighborhood. As such, the structure of decorum holds interesting potential for informing a more just and democratic approach to questions of sustainability.
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Notes
- 1.
For a helpful discussion of sustainability, particularly as derived from the Planetary Boundaries concept, see Downing et al., 2020. For the sake of brevity and the reader’s familiarity, I work with the most well-known, if flawed, WCED definition.
- 2.
Robin Wall Kimmerer describes the sort of local knowledge I have in mind, as she defines Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) as “the knowledge, practice, and belief concerning the relationships of living beings to one another and to the physical environment, which is held by peoples in relatively nontechnical societies with a direct dependence upon local resources … It is born of long intimacy and attentiveness to a homeland and can arise whenever people are materially and spiritually integrated with their landscape. TEK is rational and reliable knowledge that has been developed through generations of intimate contact by native peoples with their lands (Kimmerer, 2002, p. 431 in Whyte, 2013, p. 6). Definitions of TEK are multiple, as is their perceived relationship to scientific knowledge. As Whyte explains, Kimmerer is among those who understand TEK as a type of knowledge parallel to science; they offer “complimentary perspectives on the environment and natural resources” (Whyte, p. 6).
- 3.
Recognizing not all readers share my assumptions regarding a theistic approach to the environment, I will instead utilize a more broadly acceptable cluster of terms, recognizing that even these generate debate: nature, natural world, environment, ecology. I also recognize some will deem my choice to use them interchangeably too imprecise. Nevertheless, I do so as a way of making room for those whose presuppositions differ from my own.
- 4.
See also Fiona Ellis’ notion of ‘expansive naturalism,’ whose work Brady looks to in order “to make room in environmental aesthetics – in theory and in practice – for ideas, concepts, perspectives, philosophies, cosmologies, epistemologies, and varieties of aesthetic experience” (Brady, 2020).
- 5.
For an insightful, in-depth discussion of indigenous land-management practices, and the manner in which Indigenous peoples’ presence shaped the ecology of California in particular, see Anderson’s work: Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press: 2005).
- 6.
The myths surrounding ‘pristine’ nature and the impetus to protect, or cleanse pristine environs of those people considered unclean, or uncivilized, permeated not only imaginary of settler colonialism of the early American landscape, but that of European explorers into ‘new lands’ across the oceans. For one cogent account, see Willie James Jennings, “Binding Landscapes: Secularism, Race, and the Spatial Modern” in Jonathon S. Kahn and Vincent W. Lloyd, eds., Race and Secularism in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 207–238. My thanks to Andre Price for drawing this article to my attention.
- 7.
Cicero alternates between using the term ‘decorum’ and ‘fittingness.’ I will do the same.
- 8.
Fittingness possesses a surprisingly substantial pedigree, for all of its apparent mundanity. Its elasticity enables all manner of borrowing from its origins in classical Greek rhetoric, from medieval theology to contemporary moral philosophy. Aquinas casts the notion as conveniens, a critical element of his understanding of divine necessity (Bauerschmidt, 2013). Leo Zaibert employs it in relation to questions of justice and punishment (Zaibert, 2006, pp. 331–350), while Christopher Howard examines the notion with regard to attitudes. Ian Hodder’s archeological work offers interesting insight into the relationship between humans and things (Hodder, 2012).
- 9.
Remer contrasts Cicero’s approach with Machiavelli, who cast aside moral constraint for the sake of a thorough-going political utilitarianism. Other scholars concur, giving new attention to the Roman rhetor and politician as an important alternative to Aristotelian approaches to rhetoric and political morality. See also Joy Connolly, The State of Speech: Rhetoric and Political Thought in Ancient Rome (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).
- 10.
OMO does not take up the question of virtue formation. Nor is question of who may be virtuous, and how. Cicero assumes his readers, well-educated members of the ruling class, are already virtuous, needing guidance only with regard to virtue’s praxis within the rhetorical and political arenas. Indeed, as important as the concept is for Cicero, Remer observes that he never outlines “a clear plan for effecting the change of heart necessary” to engender practice of the virtue (Remer, 2017, p. 60).
- 11.
The link existing between the aesthetic and the moral, or between perception and concept, was later severed by Enlightenment thinkers. However, the relationship between the two has re-emerged among contemporary philosophers and psychologists concerned with theories of mind. Is there a correspondence between these two systems, or are they entirely distinct? The issue is beyond the scope of this chapter to engage, other than to acknowledge that, as one early reader of my chapter commented, fittingness may be one possible avenue for overcoming the divide.
- 12.
This is not to imply the human members of an ecosystem are the sole possessor of agency. It is merely to acknowledge the potential for outsized impact upon the environment human members can bring to an ecosystem.
- 13.
John Wesley Powell was a pioneer of such thinking in the American west. John Wesley Powell, Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States, with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah (reprint ed.). (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962). Others have since taken up his ideas, including Ched Meyers in Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), and Daniel Kemmis, a scholar-politician who has long advocated for the need to ‘think like a region’ with regard to ecological-political issues. Community and the Politics of Place (Norman: Oklahoma Press, 1992).
- 14.
The relational strength of fittingness notwithstanding, Scruton does not extensively explore the concept. As I discuss in a larger work in progress, there are critical issues to be mitigated against in his particular drawing of the notion. For instance, the potential for exclusion, through what Turner and Bailey (2021) have termed ‘eco-bordering’ is a concern I take up elsewhere.
- 15.
Space prevents me from discussing the important impact these developments have upon local Indigenous peoples who were the first to find their home in the region. With the development of Palm Springs, and the construction of water infrastructure discussed above, Indigenous peoples found themselves displaced, their lands submerged, and their lifeways ended. As Indigenous scholars argue, this is a recurring and devastating dynamic (Gilio-Whitaker, 2019; LaDuke, 2005).
- 16.
As other scholars have argued, the resilience of social-ecological systems is increased when a strong fit exists between the social-ecological systems and the managing organizations. (Folke, 2006). Others find, further, that it increases management effectiveness, resulting in better allocation, water quality, regional economic performance and, of growing importance, a reduction in conflicts over water (Young, 2002 and Kemper et al., 2010, in Herrfahrdt-Pahle, 2014).
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Acknowledgments
My gratitude to the Issachar Fund for their funding of a fellowship at Evangelische Theologische Faculteit in Leuven, Belgium as part of my larger research project on fittingness undertaken in 2018. Also, to the Collegeville Institute at St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota for their generous provision of extended stays as a Scholar in Residence during the 2022–2023 year, as well as to the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California for access to library resources as a visiting scholar during the 2021–2022 academic year. Finally, to Portia Hopkins for helpful comments on an earlier draft.
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Herrmann, L. (2024). That Which Guilds the Lily: Moving from Aesthetic Value to an Ethical Aesthetic. In: Del Baldo, M., Baldarelli, MG., Righini, E. (eds) Place Based Approaches to Sustainability Volume I. Palgrave Studies in Sustainable Business In Association with Future Earth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41606-4_6
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