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Allen Carlson provides an historical backdrop for this volume by outlining ten pivotal stages in the development of Western environmental aesthetics, briefly describing some of the main contributions to the field that have been made at each stage. The chapter begins with Ronald Hepburn’s seminal 1966 essay ‘Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty,’ and ends with what Carlson calls the ‘Coming of Age’ of environmental aesthetics, which is marked by the proliferation of new monographs, anthologies, reference volume entries, and introductory textbooks that have been published in the field since the turn of the century. He then adds a coda concerning environmental aesthetics beyond the West.

This chapter argues that (1) in contrast to the art forms already discussed, the ethical criticism of which sometimes invites the perspectivist approach and sometimes demands the production-oriented approach, the proper ethical criticism of environmental art requires the production-oriented approach; (2) the production-oriented approach to the ethical criticism of environmental artworks lends support to the moderate moralist’s claim about the interaction of ethical and aesthetic value: the presences of ethical defects in environmental artworks sometimes diminishes their aesthetic value; (3) because environmental artworks appropriate part of the natural environment as an aspect of their identity, an aesthetic flaw in an environmental artwork necessarily also creates aesthetic disvalue in the natural environment—disvalue that exists in virtue of the creation of the artwork. Insofar as the diminishment of the aesthetic value of the natural environment is ethically wrong, the aesthetic flaws of an environmental artwork necessarily constitute ethical flaws.

Yrjö Sepänmaa discusses the relationship between the theory and practice of environmental aesthetics. He suggests that the future lies in moving outside the academy through a new kind of professional aesthetic activity and through engagement with the public. Environmental aestheticians should combine or complement their role as analysts with the role of guides, acting as experts in beauty in cooperation with researchers from other disciplines, practical workers, policymakers, and the wider public. The need for a close cooperation between various parties as a consequence of the transition from theoretical to applied environmental aesthetics poses intricate problems of communication across boundaries between different and sometimes divergent disciplines and audiences. As an important way to tackle these problems, Sepänmaa points to a series of seven international congresses on environmental aesthetics that took place in Finland from 1994 to 2009. This series has been a major force in the unification of the discipline, in crossing borders between the natural sciences and the humanities, in finding a common language for exchanging information and ideas across boundaries, and in linking activities of players from different fields.

The central issue in environmental aesthetics is whether there are norms that constrain aesthetic judgments about nature. This chapter will first explain why the search for constraints on aesthetic judgments about natural objects plays such a central role in environmental aesthetics. It will then try to figure out what kinds of norms might be invoked, and what principles or assumptions explain the choice of norms. The chapter considers two aspects of aesthetic judgment about which one might attempt to lay down some norms. One concerns the objects of aesthetic judgment. The other covers the background knowledge one needs to make appropriate or correct judgments. The chapter concludes by considering what role, if any, imagination and emotion play in such judgments.

The introduction argues for recognition of specific Native American aesthetic and literary cultures prior to European arrival and highlights their ongoing influence and significance during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During a period of American literary development known for white appropriation of Native American content, Native resistance to Euro-American settler colonialism involved aesthetic practices such as narrative mapping, visual art, storytelling, figurative representation, and adornment. These practices contributed to both Native and non-Native literary production, despite Euro-American authors’ assertions that sophisticated artistic traditions were a European import to the North American continent. Bringing the concepts “literary,” “aesthetic” and “representation” to bear on analysis of cross-cultural encounter, the introduction posits new modes of understanding points of connection or distance between Native and non-Native aesthetic practice.

The aesthetic system of Japanese philosopher KUKI Shūzō exposes the value systems at the heart of our current environmental crisis. Kuki’s anthropology and aesthetics stand in sharp contrast to the Platonic metaphysics that forms the historical basis of Western value schemes. By focusing on becoming and nothingness rather than the permanence of the forms, Kuki develops a philosophy in which the love of nature is the fundamental ground of value. This forms the basis of an environmental aesthetic and ethic in which human flourishing is ultimately tied to the good of the environment.

In Japan, as in the west, gardens represent an idealized form of nature in which human beings reshape the natural world according to specific aesthetic paradigms. Unlike Western formal gardens, which are characterized by symmetry and rigid order, Japanese gardens present a more “natural” appearance by articulating the native characteristics of the materials, such as rocks and plants. The philosophy of Zen Buddhism, as well as the time-honored garden design principle of “following the request” show how Japanese garden designers are inspired by—and possibly improve upon—nature in their art and how a respectful attitude toward nature is expressed aesthetically in Japanese gardens.