What happens when an object you take to be beautiful or aesthetically pleasing, no longer appears beautiful or pleasing when you learn something new about it? I am assuming a situation in which there is no direct change in the perceptual features of the object, and that what you learn is not the location of some new surface property but rather a bit of non-perceptual information. I classify episodes of dampened appreciation under the heading 'aesthetic disillusionment', and in this paper (...) I explore the relationship between such episodes and the broader issue of ethical constraints on aesthetic activity and appreciation. Does it make sense to say that one should not, or ought not, take pleasure in certain objects or events? I think it does – but in a very particular, almost ecological way. The subsequent discussion focuses on ethical constraints as they operate on the aesthetic appreciation of objects and events within the natural environment. (shrink)

Using eelgrass restoration in the Narragansett Bay as the touchstone for discussion, this chapter clarifies some of the challenges faced in ecological restoration by analyzing those challenges under three distinct philosophical classifications: epistemological, axiological, and normative. Examining wide divergences among governmental, scientific, and popular articulations of estuarine matters, the chapter surveys how the fractured relationships governing reflection, value, and action has been addressed both within and beyond various principles governing restoration. It also recounts the efforts of the Rhode Island advocacy (...) group Save the Bay to implement a community restoration initiative for children and then to redesign the initiative when original expectations about its effect did not come to fruition. Finally, the chapter addresses broader ambiguities about the relationships between fact and value, and between value and action, as they emerge from the restoration issues discussed. While the chapter avoids the prescription of particular solutions to the challenges facing eelgrass and other estuarine restoration, it strives to delineate and illuminate the tangled sources of value that can drive everyday decisions—sources that, left unexamined, may contribute collectively to the demise of eelgrass populations. (shrink)