Abstract

This paper defends that environmental aesthetics provides a consistent basis for environmental philosophy, whereas aesthetic value plays an important role in the defense and preservation of natural areas. For several environmental philosophers the natural beauty is an inherent part of the ethical concern. Leopold States that “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, the balance and the beauty of the biotic community”. Notwithstanding, aesthetic value is still not a central issue in the environmental debate. On the other hand, the “positive aesthetics”, which is a recent approach that reevaluates “positively” natural beauty in the ethical context, obtains a core of objections. This paper sketches a few arguments defending the contiguity between environmental aesthetics and environmental ethics: the emotional perception of inclusiveness and engagement on the aesthetics appreciation of nature; the feelings of grace and love to ward nature inherent to the nature’s aesthetic appreciation which according Kant announces the moral feeling; the ecological knowledge of natural beauty in order to understand the full meaning of it, and that includes some natural entities seen as not beautiful.