ABSTRACT What have natural aesthetics and environmentalism in common? Not much if the former deals with nature as if it were an artwork or a gallery of art objects, or if the latter grounds the protection of nature in consequentialist terms. Suppose, however, one adopts a non-consequentialist environmentalism which, further, stakes out a primary view of nature as terrain rather than as habitat; i.e., a view which is not biocentric (life-centred), let alone anthropocentric. This environmentalism is rooted in the belief (...) that we are prima facie bound not to interfere in any of the world undefined by culture whether or not it supports life. There is a reason forbidding us from strip-mining the far side of the moon, say, even though no habitat is thereby destroyed, nor is there any blight creating visual offence to those immediately affected. To furnish the reason for such an ‘acentric’environmentalism, one needs a natural aesthetic. Why? By elimination, because the stock appeals grounding any moral stance—to rights or interests or happiness or autonomy—are unavailable. The ‘subject’of an acentric environmentalism is insensate. But an ‘acentric’aesthetic seems even more curious than its environmentalist dependent. It would entail an aesthetic viewpoint indifferent to human scale and perspective, the very factors which underwrite any cultural aesthetic. So, is such an aesthetic possible? The barest glimpse of how it might look concludes this paper. (shrink)

Most music we hear comes to us via a recording medium on which sound has been stored. Such remoteness of music heard from music made has become so commonplace it is rarely considered. _Musical Performance: A Philosophical Study_ considers the implications of this separation for live musical performance and music-making. Rather than examining the composition or perception of music as most philosophical accounts of music do, Stan Godlovitch takes up the problem of how the tradition of active music playing and (...) performing has been challenged by technology and what problems this poses for philosophical aesthetics. Where does does the value of musical performance lie? Is human performance of music a mere transfer medium? Is the performance of music more expressive than recorded music? Musical Performance poses questions such as these to develop a fascinating account of music today. musicians - but via some recording medium on which sound has been stored. (shrink)

This book evaluates traditional musical performance and asks where its unique value lies.

Over the last dozen years, the writings of Richard Taruskin have transformed the debate about "early music" and "authenticity." Text and Act collects for the first time the most important of Taruskin's essays and reviews from this period, many of which now classics in the field. Taking a wide-ranging cultural view of the phenomenon, he shows that the movement, far from reviving ancient traditions, in fact represents the only truly modern style of performance being offered today. He goes on to (...) contend that the movement is therefore far more valuable and even authentic than the historical verisimilitude for which it ostensibly strives could ever be. These essays cast fresh light on many aspects of contemporary music-making and music-thinking, mixing lighthearted debunking with impassioned argumentation. Taruskin ranges from theoretical speculation to practical criticism, and covers a repertory spanning from Bach to Stravinsky. Including a newly written introduction, Text and Act collects the very best of one of our most incisive musical thinkers. (shrink)

Some environmental views characterise the human abuse of nature as an offence against nature itself. What conception of nature would best fit that characterisation? To focus upon such a conception, aesthetic offences against nature are examined and distinguished at the outset from moral offences. Aesthetic offences are divided into those internal to our cultural outlook and external to it. The external outlook, conceiving nature as a thing wholly apart from us, is shown to be necessary to any view of nature (...) being offended against. Central to the external outlook is a conception of nature as the victim of offence without ever being itself an offending agent. Best fitting this is the notion of nature as primordially innocent. Given this metaphorical extension, the awkward consequence arises that any human use of nature constitutes thereby an abuse of it from the external standpoint. (shrink)

When I first began to study philosophy I was introduced to the discipline in that magically traditional way by being assured that what lay before me was the love of wisdom. Why this had any adolescent appeal still puzzles me, but, like many others, I joined in as spectator to and occasionally as a removed participant in all the rough and tumble of a Socratic sparring match in the Athenian marketplace. There was some talk of wisdom, to be sure, which (...) seemed to link it with a humble admission of ignorance or a pitch against yielding to temptation, but neither was ever deeply revealing. I waited for more. My next encounter a few years later turned up little more than the surname of an English disciple of Wittgenstein. Somehow the trail had gone to brush, despite the apparent health and energy of philosophy. (shrink)

Changes over time in many large scale human practices such as science and technology seem best understood in terms of progress. Further, regarding such practices as slavery, we seem to have moved on and for the better, that is, to have progressed morally. But moral progress seems something different from other forms of progress. If possible at all, in what can it consist? Progress is understood as falling into three distinguishable categories; namely, progress as mere change, as change culminating in (...) some end‐state, and as change involving improvement or betterment. While scientific or economic progress seem of the last sort, moral progress is best understood as a hybrid of culminative change and improvement, a variety of progress labelled millenarian. Though there is an end towards which moral progress must tend, we do not know what it is. Further, moral progress must occupy a special superordinate and regulatory role regarding other progressive practices; that is, for moral progress to be possible, other progressive practices must come under the aegis of increasingly stringent moral regulation. This paper elaborates a model of moral progress, speculates upon signs of its presence, considers various relativist objections, and makes an exhortative plea for the need to have such a notion as a condition of the very possibility of moral progress. (shrink)

Some knowledge — most infamously, the Nazi experiments on human subjects — has been acquired by means which cannot be morally condoned however beneficial the knowledge may be. Yet, given that we now have such knowledge, it seems morally questionable to forbid its use where we know it can benefit us. Although a strong utilitarian case exists for deploying such information and although any pragmatic, humane person would use it where it could improve a situation, residual moral qualms remain which (...) are neither the expression of sentimentality nor squeamishness. Given the evil source of the knowledge, can we avoid the charge that we are tied to the evil, and even respectful of the experimenters, by wilfully benefiting from the work? I explore a few arguments meant to remove the moral qualms and show them all to be wanting. However, because we in fact regularly and routinely benefit in countless ways from many systematic evils of the distant past without qualms, we seem to be inconsistently selective when it concerns certain evils. This inconsistency can be explained, if not justified, by appeal to a principle of decent delay which allows us after a time to ignore the origins of our present benefits and so make moral fadeout acceptable. This principle itself is grounded in our natural and increasing forgetfulness of events as they recede in time, an adaptive mechanism which allows us both to carry on our lives in relative decency and yet to maintain a fitting sensitivity to newer, closer evils which affect more immediately our relations with others and our sense of moral integrity. (shrink)

What is philosophy about? Has it a content all its own? A method? This paper examines a few responses to these questions. At the extremes are the Proper Content and the No Content views. The former identifies philosophy with a delimited set of core issues. The latter, abandoning any proper subject-matter for philosophy, identifies it with a core modus operandi. Neither of these is especially compelling. More dynamically conceived is the Vanishing Content view which sees philosophy as continually and inevitably (...) abandoning its business to newly emerging sciences, acting largely as an exploratory initiator of inquiry which is ultimately eliminable. Though promising, this view underrates the resilience and adaptability of philosophy, especially its current drive to forge alliances with and ultimately amalgamate itself into newer areas of study. This tendency is explored via the Partners-for-Progress view, which foresees philosophy becoming dependently indistinguishable from the theoretical wings of various autonomous disciplines. Finally, I examine the Family Inheritance view, which suggests that philosophy cannot merely vanish into the sciences because of idiosyncrasies in its very institutions which are self-sustaining and, more than most, deeply beholden to its own past which it keeps ever present. (shrink)

Two broad metaphysical perspectives deriving from Parmenides and Heraclitus have implications for our notion of sustainability. The Parmenidian defends a deepseated orderliness and permanence in things, while the Heraclitian finds only chance and change. Two further outlooks, the nomic (or the big-picture scientific) and the prudential, present differing accounts of our place in the world. While the nomic outlook accepts nothing privileged about the human perspective or even life itself, the prudential outlook is obviously welfare-centered. It is argued that nomic (...) views, whether Parmenidian or Heraclitian, fail to provide any rationale for sustainability measures or concerns. The only such rationale comes from Parmenidian prudentialism, which, I argue, can operate only if it disowns at its peril the nomic point of view and couches sustainability entirely under the rubric of maximizing certain preferred opportunities drawn from collective self-love. But doing so merely evades rather than answers the tension imposed by the nomic Heraclitian for whom nothing lasts and nothing human counts specially in the measure. The liabilities of Parmenidian prudentialism are examined and found to be too great for any consistent notion of sustainability to bear. (shrink)

In this work, Godlovitch explores aspects of the value of nature other than as a resource to satisfy our material interests. A recurring theme is that nature's non-instrumental value thus conceived must be understood as involving a distinctively inextricable complex of both aesthetic and moral considerations. This distinguishes such value from the sorts typified by the moral worth of human beings and the aesthetic worth of cultural artifacts. He asks such questions as: Is there any relation between an aesthetic appreciation (...) of nature and the reasonably well-established traditions of aesthetics of art and culture? Can an aesthetics of nature play any practical role in environmental protection? Godlovitch argues that we are encouraged, if not compelled, toward a conception of value in its own right whether we try to forge either a natural aesthetic or an environmental ethic. (shrink)

Two broad metaphysical perspectives deriving from Parmenides and Heraclitus have implications for our notion of sustainability. The Parmenidian defends a deepseated orderliness and permanence in things, while the Heraclitian finds only chance and change. Two further outlooks, the nomic and the prudential, present differing accounts of our place in the world. While the nomic outlook accepts nothing privileged about the human perspective or even life itself, the prudential outlook is obviously welfare-centered. It is argued that nomic views, whether Parmenidian or (...) Heraclitian, fail to provide any rationale for sustainability measures or concerns. The only such rationale comes from Parmenidian prudentialism, which, I argue, can operate only if it disowns at its peril the nomic point of view and couches sustainability entirely under the rubric of maximizing certain preferred opportunities drawn from collective self-love. But doing so merely evades rather than answers the tension imposed by the nomic Heraclitian for whom nothing lasts and nothing human counts specially in the measure. The liabilities of Parmenidian prudentialism are examined and found to be too great for any consistent notion of sustainability to bear. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Aesthetic protectionists think nature worth preserving and protecting from harm on aesthetic rather than moral grounds. Their outlook can be compared with the drive to shelter and sustain artworks. As such, protectionists seem rather like curators. However, this kind of attention to natural objects leads to a minimisation of the significance of the naturalness of those objects. This raises questions about the protectionist's real regard for nature. By examining what in nature is aesthetically worthy of protection, and then asking (...) how far one is entitled to go in one's protective mission, it transpires that protectionists have no special stake in sustaining the independence of nature. Indeed, its independence often conspires against their aims. Since that very independence is essential to the natural, protectionism is exposed as having no intrinsic regard for nature. (shrink)