| Environmental ethicswhich is the core component of contemporary environmental philosophy has received wide attention in the international scope. When Environmental ethicists explore the reason of ethics and morality people are with the environment, many aspects are involved in the aesthetic problems, while the most prominent example is the famous essay "From Beauty to Duty" by Holmes Rolston, which treats the beauty of environment as the basis of environmental ethics. Although people have published a large number of works of environmental ethics and environmental aesthetics, but there is no comprehensive and systematic works to clarify the relationship between them. From the international scope, the most important environmental ethicists are Homles Rolston, J.B.Callicott and Eugene Hargrove, but there are currently only some individual works doing the case study of them respectively, such as Zhao Hongmei’s book "Aesthetics Gone Wild On the Thought of Rolston’s Environmental Aesthetics" which is a specialized study on Rolston’s aesthetic thoughts, however, there is no works putting the three ethicists in the basic framework between environmental ethics and environmental aesthetics for the overall research.Whether the basis of environmental ethics is solid is related to the subject can be set up; If environmental aesthetics want to have a further development, it inevitably involves environmental ethics problems. Therefore, the research on the relationship between them, not only helps to promote environmental ethics research, but also helps to promote the environmental aesthetics research. This paper intends to choose Rolston, Callicott and Hargrove’s individual ideological courses as the investigation object, through tracing the theory origin and interpreting the theoretical system of their thoughts, on the basis of fully grasp their environmental ethics thoughts, reveal their aesthetic thoughts contained in them, and summarize the different research focus and put forward different theories and practical problems, then discuss the theory resources are for the possibility of expanding the aesthetic research space. Therefore, this study has important theoretical value and practical significance for Chinese contemporary environmental aesthetics construction and ecological civilization construction. This thesis mainly studies from the following several aspects:Firstly, the paper discusses the contemporary western environmental ethics and aesthetic problems. Environmental aesthetics concern how to appreciate the natural environment, while environmental ethics are with the issues of moral reason of protecting the environment, which is to answer why people should protect environment from the perspective of ethics. They are closely linked with each other. On the one hand, environment beauty existence depends on the environmental protection under the perspective of environmental ethics; on the other hand, the awareness of people’s environment responsibility consciousness can’t do with the positive motivation of environment beauty; finally, both of them produce and develop based on the attention to environment. Environmental aesthetics is to appreciate the environment as the aesthetic objects, and the object of environmental ethics is also the same, both of them have dependencies to the emotions. The combination of environmental aesthetics and environmental ethics can cultivate people’s more emotional relationship to the environment; it will bring a new airspace for environmental protection. In environmental ethics, the leaders in the field of environmental philosophy, Rolston, Callicott and Hargrove have put forward different opinions for environmental ethics and environmental aesthetics.Second, the paper discusses Rolston’s aesthetic problem in environmental ethics: From Beauty to Duty. Rolston, with its reputation in academia for environmental ethics thought. However, he is definitely not an environmental ethicist of general sense, but also a real environment aesthete. His environmental ethics always reflects the strong aesthetic purport, aiming at to establish the organic unification of ethics and aesthetics on environmental issues. His "Philosophy to the Wilderness" ends with "the experience and enjoyment of environment" for the full text, the "Environmental Ethics" ends with "inhabit the earth poetically"; in the essay "From Beauty to Duty: Natural Aesthetics and Environmental Ethics", he even put forward the concept of "Aesthetic to the Wilderness", he clearly points out that environmental ethics need aesthetics, but not superficial aesthetics, the aesthetic demand of environmental ethics depends on the depth of the environmental aesthetics. Rolston’s environmental aesthetic thoughts mainly embody in three aspects:one is to the discovery of natural aesthetic value, the second is to the grasp of beauty, and the third is to discussion of the wilderness aesthetic pattern. Through the observation and comprehension, Rolston thinks that wild nature bears the weight of aesthetic value. Aesthetics to the wilderness help people to develop the awareness of environmental responsibility.Third, this paper also interprets Callicott’s aesthetic issues in environmental ethics:ecological centralism. J.B. Callicott strictly follows the ideas of Leopold, is a subjective non-human center intrinsic value theorist. In the modern western ecological ethics, Callicott is seen as a contemporary interpretation of Leopold land ethics, and his ethical holism insists and develops the land ethics. He inherits Taylor and other scholars’point of view and puts forward the environmental ethics doctrine called "ecological centrism". He points out that bio-centralism in fact pays only moral equal attention on the individual life but in a sense ignores the meaning of "biotic community", and even denies the interconnected and interdependent relationship between biotic community, and this is not consistent with the thought of modern ecology. Eco-centrism inspired by ecology thinks that man is an organic part of ecosystem, biosphere and ecological process, therefore should follow the behavior of the biotic community rules and equally treats other members. Real environmental ethics must be equal to the entire ecosystem, natural process and existence. Environmental ethics is trying to transcend the limitations of traditional ethics, establish a new system of ethics and values, and provide a theoretical way to protect the endangered species of wild fauna and flora, maintain ecological environment, building the harmonious sustainable development of the new relationship between man and nature. Callicott also analyses the world-view basis of environmental aesthetics and defends holism values of Leopold. Besides developing land aesthetics, he indicates that what we benefits from the environment is not only material resources but also aesthetic experience which is the reward offered by nature.Fourth, the paper explains Hargrove’s aesthetic issues in environmental ethics thought:The Ontology of Environmental ethics. He takes aesthetic and scientific attitude to the environment and promots the priority of natural beauty. Firstly, the construction basis of environmental ethics is the integrity and complexity of the world, the ontology feature of it. Only we catch this featue, we can probably build a new world view, breaking the partial understanding of science on nature. Secondly, scientific interest may be not analytic; on the contrary, science itself can make people specially focus on nature’s primary modality, therefore, nature history becomes Hargrove’s favorite scientific style. On the basis, Hargrove indicates that natural beauty by human hands is generated according to human’s aesthetic concepts, thus it has art’s features, whereas natural beauty without human hands is the authentic beauty, and people can touch the aesthetic pleasure only if we change our attitudes towards nature, that’s to say, we should understand nature from nature itself. He discusses that the western intellectual history restrains philosophy ideas of environmental thoughts, scientific theory and land use manners, reveals and illustrates the affinity between western traditional aesthetics, scientific attitudes and contemporary environmental philosophy, taking the natural beauty as the foundation of environmental ethics. He thinks that the ancient Greek philosophy inhibits the aesthetic appreciation of nature. They are too busy with such things as material, atoms, and other entities of assumption with no direct experience by their feelings, so they don’t have a visual or aesthetic experience, and can’t develop aesthetic appreciation of nature. Hargrove thinks that environmental ethics starts from the magnificent scenery, and environmental ethics should be combined with environmental aesthetics.Fifth, this paper also illustrates the construction of the western environmental ethics and ecological aesthetics in contemporary China. The environmental ethics and aesthetics represented by the three environmental philosophers, taking both the long and beyond both, taking the ethics and aesthetics of the two together. Through the study of the aesthetic thought in environmental ethics, it finds a radical direction for ecological wisdom in ethics and aesthetics ideology, and really explores the correspondence between them, provides a new train of thought ecological civilization and the construction of ecological culture and ecological crisis solution in the process of contemporary China. Although China’s ecological aesthetics construction has made important progress, how to make it more mature and perfect, is still a difficult problem. The research of this paper can undoubtedly provide related theory resources and references.First of all, from the perspective of scientific background, cultural tradition and philosophy basis, this paper bases on the traces of three environmental ethicists Rolston, Callicott and Hargrove’s theory origins; Through systematically combing their works and ideas, finding its phase characters in the evolution of their thoughts, this paper on the whole generalizes the connotation of aesthetic theory, to explore the correlation of environmental ethics and environmental aesthetics, and during the course of the history of the development of western environmental ethics, evaluates of the differences and relations among their aesthetic thoughts.This study adopts the method of logical and historical unity, from exploring the rationality of the existence of environmental ethics, follow the principle of the unity of history and logic, systematically combing three representative environmental ethics thoughts; And using the method of the combination of literature analysis and comparison, put them in a specific historical scene, in discussing their ideas and activities, contact characters and events once influence or relate to explain the formation of their views. On the basis of literature analysis, this paper explores the theory origin of the three representative philosopher’s respective environmental ethics thoughts, and finds its position in contemporary environmental ethics theory framework by comparison; this study also uses case studies and other methods through the case with the empirical analysis to clarify their aesthetic thoughts of environmental philosophy and environmental ethics.This paper will focus on:one is the analysis on aesthetics thoughts of Rolston, Callicott, Hargrove in environmental philosophy and environmental ethics, examining the different research focus and focus on different issues; Second, the thinking of western environmental philosophy and environmental ethics for the value and significance of theoretical construction of contemporary environmental aesthetics and ecological aesthetics, and then discusses the possibility of putting forward a new aesthetic theory. Of course, this paper also faces some difficulties in the writing process:compile and tease a large number of relevant literature and do the systematic research for the aesthetic ideas of their environmental ethics; Second, how to introduce the theory to domestic China, through Chinese version and oriental philosophy thought to enrich its connotation, and communicate between Chinese and western environmental ethics and environmental aesthetics theory.This paper hopes to take systematic research on Rolston, Callicott, Hargrove’s aesthetic ideas of environmental ethics based on the comparative study of three different aesthetic ideas of them; And with three ethicists ideas as a starting point, it explores the correlation between ethics and aesthetics, and finds out how the link is into a new thought-form, in order to provide the relevant theoretical resources and references to further and mature the construction of Chinese ecological aesthetics. |
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