A Study Of The Ecological Dimension Of Shaftesbury’s Aesthetic Thought

Shaftesbury was an important British thinker in the 17 th and 18 th centuries,and his aesthetic thought contains strong ecological implications.From Shaftesbury’s "purposive view of nature",the connotation of "moral sense" changes from "man’s responsibility to man" to "the responsibility of the parts of the natural system to the natural system as a whole part of the natural system to the natural system as a whole".Only through the harmonious development of the natural system itself can the "third form" of the essence of beauty emerge,when beauty and goodness are the same and the moral sense of Ecology becomes the inner ethical norm for the development of natural ecological beauty.The aesthetic without utilitarianism was first proposed by Shaftesbury in the history of aesthetics.And this idea is intrinsically related to ecological aesthetic activities,in which the ecological laws and ecological ethics are harmonized with each other to produce a purposeless co-purpose,a co-purpose that satisfies the harmony of a higher system.Art imitates nature and can express its supreme goodness and beauty.Such art makes people tend to beauty and provides the basis for ecological aesthetic education.Ecological foresight is also present in Shaftesbury’s aesthetic thought,and his view of nature,Aesthetic disinterestedness and his view of wilderness has similarities with the ideas of Hutchison,Kant,Leopold,and Carlson.A study of the ecological dimension of Shaftesbury’s aesthetic thought can provide some reference for the construction of a beautiful China.