Animal Beauty,
Ethics, and
Environmental
Preservation
Ned Hettinger
College of Charleston
Animal beauty
is a paradigm
of aesthetic
value
What could be more
graceful than a
gazelle?
Consider the beauty
of birds
The bright flash of a
cardinal against the
deep green leaves
The charm of the male
feeding his female
companion
The haunting call
of the loon
Animal beauty is important for
environmental preservation
•
Aesthetic preservationism holds that
natural beauty is a major justification for
environmental protection
•
If natural beauty amounts to anything, it
includes the beauty of animals, wild and
free, on the move
•
If our world lacked its splendid animal
beauty, the justification for protecting
the environment would be significantly
weaker
•
This talk is a defense of the significance
of animal beauty for environmental
preservation
Two objections to animal aesthetic
preservation
• Focus on animal beauty is superficial and
morally objectionable
• As it is with people, aesthetic merit is a trivial and
inappropriate basis on which to value or protect animals
• Predation is ugly
• Widespread suffering, death, and predation of animals is
aesthetically negative and compromises animal beauty’s role
in aesthetic protectionism
• Both are significant problems if one takes the
moral status of animals seriously.
Is beauty an objectionable basis
for treatment/valuing of humans
& animals?
Physically attractive humans are
treated better
• More successful in
virtually every area of
human life
• Jobs, friends,
spouses, being
elected . . .
Uncontroversial that some of this
preferential treatment is
problematic
• “Moral education” is needed to “correct for such biases”
(Robert Fudge, JAAC, 2001)
• A focus on human physical attractiveness is superficial:
• When we “shower many
rewards on people–models,
movie stars–who are beautiful
or who make themselves
beautiful” we should “feel a
little ashamed of it, thinking it a
little silly and a waste of
resources”
• “Things we do to maintain our
own beauty are associated
with disreputable traits like
vanity” (Rob Loftis 2003, PCW)
Not easy to explain why aesthetic
discrimination is problematic
• Given that beauty is
paradigmatically valuable, why
is human beauty not also
uncontroversially valuable?
• And if human beauty is
valuable, should it not count for
something in our thinking and
behavior?
• People often choose a spouse
or friends based in part on their
beauty and this does not seem
morally objectionable or
superficial
Does Aesthetic Discrimination
Violate Moral Equality?
• One objection to using aesthetic merit to value and
differentially treat people (and animals) is that it violates
the ideal of moral equality
• E.g., Beauty queens should not get
better medial treatment or fairer trials
Does the moral equality of animals prevent
similar aesthetic discrimination?
Endangered species
discrimination?
• The policy of preserving
attractive endangered
species before less
attractive ones seems to
run afoul of the moral
equality of animals
• If a bird rescue operation
chooses to rehabilitate
hawks, eagles, and owls,
but not vultures, and does
so on aesthetic grounds,
does it violate the
requirement of equal
consideration for all
animals?
• Does choosing a pet at
the pound based on
aesthetics violate equal
consideration of animals?
Moral equality not well understood
• The meaning and significance of moral
equality in humans is problematic
– Many argue for partiality as a moral ideal
– If and when moral equality rules out
meritocratic treatment (including aesthetic
discrimination) is also up for grabs
• The meaning and significance of moral
equality for animals is even less well
understood
Leave implications of moral
equality for aesthetic discrimination
unresolved
• Moral considerations do not always outweigh
aesthetic ones
• Boring life of Mr. Goody-two-shoes is not preferable to the life
of a person whose life--though not perfectly moral--is highly
aesthetically stimulating
• In the conflict between salmon and sea lions, even though
salmon are less sentient and thus less morally considerable,
salmon may get preference because of their spectacular life
cycle (superior aesthetic merit)
Aesthetic Merit and Autonomy
• Another reason aesthetic discrimination is
problematic is that much beauty is beyond
the individual’s control and thus:
• (1) It is unfair to base our treatment of others on
such a feature, for we should base our treatment of
others on characteristics for which they are
responsible
• (2) Evaluating others on basis of uncontrollable
features reduces their control over their lives
(reduces autonomy)
Beauty not always uncontrollable
• Note that these
arguments don’t apply for
the many dimensions of
beauty that are
controllable
• When an appearance that
repulses others is chosen
(e.g., dirty, smelly,
gluttonous, etc)
• Differential treatment on
this basis is neither unfair
nor autonomy reducing
These considerations don’t apply
well to animals
• Is aesthetic discrimination toward animals unfair
to them because we are failing to treat them on
the basis of features for which they are
responsible?
• No: Because animals are not
(fully) morally responsible
beings, no possibility of
treating them only on the
basis of features for which
they are responsible
Does aesthetic discrimination
reduce animal autonomy?
• Animals’ choices and ability to control their
lives are sufficiently limited so that
aesthetic discrimination does not seriously
impair autonomy in animals
• Would we increase the autonomy of ugly pets in
pounds if we choose them on the basis of their
behavior rather than their looks?
• I don’t think so.
Does aesthetic discrimination focus
on a trivial value?
• Beauty is only skin deep
– It ignores more important
behavioral and character
traits
• Thus differentially valuing and treating people based on
aesthetic merit is a shallow and superficial approach to
their value
• So too with animals
Physical beauty is not a trivial value
• An overly narrow focus on human physical
beauty is clearly problematic
• But so is ignoring the
appearance of human bodies
• Humans, like animals, have
bodies and what those bodies
are like matters
• Must guard against the
inappropriate downgrading of
the importance of the physical in
human life
Belief in the triviality of beauty based
on an overly narrow conception of
aesthetic merit
• Notion that beauty is only skin deep is like the
formalist idea that beauty consists solely in
forms, lines and colors and that the sensuous
surface of things exhausts their aesthetic
content
Beauty involves much more than
physical appearance
• Not all beauty is the easy beauty of the beauty queen, a panda bear
or a scenic overlook
• There are wonderful people in whom we delight and whose behavior
and compelling personalities move us greatly, though they many not
be particularly pretty to look at
• The beauty queen, in contrast, may be boring, humorless and no fun at all.
“In country, as in people, a
plain exterior often
conceals hidden riches”
(Aldo Leopold, 1949)
Deeper beauty in humans and
animals depends on
• Behavior and personality
– Can’t properly appreciate
a salmon without knowing
its life cycle
• History, context, and
what they represent
– A grizzly bear symbolizes
wild nature beyond
human control
– A cow represents human
domination of nature
Beauty counts more in animals
than in people
• Animal beauty in general (and their physical beauty in particular)
should count more in terms of how we value and treat animals
than human beauty should count with people
• Animals lack the depth of psychological inner beauty present in
the character of people
• Aesthetic dimensions of human personalities—being compelling, boring,
humorless, or fascinating—are only present in radically diminished forms in
animal personalities
• Thus a sole focus on animals’ physical appearance misses less of
their beauty than does such a focus in people
• In human value, beauty has many more competitors than it does in
animal value
• For example, moral virtue is central to the assessment of human value, but
is barely present in animals, if at all
A sole focus on animal bodies is
not demeaning, as it is with people
• National park visitors who focus on the physical
appearance of animals are not like college men who
stare at women’s bodies
• Wildlife calendars are not like
Playboy magazines
• While a single-minded concern with the look of animals
ignores aesthetic features of their ecology and behavior,
it is not demeaning to the animals but is a praiseworthy
celebration of their value
Conclusion about aesthetic
discrimination for humans and animals
• Aesthetic merit is a substantial value, not a mere tie
breaker, and this is especially true with animals
• Aesthetic discrimination is permissible with animals,
even though it is often not with humans
• Beautiful animals should be more highly valued and get
more protection than less beautiful ones
• Aesthetic merit plays a legitimate role in assessing the
value and treatment of animals that it doesn’t with
humans
Conclusions about the use of
animals’ aesthetic merit for
preservationism
•
The notion that beauty is only skin deep relies on an overly narrow formalist idea that
the sensuous surface of things exhausts their aesthetic content
–
•
•
Aesthetic merit is a substantial value, not a mere tie breaker
Moral considerations do not rule out differential treatment based on aesthetics and
this is especially true with animals
–
–
•
•
•
It ignores aesthetic merit found in behavior, personality, history, context, and representation
Because animals are not morally responsible beings and have relatively limited autonomy,
the arguments against aesthetic discrimination with humans do not apply well to animals
Further, a sole focus on the physical appearance of animals is not demeaning as is a sole
focus on the physical appearance of humans
Because animals lack the depth of inner psychological beauty present in humans and
lack some important competitors to beauty in the assessment of individual value (viz.,
moral virtue)
Aesthetic merit plays a larger legitimate role in assessing the value and treatment of
animals that it does with humans
Thus using animals’ beauty to defend environmental preservation is not morally
objectionable, nor does it rely on a trivial value
2nd Challenge to Aesthetic
Preservationism
• Animal ugliness, particularly the suffering
and death in predation, undermines the
use of animal beauty for aesthetic
protectionism
Are there ugly animals?
• One account of animal beauty locates it in their
displaying “fitness for function” (Glenn Parsons, 2007)
and “possessing parts with natural functions they are
well suited to perform” (Malcolm Budd, 2002)
• This explains the ugliness of:
• Human growth hormone
• Naturally deformed
enhanced Beltsville pigs
animals
who had deformed skulls,
swollen legs, and crossed
eyes
Many ugly animals?
• Consider the list suggested--though not
endorsed--by Yuriko Saito:
– “Some things in nature are so repulsive, annoying, or
unattractive that we cannot bring ourselves to appreciate the
positive aesthetic value of their story telling. Fleas, flies
cockroaches and mosquitoes, no matter how interesting their
anatomical structures and ecological roles may be, are simply
pesky. . . Bats, snakes, slugs, worms, centipedes and spiders
simply give us the creeps and cause us to shudder. . . Our
negative reaction to these things outweighs their positive
aesthetic value of embodying their interesting life story” (1998).
Do all animals have significant dimensions of ugliness?
“The critic will complain against admirers of wildlife that they overlook as much
as they see. The bison are shaggy, shedding, and dirty. That hawk has
lost several flight feathers; that marmot is diseased and scarred. The elk
look like the tag end of a rough winter. A half dozen juvenile eagles starve
for every one that reaches maturity. Every wild life is marred by the rips and
tears of time and eventually destroyed by them” (Holmes Rolston, III 1987).
Animal ugliness as rampant in nature
• “Once as a college youth I killed an opossum that seemed sluggish
and then did an autopsy. He was infested with a hundred worms!
Grisly and pitiful, he seemed a sign of the whole wilderness, . . . too
alien to value” (Rolston, 1986)
•“Wildness is a
gigantic food
pyramid, and this
sets value in a grim
death bound jungle.
All is a slaughterhouse, with life a
miasma rising over
the stench.”
(Rolston, 1986)
• These dimensions of animals’ lives present a real worry for the view
that the aesthetics of animals is positive on balance and thus they
threaten the contribution animal beauty can make to aesthetic
preservationism
I focus on the possibly negative
aesthetics of predation
• It is arguable that the suffering, killing, and death involved in
predation are something we should not appreciate and further
that the phenomenon is aesthetically negative
• If so, we have a rationale for condemning the wide-spread practice
of aesthetically appreciating predation and an argument against
the environmental goal of predator restoration (viz., we should not
add ugliness to the world)
• Further, given the centrality of
predation in animal lives, if
predation is aesthetically
negative, this seriously hinders
using animal beauty for aesthetic
preservationism
Environmental aestheticians on
nature-caused suffering
• Yuriko Saito denies that
everything in nature is
positively appreciable (i.e.,
positive aesthetics)
• Because it conflicts with a
moral obligation not to
appreciate events that
cause great human
suffering
•
“The same moral considerations that question
the appropriateness of our aesthetic
appreciation of the [atomic bomb] mushroom
cloud, I believe, are also applicable to the
possible aesthetic experience of natural
disasters which cause people to suffer . . . our
human-oriented moral sentiments do dictate
that we not derive pleasure (including aesthetic
pleasure) from other humans’ misery, even if it
is caused by nature taking its course. . . (1998)
Saito side steps animal suffering
• While Saito wonders if there is:
– “Any difference between the suffering and death of an elk and
the suffering and death of people who are victims of some
natural disaster” (1998)
• She leaves animals out of her conclusion about the
moral inappropriateness of aesthetically appreciating
natural disasters that cause suffering
• Because animals are not insulated from forces of nature
as are humans, the problem of animal suffering and
death in nature is a more formidable challenge to
positive aesthetics than is nature-caused human
suffering
Allen Carlson on nature-caused
animal suffering
• Carlson (2007) dismisses Saito’s critique of positive aesthetics due
to nature-caused human suffering by noting that positive aesthetics
applies only to pristine nature (in which humans are not involved)
• He also dismisses concerns about the aesthetic implications of
animal suffering in nature:
– (1) By arguing that nature is not morally assessable
• This ignores that it is non-morally assessable
– Predation might be evil or ugly, even though it can’t be wrong
• Also ignores moral questions about possible obligations to alleviate such
suffering
– (2) And by suggesting that even if it were true that one ought not to
aesthetically appreciate animal suffering in nature, this is a moral ought
and that leaves the aesthetic value of these events untouched
• This ignores possible interaction between non-aesthetic and aesthetic
values
Three relationships between
aesthetic and other values
• Aesthetic apartheid
• Autonomism
• Integrationism/interactionism
(1) Aesthetic Apartheid
• Non-aesthetic (e.g., moral) evaluation is not
appropriately applied to aesthetic objects or
responses
– “There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book.
Books are well or badly written. That is all.” (Oscar
Wilde, 1891)
• Apartheid in the aesthetics of predation:
– The negative evaluation of the prey’s pain is not
relevant to predation as an aesthetic object, nor
does it legitimize moral assessment of the aesthetic
appreciation of predation
• Aesthetic apartheid is mistaken:
– Aesthetic objects and activities are not immune
from non-aesthetic evaluation
– Any human act can be morally evaluated, including
acts of aesthetic appreciation
• E.g., display & admiration of photography of the
bombing of Nagasaki might grievously offend—moral
questioning not out of place
(2) Autonomism
• Non-aesthetic (e.g., moral) evaluation of aesthetic objects and
responses are appropriate, but irrelevant to the aesthetic merits of
the object
• A moral defect is not an aesthetic defect
• Immoral but great art:
– Although Leni Riefenstahl’s powerful cinematography glorifying Hitler is
morally depraved and we (morally) ought not appreciate it, this does not
affect its superior aesthetic merit
Autonomism applied to nature: Evil
but aesthetically valuable nature
• A positive aesthetic response to Hurricane Katrina and to
predation are morally wrong because they fail to take the
disvalue of the suffering and death of humans and
animals seriously
• But these moral mistakes, need not be aesthetic ones
• Katrina and predation might still have great aesthetic
value
(3) Interactionism/integrationism
• Refuses to compartmentalize values
• Aesthetic and non-aesthetic values (including moral values) can
influence each other
• A moral defect can be an aesthetic defect
• Examples:
– An author must get the reader to feel sympathy for a character if the
story is to succeed; But, contrary to the author’s view, the character is
terribly evil, and this prevents a sympathetic response
• Here a moral flaw in the work cause it to fail aesthetically
– Racist jokes are not funny (and this is because they are morally wrong)
• “We may declare pointedly that it is not funny–precisely because its
message is offensive. To laugh at it, we may feel, would amount to
endorsing its message, so we refuse to laugh. Even judging it to be funny
may feel like expressing agreement” (Kendall Walton, 2002).
Pollution sunsets not beautiful
• Integrationist approach:
Proper sensitivity to harms of
pollution diminish or negate
the sunset’s aesthetic value
•
•
•
•
•
Aesthetic appreciation should go beyond
sensuous surface and involve:
Conception: What is being experience are
harmful particles that damage lungs, send
people to the hospital and acidify lakes
Imagination: Picture dead fish, hear the
wheezing of vulnerable people trying to
breathe
Emotion: Feel angry at industry executives
who profit by externalizing their costs onto
others
The aesthetic delight and peaceful feelings
sunsets normally deliver are absent
Integrationism and Predation
• Because I believe that non-aesthetic and aesthetic
values can interact (integrationism)
• I worry not only about it being morally wrong to
aesthetically appreciate predation
• But also that it might be aesthetically
inappropriate (an aesthetic mistake)
– The suffering and death involved in
predation may give it a negative
aesthetic value
• This would be trouble for a positive
assessment of the beauty of the lives
of the animals involved
Is predation in nature aesthetically negative?
•
“It was a spotted hyena, the kind people think of when they hear the word
“hyena”–a dirty, matted creature, dripping with blood. It must have made a
good kill. The prey must have been large enough for the hyena to thrust its
whole head in, up to the block like shoulders. This must be why the hyena has
such a snake of a neck–so it can delve deep into a dying animal and eat the
best parts...I saw other hyenas...They were all dipped in blood...One could see
which animal had gnawed at a leg, cheek pressed to bloody flank, or which had
held a piece to its chest and embraced it there as it chewed.” (Joanna
Greenfield, New Yorker 1996)
Coyote: An ugly killer?
• Unless we dismiss the moral status of
animals and claim their lives and pain
don’t count for much
• We must acknowledge there is disvalue
here and ugliness that goes along with it.
Is aesthetic appreciation of
predation depraved?
• Like aesthetically appreciating a cougar attacking a human
child?
• Because predation expresses violence and involves
suffering and death
• It is arguable that those with proper emotional sympathies
for animals will not find it aesthetically alluring
• If there is any aesthetic
value in predation,
perhaps we have a moral
obligation not to
appreciate it
The case for the aesthetic value of predation
• Acknowledge the
disvalues of
predation
• Animal death:
– Not a trivial disvalue
– But not comparable
to human death
• Animal suffering:
– A disvalue more
serious than death
– Requires a
sympathetic
response
Positive values of predation
• Animal life
• Death for the prey is life for the predator
• “There is not value lost, so much as value capture” (Rolston, 1992)
• Production and display of admirable animal traits
• Predation selects for muscle, power, intelligence and (sometimes)
cooperative behavior of predators
• Also selects for alertness and fleet-footedness of prey
• Without predation, our world may well have lacked these valuable
traits
• Promotes functioning of healthy ecosystems
• Predation regulates prey population and protects ecosystems
Predation contextualized and
understood
• Disvalue and ugliness are intermingled
with and productive of value and beauty
• The aesthetic response to predation must
come to terms not only with the suffering
and death involved, but with the significant
positive values that emerge as well
Does a duty to prevent predation undermine
a positive aesthetic response to it?
• Given integration, it is problematic to aesthetically
appreciate an event we have a duty to prevent
• Although we could lessen suffering and death in nature
using contraception, such major human involvement
would so compromise nature’s wild integrity, that we
should not do it
– Explains why a positive aesthetic response to a wolf attacking an
elk is radically different from a positive aesthetic response to a
cougar attacking a human child
– Only in the human case is there a duty to intervene
• Because we have no duty to rescue the prey, there can
be no conflict between such a duty and a positive
response to predation
A positive aesthetic response to
predation is appropriate, but must
include sympathy
• A sympathetic emotional response to the
prey’s suffering and loss of life must color
our appreciation of predation
• But it should not wash out the positive
aesthetic response
• And it may even deepen it
Predation: A sad, terrible beauty
• There is beauty in predation, but it is not an easy or
pleasurable beauty, such as the delight in pretty scenery
or from seeing a cardinal at the feeder
• Rather it is a sad, “terrible beauty,” involving taxing
emotions like sympathy and pity:
“With terrible beauty attention is arrested
by elements that strain the heart and yet
they induce us to linger over them and
savor them in all their heartache and
woe” (Carolyn Korsmeyer, 2005)
• In predation, the disvalues to the prey heighten our affective absorption as we
experience this fundamental way that much life functions on our planet
• These disvalues, rather than diminishing it, may increase the aesthetic value of
predation
Conclusions
• Animal beauty contributes importantly to the aesthetic
justification for environmental preservation
• It is neither morally objectionable nor superficial to use
animals’ beauty in our valuing and acting towards them
– There are sufficient differences between humans and animals to
disarm the worry that the problems with aesthetic discrimination
toward humans applies straightforwardly to animals
• Although it involves suffering and death, predation does
not constitute ugliness in animals’ lives that undermines
using animal beauty for environmental preservation