Animal Beauty, Ethics, and Environmental Preservation

1
Animal Beauty, Ethics, and Environmental
Preservation

• Ned Hettinger
• College of Charleston

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Animal beauty is a paradigm of aesthetic value
3

• What could be more graceful than a gazelle?

Consider the beauty of birds
The charm of the male feeding his female
companion
The bright flash of a cardinal against the deep
green leaves
The haunting call of the loon
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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

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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 beautys role in aesthetic protectionism
• Both are significant problems if one takes the
  moral status of animals seriously.

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Is beauty an objectionable basis for
treatment/valuing of humans animals?
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Physically attractive humans are treated better

• More successful in virtually every area of human
  life
• Jobs, friends, spouses, being elected . . .

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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

• Things we do to maintain our own beauty are
  associated with disreputable traits like vanity
  (Rob Loftis 2003, PCW)

• When we shower many rewards on peoplemodels,
  movie starswho 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

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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

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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

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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

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• 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?

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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

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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)

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Aesthetic Merit and Autonomy

• Another reason aesthetic discrimination is
  problematic is that much beauty is beyond the
  individuals 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)

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Beauty not always uncontrollable

• Note that these arguments dont 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

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These considerations dont 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

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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 dont think so.

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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Deeper beauty in humans and animals depends on

• Behavior and personality
• Cant 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

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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 personalitiesbeing
  compelling, boring, humorless, or fascinatingare
  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

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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 womens 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

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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 doesnt with humans

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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
• It ignores aesthetic merit found in behavior,
  personality, history, context, and representation
• 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
• 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

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2nd Challenge to Aesthetic Preservationism

• Animal ugliness, particularly the suffering and
  death in predation, undermines the use of animal
  beauty for aesthetic protectionism

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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 enhanced Beltsville pigs who
  had deformed skulls, swollen legs, and crossed
  eyes

• Naturally deformed animals

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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).

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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).

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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 slaughter-house, 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

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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

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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)

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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

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Allen Carlson on nature-caused animal suffering

• Carlson (2007) dismisses Saitos 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
  cant 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

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Three relationships between aesthetic and other
values

• Aesthetic apartheid
• Autonomism
• Integrationism/interactionism

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(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 preys 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 offendmoral
  questioning not out of place

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(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 Riefenstahls powerful
  cinematography glorifying Hitler is morally
  depraved and we (morally) ought not appreciate
  it, this does not affect its superior aesthetic
  merit

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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

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(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 authors 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
  funnyprecisely 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).

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Pollution sunsets not beautiful

• Integrationist approach Proper sensitivity to
  harms of pollution diminish or negate the
  sunsets 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

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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

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Is predation in nature aesthetically negative?

• It was a spotted hyena, the kind people think of
  when they hear the word hyenaa 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 neckso 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)

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Coyote An ugly killer?
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• Unless we dismiss the moral status of animals and
  claim their lives and pain dont count for much
• We must acknowledge there is disvalue here and
  ugliness that goes along with it.

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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

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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

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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

50
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

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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 natures 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

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A positive aesthetic response to predation is
appropriate, but must include sympathy

• A sympathetic emotional response to the preys
  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

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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

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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