This article provides a review of historical and contemporary scholarship in the field of environmental aesthetics. Environmental aesthetics is an area of philosophy that considers how humans directly and indirectly experience environments, landscapes, ecosystems, and species, and the types of aesthetic judgements that follow from these experiences. We may, for example, judge a forest to be ‘beautiful’, a mountainous landscape to be ‘sublime’, or an animal to be ‘ugly’. These experiences and judgements play an important role in shaping human attitudes towards the natural world. The article starts by describing the emergence of environmental aesthetics as a field of research, before outlining some contemporary theories and debates taking place amongst environmental aesthetics scholars; for example, how might the aesthetic appreciation of environments and nature differ from that of art works? What role do the human senses play in aesthetic experience? Is scientific knowledge of an ecosystem or a species important when making aesthetic judgements about them? The paper then reflects upon the often complex function that aesthetics can play in environmental conservation and ecological restoration projects, from the designation of National Parks and wilderness landscapes, to the challenges of conserving animals that are often judged to be aesthetically unappealing, such as bats and snakes. The paper ends by describing some promising directions for future environmental aesthetics scholarship, including a focus on the aesthetics of media representations of nature and environments, such as film, photography, and environmental art; an exploration of the aesthetics of humanly modified environments, including gardens and farmland; and a move to adopt a global perspective within environmental aesthetics scholarship. Ultimately, the article demonstrates the importance of aesthetics for understanding how people relate to, experience, and value environments and nature.
Relational Thinking 