Aesthetic and Environmental- Ethical Values of Urban Greenspace Biodiversity doc

Aesthetic and Environmental- Ethical Values of Urban Greenspace Biodiversity Christopher Stevens, M.A. Subproject 1 of Urban Nature: the Aesthetic, Recreational and Ecological Aspects of Urban Greenspace Biodiversity Philosophy provides answers to the most fundamental questions we can ask about the concepts we use, concepts like ‘value of urban greenspace biodiversity’. Subproject 1 is the conceptual part of the overall project, i.e., the philosophical part… (1) Semantic. E.g., What can we plausibly be thought to mean when we use the phrase ‘value of urban greenspace biodiversity’? (2) Metaphysical. Metaphysics is the theory of what exists and the sorts of properties that particularly puzzling existent things have. Note that only if we have some understanding of what value might plausibly be, do we really now what we mean when we speak of the ‘value of urban greenspace biodiversity’. (3) Epistemological. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. We might ask, “How do we know that biodiversity has the value person P is claiming for it?” I.e., we might ask, “What justifies P’s claim that value is something biodiversity has?” We can break the field of these fundamental questions into three main categories: • The answer to the metaphysical question helps us deal with the semantic question. • Semantic considerations affect the metaphysical inquiry: we want our metaphysical account to capture as much as possible of the everyday, informed use of the phrase ‘value of urban greenspace biodiversity’. • Epistemological considerations affect the metaphysical inquiry: we want our metaphysical account to render value something that can be accessed, and assessed, i.e., something which can in principle be known about, rather than something mysterious. Note that those three sorts of question are related… Strangeness: the way it answers them can seem strange to those in the natural sciences and empirical social sciences. So those are the kinds of fundamental questions philosophy asks, but… Strangeness of METHOD: (i) How to determine if conceptual analysis is correct? (ii) Question is non-empirical (no empirical test will determine the answer). I.e., wrt the concept ‘value’, the question ‘What is value?’ can be re-phrased as ‘How ought we conceive of value?’ (iii) But we can’t pretend problem of clarifying concepts isn’t pressing—we repeatedly, and centrally, use these concepts. (iv) Method: Reflective Equilibrium Strangeness of CONTENT Here’s an example of one philosophical account of what value is [call it V ]: ‘Value is the second-order property of a thing’s having first-order, non-evaluative properties that, when referred to in reasons, render the thing a fitting object of a particular pro-attitude’ • Second-order property = property of properties • Non-evaluative property = natural property • Pro-attitude = favorable attitude directed toward the object ‘Value is the second-order property of a thing’s having first-order, non-evaluative properties that, when referred to in reasons, render the thing a fitting object of a particular pro-attitude’ • Fitting object of a pro-attitude = object that, because of its non-evaluative properties, merits the pro-attitude. Reference to phenotypic properties, when considered against the background of knowledge about natural selection, justifies a response of awe and wonder at any of the vast array of biological organisms which have evolved through natural selection to fit the multitude of niches they’ve come to occupy. Here’s an example of how V works: Value is explained here as a relation, between the object and a perceiver, such that, in virtue of some of its non-evaluative properties, the object merits the pro-response. Likewise, we can say, instead, that the pro-response is fitting, given what the object really is. • Location of Value: anthropocentrism VS nonanthropocentrism • Epistemology of value attributions • Moral psychology (connections between value claims & motivation) • Objectivity of value attributions 1. Philosophically, V solves a number of problems typically thought to plague accounts of value: • ‘Landscape X is aesthetically valuable’ means ‘X has natural, non- evaluative properties that render it a fitting object of aesthetics-related pro-attitude Y’ [Y = pro-attitude motivating the value attribution] • If asked, “How does one know that X is aesthetically valuable?” , we point to the response-grounding properties which justify the response, i.e., which render it fitting. V is a metaphysics of value that suggests answers to the semantic and epistemological questions: But further aspects of the epistemological answer are the most interesting—they relate to the practical worth of V… [...]... assessment CONCLUSION OF PART ONE: the abstract conception of value, V, and other such abstract theorizing, can in this way and others be a helpful tool in thinking about such practical matters as landscape quality assessment, including the determination of the features of particularly aesthetically valuable urban greenspace PART TWO: Environmental -Ethical Values of Urban Greenspace Biodiversity Consider... by ECs • So: aesthetically valuable urban greenspace serves an environmentalethical function by helping to more public preference in the direction of stronger concern for the aesthetic benefits wild nature offers One ramification of the conclusion: Very different future use of public preference surveys—i.e., for the determination of (1) … initial size of gap between ECs’ preferences and public preference... value correlates to maximal biodiversity • Combination of growing urban populations and the trend of decreased environmental sensitivity among urbanites suggests increasing future difficulty of enacting large-scale social change necessary to address the environmental crisis • One solution: indirect environmental education by means of quasi-wild urban greenspace, designed and maintained (or restored)... variables of biodiversity and access If cities offer city dwellers an easy way to experience quasi-wild nature in an urban setting, we may be able to reverse the trend of city dwellers’ falling degree of environmental sensitivity CONCLUSION: • ECs are a reliable guide to the aesthetic value of natural environments • ECs’ preferences converge on wild nature as aesthetically the best, so that aesthetic. .. Practicality of Abstract Theorizing: is V too abstract to be helpful wrt practical matters? Can V be helpful… • … as part of an answer to the urban- ecological, aesthetics-related question “Is landscape X particularly aesthetically valuable?” • … as part of an answer to the environmental -ethical question “Why ought we value nature?” Key to answering these questions is the epistemological notion of justification... This involves… (i) Study of the effects of trampling on the health of urban nature (ii) Study of features that (a) may be necessary for ecological health and minimal levels of biodiversity but which (b) public preference deems aesthetically unacceptable—e.g., coarse woody debris on urban forest floors Points (i) and (ii) are the Core of Subproject 2 The End ... the aesthetic value of a natural landscape ask just anyone to assess its worth, and then aggregate the responses of many such anyones, then think these findings indicative of the landscape’s value, when, as the Museum Case shows, preferences are reliable indicators of value only to the extent that the preferences are informed ones?’ Why would someone do that? Why would someone do that? 1 Here’s one of. .. (2) … points of potential public resistance to the aesthetic features of quasi-wild urban nature (3) … rate of change of the speed of the gap’s closure (assuming at least the strategy’s minimal effectiveness) LINKING THE TWO SUBPROJECTS—Central Practical Matters Related to Implementing the Solution: • Determine ways to best maximize wildness & access This involves… (i) Study of the effects of trampling... particular aesthetic response is fitting will require justification But… (a) justification of what kind? (b) justification by whom? The Social-scientific Story about (a) and (b) Scientists—including urban ecologists—have typically relied on public preference surveys to arrive at claims about the aesthetic value of particular landscapes Members of the public are asked to rate—in various ways—the aesthetic. .. people with knowledge and sensitivity that renders their preferences for the beauty of natural environments reliable in a way analogous to art critics Call these people ‘environmental critics’ [EC] Key question: ‘Upon what type of landscapes do the preferences of ECs converge?’ Answer: on the wildest ones, i.e., the ones whose mix of indigenous flora and fauna is maximal in degree of diversity, given . Aesthetic and Environmental- Ethical Values of Urban Greenspace Biodiversity Christopher Stevens, M.A. Subproject 1 of Urban Nature: the Aesthetic, Recreational and Ecological Aspects of Urban Greenspace. urban greenspace. PART TWO: Environmental -Ethical Values of Urban Greenspace Biodiversity Consider again those people with knowledge and sensitivity that renders their preferences for the beauty of. helpful… • … as part of an answer to the urban- ecological, aesthetics-related question “Is landscape X particularly aesthetically valuable?” • … as part of an answer to the environmental -ethical question