108 Ethics, Aesthetics, and the Balance of Nature 



Younghusband, the British explorer, was quite right in his belief that 

 there are only two kinds of landscape that are tolerable — one where 

 man has never been; the other where he has achieved harmony. 



While I do not doubt that human aesthetics has profound roots in 

 biological evolution, I am equally certain that it can be modified, 

 even perverted, by cultural experience during the development of 

 the individual. Now that a large majority of people live divorced 

 from primary natural landscapes, any intuitive preference for them 

 is no longer effective, convincing, or even safe unless sustained by 

 some more rational argument. The Ukes and dislikes of a minority, 

 even a highly vocal one, can scarcely be expected to prevail on their 

 merits, however sound these may be. This is especially true when, 

 as Dr. Galbraith says, this minority seems to insist on retaining 

 beauty in inverse ratio to the number who can enjoy it. 



A third approach is the ethical, whose basic importance is re- 

 vealed in the title of Dr. Galbraith's paper by its inclusion of the 

 word "should." This word implies an imperative choice of ends, 

 and such a choice must be a moral decision. That he has a choice is 

 revealed in his call for a greater measure of self-restraint and disci- 

 pline in the use of resources. Yet any austerity is tempered by his 

 reminder, following Samuel Ordway, of the rich satisfactions that are 

 possible under a less wildly consumptive economy. 



He also refers to "resource salvation" and reminds us quietly that 

 "if the resource problem is serious, then the price of a wide choice 

 now is a much constricted choice later on." This latter proposition 

 has had impressive analytical treatment by Harrison Brown in The 

 Challenge of Man's Future,^ and by Deevey in an important but neg- 

 lected review that includes a discussion of dietary pressures, pub- 

 lished a few years ago in Ecology.^ 



There have been some excellent statements of the ethical ap- 

 proach to conservation, notably by Aldo Leopold, Fraser Darling, 

 and Albert Schweitzer. The common element in all is an insistence 

 on ends greater than the immediate satisfaction of the individual. 

 Even the doctrine of laissez faire gets its day in court by claiming 



iNew York: Viking Press, 1954. 



^E. S. Deevey, Jr., "Recent Textbooks of Human Ecology," Ecology, 32 

 (1951), 345-51. 



