Taylor Walters - February 28, 2026: Climate Aesthetics (In-Class Entry)

I have thought a lot about climate aesthetics since we talked about it in class. The guest speaker touched on this idea of "shallow aesthetics" versus "deep aesthetics" and I think that distinction is something I had never really thought about before but in a way I already knew. Shallow aesthetics is basically just about beauty as a feeling, something subjective that varies from person to person and is considered kind of insignificant because it's not objective. But deep aesthetics, what the speaker called "aisthesis," is about how our feelings and judgments about the world actually connect to real knowledge, both moral and scientific. What stuck with me most was the debate between cognitivists, moralists, and autonomists. Cognitivists say our aesthetic judgments about the environment should be guided by scientific knowledge. Moralists say they should be guided by moral knowledge. Autonomists say aesthetics should be left to its own realm entirely, just pure feeling. I honestly go back and forth on which one I personally agree with. Like when I'm at the beach and I think it's beautiful, is that just a feeling, or is it shaped by what I know about ocean ecosystems and how threatened they are? I think for me it's both, which might mean I'm somewhere between all three. The concept of "aesthetic events" was also really interesting to me. These are moments that are radically unpredicted and change how you experience the world in epistemic, moral, or aesthetic terms. Climate change was an example that the guest speaker gave and I think that makes a lot of sense. I remember how the first time I learned what ocean acidification was doing to coral reefs, something changed in the way I saw the ocean. That was an aesthetic event for me, even if I wouldn't have called it that at the time.

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