Reimagining a Place for the Wild by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Utah Press

Beauty as a Foundation for Conservation Ethics

Kirk C. Robinson

Kirk Robinson relates a childhood encounter with the wild, which he describes as his “Aldo Leopold moment,” and moves to consider two logically distinct definitions of intrinsic value relating to things of beauty; he suggests that we may value something for its own sake, “like a sunset or dancing,” but that something might possess intrinsic value “by virtue of its existence,” quite apart from our valuing it. Robinson leads us on an exploration of the meaning and significance of intrinsic value as he argues that a thing of beauty has intrinsic value not simply because we like it but by virtue of its very existence. He concludes that beauty “is a real feature of the natural world” and aligning our sentiments with this reality forms the underpinning of a compassionate conservation ethic.

Dedicated to David Richard Keller, a.k.a. the Freakin’ Deacon

This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it.

—Robinson Jeffers, 1934

The summer I was sixteen I worked alongside my grandfather on his ranch. I learned to drive a tractor, buck hay, saddle a horse, round up calves and brand them. The days were long and the work hard. After dinner, I had time to myself. One evening I went for a walk with my Winchester .22 rifle, on the lookout for something to shoot. In those days, it was a rite of passage for western boys to get a “varmint” rifle at about age fourteen.

While walking a path along the edge of an alfalfa field, I espied a large bird with a whitish breast standing in the middle of the field about one hundred yards away. I wasn’t sure it was a varmint but it was a sitting duck, so to speak. So, pointing my rifle in the direction of the bird and raising it slightly to allow for distance, I pulled the trigger. Instantly the bird fell over. Excitedly, I climbed over the fence and ran over to it. It was a barn owl, though I didn’t know it at the time. It was stone dead, its dark eyes wide open. I wondered what to do with it. Taxidermy wasn’t an option, but just leaving it seemed terribly wasteful, so I plucked out a few tail feathers and sawed off its talons with my pocket knife. Stowing my trophies in a shirt pocket, I carried the dead bird to the edge of the field and threw it into the sagebrush. Then I began walking back to the ranch house in the waning light.

As I walked along, feeling remorseful for what I’d done, another owl just like the one I’d killed appeared and began to fly silent circles a few feet above my head. It occurred to me that it was probably the mate of the dead owl, and that it might attack me out of revenge, so I stopped. When I did, it lit on the nearest fence post a few feet away and stared straight into my face with its big dark eyes.

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