Feeling the Environment: Aesthetic Interestedness and Environmental Aesthetics

Can aesthetic disinterest represent an adequate strategy to develop a sustainable attitude? While aesthetic disinterest played a basic role in the Kantian foundation of aesthetics, (dis)interestedness has been a puzzling topic of discussion in the debate on environmental aesthetics and is becoming an increasingly pressing one, given the current worsening of the climate crisis. The first part of the paper will explore the different meanings of the term as it is used within the debate on environmental aesthetics either in support of or against the adoption of a disinterested attitude toward the environment. I will suggest drawing a distinction between an ontological meaning of aesthetic interest and the idea of engagement as fully embodied and embedded perception, which is to say between a strong and a weak conception of aesthetic engagement within the debate. In the second part, I will defend two claims: firstly, the term “interest” has many meanings, including not only negative meanings – primarily, self-interest and instrumentalism – but also positive ones – being involved and engaged in something, taking care of and feeling responsible for something. Hence, we should distinguish between different interests at stake, instead of assuming a (quasi)transcendental point of view, conceived of as allegedly immune to any interest. Secondly, we should develop an anthropological theory of interest, by connecting it to a conception of sensibility as the constitutive exposure to an environment characterizing organic beings, and by taking into account the feedback actions on human interests elicited by the specific linguistic-cultural structure of the human niche.