Wilderness Experiences as Ethics: From Elevation to Attentiveness

Wilderness experiences were celebrated by the Great Romantics, and figures such as Wordsworth and Thoreau emphasized the need to seek direct contact with the non-human world. Later deep ecologists accentuated the way in which wilderness experiences can spark moral epiphanies and lead to action on behalf of the natural environment. In recent years, psychological studies have manifested how the observations made by the Romantics, nature authors and deep ecologists apply to laypeople: contact with the wilderness does tend to lead to epistemological, ontological and normative 'epiphanies.' This paper analyses four different umbrella terms with which to make sense of the content of wilderness experiences. First, mystical experience (William James), peak experience (Abraham Maslow) and elevation (Jonathan Haidt) are explored. Although all three offer promising models for explicating the nature of wilderness experiences, they also run the risk of reducing those experiences to sheer experiential hedonism. Second, attentiveness as emphasized in the tradition of mindfulness and in the philosophy of Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch will be mapped out. Attentiveness not only helps one to understand the nature of wilderness experiences, but also offers a model with which to approach non-human nature and thereby acts as a barrier against hedonism.