Arguments attributing value to natural areas often refer to nature's aesthetic, ethical, scientific, biological, economic, or recreational values. But none of these arguments requires the variables that distinguish large wilderness areas from other types of natural areas: their extreme size and inaccessibility, which together have resulted in a general lack of human impact. In fact, the values listed above often implicitly limit the variables that characterize large areas of wilderness. So, do such areas have distinctive value?
I first consider anti-nature arguments, those warning against making a conception of nature, and a fortiori a conception of wilderness, central to environmental ethical thinking. I describe the idealizing aspects of anti-nature arguments before proceeding to my main claim: that large wilderness areas uniquely enable progress toward just such an idealized form of environmental ethics. Wilderness therefore has *non-ideal-theoretic value* precisely because it is the clearest target of anti-nature environmental theorizing.
This non-ideal-theoretic value of wilderness is concretely realized in two ways: one weaker and egalitarian, and one stronger and elitist. In the former realization, large wilderness areas uniquely exemplify the (largely) well-functioning ecosystems envisioned by contemporary environmental ethics. These areas need not be experienced personally to be effective examples of how the human species could relate to its environment, and they can therefore provide this value to all. In the latter realization, large wilderness areas make possible transformative experiences for those who can dedicate the time and resources to immersive experiences—a small and privileged group who play an outsized role in progressing toward an idealized environmental ethics for the anthropocene.
In conclusion, I consider how my main argument relates to other claims that large wilderness areas have distinctive value: claims stemming from indigenous rights, from biodiversity, and from epistemic and ethical humility.
Bjørn Sether Wastvedt is Førsteamanuensis in Philosophy at NTNU in Ålesund. His philosophical expertise lies in ancient philosophy, virtue ethics, and classical philology. Before coming to NTNU in the fall of 2024, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lisbon for a year and taught briefly at the University of Bergen and the University of Oslo, after completing his PhD at the University of Arizona. He is currently interested in broadening his philosophical writing, including through projects on the value of wilderness, the ethics of care, and theories of virtue.