Ethicist: Many environmentalists hold that the natural environment is morally valuable for its own sake, regardless of any benefits it provides us  However, even if nature has no moral value, nature can be regarded as worth preserving simply on the grounds that people find it beautiful
Moreover, because it is philosophically disputable whether nature is morally valuable but undeniable that it is beautiful, an argument for preserving nature that emphasizes nature' s beauty will be less vulnerable to logical objections than one that emphasizes its moral value
If it is philosophically disputable whether nature has a certain characteristic, then nature would be more clearly worth preserving if it did not have that characteristic.