 Like the movement toward more ecologically informed aesthetic appreciation, the line of thought that connects the aesthetic appreciation of nature with positive aesthetics has also been debated. The contention that untouched, pristine nature has only or primarily positive aesthetic qualities has been related to scientific cognitivism by suggesting that linking the appreciation of nature to scientific knowledge explains how positive aesthetic appreciation is nurtured by a scientific worldview that increasingly interprets the natural world as having positive aesthetic qualities, such as order, balance, unity, and harmony (Carlson 1984). Other philosophers either see the relationship between scientific cognitivism and positive aesthetics somewhat conversely, arguing that the latter should just be assumed, in which case it provides support for the former (Parsons 2002), or simply contend that the positive aesthetics tradition actually has much earlier roots than contemporary scientific cognitivism (Phemister and Strickland 2015). Nonetheless, however it is justified, some versions of the positive aesthetics position are supported by several environmental philosophers (Rolston 1988, Hargrove 1989, Hettinger 2017, Cheng 2017a), while others find it problematic, either since it appears to undercut the possibility of the kind of comparative assessments thought to be necessary for environmental planning and preservation (Thompson 1995, Godlovitch 1998a) or because the idea itself seems unintuitive, obscure, and/or inadequately justified (Godlovitch 1998b, Saito 1998a, Budd 2002, Stecker 2012). Even philosophers who are somewhat open to the idea of positive aesthetics have some reservations about its original formulation, arguing that it depends too heavily on a now out-dated conception of ecology and/or does not adequately stress an evolutionary understanding of nature as an essential component of aesthetic appreciation (Simus 2008a, Paden et al 2012, Paden 2015a 2016). Such considerations may point to a more plausible version of positive aesthetics.