Two considerations when installing permanent hardware:
1 - You're drilling a hole in a rock. It's a small action, but it can't be undone. Can you justify forever altering part of a beautiful natural landscape to support your ambition? Keep in mind that the outdoors community in general has a leave-no-trace ethic.
2 - Every piece of permanent hardware makes the route safer and logistically and psychologically easier (to a certain extent). There's an argument that just because YOU want/need a bolt at a particular point on a route, there's no guarantee that someone stronger/tougher/better-equipped couldn't come along and forgo that bolt. What right do you have to bring the challenge down to your level? Perhaps the most extreme example of this was Cesare Maestri hauling a gigantic compressor powered drill up Cerro Torre and drilling a line of bolts all the way to the top [1]. Reinhold Messner called this 'the murder of the impossible.'
There's a forever-ongoing debate in the climbing community on these subjects, trying to determine what good 'style' is. Part of that discussion is determining the appropriate circumstances for installing permanent hardware. Personally I'm happy to clip bolts when they're needed, but I can understand the perspective of those who don't like em.
I climb, but I'm not 100% familiar with the ethical considerations personally. I think there are different viewpoints. I think these cover some of the views.
Some people think that bolting a wall "spoils" it ecologically, damages it's pureness. Once you've run a line of bolts up a route you can't un-do it. There's always going to be at least bolt holes or bolts there.
Some people don't think "sport" climbing (where you clip into quickdraws on the way up) is "real" climbing, but "trad" (where you place "pro", or protection, on the way up that you later "clean" or remove) is.
You can still trad climb a route that's been bolted, you just ignore the bolts, but some people might consider it less pure as a result I guess.
1 - You're drilling a hole in a rock. It's a small action, but it can't be undone. Can you justify forever altering part of a beautiful natural landscape to support your ambition? Keep in mind that the outdoors community in general has a leave-no-trace ethic.
2 - Every piece of permanent hardware makes the route safer and logistically and psychologically easier (to a certain extent). There's an argument that just because YOU want/need a bolt at a particular point on a route, there's no guarantee that someone stronger/tougher/better-equipped couldn't come along and forgo that bolt. What right do you have to bring the challenge down to your level? Perhaps the most extreme example of this was Cesare Maestri hauling a gigantic compressor powered drill up Cerro Torre and drilling a line of bolts all the way to the top [1]. Reinhold Messner called this 'the murder of the impossible.'
There's a forever-ongoing debate in the climbing community on these subjects, trying to determine what good 'style' is. Part of that discussion is determining the appropriate circumstances for installing permanent hardware. Personally I'm happy to clip bolts when they're needed, but I can understand the perspective of those who don't like em.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Torre