There is some optimum though. Would you use a 2" wide tire?
Actually, if it were possible for it to hold the weight/stress sufficiently, yes. The thing with narrow tires is that it increases the PSI (pounds per square inch) on the contact pattern. Think about a wide tire having a contact of maybe 12 inches wide by 2 inches long, that's 24 square inches to spread out your (lets say you have 2000 pounds sitting on each tire) weight on. Then put that on a 2 inch wide by 2 inch long contact pattern, that's only 4 inches to spread out the weight on. Without doing any big math, you can see that the PSI in the latter case is 6 times more!
Also, for places like sand or shallow snow, think "pizza cutter", with the high PSI it sinks right to the "hard" ground/surface/road underneath.
Yes, narrow tall tires look absolutely horrible, but function better.