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Intrinsic Value
Edited by Miles Tucker (Virginia Commonwealth University)
About this topic
| Summary | The intrinsic value of a thing is the value it has in itself or for its own sake. First-order questions about intrinsic value focus on its bearers. Are the only basic intrinsic goods pleasures or satisfied desires? Or might more ‘objective’ goods, such as virtue, beauty, and understanding be valuable as well? Second-order questions about intrinsic value focus on (i) the intelligibility of the concept (ii) the possibility that the intrinsic value of a thing may depend on its extrinsic features and (iii) the relation between intrinsic value and other moral concepts such as instrumental value, welfare, fittingness, virtue, and moral obligation. |
| Key works | Moore 1903 advances and defends the now classical conception of intrinsic value. Chisholm 1986 develops a fitting attitude analysis of intrinsic value grounded in the work of Franz Brentano and proposes influential answers to a range of axiological puzzles. Thomson 1997 introduces widely-discussed arguments against the coherence of non-relational value in general and intrinsic value in particular. Korsgaard 1983 provides a Kantian approach to axiology and suggests that the concept of intrinsic value is subordinate to the concept of final value. Kagan 1998 advances a battery of arguments which aim to show that the intrinsic value of a thing may depend upon its extrinsic features. Rabinowicz & Rønnow-Rasmussen 2004 introduces the now widely discussed 'wrong kind of reason' objection to fitting attitude analyses of value. Lemos 1994 and Zimmerman 2001 are wide ranging works that defend a broadly Moorean approach to the nature and significance of intrinsic goodness. |
| Introductions | Zimmerman 2019 Bradley 2013 |
Show all references
Related
Siblings
- Aesthetic Value (1,307 | 349)
- Epistemic Value (510)
- Environmental Value (941 | 611)
- Moral Value (1,558 | 193)
- Well-Being (1,689 | 6)
- Varieties of Value, Misc (219)
Contents
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| 1 — 50 / 448 |
- (1 other version)Mapping Human Values: Enhancing Social Marketing through Obituary Data-Mining.Mark Alfano, Andrew Higgins & Jacob Levernier - forthcoming - In Lynn Kahle & Eda Atay (eds.), Social and Cultural Values in a Global and Digital Age.
- On the intrinsic value of diversity.Seth D. Baum & Andrea Owe - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.Diversity is an important ethical concept, but it is almost exclusively studied within two domains: biodiversity and diversity of sociological attributes such as race and gender. We provide a general study of the intrinsic value of diversity. We survey prior literature on the intrinsic value of biodiversity and sociological diversity in search of insights relevant to the intrinsic value of all types of diversity. We then present three thought experiments designed to clarify intuitions about the intrinsic value of small amounts (...)
- Failure.Gwen Bradford - forthcoming - In Mauro Rossi & Christine Tappolet (eds.), Perspectives on Ill-Being. Oxford University Press.In Achievement, I suggest that failures can be just as good as achievements. Achievements are valuable because of their effort and competence, and some failures have these features too, and are therefore valuable for the same reasons. While that may be true, surely it’s also true that failures are, or can be, genuinely bad – not merely a privation of the good of achievement, but themselves intrinsically bad. As is the case for many bads, it is surprisingly difficult to give (...)
- Direct acquaintance with intrinsic value.Martin Dimitrov - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.Upon introspection, we judge that suffering feels bad. I argue there is no appearance-reality gap when it comes to introspective judgments about simple, intrinsic, nonrepresentational phenomenal states like itches, tingling, and suffering's feeling bad. On constitutivism about phenomenal introspection, there is no appearance-reality gap here because these judgments are literally constituted by the phenomenal states they are about. As a result, we are directly acquainted with the intrinsic properties of experience in having these judgments. Reflecting on our direct acquaintance with (...)
- The Axiology of Pain and Pleasure.Alycia LaGuardia-LoBianco & Paul Bloomfield - forthcoming - Journal of Value Inquiry:1-24.There is little more common in ethics than to think pain is intrinsically bad and pleasure is intrinsically good. A Humean-style error theory of the axiology of pain and pleasure is developed against these commonsense claims. We defend the thesis that the value of pain and pleasure is always contingent and only instrumental. We survey prominent theories of both intrinsic value and pain/pleasure, all of which assume that pain and pleasure are intrinsically valuable. We base our error theory on counterexamples (...)
- Self-Determination and the Value of Nationality.Ruairi Maguire - forthcoming - Canadian Journal of Philosophy:1-21.In this article, I argue that because co-nationals have an intrinsically valuable relationship, they have a presumptive claim against interference in their collective affairs. My argument from the claim that co-nationals have an intrinsically valuable relationship to the presumptive claim against interference is threefold, and I set it out in section “From Intrinsic Value to Self-Determination”: firstly, parties to an intrinsically valuable relationship have a respect-based claim to autonomy. Secondly, the relationship between co-nationals realizes some important goods, and collective autonomy (...)
- Toward a Consensus on the Intrinsic Value of Biodiversity.Katie H. Morrow - forthcoming - Environmental Values.This paper addresses the stalemate on the question whether biodiversity has intrinsic value. I distinguish between a “weak” conception and two “strong” conceptions of intrinsic value in the environmental ethics literature. The strong conceptions of intrinsic value are connected, respectively, to moral standing and to a strongly objectivist account of value. Neither of these forms of value likely applies to biodiversity. However, the weak conception of intrinsic value is neutral about both moral standing and the nature of value and plausibly (...)
- Towards an account of basic final value.Timothy Perrine - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.Ordinary and philosophical thought suggests recognizing a distinction between two ways something can be of final value. Something can be of final value in virtue of its connection to other things of value (“non-basic final value”) or something can be of final value regardless of its connection to other things of value (“basic final value”). The primary aim of this paper is to provide an account of this distinction. I argue that we have reason to draw this distinction as it (...)
- A forgotten distinction in value theory.Facundo Rodriguez - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies.The debate on final value has been so far understood as a debate over what sort of properties final value _depends_ on. The debate’s reliance on mere dependence has, I argue, made it very difficult for conditionalists to put forward a coherent positive alternative to intrinsicalism. Talk of dependence is too coarse-grained and fails to distinguish between different ways in which value can metaphysically depend on other properties of the value bearer. To remedy this, I propose that we bring back (...)
- Intrinsically Good, God Created Them.Daniel Rubio - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion.Erik Wielenberg [2014] and Mark Murphy [2017], [2018] have defended a series of arguments for the conclusion that creatures are not good intrinsically. In response, I take two steps. First, I introduce a conception of intrinsic value that makes created intrinsic value unproblematic. Second, I respond to their arguments in turn. The first argument is from the sovereignty-aseity intuition and an analysis of intrinsicality that makes derivative good extrinsic. I challenge the analysis. The second comes from a conception of perfection (...)
- States of affairs and our connection with the good.Miles Tucker - forthcoming - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.Abstractionists claim that the only bearers of intrinsic value are abstract, necessarily existing states of affairs. I argue that abstractionism cannot succeed. Though we can model concrete goods such as lives, projects, and outcomes with abstract states, conflating models of goods with the goods themselves has surprising and unattractive consequences. I suggest that concrete states of affairs or facts are the only bearers of intrinsic value. I show how this proposal can overcome the concerns lodged against abstractionism and, in the (...)
- Can Virtue Grow out of Vicious Human Nature? Xunzi’s Genealogy Reconstructed.Tang Yun - forthcoming - Philosophy East and West.Xunzi’s pessimistic understanding of human nature and his endorsement of the intrinsically valuable virtue of yi (義) put him in a vulnerable position. To defend this position, Xunzi needs to conquer what the essay calls “the compatibility problems,” the first of which concerns the compatibility between bad human nature and virtue, while the second is between Xunzi’s functional understanding of virtue and his understanding of virtue as possessing intrinsic value. If Xunzi’s moral philosophy were to fail to solve these two (...)
- Irreplaceable Value.Gwen Bradford - 2024 - In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies of Metaethics 19. Oxford University Press USA.If the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel, the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun, or the Sword of Goujian were destroyed, nothing could replace them. New works of art that are even more impressive may be created, which may replenish the value in the world in quantity, but they would not fully replace the loss. Works of art and historical artifacts have irreplaceable value. But just what is irreplaceable value? This paper presents perhaps the first analysis. Irreplaceable value is a matter of intrinsic (...)
- On fellowship.Dale Dorsey - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (1):133-152.This paper explores a form of communion between persons that the philosophy of value has a tendency to ignore. In discussions of interpersonal relationships and experiences, focus is almost always directed to the phenomenon of friendship and family: two or more individuals that share a history, have longstanding relationships of mutual care. Friendship is said, among other things, to be of intrinsic value, to directly benefit the friend, to generate special obligations, and to yield advances in a person’s virtue. But (...)
- Better Life Stories Make Better Lives: A Reply to Berg.Antti Kauppinen - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (6):1507-1521.Is it good for us if the different parts of our lives are connected to each other like the parts of a good story? Some philosophers have thought so, while others have firmly rejected it. In this paper, I focus on the state-of-the-art anti-narrativist arguments Amy Berg has recently presented in this journal. I argue that while she makes a good case that the best kind of lives for us do not revolve around a single project or theme, the best (...)
- Commonsense Morality and Contact with Value.Adam Lovett & Stefan Riedener - 2024 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1 (1):1-21.There seem to be many kinds of moral duties. We should keep our promises; we should pay our debts of gratitude; we should compensate those we’ve wronged; we should avoid doing or intending harm; we should help those in need. These constitute, some worry, an unconnected heap of duties: the realm of commonsense morality is a disorganized mess. In this paper, we outline a strategy for unifying commonsense moral duties. We argue that they can be understood in terms of contact (...)
- The good life as the life in touch with the good.Adam Lovett & Stefan Riedener - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (5):1141-1165.What makes your life go well for you? In this paper, we give an account of welfare. Our core idea is simple. There are impersonally good and bad things out there: things that are good or bad period, not (or not only) good or bad for someone. The life that is good for you is the life in contact with the good. We’ll understand the relevant notion of ‘contact’ here in terms of manifestation: you’re in contact with a value when (...)
- Ethical Extensionism Defended.Joel MacClellan - 2024 - Between the Species 27 (1):140-178.Ethical extensionism is a common argument pattern in environmental and animal ethics, which takes a morally valuable trait already recognized in us and argues that we should recognize that value in other entities such as nonhuman animals. I exposit ethical extensionism’s core argument, argue for its validity and soundness, and trace its history to 18th century progressivist calls to expand the moral community and legal franchise. However, ethical extensionism has its critics. The bulk of the paper responds to recent criticisms, (...)
- The Basic Obligation to Not Destroy Heritage.Quince Pan - 2024 - Dissertation, King's College LondonWhy is destroying heritage pro tanto wrong? Why does heritage destruction require justification, unlike the destruction of rubbish? The property rights view answers: heritage belongs to people, communities and cultures. The reverence view answers: we are obliged to respect things with non-instrumental value. The moral rights view answers: our predecessors, contemporaries and successors have rights to have their cherishings respected and cultural and epistemic goods protected. The moral harm view answers: destroying heritage causes morally significant harm. I argue that these (...)Remove from this listExport citation
Bookmark - Defending Genealogy as Conceptual Reverse-Engineering.Matthieu Queloz - 2024 - Analysis 84 (2):385-400.In this paper, I respond to three critical notices of The Practical Origins of Ideas: Genealogy as Conceptual Reverse-Engineering, written by Cheryl Misak, Alexander Prescott-Couch, and Paul Roth, respectively. After contrasting genealogical conceptual reverse-engineering with conceptual reverse-engineering, I discuss pragmatic genealogy’s relation to history. I argue that it would be a mistake to understand pragmatic genealogy as a fiction (or a model, or an idealization) as opposed to a form of historical explanation. That would be to rely on precisely the (...)
- (3 other versions)Nature's Intrinsic Value.Benjamin Steyn - 2024 - Environmental Ethics 46 (2):107-130.Environmental ethicists often make claims about the intrinsic value of nature or parts thereof. Advances in intrinsic value theory, most notably Ben Bradley’s ‘Two Concepts of Intrinsic Value,’ successfully cleave the concept of intrinsic value into two: a Moorean and Kantian variety. This paper seeks to classify and organize different environmental theorists within a Bradley-inspired framework, helping to bring clarity and charity to the claims of older and newer environmental ethicists. These two types of intrinsic value help explain why different (...)
- A Possibility for Environmentalists to Deny Intrinsic Value in Nature.Rut Vinterkvist - 2024 - Environmental Ethics 46 (1):91-93.
- Realism and the Value of Explanation.Samuel John Andrews - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly 73 (4):1305–1314.Dasgupta poses a serious challenge to realism about natural properties. He argues that there is no acceptable explanation of why natural properties deserve the value realists assign to them and are consequently absent of value. In response, this paper defines and defends an alternative non-explanatory account of normativity compatible with realism. Unlike Lewis and Sider, who believe it is sufficient to defend realism solely on realist terms, I engage with the challenge on unfriendly grounds by revealing a tu quoque. Dasgupta (...)
- Uniqueness, Intrinsic Value, and Reasons.Gwen Bradford - 2023 - Journal of Philosophy 120 (8):421-440.Uniqueness appears to enhance intrinsic value. A unique stamp sells for millions of dollars; Stradivarius violins are all the more precious because they are unlike any others. This observation has not gone overlooked in the value theory literature: uniqueness plays a starring role recalibrating the dominant Moorean understanding of the nature of intrinsic value. But the thesis that uniqueness enhances intrinsic value is in tension with another deeply plausible and widely held thesis, namely the thesis that there is a pro (...)
- When is Equality Basic?Ian Carter & Olof Page - 2023 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (4):983-997.In this paper we steer a course between two views of the value of equality that are usually understood as diametrically opposed to one another: on the one hand, the view that equality has intrinsic value; on the other, the view that equality is a normatively redundant notion. We proceed by analysing the different ways in which the equal possession of certain relevant properties justifies distributive equality. We then present an account of ‘basic equality’ that serves to single out where (...)
- Testing for intrinsic value, for us as we are.Daniel Coren - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 66 (5):773-798.Philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Brentano, Moore, and Chisholm suggest marks of intrinsic value. Contemporary philosophers such as Christine Korsgaard have insightful discussions of intrinsic value. But how do we verify that some specific thing really is intrinsically valuable? I propose a natural way to test for intrinsic value: first, strip the candidate bare of all considerations of good consequences; and, second, see if what remains is still a good thing. I argue that we, as ordinary human beings, have (...)
- Suffering is bad.Louis Gularte - 2023 - Synthese 202 (6):1-28.Subtitle: "Experiential understanding and the impossibility of intrinsically valuing suffering." Suffering, I argue, is bad. This paper supports that claim by defending a somewhat bolder-sounding one: namely that if anyone—even a sadistic ‘amoralist’—fully understands the fact that someone else is suffering, then the only evaluative attitude they can possibly form towards the person’s suffering as such is that of being _intrinsically against_ it. I first argue that, necessarily, everyone is disposed to be intrinsically against their _own_ suffering experiences, holding fixed (...)
- The Intrinsic Value of Public Deliberation in the Governance of Human Genome Editing.Kalina Kamenova - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics 23 (7):63-65.Public deliberation has increasingly become the gold standard for citizens’ participation in the governance of science and technology, with a growing body of research suggesting that deliberative p...
- Egalitarian Justice as a Challenge for the Value-Based Theory of Practical Reasons.Benjamin Kiesewetter - 2023 - In Andrés Garcia, Mattias Gunnemyr & Jakob Werkmäster (eds.), Value, Morality & Social Reality: Essays dedicated to Dan Egonsson, Björn Petersson & Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen. Department of Philosophy, Lund University. pp. 239-249.In this essay, I argue that the objections that have been raised against the view that equality is intrinsically valuable also provide objections to the view that all practical reasons can be explained in terms of value. Plausible egalitarian principles entail that under certain conditions people have claims to an equal share. These claims entail reasons to distribute goods equally that cannot be explained by value if equality has no intrinsic value.
- Conditionalism, intrinsicalism, and pleasure in the bad.Noah Lemos - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (3):692-705.Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.
- Happy Egrets Strike Back?Francesco Orsi - 2023 - In Andrés Garcia, Mattias Gunnemyr & Jakob Werkmäster (eds.), Value, Morality & Social Reality: Essays dedicated to Dan Egonsson, Björn Petersson & Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen. Department of Philosophy, Lund University. pp. 297-307.In this paper I articulate and respond to Kent Hurtig's objection to the fitting attitude account of value (FA). According to the objection, when a good or bad state of affairs is indexed to the actual world, but is such that the actual world does not contain anyone for whom it is fitting to (dis)favor it, it cannot be fitting for anyone in a non-actual world to (dis)favor it. So there are good or bad states of affairs that it is (...)
- The Viciousness of Envy.Timothy Perrine - 2023 - Philosophia 51 (4):2171-2194.Across time and cultures, envy is widely regarded as a vice. This paper provides a theory of viciousness that explains why envy is a vice. First, it sketches an account of the trait of envy, utilizing some of the social psychology literature on social comparisons. Second, it considers some theories of vices—including Neo-Aristotelian, Kant’s, and Driver’s consequentialism—and briefly argues that they are not adequate in general or with regard to envy. Lastly it articulates a theory of viciousness on which a (...)
- Is It Fitting to Divide Value? A Review of The Value Gap. [REVIEW]Timothy Perrine - 2023 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 20 (5-6):533-544.Rønnow-Rasmussen’s The Value Gap is an extended argument for Value Dualism, the view that both goodness and goodness for are coherent value concepts that are not fully understandable in terms of each other. In the first part of the book, he criticizes attempts to fully understand one type of value in terms of the other. In the second part of the book, he argues that both concepts are value concepts by appealing to a “Fitting Attitude” analysis of value concepts. This (...)
- Dignity Beyond the Human: A Deontic Account of the Moral Status of Animals.Matthew Wray Perry - 2023 - Dissertation, The University of ManchesterDignity is traditionally thought to apply to almost all and almost only humans. However, I argue that an account of a distinctly human dignity cannot achieve a coherent and non-arbitrary justification; either it must exclude some humans or include some nonhumans. This conclusion is not as worrying as might be first thought. Rather than attempting to vindicate human dignity, dignity should extend beyond the human, to include a range of nonhuman animals. Not only can we develop a widely inclusive account (...)
- Saving the Last Person from Radical Scepticism: How to Justify Attributions of Intrinsic Value to Nature without Intuition or Empirical Evidence.Alexander Pho & Allen Thompson - 2023 - Environmental Values 32 (1):91-111.Toby Svoboda (2011, 2015) argues that humans cannot ever justifiably attribute intrinsic value to nature because we can never have evidence that any part of non-human nature has intrinsic value. We argue that, at best, Svoboda's position leaves us with uncertainty about whether there is intrinsic value in the non-human natural world. This uncertainty, however, together with reason to believe that at least some non-human natural entities would possess intrinsic value if anything does, leaves us in a position to acquire (...)
- Establishing a Dignity Scale - Measuring Intrinsic Value within Social Contexts.Michael Pirson, Ralph L. Piedmont, Noemi Nagy & Donna Hicks - 2023 - Humanistic Management Journal 8 (1):97-112.In this paper we describe the basics of the measurement of human dignity at the individual level, as well as within social contexts such as teams and organizations. In accordance with the prevailing literature, we define human dignity as the unconditional belief in the intrinsic value of life. Based on this, we established a model that understands dignity as a latent construct by evaluating personal sense of worth as well as behaviors that either violate or honor such an intrinsic value (...)
- Equality, Democracy, and the Nature of Status: A Reply to Motchoulski.Jake Zuehl - 2023 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 20 (3-4):311-330.Several contemporary philosophers have argued that democracy earns its moral keep in part by rendering political authority compatible with social or relational equality. In a recent article in this journal, Alexander Motchoulski examines these relational egalitarian defenses of democracy, finds the standard approach wanting, and advances an alternative. The standard approach depends on the claim that inequality of political power constitutes status inequality (the ‘constitutive claim’). Motchoulski rejects this claim on the basis of a theory of social status: once you (...)
- Are reasons normatively basic?Robert Audi - 2022 - Noûs 56 (3):639-653.Understanding reasons is essential both for understanding human behavior and for constructing a theory of moral conduct. Reasons have been widely viewed as the most basic elements in normative theory, and moral reasons have been considered the most basic elements in ethics. Arguably, rational acts are those best supported by reasons, and morally right acts are those best supported by moral reasons. There is little doubt, however, that what is good is also important for both the rationality and the morality (...)
- Une défense de l'hédonisme axiologique.Antonin Broi - 2022 - Dialogue 61 (2):325-346.L'hédonisme axiologique a une longue histoire en philosophie. Pourtant, il garde une mauvaise réputation qui lui vaut d’être parfois écarté sans ménagement de la discussion philosophique. Cet article se propose de défendre l'hédonisme axiologique en exposant les principaux arguments en sa faveur et en répondant aux principales critiques et confusions dont il fait l'objet. Une attention particulière sera portée aux arguments établissant la spécificité du plaisir et du déplaisir par rapport à toutes les autres choses — amitié, savoir, justice, etc. (...)
- Awe’s Place in Ethics.Ashley Coates - 2022 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 25 (5):851-864.After a period of relative neglect, awe has been the focus of substantial empirical work in psychology and has also begun to receive some philosophical attention. Thus far, though, little attention has been devoted to a line of reasoning present in the literature on environmental ethics that moves from being awe-inspiring to being worthy of preservation. I argue here that this neglect ought to be remedied, as this argument potentially has a significant role to play in various ethical contexts involving (...)
- Robert Hartman and Brand Blanshard on Reason, Moral Relativism, and Intrinsic Goodness.Rem B. Edwards - 2022 - Journal of Formal Axiology Theory and Practice 15 (1):65-82.This article explains that and how Robert S. Hartman and Brand Blanshard, two of the most insightful philosophers of the 20th Century, were complete rationalists in their approach to philosophical problems, especially those in value theory. They both rejected emotive, subjectivist, and relativistic approaches to ethical values. Both were convinced that “intrinsic goodness” is the most important, meaningful, and basic of all ethical or moral concepts. Just how they understood reasonableness and the task of philosophers is explored. Significant differences between (...)
- The Worth of Persons: The Foundation of Ethics.James Franklin - 2022 - New York: Encounter Books.The death of a person is a tragedy while the explosion of a lifeless galaxy is a mere firework. The moral difference is grounded in the nature of humans: humans have intrinsic worth, a worth that makes their fate really matter. This is the worth proposed as the foundation of ethics. Ethics in the usual sense of right and wrong actions, rights and virtues, and how to live a good life, is founded on something more basic that is not itself (...)
- Procreation is intrinsically valuable because it is person producing.Marcus William Hunt - 2022 - South African Journal of Philosophy 41 (1):75-87.The article argues that procreation is intrinsically valuable because it produces persons. The essential thought of the argument is that among the valuable things in the world are not only products, but the actions by which they are produced. The first premise is that persons have great value, for which a common consent argument is offered. The second premise is that, as an action type, procreation has persons as a product. Procreation is always a part of the action that produces (...)
- Created Goodness and the Goodness of God: Divine Ideas and the Possibility of Creaturely Value.Dan Kemp - 2022 - Religious Studies 58 (3):534-546.Traditional theism says that the goodness of everything comes from God. Moreover, the goodness of something intrinsically valuable can only come from what has it. Many conclude from these two claims that no creatures have intrinsic value if traditional theism is true. I argue that the exemplarist theory of the divine ideas gives the theist a way out. According to exemplarism, God creates everything according to ideas that are about himself, and so everything resembles God. Since God is wholly good (...)
- The Mathematics of Desert: Merit, Fit, and Well-Being.Stephen Kershnar & Michael Tooley - 2022 - Philosophies 7 (1):18.Here, we argue for a mathematical equation that captures desert. Our procedure consists of setting out principles that a correct equation must satisfy and then arguing that our set of equations satisfies them. We then consider two objections to the equation. First, an objector might argue that desert and well-being separately contribute to intrinsic goodness, and they do not separately contribute. The concern here is that our equations treat them as separate contributors. Second, our set of desert-equations are unlike equations (...)
- Defeat, pluralism, and indispensable goods.Noah Lemos - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (10):3039-3053.Is Moore’s principle of organic unities true? Does it matter whether it is? I argue that it is true and important. I defend the principle of organic unites and the view that intrinsic value can be defeated by presenting examples of the defeat of intrinsic value. I next respond to two objections. The first claims the examples fail since the allegedly defeated parts lack actual intrinsic value—they are “evaluatively inadequate”. The second is that the principle of organic unities lacks “theoretical (...)
- “A Great Miracle in a Little Room”: Thomas Traherne and the Intrinsic Value of Nonhuman Animals.G. P. Marcar - 2022 - Journal of Animal Ethics 12 (2):128-137.The writings of English poet and mystic Thomas Traherne (1626–1674) remain a relatively underexplored reservoir. Traherne's technological context includes the invention of the telescope (1608) as well as the microscope (c. 1590). As will become evident in this article, Traherne's expositions on creation display an imagination that is adept at placing itself behind both types of lenses. This article focuses on Traherne's treatment of two types of insects—the fly and the ant—in order to extrapolate some of the insights that can (...)
- Wittgenstein’s Transcendental Thought Experiment in Ethics.Simone Nota - 2022 - Phenomenology and Mind 22 (22):176.In this essay, I argue that Wittgenstein attempted to clarify ethics through a procedure that, by analogy with “transcendental arguments”, I call “transcendental thought experiment”. Specifically, after offering a brief perspectival account of both transcendental arguments and transcendental thought experiments, I focus on a thought experiment proposed by Wittgenstein in his 1929 'Lecture on Ethics', arguing that it deserves the title of “transcendental”.
- The New Explanatory Objection Against the Fitting Attitude Account of Value.Francesco Orsi & Andrés G. Garcia - 2022 - Philosophia 50 (4):1845-1860.The explanatory objection against the fitting attitude account of value states that if the properties of attitudes explain fittingness facts, but do not always explain value facts, then value facts cannot be identical with or reduced to fittingness facts. One reply to this objection is to claim that the constitutive properties of attitudes also explain value facts, for they are enablers for the value possessed by an object. In this paper we argue that the enabling maneuver exposes FA to a (...)
- Nonhuman Value: A Survey of the Intrinsic Valuation of Natural and Artificial Nonhuman Entities.Andrea Owe, Seth D. Baum & Mark Coeckelbergh - 2022 - Science and Engineering Ethics 28 (5):1-29.To be intrinsically valuable means to be valuable for its own sake. Moral philosophy is often ethically anthropocentric, meaning that it locates intrinsic value within humans. This paper rejects ethical anthropocentrism and asks, in what ways might nonhumans be intrinsically valuable? The paper answers this question with a wide-ranging survey of theories of nonhuman intrinsic value. The survey includes both moral subjects and moral objects, and both natural and artificial nonhumans. Literatures from environmental ethics, philosophy of technology, philosophy of art, (...)
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