Hyperventilating about intrinsic value

The Journal of Ethics 2 (4):339-354 (1998)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Brentano, Moore, and Chisholm have suggested marks or criteria of intrinsic goodness. I distinguish among eight of these. I focus in this paper on four: (a) unimprovability, (b) unqualifiedness, (c) dependence upon intrinsic natures, and (d) incorruptibility. I try to show that each of these is problematic in some way. I also try to show that they are not equivalent – they point toward distinct conceptions of intrinsic goodness. In the end it appears that none of them is fully satisfactory. Insofar as none of these succeeds, a fundamental problem remains for those who make use of the concept of intrinsic value. Precisely what do we have in mind when we say that some sort of value is intrinsic?

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 83,980

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Intrinsic Value and the Argument from Regress.Julia Tanner - 2007 - Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 12 (2):313-322..
Intrinsic Value, Goodness, and the Appeals of Things.Steven G. Smith - 2010 - International Philosophical Quarterly 50 (2):167-181.
Intrinsic vs. extrinsic value.Michael J. Zimmerman - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Is intrinsic value conditional?Ben Bradley - 2002 - Philosophical Studies 107 (1):23 - 44.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
161 (#93,279)

6 months
7 (#131,043)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Intrinsic vs. extrinsic value.Michael J. Zimmerman - 2019 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Two Concepts of Intrinsic Value.Ben Bradley - 2006 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (2):111-130.
What’s the Use of an Intrinsic Property?Carrie Figdor - 2014 - In Robert M. Francescotti (ed.), Companion to Intrinsic Properties. De Gruyter. pp. 139-156.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Value.Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen - 2015 - In Iwao Hirose & Jonas Olson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory. Oxford University Press USA.

View all 14 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The Conception of Intrinsic Value.G. E. Moore - 1998 - In James Rachels (ed.), Philosophical Studies. Oxford University Press.
The Defeat of Good and Evil.Roderick Chisholm - 1968 - Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 42:21 - 38.
Isolating Intrinsic Value.Eva Bodanszky & Earl Conee - 1980 - Analysis 41 (1):51 - 53.
Objectives and Intrinsic Value.Roderick Chisholm - 1972 - In Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen & Michael J. Zimmerman (eds.), Recent Work on Intrinsic Value. Springer. pp. 171--179.

Add more references