Two Concepts of Intrinsic Value

Recent literature on intrinsic value contains a number of disputes about the nature of the concept. On the one hand, there are those who think states of affairs, such as states of pleasure or desire satisfaction, are the bearers of intrinsic value (“Mooreans”); on the other hand, there are those who think concrete objects, like people, are intrinsically valuable (“Kantians”). The contention of this paper is that there is not a single concept of intrinsic value about which Mooreans and Kantians have disagreed, but rather two distinct concepts. I state a number of principles about intrinsic value that have typically (though not universally) been held by Mooreans, all of which are typically denied by Kantians. I show that there are distinct theoretical roles for a concept of intrinsic value to play in a moral framework. When we notice these distinct theoretical roles, we should realize that there is room for two distinct concepts of intrinsic value within a single moral framework: one that accords with some or all of the Moorean principles, and one that does not.     

A Moorean View of the Value of Lives

Can we understand being valuable for in terms of being valuable? Three different kinds of puzzle cases suggest that the answer is negative. In what follows, I articulate a positive answer to this question, carefully present the three puzzle cases, and then explain how a friend of the positive answer can successfully respond to them. This response requires us to distinguish different kinds of value bearers, rather than different kinds of value, and to hold that among the value bearers are totality states of affairs. The final section of the article discusses the possibility of organic unification without organic unities.     

Tropic of Value*

The authors of this paper earlier argued that concrete objects, such as things or persons, may have final value (value for their own sake), which is not reducible to the value of states of affairs that concern the object in question. Our arguments have been challenged. This paper is an attempt to respond to some of these challenges, viz. those that concern the reducibility issue. The discussion presupposes a Brentano‐inspired account of value in terms of fitting responses to value bearers. Attention is given to a yet another type of reduction proposal, according to which the ultimate bearers of final value are abstract particulars (so‐called tropes) rather than abstract states or facts. While the proposal is attractive ((fone entertains the existence of tropes), it confronts serious difficulties. To recognise tropes as potential bearers of final value, along with other objects, is one thing; but to reduce the final value of concrete objects to the final value of tropes is another matter.     

Organic Unities, Non-Trade-Off, and the Additivity of Intrinsic Value

Whether or not intrinsic valueis additively measurable is often thought todepend on the truth or falsity of G. E. Moore'sprinciple of organic unities. I argue that thetruth of this principle is, contrary to received opinion, compatible with additivemeasurement. However, there are other veryplausible evaluative claims that are moredifficult to combine with the additivity ofintrinsic value. A plausible theory of the goodshould allow that there are certain kinds ofstates of affairs whose intrinsic value cannotbe outweighed by any number of states ofcertain other, less valuable, kinds. Such``non-trade-off' cannot reasonably be explainedin terms of organic unities, and it can bereconciled with the additivity thesis only ifwe are prepared to give up some traditionalclaims about the nature of intrinsic value.     

Doing no more harm than good

Given all the consequences of an act and the value of each of them, how can we find their value ‘on the whole’? In ‘Utilitarianisms: Simple and General’, Inquiry 13, 394–449, J. Howard Sobel offers two alternative suggestions. Here one of Sobel's suggestions is attacked and the other given new support. Where the number of consequences is finite, it is argued, their value is the sum of their basic intrinsic values: the basic intrinsic value of a state of affairs is the value it has on its own account, and not in virtue of other states of affairs it entails.     

A defense of middle knowledge

Conclusion Adams has not demonstrated that conditionals of freedom are necessarily false, just as I have not demonstrated that they are possibly true. According to Adams, we have good reason to think that they are not possibly true because we do not know what it is for them to be true. This is basically the claim that we cannot explain conditionals of freedom without reference to what would happen in certain situations. I argued that similar considerations apply to propositions about future free choices. We cannot explain propositions about future free choices without reference to what will happen. Neither conditionals of freedom nor propositions about future free choices are true in virtue of corresponding to actual states of affairs or any states of affairs that are necessitated by certain other states of affairs. In both instances we must appeal to states of affairs that are not determined to be actual by either the present states of affairs or the antecedent of the counterfactual. I do not consider this difficulty with propositions about future free choices to be a sufficient reason to reject the possibility of them being true. They are true because they correspond to what will happen. But then I also do not believe that Adams' reasons are sufficient to reject the possibility of true conditionals of freedom. They are true because they correspond with what would happen in certain counterfactual situations. Hence it is no more difficult to understand what it is for conditionals of freedom to be true than it is to understand what it is for propositions about future free choices to be true. I conclude that, contrary to Adams, it is possible for God to have middle knowledge.     

The value problem and the nature of knowledge

Jason Baehr has argued that the intuition that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief is neither sufficiently general nor sufficiently formal to motivate the value problem in epistemology. What he calls the “guiding intuition” is not completely general: our intuition does not reveal that knowledge is always more valuable than true belief; and not strictly formal: the intuition is not merely the abstract claim that knowledge is more valuable than true belief. If he is right, the value problem (as we know it) is not a real problem. I will argue in this paper that he is wrong about the generality claim: knowledge is always more valuable than true belief; and yet he is right about the formality claim—there is more to the intuition than just the abstract claim that knowledge is more valuable than true belief. What this amounts to, I will argue, is that there is still a value problem but that the guiding intuition can tell us how to solve it.     

Infinite Value and the Best of All Possible Worlds

A common argument for atheism runs as follows: God would not create a world worse than other worlds he could have created instead. However, if God exists, he could have created a better world than this one. Therefore, God does not exist. In this paper I challenge the second premise of this argument. I argue that if God exists, our world will continue without end, with God continuing to create value‐bearers, and sustaining and perfecting the value‐bearers he has already created. Given this, if God exists, our world—considered on the whole—is infinitely valuable. I further contend that this theistic picture makes our world's value unsurpassable. In support of this contention, I consider proposals for how infinitely valuable worlds might be improved upon, focusing on two main ways—adding value‐bearers and increasing the value in present value‐bearers. I argue that neither of these can improve our world. Depending on how each method is understood, either it would not improve our world, or our world is unsurpassable with respect to it. I conclude by considering the implications of my argument for the problem of evil more generally conceived.     

Is the Argument from Marginal Cases Obtuse?

Elizabeth Anderson claims that the argument from marginal cases is 'the central argument' behind the claim that nonhuman animals have rights. But she thinks, along with Cora Diamond, that the argument is 'obtuse'. Two different meanings could be intended here: that the argument from marginal cases is too blunt or dull to dissect the reasons why it makes sense to say that nonhuman animals have rights or that the argument from marginal cases is insensitive regarding nonrational human beings (the marginal cases of humanity). The purpose of the present article is to argue that, despite Anderson's and Diamond's nuanced and perceptive treatments of the argument from marginal cases, this argument is not obtuse in either sense of the term.     

Truth is not (Very) Intrinsically Valuable

We might suppose it is not only instrumentally valuable for beliefs to be true, but that it is intrinsically valuable – truth makes a non‐derivative, positive contribution to a belief's overall value. Some intrinsic goods are better than others, though, and this article considers the question of how good truth is, compared to other intrinsic goods. I argue that truth is the worst of all intrinsic goods; every other intrinsic good is better than it. I also suggest the best explanation for truth's inferiority is that it is not really an intrinsic good at all. It is intrinsically neutral.     

Intrinsic value and the supervenience principle

An important constraint on the nature of intrinsic value---the “Supervenience Principle” (SP)---holds that some object, event, or state of affairs ϕ is intrinsically valuable only if the value of ϕ supervenes entirely on ϕ's intrinsic properties. In this paper, I argue that SP should be rejected. SP is inordinately restrictive. In particular, I argue that no SP-respecting conception of intrinsic value can accept the importance of psychological resonance, or the positive endorsement of persons, in explaining value.     

Attitudes to suffering: Parfit and Nietzsche

Abstract

In On What Matters, Derek Parfit argues that Nietzsche does not disagree with central normative beliefs that ‘we’ hold. Such disagreement would threaten Parfit’s claim that normative beliefs are known by intuition. However, Nietzsche defends a conception of well-being that challenges Parfit’s normative claim that suffering is bad in itself for the sufferer. Nietzsche recognizes the phenomenon of ‘growth through suffering’ as essential to well-being. Hence, removal of all suffering would lead to diminished well-being. Parfit claims that if Nietzsche understood normative concepts in Parfit’s objectivist sense, he would not disagree with the claim that suffering is bad in itself – that intrinsic facts about suffering count in favour of our not wanting it. I argue that Nietzsche would disagree. Suffering for Nietzsche is not merely instrumentally necessary for psychological growth, nor is it easy to construe it as something bad in itself that contributes value as part of a good whole. Suffering that can be given meaning through growth is something we have reason to want. Suffering that remains brute and uninterpreted is something we have reason not to want. But for Nietzsche, suffering as such has no invariant value across all contexts.     

Meaning,Use and Ostensive Definition in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations

In this paper, I argue that the restricted claim in §43a of the Philosophical Investigations is that, for a large class of cases of word meanings, the meaning of a word is its use in the language. Although Wittgenstein does not provide any example of words having uses but no meaning as exceptions to the claim, he does hint at exceptions, which are names being defined, or explained, ostensively by pointing to their bearers, in §43b. Names in ostensive definitions, or explanations, are meaningful, but not being used, and are therefore exceptions to the claim that meaning is use.     

Two Kinds of Organic Unity

This paper distinguishes two interpretations of G. E. Moore's principle of organic unities, which says that the intrinsic value of a whole need not equal the sum of the intrinsic values its parts would have outside it. A holistic interpretation, which was Moore's own, says that parts retain their values when they enter a whole but that there can be an additional value in the whole as a whole that must be added to them. The conditionality interpretation, which has been defended by Korsgaard, says that parts can change their values when they enter wholes, so no additional value is needed. The paper shows that the two interpretations, which differ on such apparently important issues as the nature of intrinsic value, can always yield the same conclusions about the overall value in a state of affairs, so there is in that sense nothing to choose between them. At the same time, though, the differences between the interpretations make sometimes one and sometimes the other more appropriate for expressing a given evaluative view. In this last connection the paper considers views about beauty, posthumous achievement, vices of disproportion, deserved and compassionate pain, and undeserved and malicious pleasure.     

Anti-realism and Epistemic Accessibility

I argue that Fitch’s ‘paradox of knowability’ presents no special problem for the epistemic anti-realist who believes that reality is epistemically accessible to us. For the claim which is the target of the argument (If p then it is possible to know p) is not a commitment of anti-realism. The epistemic anti-realist’s commitment is (or should be) to the recognizability of the states of affairs which render true propositions true, not to the knowability of the propositions themselves. A formal apparatus for discussing the recognizability of states of affairs is offered, and other prima facie similar approaches to the paradox argument are reviewed.     

On the Mind Dependence of Truth

The claim that truth is mind dependent has some initial plausibility only if truth bearers are taken to be mind dependent entities such as beliefs or statements. Even on that assumption, however, the claim is not uncontroversial. If it is spelled out as the thesis that “in a world devoid of mind nothing would be true”, then everything depends on how the phrase ‘true in world w’ is interpreted. If ‘A is true in w’ is interpreted as ‘A is true of w’ (i.e. ‘w satisfies A’s truth conditions’, the claim need not be true. If on the other hand it is interpreted as ‘A is true of w and exists in w’ then the claim is trivially true, though devoid of any antirealistic efficacy. Philosophers like Heidegger and Rorty, who hold that truth is mind dependent but reality is not, must regard such principles as “A if and only if it is true that A” as only contingently true, which may be a good reason to reject the mind dependence of truth anyway.     

Welfare,Autonomy, and the Autonomy Fallacy

In this article, I subject the claim that autonomous choice is an intrinsic welfare benefit to critical scrutiny. My argument begins by discussing perhaps the most influential argument in favor of the intrinsic value of autonomy: the argument from deference. In response, I hold that this argument displays what I call the ‘Autonomy Fallacy’: the argument from deference has no power to support the intrinsic value of autonomy in comparison to the important evaluative significance of bare self‐direction (autonomous or not) or what I call ‘self‐direction tout court’. I defend the claim that the Autonomy Fallacy really is a fallacy, and show that my examination of the argument from deference has wider reverberations. Once we clearly distinguish between autonomy and self‐direction tout court, it becomes much less plausible to say that autonomy of itself is an intrinsic welfare benefit.     

The Moral Insignificance of Self‐consciousness

In this paper, I examine the claim that self‐consciousness is highly morally significant, such that the fact that an entity is self‐conscious generates strong moral reasons against harming or killing that entity. This claim is apparently very intuitive, but I argue it is false. I consider two ways to defend this claim: one indirect, the other direct. The best‐known arguments relevant to self‐consciousness's significance take the indirect route. I examine them and argue that (a) in various ways they depend on unwarranted assumptions about self‐consciousness's functional significance, and (b) once these assumptions are undermined, motivation for these arguments dissipates. I then consider the direct route to self‐consciousness's significance, which depends on claims that self‐consciousness has intrinsic value or final value. I argue what intrinsic or final value self‐consciousness possesses is not enough to generate strong moral reasons against harming or killing.     

Can Only Human Lives Be Meaningful?

Duncan Purves and Nicolas Delon have argued that one’s life will be meaningful to the extent that one contributes to valuable states of affairs and this contribution is a result of one’s intentional actions. They then argue, contrary to some theorists’ intuitions, that non-human animals are capable of fulfilling these requirements, and that this finding might entail important things for the animal ethics movement. In this paper, I also argue that things besides human beings can have meaningful existences, but I disagree with Purves and Delon’s theory of meaning, and some of the practical implications they suggest arise from their conclusion. Specifically, I argue that Purves and Delon are wrong to suggest that intentional agency is necessary for one’s life to be meaningful; contributing to valuable states of affairs can be sufficient by itself. Purves and Delon’s objection to such a claim is that it would allow even inanimate objects’ existences to count as meaningful. However, while I accept this consequence, I argue that it only seems counterintuitive because of two false beliefs they appear to hold: that some X cannot have a meaningful existence without that meaning (a) making X better off or (b) giving X reasons for pride.