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Intrinsic Value

In: Philosophy and Psychology

Submitted By robocop15
Words 329
Pages 2
When we look at things that we value, form the perspective of morality, we must be very cautious when distinguishing between what we value in itself and things we value just because it leads to something else we value. Another way to look at it is if we value something A because it leads to something B, in which we value B, A would then considered to be instrumentally valuable because it leads to our value B. Some people might even keep the process going and value B just because it leads to our value of C, that process has a never-ending cycle. Many people might consider this be an intrinsic value because we must, in the end, get to something we value in itself, and not because something leads us to value something else. Rolston gives good examples of ascribing morally important values directly to different things in nature throughout his article. First we need to know the significant differences between instrumental value and intrinsic value and what I mean is to differentiate between human ascribed/generated intrinsic value and non-human generated intrinsic value. I feel as if there are a few concepts you must keep in mind when discussing different values in nature. We start off with only humans have intrinsic value, which is considered anthropocentric. Next only humans can generate intrinsic value and we can only ascribe those values to sentient things, which would be considered anthropogenic. The last concept would be that intrinsic values could arise from things other than human, which would be considered anthropogenic in nature. In conclusion, Rolston, in my eyes, says that those who want to argue that non-human things have no intrinsic value will be proven wrong in many different ways and examples. The best example I can come up with is a wolf having intrinsic value towards deer when they kill them, in order to keep the baby wolves alive be feeing them the

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