Intrinsic value (ethics)

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In ethics, intrinsic value is a property of anything that is valuable on its own. Intrinsic value is in contrast to instrumental value (also known as extrinsic value), which is a property of anything that derives its value from a relation to another intrinsically valuable thing. [1] Intrinsic value is always something that an object has "in itself" or "for its own sake", and is an intrinsic property. An object with intrinsic value may be regarded as an end, or in Kantian terminology, as an end-in-itself. [2]

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The term "intrinsic value" is used in axiology, a branch of philosophy that studies value (including both ethics and aesthetics). All major normative ethical theories identify something as being intrinsically valuable. For instance, for a virtue ethicist, eudaimonia (human flourishing, sometimes translated as "happiness") has intrinsic value, whereas things that bring you happiness (such as having a family) may be merely instrumentally valuable. Similarly, consequentialists may identify pleasure, the lack of pain, and/or the fulfillment of one's preferences as having intrinsic value, making actions that produce them merely instrumentally valuable. On the other hand, proponents of deontological ethics argue that morally right actions (those that respect moral duty to others) are always intrinsically valuable, regardless of their consequences.

Other names for intrinsic value are terminal value, essential value, principle value, or ultimate importance. [3]

An 'end'

In philosophy and ethics, an end, or telos , is the ultimate goal in a series of steps. For example, according to Aristotle the end of everything we do is happiness. It is contrasted to a means, which is something that helps you achieve that goal. For example, money or power may be said to be a means to the end of happiness. Nevertheless, some objects may be ends and means at the same time.

End is roughly similar, and often used as a synonym, for the following concepts:

Life stances and intrinsic value

This table attempts to summarize the main intrinsic value of different life stances and other views, although there may be great diversity within them:

Life stance and other viewsMain intrinsic value
Moral nihilism None
Humanism human flourishing
Environmentalism life flourishing
Feminism gender equality
Multiculturalism flourishing of cultural values beyond one's own
Hedonism pleasure
Eudaemonism human flourishing
Utilitarianism utility (classically and usually, happiness or pleasure and absence of pain)
Rational deontologism virtue or duty
Rational eudaemonism, or tempered Deontologismboth virtue and happiness combined [4]
Situational ethics love
Christianity Imago Dei
Judaism Tikkun olam
Buddhism Enlightenment and Nirvana

Quantity

There may be zero, one, or several things with intrinsic value. [5]

Intrinsic nihilism, or simply nihilism (from Latin nihil , 'nothing') holds that there are zero quantities with intrinsic value.

Intrinsic aliquidism

Intrinsic aliquidism, or simply aliquidism (from Latin aliquid, 'something') holds that there is one or more. This may be of several quantities, ranging from one single to all possible. [6]

Among followers of aliquidistic life stances regarding more than one thing as having intrinsic value, these may be regarded as equally intrinsically valuable or unequally so. However, in practice, they may in any case be unequally valued because of their instrumental values resulting in unequal whole values.

Intrinsic multism

This view may hold the intrinsic values of several life stances as intrinsically valuable. Note the difference between this and regarding several intrinsic values as more or less instrumentally valuable, since intrinsic monistic views also may hold other intrinsic values than their own chosen one as valuable, but then only to the degree other intrinsic values contribute indirectly to their own chosen intrinsic value.

The most simple form of intrinsic multism is intrinsic bi-ism (from Latin two), which holds two objects as having intrinsic value, such as happiness and virtue. Humanism is an example of a life stance that accepts that several things have intrinsic value. [5]

Multism may not necessarily include the feature of intrinsic values to have a negative side—e.g., the feature of utilitarianism to accept both pain and pleasure as of intrinsic value, since they may be viewed as different sides of the same coin.

Unspecified aliquidism

Ietsism (Dutch : ietsisme, 'somethingism') is a term used for a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect—or indeed believe—that there is “more between Heaven and Earth” than we know about, but on the other hand do not accept or subscribe to the established belief system, dogma or view of the nature of God offered by any particular religion.

In this sense, it may roughly be regarded as aliquidism, without further specification. For instance, most life stances include the acceptance of "there is something, some meaning of life, something that is an end-in-itself or something more to existence, and it is", assuming various objects or "truths", while ietsism, on the other hand, accepts "there is something", without further assumption to it.

Total intrinsic value

The total intrinsic value of an object is the product of its average intrinsic value, average value intensity, and value duration. It may be either an absolute or relative value. The total intrinsic value and total instrumental value together make the total whole value of an object.

Concrete and abstract

The object with intrinsic value, the end, may be both a concrete object or an abstract object.

Concrete

In the case where concrete objects are accepted as ends, they may be either single particulars or generalized to all particulars of one or more universals. However, the majority of life stances choose all particulars of universals as ends. For instance, Humanism does not assume individual humans as ends but rather all humans of humanity.

Continuum

When generalizing multiple particulars of a single universal it may not be certain whether the end is actually the individual particulars or the rather abstract universal. In such cases, a life stance may rather be a continuum between having a concrete and abstract end.

This may render life stances of being both intrinsic multistic and intrinsic monistic at the same time. Such a quantity contradiction, however, may be of only minor practic significance, since splitting an end into many ends decreases the whole value but increases the value intensity.

Types of intrinsic value

Absolute and relative

There may be a distinction between absolute and relative ethic value regarding intrinsic value.

Relative intrinsic value is subjective, depending on individual and cultural views and/or the individual choice of life stance. Absolute intrinsic value, on the other hand, is philosophically absolute and independent of individual and cultural views, as well as independent on whether it discovered or not what object has it.

There is an ongoing discussion on whether an absolute intrinsic value exists at all, for instance in pragmatism. In pragmatism, John Dewey's [7] empirical approach did not accept intrinsic value as an inherent or enduring property of things. He saw it as an illusory product of our continuous ethic valuing activity as purposive beings. When held across only some contexts, Dewey held that goods are only intrinsic relative to a situation. In other words, he only believed in relative intrinsic value, but not any absolute intrinsic value. He held that across all contexts, goodness is best understood as instrumental value, with no contrasting intrinsic goodness. In other words, Dewey claimed that anything can only be of intrinsic value if it is a contributory good.

Positive and negative

There may be both positive and negative value regarding intrinsic value, wherein something of positive intrinsic value is pursued or maximized, while something of negative intrinsic value is avoided or minimized. For instance, in utilitarianism, pleasure has positive intrinsic value and suffering has negative intrinsic value.

Similar concepts

Intrinsic value is mainly used in ethics, but the concept is also used in philosophy, with terms that essentially may refer to the same concept.

See also

Related Research Articles

Axiology is the philosophical study of value. It includes questions about the nature and classification of values and about what kinds of things have value. It is intimately connected with various other philosophical fields that crucially depend on the notion of value, like ethics, aesthetics or philosophy of religion. It is also closely related to value theory and meta-ethics. The term was first used by Eduard von Hartmann in 1887 and by Paul Lapie in 1902.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Consequentialism</span> Ethical theory based on consequences

In ethical philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgement about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right act is one that will produce a good outcome. Consequentialism, along with eudaimonism, falls under the broader category of teleological ethics, a group of views which claim that the moral value of any act consists in its tendency to produce things of intrinsic value. Consequentialists hold in general that an act is right if and only if the act will produce, will probably produce, or is intended to produce, a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative. Different consequentialist theories differ in how they define moral goods, with chief candidates including pleasure, the absence of pain, the satisfaction of one's preferences, and broader notions of the "general good".

Hedonism refers to the prioritization of pleasure in one's lifestyle, actions, or thoughts. The term can include a number of theories or practices across philosophy, art, and psychology, encompassing both sensory pleasure and more intellectual or personal pursuits, but can also be used in everyday parlance as a pejorative for the egoistic pursuit of short-term gratification at the expense of others.

In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics.

Nihilism is a family of views within philosophy that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as knowledge, morality, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan Turgenev and more specifically by his character Bazarov in the novel Fathers and Sons.

In ethics and the social sciences, value theory involves various approaches that examine how, why, and to what degree humans value things and whether the object or subject of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. Within philosophy, it is also known as ethics or axiology.

Pleasure is experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious animals find pleasure enjoyable, positive or worthy of seeking. A great variety of activities may be experienced as pleasurable, like eating, having sex, listening to music or playing games. Pleasure is part of various other mental states such as ecstasy, euphoria and flow. Happiness and well-being are closely related to pleasure but not identical with it. There is no general agreement as to whether pleasure should be understood as a sensation, a quality of experiences, an attitude to experiences or otherwise. Pleasure plays a central role in the family of philosophical theories known as hedonism.

In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resources." The main competing paradigms are anthropocentrism, physiocentrism, and theocentrism. Environmental ethics exerts influence on a large range of disciplines including environmental law, environmental sociology, ecotheology, ecological economics, ecology and environmental geography.

In ethics, welfarism is a theory that well-being, what is good for someone or what makes a life worth living, is the only thing that has intrinsic value. In its most general sense, it can be defined as descriptive theory about what has value, but some philosophers also understand welfarism as a moral theory, that what one should do is ultimately determined by considerations of well-being. The right action, policy or rule is the one leading to the maximal amount of well-being. In this sense, it is often seen as a type of consequentialism, and can take the form of utilitarianism.

In logic and philosophy, a property is a characteristic of an object; a red object is said to have the property of redness. The property may be considered a form of object in its own right, able to possess other properties. A property, however, differs from individual objects in that it may be instantiated, and often in more than one object. It differs from the logical/mathematical concept of class by not having any concept of extensionality, and from the philosophical concept of class in that a property is considered to be distinct from the objects which possess it. Understanding how different individual entities can in some sense have some of the same properties is the basis of the problem of universals.

In moral philosophy, instrumental and intrinsic value are the distinction between what is a means to an end and what is as an end in itself. Things are deemed to have instrumental value if they help one achieve a particular end; intrinsic values, by contrast, are understood to be desirable in and of themselves. A tool or appliance, such as a hammer or washing machine, has instrumental value because it helps one pound in a nail or clean clothes. Happiness and pleasure are typically considered to have intrinsic value insofar as asking why someone would want them makes little sense: they are desirable for their own sake irrespective of their possible instrumental value. The classic names instrumental and intrinsic were coined by sociologist Max Weber, who spent years studying good meanings people assigned to their actions and beliefs.

An intrinsic property is a property that a thing has of itself, including its context. An extrinsic property is a property that depends on a thing's relationship with other things. For example, mass is an intrinsic property of any physical object, whereas weight is an extrinsic property that varies depending on the strength of the gravitational field in which the respective object is placed. The question of intrinsicality and extrinsicality in empirically observable objects is a significant field of study in ontology, the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being.

In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live, or to describe the significance of different actions. Value systems are proscriptive and prescriptive beliefs; they affect the ethical behavior of a person or are the basis of their intentional activities. Often primary values are strong and secondary values are suitable for changes. What makes an action valuable may in turn depend on the ethical values of the objects it increases, decreases, or alters. An object with "ethic value" may be termed an "ethic or philosophic good".

Ietsism is an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent reality. It is a Dutch term for a range of beliefs held by people who, on the one hand, inwardly suspect – or indeed believe – that "there must be something undefined beyond the mundane and that which can be known or can be proven", but on the other hand do not accept or subscribe to an established view of the nature of a deity offered by any particular religion. Some related terms in English are agnostic theism, eclecticism, deism and spiritual but not religious.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ethics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desire</span> Emotion of longing for a person, object or outcome

Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of affairs. They aim to change the world by representing how the world should be, unlike beliefs, which aim to represent how the world actually is. Desires are closely related to agency: they motivate the agent to realize them. For this to be possible, a desire has to be combined with a belief about which action would realize it. Desires present their objects in a favorable light, as something that appears to be good. Their fulfillment is normally experienced as pleasurable in contrast to the negative experience of failing to do so. Conscious desires are usually accompanied by some form of emotional response. While many researchers roughly agree on these general features, there is significant disagreement about how to define desires, i.e. which of these features are essential and which ones are merely accidental. Action-based theories define desires as structures that incline us toward actions. Pleasure-based theories focus on the tendency of desires to cause pleasure when fulfilled. Value-based theories identify desires with attitudes toward values, like judging or having an appearance that something is good.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Good and evil</span> Philosophical dichotomy

In philosophy, religion, and psychology, "good and evil" is a common dichotomy. In religions with Manichaean and Abrahamic influence, evil is perceived as the dualistic antagonistic opposite of good, in which good should prevail and evil should be defeated. In religions with Buddhist influence, both good and evil are perceived as part of an antagonistic duality that itself must be overcome through achieving Śūnyatā: emptiness in the sense of recognition of good and evil being two opposing principles but not a reality, emptying the duality of them, and achieving a oneness. Taoist philosophies typically perceive the world through a dualistic cosmological lens, where this dichotomy is a central concept, and often symbolized by the taijitu, commonly known as the "yin-yang".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Values (Western philosophy)</span>

The values that a person holds may be personal or political depending on whether they are considered in relation to the individual or to society. Apart from moral virtue, examples of personal values include friendship, knowledge, beauty etc. and examples of political values, justice, equality and liberty. This article will outline some current ideas relating to the first group – personal values. It will begin by looking at the kinds of thing that have value and finish with a look at some of the theories that attempt to describe what value is. Reference will be made solely to Western sources although it is recognised that many, if not all, of the values discussed may be universal.

<i>The Right and the Good</i> 1930 book by Scottish philosopher David Ross

The Right and the Good is a 1930 book by the Scottish philosopher David Ross. In it, Ross develops a deontological pluralism based on prima facie duties. Ross defends a realist position about morality and an intuitionist position about moral knowledge. The Right and the Good has been praised as one of the most important works of ethical theory in the twentieth century.

Importance is a property of entities that matter or make a difference. For example, World War II was an important event and Albert Einstein was an important person because of how they affected the world. There are disagreements in the academic literature about what type of difference is required. According to the causal impact view, something is important if it has a big causal impact on the world. This view is rejected by various theorists, who insist that an additional aspect is required: that the impact in question makes a value difference. This is often understood in terms of how the important thing affects the well-being of people. So in this view, World War II was important, not just because it brought about many wide-ranging changes but because these changes had severe negative impacts on the well-being of the people involved. The difference in question is usually understood counterfactually as the contrast between how the world is and how the world would have been without the existence of the important entity. It is often argued that importance claims are context- or domain-dependent. This means that they either explicitly or implicitly assume a certain domain in relation to which something matters. For example, studying for an exam is important in the context of academic success but not in the context of world history. Importance comes in degrees: to be important usually means to matter more within the domain in question than most of the other entities within this domain.

References

  1. Environmental Values Archived 2017-03-06 at the Wayback Machine , based on Singer, Peter "The Environmental Challenge", Ian Marsh, edit., Melbourne, Australia: Longman Cheshire, 1991, 0-582-87125-5. pp. 12
  2. Ivo de Gennaro, Value: Sources and Readings on a Key Concept of the Globalized World, BRILL, 2012, p. 138.
  3. See also Robert S. Hartman's use of the term regarding the science of value.
  4. The Catholic Encyclopedia 6. Universal Knowledge Foundation. 1913. p. 640.
  5. 1 2 Haught, James A. "Meaning and Nothingness: A personal journey". Free Inquiry. 22 (1). Council for Secular Humanism. Archived from the original on 2008-05-03. Retrieved 2008-04-09.
  6. “Metaphysical Nihilism or Aliquidism? Against an Empty World,” presented at the Kentucky Philosophical Association, Transylvania University. Lexington, KY. 28 October 2006.
  7. Theory of Valuation by John Dewey
  8. Puolimatka, Tapio; Airaksinen, Timo (2002). "Education and the Meaning of Life" (PDF). Philosophy of Education. University of Helsinki. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-09-26. Retrieved 2007-07-26.