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Gun Control. The Science of Happiness. The Ancient Cosmos. Simone de Beauvoir. Moreover, if, as is commonly believed, what one is morally responsible for doing is some function of the rightness or wrongness of what one does, then intrinsic value would seem relevant to judgments about responsibility, too.
Intrinsic value is also often taken to be pertinent to judgments about moral justice whether having to do with moral rights or moral desert , insofar as it is good that justice is done and bad that justice is denied, in ways that appear intimately tied to intrinsic value. Finally, it is typically thought that judgments about moral virtue and vice also turn on questions of intrinsic value, inasmuch as virtues are good, and vices bad, again in ways that appear closely connected to such value.
All four types of moral judgments have been the subject of discussion since the dawn of western philosophy in ancient Greece. The Greeks themselves were especially concerned with questions about virtue and vice, and the concept of intrinsic value may be found at work in their writings and in the writings of moral philosophers ever since.
Despite this fact, and rather surprisingly, it is only within the last one hundred years or so that this concept has itself been the subject of sustained scrutiny, and even within this relatively brief period the scrutiny has waxed and waned. For a long time, philosophers appear to have thought that the notion of intrinsic value is itself sufficiently clear to allow them to go straight to the question of what should be said to have intrinsic value. Not even a potted history of what has been said on this matter can be attempted here, since the record is so rich.
Rather, a few representative illustrations must suffice. In his dialogue Protagoras , Plato [— B. For example, at one point Socrates says that the only reason why the pleasures of food and drink and sex seem to be evil is that they result in pain and deprive us of future pleasures Plato, Protagoras , e.
He concludes that pleasure is in fact good as such and pain bad, regardless of what their consequences may on occasion be. Aristotle [— B. Over the course of the more than two thousand years since this was written, this view has been frequently endorsed.
Like Plato, Aristotle does not take pleasure and pain to be the only things that are intrinsically good and bad, although some have maintained that this is indeed the case.
This more restrictive view, often called hedonism, has had proponents since the time of Epicurus [— B.
Most philosophers who have written on the question of what has intrinsic value have not been hedonists; like Plato and Aristotle, they have thought that something besides pleasure and pain has intrinsic value. One of the most comprehensive lists of intrinsic goods that anyone has suggested is that given by William Frankena Frankena , pp.
Presumably a corresponding list of intrinsic evils could be provided. Suppose that you were confronted with some proposed list of intrinsic goods. It would be natural to ask how you might assess the accuracy of the list. How can you tell whether something has intrinsic value or not? On one level, this is an epistemological question about which this article will not be concerned. See the entry in this encyclopedia on moral epistemology.
On another level, however, this is a conceptual question, for we cannot be sure that something has intrinsic value unless we understand what it is for something to have intrinsic value. For the moment, though, let us ignore this complication and focus on what it means to say that something is valuable for its own sake as opposed to being valuable for the sake of something else to which it is related in some way.
Perhaps it is easiest to grasp this distinction by way of illustration. Suppose that someone were to ask you whether it is good to help others in time of need. Or perhaps you would again seek to explain the fact that it is good that people be pleased in terms of something else that you take to be good. It is at this point that you will have arrived at intrinsic goodness cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics , a.
That which is intrinsically good is nonderivatively good; it is good for its own sake. That which is not intrinsically good but extrinsically good is derivatively good; it is good, not insofar as its extrinsic value is concerned for its own sake, but for the sake of something else that is good and to which it is related in some way. Intrinsic value thus has a certain priority over extrinsic value. The latter is derivative from or reflective of the former and is to be explained in terms of the former.
It is for this reason that philosophers have tended to focus on intrinsic value in particular. The account just given of the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic value is rough, but it should do as a start. Certain complications must be immediately acknowledged, though. First, there is the possibility, mentioned above, that the terms traditionally used to refer to intrinsic value in fact refer to more than one concept; again, this will be addressed later in this section and the next.
Another complication is that it may not in fact be accurate to say that whatever is intrinsically good is nonderivatively good; some intrinsic value may be derivative. This issue will be taken up in Section 5 when the computation of intrinsic value is discussed; it may be safely ignored for now. Still another complication is this. Roughly, what this means is that, if something has value, it will have this value in virtue of certain nonevaluative features that it has; its value can be attributed to these features.
For example, the value of helping others in time of need might be attributed to the fact that such behavior has the feature of being causally related to certain pleasant experiences induced in those who receive the help. Suppose we accept this and accept also that the experiences in question are intrinsically good. In saying this, we are barring the complication to be discussed in Section 5 taking the value of the experiences to be nonderivative.
Nonetheless, we may well take this value, like all value, to be supervenient on, or grounded in, something. In this case, we would probably simply attribute the value of the experiences to their having the feature of being pleasant.
This brings out the subtle but important point that the question whether some value is derivative is distinct from the question whether it is supervenient. Even nonderivative value value that something has in its own right; value that is, in some way, not attributable to the value of anything else is usually understood to be supervenient on certain nonevaluative features of the thing that has value and thus to be attributable, in a different way, to these features.
To repeat: whatever is intrinsically good is barring the complication to be discussed in Section 5 nonderivatively good. It would be a mistake, however, to affirm the converse of this and say that whatever is nonderivatively good is intrinsically good. For example, suppose that your interlocutor were to ask you whether it is good to eat and drink in moderation and to exercise regularly. In what way, though? Well, perhaps you would be thinking of health as intrinsically good.
But perhaps not. If John were a villain, you might well deny this. Indeed, you might want to insist that, in light of his villainy, his being healthy is intrinsically bad , even though you recognize that his being healthy is good for him. If you did say this, you would be indicating that you subscribe to the common view that intrinsic value is nonderivative value of some peculiarly moral sort. Let us now see whether this still rough account of intrinsic value can be made more precise.
One of the first writers to concern himself with the question of what exactly is at issue when we ascribe intrinsic value to something was G. Moore [—]. In his book Principia Ethica , Moore asks whether the concept of intrinsic value or, more particularly, the concept of intrinsic goodness, upon which he tended to focus is analyzable. One example of an analysis of this sort is the analysis of the concept of being a vixen in terms of the concepts of being a fox and being female.
His own answer to the question is that the concept of intrinsic goodness is not amenable to such analysis Moore , ch.
In place of analysis, Moore proposes a certain kind of thought-experiment in order both to come to understand the concept better and to reach a decision about what is intrinsically good. For example, if such a thought-experiment led you to conclude that all and only pleasure would be good in isolation, and all and only pain bad, you would be a hedonist. He says that it involves our saying that a world in which only pleasure existed—a world without any knowledge, love, enjoyment of beauty, or moral qualities—is better than a world that contained all these things but in which there existed slightly less pleasure Moore , p.
Such a view he finds absurd. Regardless of the merits of this isolation test, it remains unclear exactly why Moore finds the concept of intrinsic goodness to be unanalyzable.
One candidate that Moore discusses is this: for something to be intrinsically good is for it to be something that we desire to desire. He argues that any such analysis is to be rejected, since it will always be intelligible to ask whether and, presumably, to deny that it is good that something be A , B , C ,…, which would not be the case if the analysis were accurate Moore , pp. Moore apparently thinks that his objection works just as well where one or more of the component concepts A , B , C ,…, is evaluative; but, again, many dispute the cogency of his argument.
Indeed, several philosophers have proposed analyses of just this sort. He formulates a view according to which to put matters roughly to say that a state of affairs is intrinsically good or bad is to say that it is possible that its goodness or badness constitutes all the goodness or badness that there is in the world Chisholm However, the general idea that an intrinsically valuable state is one that could somehow account for all the value in the world is suggestive and promising; if it could be adequately formulated, it would reveal an important feature of intrinsic value that would help us better understand the concept.
We will return to this point in Section 5. Rather than pursue such a line of thought, Chisholm himself responded Chisholm in a different way to Bodanszky and Conee. This new analysis in fact reflects a general idea that has a rich history. Franz Brentano [—], C. Broad [—], W. Ross [—], and A. It would thus seem very natural to suppose that for something to be intrinsically good is simply for it to be such that it is fitting to value it for its own sake.
The underlying point is that those who value for its own sake that which is intrinsically good thereby evince a kind of moral sensitivity. Though undoubtedly attractive, this analysis can be and has been challenged. Brand Blanshard [—], for example, argues that the analysis is to be rejected because, if we ask why something is such that it is fitting to value it for its own sake, the answer is that this is the case precisely because the thing in question is intrinsically good; this answer indicates that the concept of intrinsic goodness is more fundamental than that of the fittingness of some pro attitude, which is inconsistent with analyzing the former in terms of the latter Blanshard , pp.
Lemos , p. Whether such an account is acceptable has recently been the subject of intense debate. Many, like Scanlon, endorse passing the buck; some, like Blanshard, object to doing so. Hence a buck-passer may, but need not, accept the analysis.
Indeed, there is reason to think that Moore himself is a buck-passer, even though he takes the concept of intrinsic goodness to be unanalyzable; cf. Olson If this were the case, it would reveal an important feature of intrinsic value, recognition of which would help us to improve our understanding of the concept.
However, this thesis has also been challenged. Krister Bykvist has argued that what he calls solitary goods may constitute a counterexample to part a of the thesis Bykvist , pp.
Such alleged goods consist in states of affairs that entail that there is no one in a position to value them. Suppose, for example, that happiness is intrinsically good, and good in such a way that it is fitting to welcome it.
Then, more particularly, the state of affairs of there being happy egrets is intrinsically good; so too, presumably, is the more complex state of affairs of there being happy egrets but no welcomers. The simpler state of affairs would appear to pose no problem for part a of the thesis, but the more complex state of affairs, which is an example of a solitary good, may pose a problem.
For if to welcome a state of affairs entails that that state of affairs obtains, then welcoming the more complex state of affairs is logically impossible. Furthermore, if to welcome a state of affairs entails that one believes that that state of affairs obtains, then the pertinent belief regarding the more complex state of affairs would be necessarily false. In neither case would it seem plausible to say that welcoming the state of affairs is nonetheless fitting. Thus, unless this challenge can somehow be met, a proponent of the thesis must restrict the thesis to pro attitudes that are neither truth- nor belief-entailing, a restriction that might itself prove unwelcome, since it excludes a number of favorable responses to what is good such as promoting what is good, or taking pleasure in what is good to which proponents of the thesis have often appealed.
As to part b of the thesis: some philosophers have argued that it can be fitting to value something for its own sake even if that thing is not intrinsically good. A relatively early version of this argument was again provided by Blanshard , pp. Recently the issue has been brought into stark relief by the following sort of thought-experiment. Imagine that an evil demon wants you to value him for his own sake and threatens to cause you severe suffering unless you do.
Some have been persuaded that the challenge succeeds, while others have sought to undermine it. One final cautionary note. Nonetheless, it becomes clear on further inspection that Kant is in fact discussing a concept quite different from that with which this article is concerned. Such talk indicates that Kant believes that the sort of value that he ascribes to rational beings is one that they possess to an infinite degree. But then, if this were understood as a thesis about intrinsic value as we have been understanding this concept, the implication would seem to be that, since it contains rational beings, ours is the best of all possible worlds.
It seems best to understand Kant, and other philosophers who have since written in the same vein cf. Bradley In the history of philosophy, relatively few seem to have entertained doubts about the concept of intrinsic value.
Much of the debate about intrinsic value has tended to be about what things actually do have such value. However, once questions about the concept itself were raised, doubts about its metaphysical implications, its moral significance, and even its very coherence began to appear.
Consider, first, the metaphysics underlying ascriptions of intrinsic value. It seems safe to say that, before the twentieth century, most moral philosophers presupposed that the intrinsic goodness of something is a genuine property of that thing, one that is no less real than the properties of being pleasant, of satisfying a need, or whatever in virtue of which the thing in question is good.
Several dissented from this view, however. See Hobbes , Hume Ayer [—] and Charles L. Stevenson [—] see Ayer , Stevenson Other philosophers have since embraced other forms of noncognitivism. But this seems to be a mistake. We should distinguish questions about value from questions about evaluation.
Questions about value fall into two main groups, conceptual of the sort discussed in the last section and substantive of the sort discussed in the first section. Questions about evaluation have to do with what precisely is going on when we ascribe value to something. Cognitivists claim that our ascriptions of value constitute statements that are either true or false; noncognitivists deny this. But even noncognitivists must recognize that our ascriptions of value fall into two fundamental classes—ascriptions of intrinsic value and ascriptions of extrinsic value—and so they too must concern themselves with the very same conceptual and substantive questions about value as cognitivists address.
It feels bad to hurt others for my personal gain, since I can imagine what it would be like to feel abused by others.
Still, this may not be enough to change my behaviour, since I could still be a sociopath. Finally, there could be the fear of God. Conversely, I could become an atheist, lose my belief in the existence of a just God and see no motivation for being good.
Ultimately, then, the only justification left for being good is the fear that those I have wronged do not seek vengeance on me, since Karma is so kind. To be good, it is necessary to first decide what good is. Good, at least according to certain existentialists or nihilists, is subjective: a generally agreed-upon communal definition set by generations of humans before us and shaped by the present age.
Since the concept is based on nothing above humankind, the question is, why should one obey the established norms of goodness? Most philosophers have accepted that, although not objective, there is some shared human concept of goodness.
Therefore the question becomes why should one want to ingratiate oneself with collective human society? We do this to have a group to travel along with. Just as a baby elephant will follow the norms of his elephant herd, so too do humans follow certain behaviour patterns to belong: they follow the conception of the good.
As it is, it does not. It is simply more utilitarian to follow the common rules of the species than to attempt to go it alone. But the consequences of not doing so are society turning its back on you, never having opportunity to ascend the lofty ladder of success, and being cast out by your own species.
Sometimes extreme examples illustrate a problem. We would have little grievance with others, and we would probably be in a good mood most of the time. Behaving in the best way to others would just be the natural choice for most people in such circumstances, and indeed do make this default choice in the smaller situation of families, etc.
But the reality of this world is somewhat different. Often we are not treated with respect, love or kindness. If everyone waits for everyone else to change their behaviour first, then nothing will ever change. Secondly, unless we behave in the way we hope others will, and how we know we should, then we are in a state of self-contradiction and we can never be whole and integrated.
We know that we should behave in one way, but we behave in another — in this way we undermine ourselves. So maybe the best argument of all is that behaving well is in our own self-interest, as well as that of the wider community, in the long run. When I was growing up, I tried out stealing. I got caught a few times, and at some time in my early teens I came to the conclusion that stealing could get me into unpleasant kinds of trouble, so I gave it up.
I also tried lying. However, I did get very selective about lying. I took to drinking alcohol in my teens, and became an alcoholic. This got me into lots of trouble too. When I was 26, I gave up drinking alcohol with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous and a desire to get married to my wife-to-be. Then it looks like I decided I should be good in this way because I wanted to avoid certain kinds of trouble. Nevertheless, I looked for other reasons why I should continue to try to be good.
Sometime in my 20s I discovered existentialism. I remember vividly a work by Marjorie Grene called Dreadful Freedom. I have come to believe that I should try to be good in this way because I choose to do so, and that I need not worry about any other justification for doing so beyond this choice. Let me restrict my focus to Platonic teaching about why one should be good.
Plato exalts the knowledge of the good above all else. This concept is explained in the Allegory of the Cave in Book 7 of the Republic. It is knowledge Plato claimed the Guardians of the state understood so they could rule justly. Further, knowledge of the good was something that any person could attempt to understand. According to Platonic teaching, when one understands the good one begins to incorporate this idea and lives according to it.
In Platonic teaching being good is acquired through reasoning and knowing the Form of the Good. The obvious result is that a person who knows the good will also act in goodness and not commit evil acts.
This doctrine presents the soul as a tripartite object: the appetite, spirit and reason. This idea of a three part soul is taught in the Phaedrus as the charioteer, the white and the black horses. When Plato describes the conflict within the person, the rational part of the soul, the white horse, is what directs the charioteer to do the right act, but the appetitive part, the black horse, desires to fulfil its lusts.
This is the struggle for control of the soul according to Plato: a power struggle within each person as to which part of the soul rules. The way to resolve the temptation for the baser desires is for one to gain understanding of the good.
This is what the charioteer aims for, but the conflict impedes his progress to the goal. Thus when a man gives in to his appetitive part and fulfils his lust, he ends up committing shameful act against the body.
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