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26 independently of human judgments of goodness or value.It is objective
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independently of human judgments of goodness or value.
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INTRINSIC VALUE IN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS



by

GEOFFREY BRYCE FRASZ

...



B. A. Illinois Benedictine College, 1973



t








A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF ARTS







ATHENS, GEORGIA 1986







ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank the following people for the help they have given me in the production of this thesis. Dr. Fredrick Ferre, of the University of Georgia, Department of Philosophy, read the first full draft of this the­ sis and made many insightful remarks regarding ways it could be in­ proved. Those comments were incorporated into the work and I thank him for his time and effort. Professor David McNaughton, of Keele University, England, read an early draft of the first three chapters and provided much in the way of critical comments and insights for which I am grateful. I want to thank in particular my reading commit­ tee, Dr . John Granrose and Dr . Richard Winfield, for their time, pa­ tience, and effort in this wo r k . And most of all, I want to gratefully thank my advisor, Dr. Eugene Hargrove, who has patiently read and reread drafts of this work, provided countless insights and ideas con­ cerning all the ideas in the work, and very ably helped me write in a clear, readable style. It is not every student who can have a profes­ sional editor as advisor and I am grateful for all his assistance. Thank you one and all.
A version of this thesis was presented at the University of Georgia, Department of Philosophy Colloquium Series in November of 1984 and also at the 1985 Graduate Student Conference at the University of Illinois, at Urb a na .




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DEDICATION


dedicate this work to the memory of my father, Dr. Edward R. Frasz, whose lifelong love of books and reading provided the start of my interest in philosophy. Than ks, Dad.
































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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS DEDICATION .....


Chapter

TABLE OF CONTENTS



I.

11.

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS TODAY .... 1
MEANING, USAGE AND HISTORY OF INTRINSIC VALUE 7

Meanings and Usages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Ordinary Language Meanings of Intrinsic Value 8
Philosophic Conceptions of Intrinsic Value 11
Philosophic History of Intrinsic Value . 16
The Highest Good . . . . . . . . . 16
Good Ma k i ng Characteristics . . . . 24
Intrinsic Value in Aesthetic Theory 30
Intrinsic Value in G. E. Moore 35
Usage of Intrinsic Value in Environmental Ethics . 45 Intrinsic Value in Early Preservation Arguments 45
Intrinsic Value in Contemporary Environmental
Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
rl J. TWO MAIN DIVISIOI\JS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS . 57
Anthropocentric Theories of I r.trinsic Value 58
Kant . . 62
Watson . 66
Passmore 68
Norton . 73
Nona nth ropocentric Theories of Intrinsic Value . 84
Moral Intuition and Environmental Ethics 85
Characteristics of a Nona nth ropocentric Theory 88
Environmental Ethics based on Weak
Nonanthropocentrism . . . . . 90
Environmental Ethics based on Strong
Nonanthropocentrism 102
Rolston on Natural Vall{e 114
11
CRITIQUE AND CONCLUSIONS 132
BIBLIOGRAPHY 150
V I


Chapter I

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS TODAY

In the last fifteen years environmental ethics has emerged as a vig­ orous domain within what has come to be known as applied philosophy. Work in the field has proliferated, especially in the areas of moral con­ cern, and environmental ethics has arisen as an important area for philosophic investigation. Environmental ethics involves, among other things, the addressing of issues such as the morality of environmental policies, the ethical treatment of animals, and the duties of present hu­ mans to future generations and to other species. J. Baird Callicott, a writer in this field, gives the following basic definition of environmental ethics:
An environmental ethic is supposed to govern human rela­ tions with non-human natural entities. It would, for exam­ ple, prohibit or censure as wrong certain modes of conduct affecting animals and plants.1
Such an ethic could censure the vandalism of a cave, the strip mining of a wilderness area, the extinction of a species, or the destruction of an ecosystem.
One of the salient features of the field of environmental ethics is that, unlike the sister fields of medical and business ethics, some writ­ ers in it are operating within a framework of common , pre-reflective ethical intuitions about what is right or wrong, good or bad, regarding

1 J. Baird Callicott, "Elements of an Environmental Ethic: Moral Consid­ erability and the Biotic Community" Environmental Ethics 1 (1979): 71.

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various environmental issues. It seems clear to many writers that ac­ tions such as the extinction of various species are wrong, that some kind of respect or consideration by humans to other species is due to them separate from their utility, and that ecological and environmental insights should be taken into account where the morality of certain ac­ tions is considered. The common, pre-reflective intuition is usually clear. The rub is how to provide strong, clear, philosophic reasoning to support the insight. Thus, environmental ethics does not often deal with case-studies as is done in journals like The Hastings Report. What is to be done is not usually the question. Rather, why an action is wrong or should not be done is the question, and writers in environmental ethics often concern themselves with trying to provide justification of attitudes or moral judgements concerning environmental issues.

But the issues of environmental ethics are not limited to the area of applied philosophy alone. An environmental ethics issue, such as the moral standing of nonhumans, has a bearing on normative ethics and metaethics as well. As Robin Attfield points out:
[if] some animal's interests are taken into account, there is an extra ground for preserving their habitat. Normative theory is also affected, for we should be maximizing the satisfaction not just of human needs but, perhaps, some animal's needs too. But this is only possible if, at the lev­ el of metaethics, the concept of moral consideration is taken to allow the interests of non humans to count .2
The way issues in environmental ethics touch on matters of applied, normative and metaethical levels has created, however, a problem of




2 Robin At t fi eld , The Ethics of Environmental Concern (New York, Co­ lumbia University Press, 1983), pp. 140-41.


identity for the field. In one sense it is understood as an application3

,
of well established conventional philosophic categories to emergent pra ­ tical environmental problems. 114 Thus understood environmental ethics' work "is that of a philosophic yeoman or underlaborer (to employ Locke's self-appraisal)."5 However, in an evergrowing sense, environmental ethics is understood to be an exploration of alternate moral and even metaphysical principles. "6 In this manner the project of an environmental ethicist is one of a "theoretician or philosophic archi­ tect (as in Descartes' self-image). 117 Callicott goes on to say:
Environmental ethics so construed is environmental because it concerns non-human natural entities, natural communities, or nature as a whole, and ethical because it attempts to provide theoretical grounds for the moral standing or moral considerability of non-human natural entities, natural com­ munities, or nature as a whole.1
To this end Tom Regan stipulates that two conditions are necessary for a truly environment ethic:





3 Consider as example Kristin Shrader-Frechette's approach in Environmental Ethics (Pacific Grove: Boxwood Press, 1981) where she says, "What I have shown is that there is a strong rational founda­ tion for using utilitarian and egalitarian ethical theories to safeguard the environment. Utilitarian doctrines clearly protect the interests of future generations and egalitarian schemes prohibit any environmental hazards against which persons cannot be assured equal protection" (p. 23).


4 J. Baird Callicott, Environmental Ethics," (1984) : 299.
5 Ibid., p. 299.

G Ibid.
7 Ibid.
11:>Jd . , p. 300.

"Non-Anthropocentric American Ph ilos o phic

Value Theory and Qua rterly 21, no. 3

An environmental ethic must hold that there are nonhu­ man beings that have moral standing.

An environmental ethic must hold that the class of those beings that have moral standing includes but is larger than the class of conscious beings--that is, all con­ scious beings and some non-conscious beings must have moral standing.9
Some, like Baird Callicott, argue that the central problem of theoretical environmental ethics is to create an expanded moral sphere, one that extends
moral consideration not only to humans, but to some nonhuman entities as we ll. 1a
Richard Routley 11 has argued that the standard Western views in ethics have ascribed the locus or source of intrinsic value to be only on human be­ ings or their experiences, creating an axiology that views nonhuman entities and nature as a whole only in instrumental terms. He illustrates what he sees as the inadequacy of the standard anthropocentric axiologies with a thought experiment concerning the moral behavior of the last people. In it the only survivors of some catastrophe, that has killed all other humans and rendered the remainder infertile, set about in a bitter rage to destroy every living thing. Within the framework of the dominant Western ethical traditions, what the last people do to the natural environment could not be judged as


9 Tom Regan, "The Nature and Possibility of an Environmental Ethic," Environmental Ethics, 3 (1981): 19-20.

1a Callicott argues that "the most important philosophic task for environmental ethics is the development of a nonanth ropocentric val­ ue theory. [For] without a nonanthropocentric axiology the revolu­ tionary aspirations of theoretical environmental ethics would be be­ trayed and the whole enterprise would collapse into its more workaday, applied counterpart." "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theo­ ry," p. 299.

11 Richard Routley, "Is there a Need for a New, Environmental Ethic?° Proceedings of the Fifteenth World Cong ress of Philosophy, Vol. 1 (1973), pp. 205-10.


morally wrong or morally censurable. As Callicott puts it:


Actions wantonly destructive of the natural environment under­ taken by the last people or in extremis last person would not, in the context of normal moral theory be morally censurable since, by hypothesis, no other people (future generations in the former, contemporaries in the latter) would be adversely affect by them. Hence, from the point of view of normal Western ethics, the last people or last person would do nothing morally wrong by system­ atically extirpating species. 12
There would be no moral wrong done because the normal Western traditions only place intrinsic value in and grant moral considerability to persons, their experiences, and their preferences. Thus the project of the theoretical environmental ethics is to provide a nonanthropocentric axiology that places loci of intrinsic value in nonhuman entities as well as in humans. The goal is to create what Tom Regan 13 has called "an ethic of the environment" rather than "an ethic for the environment", the latter being an ethic for the man­ agement of the environment for better instrumental, utilitarian concerns of humans. The attempts to create such an ethic of the environment by the ex­ tending of intrinsic value to nonhuman entities is the subject of this thesis.
The thesis is divided into three additional chapters. The next chapter, chapter two, provides an ordinary language analysis of the term intrinsic val­ ue, then traces the philosophic history of the term from Plato to the present, and finally, shows the extent of the usage of this concept among contempo­ rary writers in environmental ethics. In chapter three I distinguish and dis­ cuss different environmental ethics based on anthropocentric and nonanth ro­ pocentric theories of intrinsic value. In that chapter a hypothesis that there is a relationship between the range of moral considerability and what is held


12 J. Baird Callicott, "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory and Environmental Ethics," Environmental Ethics 7 (1985): 257-58.
13 Regan, "Nature and Possibility," p. 20.

to be of intrinsic value is also tested. In chapter four I provide a critique of the attempts mentioned in chapter three to create or refute a new
environmental ethic.





Chapter II

MEANING, USAGE AND HISTORY OF INTRINSIC VALUE


2. 1 MEANINGS AND USAGES
The initial problem facing any discussion of whether something has in­ trinsic value is to clarify what is meant by that term. The commonplace usage, that which is valued for itself, for its own sake, is complicated by the fact that several other terms are often used interchangeably. Terms Ii ke inherent, good-in-itself, intrinsic good, final value, and highest good are all treated in discourse as roughly synonymous, and philosophic discourse often reflects this. G. E. Moore, in Principia Ethica, for example, writes that philosophy must determine whether a thing "... ought to exist for its own sake, is good-in-itself, or has in­ trinsic value." 14 And as was noted above, Callicott speaks of "an ax­ iology that vested intrinsic value in nature." 15 He then treats as syno­ nynmous the proposal by Tom Regan to "postulate inherent value in nature." 16 Although the two terms intrinsic and inherent are often used interchanageably, there are significant differences that can cause con­ fusion and problems. To help overcome such confusion I clarify these terms in the next sections.



14 G. E. Moore, Pr inc ip ia Ethica, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1903), p. viii.
15 Callicott, "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 299.
16 Regan, "Nature and Possibility," p. 34.

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2. 1.1 Ordinary Language Meanings of Intrinsic Value

Etymologically the word intrinsic comes from the Latin term intrinsecus, an adverb meaning "internally, in the inside, towards the inside, in-
wards, or from within."17 This sense of location is found in a meaning of intrinsic which refers to "that which is situated within, interior, in­ ner or innermost part. "11 According to Webster'! Third International Dictionary, the term refers to that "located within, or exclusively of, a part."u What both dictionaries reflect is a usage that locates the quali­ ty,, property or thing inside, or treats it as the exclusive property of a thing. Note that there is a hint of exclusiveness referred to the quality he re . This initial meaning seems to locate that which is intrin­ sic in a thing while pointing out a certain exclusiveness to the quality or property. The Oxford English Dictionary picks up on this idea of exclusiveness when it defines intrinsic as that which "belong[s] to the thing itself, or by its own nature, inherent, essential, proper, of its own.1120 Thus, that which is intrinsic is that which is essential to the thing, i.e., nonaccidental. The intrinsic value of a thing then could refer in some way to the value of the essential quality, property, or nature of that thing. This part is further developed in Webster'! Dic­ tionary where intrinsic is defined as that which "belong[s] to the in­ most constitution or essential nature of a thing; essential or inherent,

17 Oxford Latin Dictionary, ed. P. 0. W. Glare (Oxford: Claredon Press,) 1982, p. 954.

11 Oxford English Dictionary, ed . J. A. H. Murray (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1933), vol.12, pt . 2, p. 438.

19 Webster"s 3rd International Dictionary, ed. P. B. Grove (Spring­ field, Ma. :G . & C. Me r r ian Comp . , 1981), p. 1186.
2a Oxford English Dictionary, p. 438.


not apparent, relative or accidental. " 2 1 Here intrinsic is held to refer to that which is essential of a thing in itself and synonymous with that which is inherent in a thing. Webster's Dictionary also refers to that which is "good-in-itself or irreducible or desired for its own sake and without regard to anything else; real or actual."22 What is desired for its own sake appears to be some essential quality or feature of a thing, perhaps located in the object or related in some way to the object.

The intrinsic value of an entity can be contrasted with other kinds of value, e.g., extrinsic, inherent, and instrumental. What is valued intrinsically is that which is inner, inward, innermost, or essential to that thing, while the extrinsic value of a thing refers to those qualiies that are outer, outward, surface, separate from the true or essential nature of the thing, i.e., accidental. The contrast is often spatial and also relates to the essence/accident dichotomy in philosophic history. This distinction is not used very often and "extrinsic value" is quickly subdivided into other kinds of value, such as instrumental, inherent, contributory, etc.
Although intrinsic is sometimes identified with inherent, it is also contrasted with it. The activity of a valuing agent, such as the ex­ periencing of pleasure or happiness, is held to be of intrinsic value, while the quality of the object that produced the pleasure or happiness is held to be of inherent val ue . In this sense, intrinsic value is in the valuer, while inherent value is in the world. This is why Tom Regan argues that we must postulate inherent (rather than intrinsic) goodness


21 Webster'! 3rd International Dict io na ry, p. 1186.
22 Ib id. , p. 438.


in nat ur e . In fact, it is often held that the only things that can be intrinsically valuable are human experiences and that objects can o. nly have inherent value or goodness. This distinction draws upon the dif­ ference in the meanings of the two terms noted above.

The most common contrast is between intrinsic and instrumental val­ ue . Here an entity has instrumental value when it is valued for its use or instrumentality in obtaining some other thing, for the consequences of an action rather than the action itself, or valued as a means to an end, for the sake of something other than itself. When entities are de­ scribed as ends or means, the intrinsic/instrumental value distinction is involved. C. I. Lewis, for example, proposed that there are five types of value, consisting of utility, instrumental, inherent, intrinsic, and contributory. Although an entity could have any or all of these val­ ues, the opposition between intrinsic and instrumental is probably most fundamental. To say that a thing is a means to an end is to draw upon the intrinsic/instrumental contrast, which can be traced, as we shall see, all the way from Plato through G. E. Moore to the present.
If one accepts this ends/means distinction, then one is quickly led, under pain of infinite regress, to the idea of a final or highest value. If a thing is valued instrumentally as a means to another thing, then a final value, or highest good, is required to stop the regress and pro­ vide the ground from which instrumental value can be derived . The connection between intrinsic value and a final value or highest good is one that runs through the philosophic history of the concept of intrin­ sic value.

11
1.2 Philosophic Conceptions of Intrinsic Value

By intrinsic value I mean that an act or object is judged to be v ­ luable independent of the consequences of the act or the utility of the object itself. It is valued for itself, for its own sake. I have already contrasted this term with extrinsic value which means that an act or object derives its value solely from its consequences or utility. So to say that something has intrinsic value is to say that it's value is not derived from anything else. Some writers such as Tayloru further subdivide judgments of extrinsic value into categories of instrumental, inherent, and contributory value judgments. Taylor argues for a dis­ tinction between inherent and intrinsic value which I am willing to ac­ cept. With his schema, inherent value is a category of extrinsic value. We can judge an object to have a derivative, inherent value when the experience of that thing is of intrinsic value. I accept this distinction but note that while experiences can be judged to be of intrinsic value, they need not necessarily be the only things of such value. Also, as Taylor points out, "... intrinsic value is the source and foundation of all value. " 2 4 This is because "if all value is either extrinsic or intrin­ sic, then all value is ultimately derived from intrinsic value or is in­ trinsic value."2 5 Nothing can be good extrinsically unless something is good intrinsically. In deontologic theories the value of a moral act is intrinsic. It is known or considered independent of the consequences of the act. This is also the case in act and rule utilitarianism. While

23 Paul Taylor, Problems of Moral Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Encino, Calif.: Dickenson Publishing Co., 1971), p. 437.
24 .!!2.1£., p. 440.
25 Ibid., p. 440.


the moral values of an act in the act-utilitarian framework are extrinsic in kind, dealing as they do with the consequences of the act, to avoid an infinite regress the act-utilitarian must ultimately postulate some consequences that are to be judged according to some intrinsic or final value. This is the case with the rule-utilitarian position where nthe moral value of an act depends on its conformity to a valid moral rule, and a moral rule is valid if being followed leads to intrinsically good ef­ fects or consequences. " 26
In addition to its role in various Western ethical traditions, the con­ cept of intrinsic value has been understood in several different ways. Taylor gives five ways. To say that something has intrinsic value can mean (1) that it is desired or sought for its own sake; or (2) that its value does not depend on any consequences or other relations; or (3) that it would have be good for this thing to exist even in isolation; or
that it has some objective, nonnatural property of value; or (5) that the value of the entity is a nonderivational value.
The first usage is found in book two of the Republic, where Plato distinguishes between "things desired in themselves, things de­ sired as means to ends, and things that people desire both as ends and as means to further ends.1127 Aristotle, 21 in book one of the Ethics, has a discussion of activities that are ends in themselves and activities that are done for some result beyond the activity. This ends/means

2 ' Ibid., p. 437.

2 7 Plato, Republic, trans. F. M. Cornford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 42.

21 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, trans. Martin Ostwald (Indianapo­ lis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962), p. 3.

intrinsically good and one that is instrumentally good. Thus, in_Mill,distinction is reflected in the difference between an entity that is
intrinsically good and one that is instrumentally good. Thus, in
_Mill,
happiness is held to be intrinsically valuable because it is that which is sought for its own sake.
To say that something has intrinsic value is to say that its val­ ue depends upon its nature rather than on its effects or relations to other things. Thus, I may hold that the activity of cave exploring has intrinsic value, not because it keeps me fit or provides reasons for travel or gives me opportunity to socalize with other cavers. To the question of why I go caving, I answer, I go because it is caving. The intrinsic value of caving depends upon those features of caving that are specific to that kind of activity. Its value does not come from any consequences (which would make it an extrinsic value), but from the nature of caving itself. I say that I go caving "for its own sake," in­ dependent of other effects or relations.
To say that something has intrinsic value is to say that it would have value even if it were the only thing existing in the universe. This concept of intrinsic value comes from G. E. Moore in Principia Ethica where he argues that "saying a thing is intrinsically good ... means that it would be good that the thing in question should exist, even if it existed quite alone, without further accompaniments of effects whatever. "21 This position is related to the previous concept of intrin­ sic value, for if the intrinsic value of an entity comes from its "na­ ture," without regard to its consequences, then the value remains with the object even if it is not in any relations of any sort to any other


29 Quoted in Taylor, Problems, p. 422.


entity. At first glance this interpretation of intrinsic value lends itself to the preservation of natural entities, for, as Moore says, "... to s y that a thing has intrinsic value is to say that it would be a good thing that the thing in question should exist."30 But there is a problem. If the thing in question is a natural object that would have some value even it were the only thing that existed, we could ask if this value was a property of some kind and whether it was non relational, i.e., inde­ pendent in some sense of any relations.
To say that something has intrinsic value is to say that there is an objective, nonnatural property inhering in or belonging to it. This, of course, is a reflection of Moore's nonnatural theory of value. This concept tries to merge the meanings of inherent and intrinsic value. It also requires an intuitionistic type of knowing in order to recognize that an object has this value.
The final conception of intrinsic value is Taylor's own. For him, to say something has intrinsic value is to say simply that it has non-derivational value. This means that intrinsic value is a value that does not depend, wholly or in part, on the value of something else. Thus, an object has both intrinsic value and extrinsic value. The ex­ trinsic value is any derivational value, utility, or instrumentality, i.e., derived from the consequences or effects of an act or object. The in­ trinsic value is any value over and above any derivational value. This concept relates back to the first position, where that which has intrin­ sic value is valuable for itself, for its own sake. When we desire a thing for its own sake we mean that it has a value separate from any

38 G. E. Moore, Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912), pp.
74-75.


desirable consequences. It has a nonderivational value. This aspect of intrinsic value is also reflected in the second concept, for when an ac­ tivity is judged to be of intrinsic value, it is judged to be so in terms of its own nature rather than in terms of the effects or properties of the consequences of that activity. The nature of the activity itself provides a nonderivational ground for intrinsic value.

This nonderivational concept of intrinsic value cannot be effectively meshed with the third concept . If only one nonhuman object was posit­ ed to exist alone in the universe, it could, at the most, be said to have a potential intrinsic value, until a valuing agent came along later and derive value from it. This nonderivational concept of intrinsic value also does not commit us to positing some nonnatural, objective property of an object. All that needs to be determined is that the value of the entity is not derived from the value of anything else. A determination about whether or not this value is located in or is an essential feature of a thing judged to be intrinsically good is not req uire d .
What emerges from this discussion is a conception of intrinsic value, according to which it is a nonderivational value of something, something held to be valuable for its own sake or its own nature separate from its consequences or eff ects . This nonderivational quality of intrinsic value helps explain the conceptual connections between intrinsic value and concepts like autonomy or authenticity. In both cases meaning or sig­ nificance comes from the fact that it is a nonderivational feature. The connection of final value or highest good with autonomy and authenticity explains why Western civilization has come to prize things done for their own sake, or states of being that are nonderivational.

PHILOSOPHIC HISTORY OF INTRINSIC VALUE
Considered on its own the concept of intrinsic value has a dual his­ tory. On the one hand, intrinsic value has been interpreted as the highest value or good, a sumum bonum, ultimate good or nonderivatory value. This ultimate good is a superior intrinsic good, one that is highest on a scale or hierarchy of goods. Conceptually separate on the other hand, but not always kept distinct, is the idea of some feature, characteristic or property common to all instances of intrinsic value or intrinsic goodness. What the highest good is or what property is com­ mon to all instances of intrinsic value has varied throughout philosophic history, but each version of intrinsic value has roots in Plato and Aris­ totle.
Intrinsic value has also been discussed in contrast with some other extrinsic value, usually instrumental value. This section will also deal with the way this intrinsic/instrumental relation has been treated in philosophic history. I first discuss the idea of a highest good.

The Highest Good
It is Plato who makes the first kind of distinction between higher and lower goods and the desiring of them. In book two of the Republic he distinguishes three categories of things: things desired for their own sake, things wanted for the result they bring, and things valued for their own sake and for their consequences.
Of the first group, Plato says they are "harmless pleasures and en­ joyments that have no further result beyond the satisfaction of the

17
moment. " 31 He does not give examples for this group, deeming this group of no importance (indeed, of no consequence). But it seems they could range from the enjoyment of a sunset to a friendly kiss to scratching an itch. In the second group Plato lists activities which are "useful but burdensome things, which we want only for the sake of the profit or other benefit they begin. 1132 Examples of this group are phys­ ical training, medical treatment, and earning a living. Plato also points out that the common people place justice or the act of being just in this category, it being seen by them as "one of those things, tiresome and disagreeable in themselves, which we cannot avoid practicing for the sake of reward or good reputation. "3 3 Plato himself, on the other hand, argues that justice rightly belongs to the last or highest category, along with knowledge, health and the virtues, as things valued for their own sake and for their results. These things are necessary for life because "anyone who is to gain happiness must value (any of these things) both for itself and for its results. "3 4
For Plato the highest class of good things was a mixture of intrinsic and instrumental good. These are higher goods because they are not only good for their own sake but because they will produce happiness. Of all the intrinsic goods the highest good for man is knowledge, and the highest type of knowledge for man is knowledge of the Good (ta agat hos ) .


3 l Plato, Re p ub lic, p. 42.
3 2. Ibid., p. 42.
33 Ibid., pg 42.
34 Ibid., p. 42.

18
In book six of the Republic Plato gives a split description of the Good. He distinguishes between the highest good for !!!!!! and the Good itself. It is wisdom or insight into the essence of the Good that will provide happiness or human well-being, since from knowledge of the Good comes knowledge of the true end, purpose or function of all things, and happiness consists of the full realization of the end or na­ ture and virtue of a person. "For you have often been told that the highest object of knowledge is the essential nature of the Good, from which everything that is good or right derives its value for us . "3 5 Note here how the Good is a nonderivatory good that provides value for all other t h ing s . In this sense the Good is the highest good or the intrin­ isc good of all goods. The good for man is knowledge of the Good which, in turn, creates well-being for those who make the effort to ob­ tain this clear insight into the true end of all things. Knowledge of the Good is equated with happiness because it is Plato's position that such understanding will provide a person with the wisdom to realize fully his or her characteristic virtues and functions. Man's virtue, as a rational being, is an ability to discern the true end of all things, of life, and this results from knowledge of the Good. Since any living thing has its own good or end, knowledge of the Good includes a deri­ vatory understanding of the moral and physical order of the whole uni­ verse.
Knowledge of the Good is thus both intrinsic and instrumental in Plat o. It is an intrinsic good for man, a kind of knowledge desirable for its own sake, for the full realization of man' s virtue as a rational


JS Ibid., p. 219.

being. It is also an instrumental good in that knowledge of the Good will be that which produces happiness; and such knowledge is to be sought by the rulers of the state as a guide for their actions.
Plato argues that the good for man is not pleasure, wealth, or pow­ er, but knowledge of what is good or right, the order of things. How­ ever, Plato holds off from ever stating exactly just what Goodness itself is, how it makes good things good, and how one comes to this kind of knowledge. The Good is the Form of the Good manifested in the vari­ ous kinds of goodness such as Justice or Courage. That much Plato makes clear in the analogy of the sun. But of just precisely what this form is, Plato only speaks obliquely. He certainly held that the Good was the cause of goodness in the world and that it was the sole non­ derivational good from which all value derives, and knowledge of it makes the world intelligible. And he certainly held that goodness was not identical wiih pleasure, for in the Gorgias he says,
Are the pleasant and the good identical? They are not, as Callicles and I agreed. Should the pleasant be done for the sake of the good or the good for the sake of pleasure? The pleasant for the sake of the good. And is the pleasant that at whose presence we are pleased, the good that makes us good? Certainly. But the goodness of ourselves and of all other things is due to the presence of some excellence? That seems necessarily true Callicles. But surely the goodness of anything ... does not best come to it merely by haphazard, but through a certain rightness and order and through the art that is assigned to each of them. . .. Then the goodness of anything is due to order and arrangement? I should agree. It is then the presence in each thing of the order appropriate to it that makes everything good? So it appears to me. 36





36 Plato Gorgias, trans. W. D. Woodhead, in : The Collected Dia­ logues, ed. by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 289 (506d-505e).


-What Plato is willing to say about Goodness itself is by analogy, as in the analogy of the sun in book six of the Republic where Socrates re­ luctantly agrees to speak only about the offspring of the Good, compar­ ing the Good to the Sun: ".. the Sun is not vision, but is the cause of vision and also is seen by the vision it causes. "37 So too the Good is not the same as knowledge of the Good, but is the cause of this knownledge and can be know by the intellect alone.
-
It was the Sun, then, that I meant when I spoke of that offspring which the Good has created in the visible world, to stand there in the same relation to vision and visible things as that which the Good itself bears in the intelligible world to intelligence and to intelligible objects. 31
The Good is what causes knowledge but it is not knowledge itself. It is uthat which gives to the objects of knowledge their truth and to him who knows them has power of knowing ... 3 9 . " Truth and knowl­ edge are like the Good but are not the Good itself. It is the highest of goods, the cause of the others.
And so it is with the object of knowledge: these derive from the Good not only their power of being known, but their very being and reality: and Goodness is not the same thing as being, but even beyond being, surpassing it in dignity and powe r . 4a
Out of all this a hierarchy emerges. First there is the Good itself, the cause of truth, knowledge, and being. It's nature is knowable to the intellect, but only through intuition. Below this is knowledge of the Good, which is not the same as Goodness itself, but is the highest

37 Jhls!.' p. 219.
u -Ibid.
39 Ibid., p. 220.
411 Ibid.

good for man, as this knowledge is a reflection of the Good and is desirable for its own sake because it represents the full realization of the essential nature of man as a rational creature; but this knowledge is also instrumentally valuable because those who have this knowledge of the good are happy. Their well-being comes from knowing the pur­ pose and function of all things and acting in accordance with this knowledge. Below knowledge of the Good, the highest good for man, are the things intrinsically good, such as those mentioned in book two, and below these are the goods solely instrumental, desired only for the benefit or result they bring. It is to this hierarchy of goods that Ar­ istotle addresses himself.
Aristotle, in book one of the Nicomanchean Ethics, continues devel­ opment of the ends/means distinction set out by Plato. He makes a distinction between activities valued intrinsically, i.e., done for their own sake, and those activities instrumentally valued, done for the sake of something else. For instance, exercise is an activity that is instru­ mentally good, it is good for something else, i.e., that state of being healthy which is itself an intrinsic good. He arrives at this distinction in a way different from Plato since he did not share Plato's idea of the Good as a transcendental entity of ultimate good and as a source of all value.
Aristotle focuses on the fact that since everything has a specific end, goal, or purpose, each thing thus has a good for it, i.e., a thing "at which all things aim. " 4 1 Each kind of thing has its own highest good, "an end in the realm of action which we desire for its own sake,

41 Aristotle, Nicomanchean Ethics, p. 3.

an end which determines all our other desires. "4 2 But this is not an ultimate good as it was for Plato. It is the good specific for each kind of thing. For humans there is a highest good that gives instrumental value to all those other actions that help us achieve our end. The good for man is something that is intrinsically good, valuable for its own sake, perfect, final and self-sufficient. By self-sufficient Aristotle means that it is sufficient in itself to provide value to other activities. This is another way of saying that the good for man has a nonderivato­ ry intrinsic value. This end for man is the one activity that is proper or unique to man. And realizing this end is happiness for man. Thus, the highest good for man is "an activity of the soul in conformity with excellence or virtue, and if there are several virtues, in conformity with the best and most complete. "4J The highest good for man Aristotle called eudaemonia, activity according to reason, intellectual contem­ plation, or the exercise of one's rational power. It is an activity that is intrinsically valuable but is also instrumentally good because it re­ sults in true happiness for man.
Aristotle gives a ranking of goods in light of what is the highest good and this is carried forward through philosophic history. Some ac­ tivities are valued instrumentally because they are done for the sake of a higher value, such as a science or techne that incorporates the activ­ ities or ends of other things. Thus, the activities of dieting and exer­ cise are subordinate to the art of medicine which incorporates them as this art has as its own end the health of the person, which is itself a

42 Ibid., p. 3.
4l Ibid., p.17.


necessary condition for the realization of the highest good for man, eudaemonia, which results in happiness.

The schools of philosophy that developed in the Classical and post­ Classical periods took Aristotle's concept of the good for man as the starting point for their ethical thought. Where these schools differed was in what constituted the good for man. In all the Classic and post­ Classic schools the highest good, that which is good for its own sake and the cause of goodness or value in other things, was a certain kind of activity. This activity reflected what was held to be the true nature of man. What this activity or nature was differed.
Later, Augustine located the highest good for man in beatitude or the rest of man's heart in God. This good is also a kind of self-knowl­ edge that results from a quest after truth, beauty, and knowledge of things that are instrumentally good. When realization that God is the end of our quest occurs, happiness and salvation result. The final good is God. And it is God who provides value for all things. Things are judged or valued instrumentally in light of how they aid a person in achieving true self-knowledge, knowledge of God.
Aquinas follows Aristotle in distinguishing the highest good for man (which he referred to as beatitude) as the end of human life. This end was identified with happiness as well. God is the non-derivative source of all value and goodness in particular things. In identifying various appetities Aquinas also identified and ranked the goods that are the end of satisfaction of these appetites. Thus, the rational appetite or will is a higher good than the concupiscible appetite of the senses. Each function of man has a good or end for itself, but the highest good is knowledge of God, beatitude.

In the modern period of philosophy emphasis was placed in normative ethics on what is good in itself or as an end, i.e., on what things have intrinsic value or are of intrinsic value. But still left open was the problem of ranking higher and lower goods, what criteria was to be used for judging things of dfferent value. What characteristic makes a good thing good? What feature makes a thing good in itself or good for the sake of something else?

Good-Making Characteristics
The issue became one of identifying that feature common to all good and what is involved in attributing intrinsic value things or that which makes all good things good. In the history of ethics various good-mak­ ing features have been proposed. Some have argued that certain sub­ jective states such as happiness or pleasure were the common feature, while others have held that a certain objective state of affairs, event or thing is to be judged as intrinsically valuable separate from any subjec­ tive state of the valuer. I now examine the subjectivist and the objec­ tivist positions in ethics regarding intrinsic value or goodness.
The most common subjectivist position in ethics holds that that which is valuable in itself must be some human experience that has this good-making feature or features. Previously Aristotle and Aquinas had held that the experience of happiness, resulting from either eudaemonia or beatitude, is of intrinsic value. However, in the history of philoso­ phy the single most common candidate for a good-making characteristic of a thing was pleasure.

25
Starting with the classical hedonists like Epicurus, pleasure (or the experience of pleasure) was identified as the one feature common to all things judged to be or to provide intrinsic good. Happiness was de­ fined in terms of pleasure and was said to result from a life of many pleasures and few pains. This later allowed Bentham to devise a calcu­ lus based on pleasure to rank various goods or activities. The classic utilitarians like Bentham and Mill all shared the basic hedonic position that (1) only experiences can be intrinsically good, (2) all experiences that are intrinsically good are pleasant, and (3) all experiences that are pleasant are intrinsically good. A modified version of this position oc­ cured later with Dewey, C. I. Lewis, and Blanshard as they argued that there are other experiences such as satisfaction or happiness rath­ er than pleasure that are the good-making features of experiences like
doing one's moral duty or creative achievement, both held to be intrin­ sically good.
All of these ethical positions reflect the basic subjectivist position that some human experience or experiences, whether ascribed indivi­ dualistically or in a Sartrean inter-subjective sense, are of intrinsic value. The value is a relational one between valuer and some other thing. As I show later, this experiential view of intrinsic value leads to the attribution of intrinsic value to the experiences of some nonhu­ mans as well.
In ethics the objectivist position goes back to Plato who described the transcendental existence of the Good itself and in which all good things would participate. The Good is that basic reality, the ground for all other goods. It is objective in the sense that it exists

also in that it is an object of direct knowing by intuition. Late r, Ari ­ totle developed the idea of societal standards in terms of the percep­ tions of the good man. Aristotle held that "perhaps the chief distinc­ tion of a man of high moral standards is his ability to see the truth in each particular moral q ues t io n . """ After the development of moral vir­ tues through the regular practice of the rational aspect of the soul, good men also develop better perception of what is good.4 5 This posi­ tion is objective because Aristotle holds that the good as perceived by the good man can be taken as the societal standard for everyone. Since the rational activity of the soul is something common to all per­ sons, and each society has distinctive moral standards, there should be a common recognition of what is a right solution to any moral problem among all those who have cultivated moral vi rt ue and ha bit s . This rec­ ognition can also involve societal standards, making the ascertaining of goodness a consensual activity of a society. 46
In the modern period the most significant attempt to develop an ob­ jectivist theory of intrinsic value or goodness was by Kant who argued that the only unconditional or nonderivational good was the good will, and as such not valued instrumentally or conditionally but categorically.

"" Ibid., p. 64.

45 For a good discussion concerning objectivity in moral perceptions in this sense, see Eugene C. Harg rove, "T he Role of Rules in Ethical Decision Making," Inquiry 28 (1985): 3-51.
46 That judgments, either ethical or aesthetic, are consensual and com­ munal is reflected in Wittgenstein's statement, "If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in defi­ nitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments." Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical lnvesti ations, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Co., 1953 p. 88e.

Kant makes this quite clear when he says,
Nothing in the world--indeed nothing even beyond the without qualifications except a good will. 167
Kant rejects the idea of happiness being an absolute value, though peo­ ple have sought it for its own sake throughout history. It and the other traditional candidates for things being of intrinsic value require, according to Kant, the presence of a good will if they are to be truly good. Of these other things Kant says
Power, riches, honor, even health, general well-being, and the contentment with one's condition which is called happi­ ness, make for pride and even arrogance if there is not a good will to correct their influence on the mind and on its principle of action so as to make it universally conformable to its end. It need hardly be mentioned that the sight of a being adorned with no feature of a pure and good will, yet enjoying uninterrupted prosperity, can never give pleasure to a rational impartial observer. Thus the good will seems to constitute the necessary condition even of worthiness to be happy.

Some qualities seem to be conducive to this good will and can facilitate its action, but, in spite of that, they have no intrinsic unconditional worth. They rather pre­ suppose a good will, which limits the high esteem which one otherwise rightly has for them and prevents their being held to be absolutely good. 161
Having established the necessity of a good will, Kant then introduc­ es an intrinsic/instrumental value distinction when he describes what it is that makes a good will good.
The good will is not good because of what it effects or ac­ complishes or because of its adequacy to achieve some pro­ posed end; it is good only because of its willing, i.e., it is good of itself. And, regarding for itself, it is to be es­ teemed incomparably higher than anything which could be brought about by it in favor of any inclination or even of


47 lmanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, t ra ns . Louis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobbs - Me r r ill, 1959), p. 9.
,., I bid . , pp. 9- 10.

the sum total of all inclinations."'


achieve does not diminish or affect the intrinsic worth of this will. The extrinsic consequences of willing are separate issues, and do not per­ tain to the intrinsic value of a good will. The utility or great instru­ mentality of a good will would not affect the intrinsic value of this will, even if this will was to exist alone.
[For] if there remained only the good will (not as a mere wish but as the summoning of all the means in our power), it would sparkle like a jewel in its own right, as something that had its full worth in itself. Usefulness or fruitless­ ness can neither diminish nor augment this worth.5 a
The value of the good will in no way consists in its use, for that would qualify the will. Its value is intrinsic because the will acts out of re­ spect for a moral law and not out of regard for any consequences of the action of the will.
Kant continued this intrinsic/instrumental distinction in his concep­ tion of hypothetical and categorical imperatives. An action or thing has instrumental value when it is used to fulfill hypothetical imperatives. If you want to attain goal X, use action or thing Y, because Y is instru­ mentally valuable for that goal. But willing an action out of respect for a moral law is intrinsically good since it deals with the good will in it­ self and not with the consequences of the willing. That is why the second formulation of the categorical imperative concerns itself with this ends/means distinction. "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as


"9 .!.eJ.2., p. 10.
u Ib id .

29
a means only. 1151 Thus, an action would be morally wrong if it treated another person solely in instrumental terms, only as means to some end. Even if this end was judged intrinsically valuable, to use another solely as means, to ascribe only instrumental worth to that person, is to act immorally. Such an act overlooks the intrinsic worth of any person. As rational agents capable of acting in accordance with and out of re­ spect for a moral law or duty, people have an intrinsic value separate from any instrumental value. Thus Kant argues that we need to act in such a way as to respect the intrinsic value of each member of humani­ ty.
After Kant later writers such as Hegel located the unconditional good in the coinciding of a human will with the universal, i.e., the ra­ tional, and Nietzsche identified the good in itself as power. These represent objectivist positions, in that they all are what Frankena calls ant i- hedo n ic 5 2 theories of value, since they identify some objective fea­ ture or property common to things judged either by an individual or by society to be good or valuable for their own sake and act as a response to the subjectivist, hedonic positions in which only the experience of pleasure or happiness is of intrinsic value.
The objectivist theory of value has been most fully developed in contemporary philosophy by G. E. Moore and I end this survey with a discussion of him. I do so for three reasons. First, so much of the discussion of intrinsic value in ethics today traces back to what Moore


51 Ibid., p. 47.

52 William Frankena, "Values and Valuation," in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmiiian Publishing Co., 1967), vol. 8, p. 237.

had to say on the subject that a discussion of Moore sets the stage for the next chapter on the role of intrinsic value in contemporary environmental ethics. Second, it is in Moore that the threads of intrin­ sic goodness and value are intertwined. Their separation will clarify the way in which the concept of intrinsic value is used in contemporary environmental ethics. Third, in Moore there is a development of intrin­ sic value in terms of aesthetic as well as ethical value. Since aesthetic value plays an important role in arguments for the preservation of nat­ ural objects, an explication of his views are necessary. To set the stage for discussion of Moore on aesthetic and ethical value, first trace the subjective and objective theories of aesthetic value and show the role of intrinsic and instrumental value in these theories.



2..23 Intrinsic Value in Aesthetic Theory
This objective/subjective distinction applies in aesthetic theory as well as in ethical theory. In this section I show that judgments of aesthetic value, whether subjective or object ive , make use of considerations of intrinsic and instrumental value.
3To the claim that something has aesthetic value, the objectivist maintains that "The properties which constitute aesthetic value, or an object aesthetically valued are (in some st ra ig ht - fo rwa rd sense) proper­ ties of the aesthetic object it s e lf . " 5 The subjectivist, on the other hand, holds that "what makes something aesthetically valuable is not its
3



5 3 John Hospers, "Problems of Aesthetics," in The Encyclopedia of Phi­ losophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co. , 1967), vol. 1, p. 53.

own properties but its relation to aesthetic consumers."5 4
each theory in light of intrinsic value judgments.

consider


The subjectivist position on intrinsic value or aesthetic value is that what makes an art object valuable is its ability to produce a response or subjective experience in the valuer, and this response or experience is of intrinsic vlaue. An object is said to have aesthetic value if the object causes an aesthetic experience in the viewer. It is usually held in this position that the experience of beauty is what makes for an ex­ perience in the viewing of a work of art. Thus, to say that an object has aesthetic value means that the object is judged to be beautiful (or later, sublime), and that this experience of the object is of intrinsic value, it is valuable in itself, and is sought for its own sake.
The objectivist position, traditionally, is that the aesthetic value is in the object and not merely in the relational experience of the object. If people have an aesthetic experience through an art object, that ex­ perience is a consequent of the fact that the object is aesthetically va­ luable. A property or quality of the object, not the experience is what is valued. The problem then for the objectivist is to describe how this property or set of qualities is known. The property usually held to be common to all aesthetically valued objects was beauty, sometimes linked up with the good. This naturally led to be the question of how beauty was to be recognized, or what kind of property it was. From an indi­ vidualistic standpoint, beauty is a simple property that is unanalyzable and irreducible to anything else, and is known by intuition. From a consensual standpoint, like that of Mon roe Beardsley, beauty is one of


54 Ibid., p. 53.


the general cannons of unity, complexity, and intensity which are recognized by viewers as being features common to works of art. Thus, a good work of art has these aesthetic properties or meets these cannons. The focus is on the properties of the object. That is why this is an objectivist position. It is nonindividualistic or consensualistic in the sense that members of a culture have decided that these features make up aesthetically valuable objects.
Another version of this objectivist position avoids dealing with spe­ cific properties of the aesthetically valued object and deals with the £!_­ pacity of the object to produce an aesthetic response. This is the po­ sition of John Dewey and, to an extent, also of Monroe Beardsley.5 5 This position is both subjective and objective. It is subjective in that the aesthetic response of the viewer is what is valuable in itself, and it is objective in that it locates the capacity to produce this aesthetic re­ sponse in the object itself. The object is valued instrumentally for its capacity to evoke an aesthetic experience which is valued in itself, for its intrinsic value.
Since one problem with the subjectivist position is that it turns aesthetics into a series of autobiographical reports of individual states about which no genuine agreements or disagreements are possible, the task of objectivist theories has historically been to provide standards of taste or to describe what is the feature common to all aesthetic objects. Usually this feature was called beauty. The early eighteenth century saw the start of the development of aesthetic theories that sought to describe and analyze certain basic aesthetic qualities. The third Earl


5 5 Ibid. , p . 55.

of Shaftesbury, writing from a Neoplatonic position, argued the aesthetic value judgment came about th rough an immediate perception of beauty. Beauty was the perception of the harmony of all the parts that make up the aesthetic object. Beauty was also perceived as a virtue and he held that it was a moral sense that grasped harmony in both ethical and aesthetic form. Shaftesbury also introduced the feature of disinterestedness as the characterisitc of the aesthetic attitude. This feature is the appreciative attitude towards the aesthetic object for its own sake, for its intrinsic features rather than for any extrinsic considerations. The object is to be aesthetically intrinsically valued.5 6
Edmund Burke furthered the analysis of objective aesthetic qualities with his distinction between qualities of beauty and the sublime which excite the aesthetic sense of the viewer. The feeling of beauty was akin to love without attendant lust for the object. Objects that excite the feeling of beauty have the qualities of smallness, smoothness, deli­ cacy. On the other hand, the aesthetic sense of the sublime is one of astonishment and awe. It is a controlled horror without the attendant danger or a fear. In the sense of sublimity the mind is awestruck and held by the object that it contemplates. Qualities in an object that contribute to sublimity are power, vastness, wildness, emptiness, and privation. Through this concept of the sublime the way was opened for an aesthetic appreciation and valuing of nature and objects in the wild, objects which previously had not be deemed suitable objects for aesthetic contemplation. In Burke's position, like that of Shaftesbury,


5 6 Mon roe C. Beardsley, "History of Aesthetics," Encyclopedia of Phi­ losophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan Publsihing Co., 1967) vol. 1, p. 26.

an aesthetic object, considered either as beautiful or as sublime, was to be judged for its own sake, solely by the aesthetic feelings that were excited in a disinterested observer.5 7 This attitude of disinterestedness was also developed by Kant in his Critique of Judgment. will not cover all the features of Kant's aesthetic theory, but will note only the role of disinterestedness in his thought.
Kant held that one key feature of a pure aesthetic experience was that it was "untainted by any cognitive interest or practical or posses­ sive impulse. 1151 The pure aesthetic experience was one that judged an object intrinsically. In this experience
there is a design or form enjoyed simply for its own sake, and having not any functions beyond arousing the mind to enjoyable contemplation . . . [and] this aesthetic value is best realized not th rough a utilitarian object such as (a) vase but through abstract design, representational and nonfunctional.5 9
The aesthetic judgment for Kant is an intrinsic judgment of the qualities of the object disinterestly contemplated. Disinterested attention is giv­ en to an aesthetic object when the object is viewed with interest for its own sake, for itself, and not for instrumental considerations. The sat­ isfaction of disinterested contemplation is one that is independent of de­ sire or interest in the object as a source of utility or of pleasure. Kant here is very much in the tradition of Shaftesbury and Burke in that he believed that experiences such as sublimity had both a moral and an aesthetic character. This connection between ethical and

57 Ibid., p. 27.

5 Martin Rader and Bertam Jessup, Art and Human Values (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976 p. 46.
s 9 .!.hl2./ p. 46.

aesthetic theories of value played an important role, as I show later, in preservation arguments for natural objects. The arguments for the valuing of an aesthetic object, along with consideration of sublime (and later, picturesque) features of nature, were transferred over to natural entities. Natural entities became objects of disinterested aesthetic interest. Thus arguments in contemporary environmental ethics have roots in traditional aesthetic theory as well as ethical theory. This connection between aesthetic and ethical theories of value is most fully developed in contemporary philosophy by G. E. Moore.





2.2.4 Intrinsic Value in G. E. Moore
In Principia Ethica G. E. Moore argues that there is one single good-making characteristic common to all good things. This property, Moore says, can only be called "good" because it is a simple, indefina­ ble, non natural property. Since it is indefinable it can only be called good, and not some other supposed equivalent term. The only state­ ment that can be made about it is that "Good is good." Good is a non­ natural property and Moore uses his "open-ended" agument to show that no natural property can be identified completely with the property "good." It is also a simple property in that it is irreducible to any other and it is known directly by an intuition. Moore argues that this distinct property of goodness is in our minds when we consider the concept of intrinsic value. He says that whenever one
thinks of "intrinsic value" or "intrinsic worth," or says that a thing "ought to exist," he has before his mind the unique object--the unique property of things--which I mean

by good.6 0
Good is what makes anything have value or worth in itself. For Moore when that property is present in a thing we hold that that thing ought to exist.
Moore further distinguishes two kinds of judgments that refer to the attachment of this property to a thing. What he judges to be good in itself or of intrinsic value is "this unique property does always attach to the thing in question.1161 We judge something to be good as a means if "the thing in question is a cause or necessary condition for the exis­ tence of other things to which this unique property does attach."62 A thing that is good as a means has certain causal relations and the effect of these relations is good in itself. To say, for instance, that exercise is good as a means or valuable as means is to say that exercise pro­ duces a certain effect, fitness, and that fitness is a good in itself.
Most ethical questions, Moore holds, involve judgments of what is good in itself. We are thinking about good in itself when we ask what we ought to do or whether an action is right. To say that an action is right is to imply that it is the best action, i.e., one that will secure every good that can be obtained. There is a basic relationship between questions of what is valuable as a means and what is valuable intrinsi­ cally. This relationship is basic to all ethics.






60 Moore, Pr inc i pia Ethica, p. 17.
61 !e.15!., p. 17.
62 !2.l£!. , p. 21.

37
Another feature of any judgment of intrinsic value is that such a judgment holds universally for any member of the class of things judged to be good in themselves. Judgments of instrumental value can only be applied generally, not universally, to whatever is the class. What is good to one kind of end may not be a thing valuable for achieving an­ other kind of end. Moreover, the presence of one thing that is held to be intrinsically good, as part of a larger whole, does not on its own sake make the whole also intrinsically good. To refer to the earlier ex­ ample, a person may exercise and achieve the end of having a healthy body, which is good in itself. But Moore holds that the presence of health in a person does not also make the person as a whole intrinsical­ ly good. As he says, "The value of the whole must not be assumed to be the same as the sum of the value of the parts. 1163 It is also the case that a thing, such as a living arm, may have great value as a part of larger whole, but in itself have little or no value. The point of all this is that Moore wants to separate the roles that judgments of intrinsic value and judgments of instrumental value have in complex relation­ ships. Since many things can be judged to be of intrinsic value the degree that a complex entity made up of such goods in themselves must be made clear. The presence of this good making property "goodness" is limited only to the thing of which it is a property. It is not neces­ sarily transferable in complex wholes.
The problem, as Moore saw it, was that while many things were recognized to be of intrinsic value, a good in itself, previous writers had sought to identify the property that made these things intrinsically


63 - , p. 28.

38
valuable with some other natural property such as pleasure or virtue. This was, in Moore's view, a mistake, what he called the naturalistic fallacy. These other properties were better understood as good as a means.
Almost all ethical writers have committed the naturalistic fallacy--they have failed to perceive that the notion of in­ trinsic value is simple and unique; and almost all have failed, in consequence, to distinguish clearly between means and end--they have discussed the question, 'what ought we to do?' or 'What ought to exist now?' without distinguishing whether the reason why a thing ought to be done or to ex­ ist now, is that it is possessed of intrinsic value, or that it is a means to what has intrinsic value. We shall, there­ fore, be prepared to find that virtue has as little claim to be be considered for the role of chief good as pleasure; more especially after seeing that, as far as defintion goes, to call a thing a virtue is merely to declare that it is a means to a good. 64
Given that many things once held to be good as ends are actually good as means, the question now arises as to what things have intrinsic value, and in what degree. Drawing on his original position that good­ ness is a simple property known directly by an intuition of it, Moore proposes a method of isolation.
In order to arrive at a correct decision on the first part of this question, it is necessary to consider what things are such that, if they existed themselves, in absolute isola­ tion, we should yet judge their existence to be good; and, in order to decide upon the relative degrees of value of different things, we must similarly consider what compara­ tive value seems to attach to the isolated existence of e ac h . ' 5
By isolating each thing out we will be able to intuit whether or not the property of goodness is present in a thing and to what degree.




'" Ibid., p. 173.
GS Ibid., p. 187.

39
This position regarding intrinsic value has implications for preser­ vation arguments in environmental ethics, for if we judge a thing to 1:?e of intrinsic value then we are judging "that it would be worthwhile-­ would be 'a good thing'--that that state of things should exist, even if nothing else was to exist besides , either at the same time or aft e rwar ds . " " It would be a powerful argument for preserving a natu­ ral entity, such as a species of wha les . If it could be shown that the species has intrinsic value and thus could be a good thing in itself, it would be a good thing for the species to continue to exist and not to be made ext inct .
Moore himself, after utilizing this isolation technique, decided that "by far the most valuable things, which we can know or imagine, are certain states of consciousness, which can roughly be described as the pleasures of human intercourse and the enjoyment of beautiful ob­ jects."' 7 In these two categories, personal affections and the aesthetic enjoyment of art and nature include "all the greatest, and by far the greatest, goods we can imagine.""
If we grant with Moore that the aesthetic appreciation of a beautiful object is a thing good in itself, what must be determined is what con­ stitutes the elements of such appreciation. Moore holds that this appreciation consists, broadly, in "a cognition of really beautiful qua li­ ties together with an appropriate emotion towards those qualities. "59


61 Ibid . , p. 189.
6 7 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
s !I I bid . , p. 194.


These are, he holds, goods worth having for their own sake. They are things judged to be good in themselves, of having and intrinsic worth or goodness.
The first element of an aesthetic appreciation is an emotive state in the mind . We must, Moore says, feel the beauty that is there. Since there are different emotive states that can be engendered by a work of art, i.e., joy, sadness, awe, reverence, etc., it is necessary that the emotion be an "appropriate" one for the object.
By saying that different emotions are appropriate to differ­ ent kinds of beauty, we mean that the whole which is formed by the consciousness of that kind of beauty together with the emotion appropriate to it, is better than if any other emotion had been felt in contemplating that particular beautiful object. Accordingly, we have a large variety of different emotions, each of which is a necessary constituet in some states of consciousness which we judge to be good. All of these emotions are essential elements in great positive goods; they are parts of organic wholes, which have intrin­ sic value. 70
The second element is the actual "seeing" of a beautiful object, that is, the consciousness of a beautiful object. When dealing with the cog­ nitive element Moore points out that the term object is ambiguous, re­ faring either to the qualities of an object actually seen by the viewer or to all the qualities possessed by the thing seen. To remove this ambi­ guity Moore holds that to say a picture is beautiful is to see qualities in it which are beaut ifu l .
When, therefore, I speak of the cognition of a beautiful ob­ ject, as an essential element in a valuable aesthetic appreci­ ation, I must be understood to mean only the cognition of the beautiful qua lit ies possessed by that object, and not other qualities of the object possessing t hem . 71


70 Ibid . , p. 190.
71 Ib id . , p. 191.


Thus, beauty is a quality that is in the object and can be known and appreciated. In light of these two elements of aesthetic appeciation Moore distinguishes between (1) seeing the beauty of a thing, which is the emotive state regarding the thing, and (2) seeing its beautiful qualities, which is a cognitive activity without an emotive aspect. When the two elements are taken together, however, an aesthetic appreciation that is of intrinsic value results.

However, the beauty that is thought by this cognition to be there in the object must actually be there; otherwise, Moore holds, the appreciation is an inferior one. He says it is a great positive good that the beautiful qualities of the object believed to be there are actually there. A true belief in the reality of an object's qualities or the object as a whole greatly increases the value of any valuable whole. In the case of representative art it does make a difference in the intrinsic val­ ue of the piece if the scene portrayed does or does not exist as long as the qualities of beauty in the work are actually there. The value of the appreciation is much greater if the belief about the reality or non­ reality of the object presented is a true belief.
I think that the additional presence of a belief in the reali­ ty of the object makes the total state much better, if the belief is true; and worse, if the belief is false . . . where there is belief, in the sense in which we do believe in the existence of Nature and horses, and do not believe in the existence of ideal landscapes and unicorns, the truth of what is believed does make a difference to the value of the organic whole. 72
Moore would value higher the aesthetic appreciation of an existing natu­ ral scene than the appreciation of an idealized landscape. We would "think that the world would be improved if we could substitute for the

72 - , p. 194.

42

best works of representational art real objects equally beautiful. " 73
This position has several implications for environmental ethics.
First, it gives a high value to the aesthetic appreciation of nature. Second, it provides grounds for preservation of natural objects, since the continued existence of these objects allows for a greater permanance and frequency of our emotional contemplation and for knowledge of the cognitive element of the appreciation. Since we act on the basis of what we believe, it is important that the objects of aesthetic apprecia­ tion have a continued existence. Thus, the continued existence of nat­ ural objects is a great extrinsic good because it is a means to our aesthetic appeciations of those beautiful natural object s . It is better if objects of our aesthetic contemplation did exist than if they did not . The emotive content that comes from appreciating the beautiful qualities of a photograph of a natural scene would be, in Moore's view, higher if the scene still existed. This position is reflected in the argument that it is better to preserve a natural object than to photograph it and then allow the object to be destroyed.
The superiority of existing things applies to the cognitive element as well. Moore judges cognitions of representations of actually existing objects to be much greater than the same cognitions if the object did not exist. The difference is Ii ke that of the value of a true belief in an actual thing of beauty over the imagined object of beauty. The for­ mer has greater value than the latter. Any complex whole gains an added value by the fact of its existence, and this value is over and above the value of any valued part.


73 Ib id . , p. 195.

43
In order to determine whether or not the existence of beautiful objects are of intrinsic value Moore again suggests his method of isola­ tion. He argues that it allows us to see that there is a greater value in existence of such objects.
We can imagine the case of a single person, enjoying throughout eternity the contemplation of scenery as beauti­ ful, and intercourse with persons as admirable, as can be imagined; while yet the whole of his cognition are absolutely unreal. I think we should definitely pronounce the exis­ tence of such a universe, which consisted of solely of such a person, to be greatly inferior in value to one in which the objects, in the existence of which he believes, did real­ ly exist just as he believes them to do; and that it would be thus inferior not only because it would lack the goods which consist in the existence of the objects in question, but also merely because his belief would be false. 71<
Thus, there are two things, aesthetic appreciation and human interc­ ourse, which Moore holds to be highly valuable in themselves, of having the greatest intrinsic worth. In these intrinsically valuable complex wholes, in addition to the emotive and cognitive elements that give val­ ue to the whole, there is a great value resulting from the true belief in the reality of an object thus represented. The value of beautiful ob­ jects increases with the continued existence of such objects.
Over the years what is meant by beautiful has been variously de­ fined. Moore charges that the "naturalistic fallacy" has been quite commonly committed with regard to beauty as well as to good. He means that beautiful has been defined as that which produces some subjective state. Moore says it is possible to avoid all subjective defi­ nitions of beauty by realizing that what is beautiful is something of which an appreciation of it would be good in it se lf .



74 -' pp. 197-98.


That is to say: To assert that a thing is beautiful is to assert that the cognition of it is an essential element in one of the intrinsically valuable wholes we have been describ­ ing; so that the question, whether it is truly beautiful or not, depends on the objective question whether the whole in question is or is not truly good, and does not depend upon the question whether it would or would not excite the par­ ticular feelings in a particular person . 75
Beauty is defined in terms of good but that we can only say "Beauty is Good . " Since Moore has goodness as a simple, unanalyzable predicate, beauty must be defined in terms of it and not the other way arou nd .
To say that a thing is beautiul is not to say, not indeed, that it is itself good, but that it is a necessary element in something that is : to prove that a thing is truly beautiful is to prove that a whole, to which it bears a particular re­ lation as a part, is truly good. 76
From this Moore concludes that while goodness is a single, simple prop­ erty, there can never be a single criterion of beauty. But whatever is beautiful will be good because it is defined in terms of this basic prop­ erty.
With G . E. Moore several themes in the history of intrinsic value come t oget he r . He identifies a single good-making property common to all things held to be worthy or good in themselves. He identifies two things which in general are held to be of intrinsic value, and shows that the existence of the objects intrinsically valued is an intrinsic good. And he relates the concept of beauty to goodness.
After Moore and his objectivist s uccess or s , Pritchard and Ross, the objectivist theory of intrinsic value went into a decline as the subjecti­ vist metaethical theories developed. Intrinsic value in most recent times has been located in subjectivist states such as the experience of

75 Ib id . , p. 201.
7 ' I bid . , p. 202.


pleasure or happiness. But the current rise of neo-naturalism has in­ troduced attempts to locate intrinsic value in somethinng other than a subjective state.
The next section will examine the way intrinsic value is playing a role in in writings in modern and contemporary environmental ethics. first show that arguments involving intrinsic value were used by nine­ teenth-century environmentalists and involved aesthetic and scientific perceptions of these writers. Then, I survey the use of intrinsic value in several authors in contemporary environmental ethics.

USAGE OF INTRINSIC VALUE IN ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS
Intrinsic Value in Early Preservation Arguments
Hargrove77 has shown that there were twin concepts of value pres­ ent throughout the development of attitudes toward nature and natural objects in America. Such objects were viewed as having both instru­
mental and intrinsic value. The. Iand had always been judged in terms

of its usefulness, but at the same time natural entities were considered as valued for their own sake, valued intrinsically.
The instrumental value of natural objects or of nature has been the most prevalent value. According to this position, the land has "no or little value until someone had worked it."71 This view was reflected in Locke's theory of property and through it nature came to be judged in terms of utility and ownership. Although early explorers in America described the new lands in regard to their utility, it is a mistake to

7 7 Eugene Hargrove "The Historical Foundations of American Environmental Attitudes," Environmental Ethics 1 (1979): 209-40.
71 Ibid., p. 212.

46
suppose that the land was seen solely in terms of instrumental value, for, as Hargrove has shown, the early naturalists recorded descriptior:,s of the land they studied in a mixture of fact and value terms.
When writing in their field notebooks, most of them matter­ of-factly jotted down their aesthetic judgements alongside their factual descriptions. In this way, they began to at­ tend to values as well as facts, just at the time when non­ scientific garden enthusiasts were expanding their interests of botanical sciences. This change in attitude towards per­ ceived objects in botany and gardening provided the foun­ dation for a broader association of science and art later in the nineteenth century. 79
Landscape artists and nature poets as well as the naturalists and gar­ deners added to the trend to view nature in itself and judged natural objects to be valuable for their own sake as well as for their instru­ mental value.
The resulting interplay between naturalists, geologists, and artists led to a common perception of the natural world shared by both groups which placed emphasis on both fact and value. a

The naturalists especially reflected this interplay, for, in pre-photo­ graphic times, they had to have some artistic ability to record descrip­ tions to draw specimens or scenes, of the natural phenomena they ob- served. Being trained in art they brought to their studies the concepts of aesthetic value mentioned earlier. This interplay resulted in natural objects being considered worthy of interest, scientific or
aesthetic, for their own sake. Since nature poets and landscape artists had introduced the application of standards of beauty to natural ob­ jects, the land was considered valuable for itself, as a source of beauty for artists and a place of value for scientific interest.

79 .!.!2.i!!-, p. 220-21.
,a Ibid., p. 221.

47
The arguments for nature preservation that developed by the end of the nineteenth century reflected this mixture of values. For instance, Hargrove notes that: "There were three primary justifications given for making Yellowstone a national park: its geologic interest, its aesthetic interest, and its usefulness as a preserve for wild animals. "1 1 It was through the statements of naturalists and the canvasses of landscape artists that attention was brought to Congress for the preservation of the area. Indeed, as Hargrove points out:
There appears to be a direct correlation between places painted in the nineteenth century and places preserved. By painting particular places artists often established these places in the minds of the general public as being places of beauty especially worthy of preservation. 12
It was noted earlier how the view of G. E. Moore favored the art of existing places and real object s . In this way too the addition of aesthetic consideration of natural objects favored their preservation.
Thus, by the end of the nineteenth century arguments of intrinsic and instrumental value were offered for the preservation of natural fea­ tures. But then a displacement of the intrinsic value arguments by the utilitarian arguments began to occur. This probably came from several sources. One was the influence of Gifford Pinchot who, as founder of the U.S. Forest Service, passed on the economiic concepts of valuing land in terms of possiible use which he had learned while studing forest management in Europe. Second, since the objectivist theories of ethics and aesthetics of Moore and his followers were being severely attacked and rejected, his ideas of beauty defined in terms of good, and good


11 Ibid., p. 220.
12 Ibid., p. 233.


being a simple, objective, nonnatural property fell into disuse. The switch from objectivist to subjectivist theories of aesthetic value moved attention from the object to the viewer, from the features of the a rt object to the experience of the viewer, and made aesthetic value an ex­ trinsic, consequential value. And third, the rise of pragmatism as a philosophic viewpoint in America may have drawn attention to consideration of natural entities in regard to any instrumental value they might have. As a result, arguments for preservation of natural objects on the basis of their beauty did not have as much force as ar­ guments for their use. And today natural objects are commonly seen in terms of multiple use. Nature is viewed as useful for scientific study, recreation, spiritual renewal, and as a source of aesthetic experiences. The experiences of people are now what are valued intrinsically not the objects that engender those experiences. Objects of nature are now usually seen as instrumentally valuable for certain experiences, not for their own sake. "Today environmentalists usually present the beauty of a natural object as grounds for its preservation in preference to its interest, but, when beauty is lacking, the appeal then centers on interest. "1 3 What Hargrove is refering to here is "scientific" interest, but appeals to other interests, such as aesthetic or spiritual, are also made.
Without the previous additional force of the intrinsic value argu­ ment, preservation attempts today are often overruled because of eco­ nomic utilitarian concerns. But with the rise of environmental ethics as a vigorous philosophic activity, attention has returned to arguments for

13 Ibid., p. 225.


the intrinsic value of natural objects, drawing upon the preservation heritage of the previous century. Not all the writers in this field ac­ cept the attempts to locate intrinsic value in natural objects, and prefer instead to develop a new theory of intrinsic value. But as I next show, it is a subject under extensive discussion.


Intrinsic Value in Contemporary Environmental Ethics
In this section I survey several authors in environmental ethics showing their positions regarding the ascription of intrinsic value to nature or nonhuman entities. I do not, at this point, make any sub­ stantial criticism of these writers, and am concerned only with showing how the concept of intrinsic value plays a part in their writings. I be­ gin, as so many others have, with Aldo Leopold and his Sand County Almanac.
Although he never rejected the economic value of the wildlife he helped maintain, Leopold came to realize that the ethics of land manage­ ment that he saw in use were "still governed wholly by economic self­ interest, just as social ethics were a century ago. "14 As social ethics had expanded its sphere of what was to receive moral consideration, Leopold argued that it was time that the land, the biotic and abiotic community, was taken into this sphere. The land had a value that was separate from its utility to humans, a value for its own sake which was broader than economic value. Although he did not use the term intrin­ sic value, it is clear in the following passage that respect is due to the land because of such a value.


14 Aldo Leopold, A Sand Cou nt y Almanac (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 209.


It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to the land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for the land, and a high regard for its value. By value I, of course, mean something far broader than mere economic value, I mean value in the philosophic sense. 85

This philosophic sense of value, Leopold held, would cause us to view the land as something to be respected in its own right, to which we had duties to preserve for its own sake, its own interests.
But others have held that such an expansion of the moral sphere is not needed or warranted. Writers such as John Passmore argue that new modes of behavior are much more important than new moral princi­ ples. ac Passmore makes a clear distinction between the kinds of values held to apply to nature when he says we "can think of wildernesses and species as having either a purely instrumental or an intrinsic value. "1 7 Whether this is indeed a fair depiction of the role of intrinsic value in current writings will be discussed later. But it is important to note that his concept of usefulness includes not only economic utility, but also usefulness for science, recreation, moral and spiritual renewal, and the discovery of aesthetic pleasures. He holds that strong arguments can be made for the first view, but dismisses as absurd and unneeded the idea that actions toward natural objects could be said to have in­
trinsic value. Thus, he rejects the need for a new, environmental eth- ic:
It is at this point, indeed, that the cry grows loudest for a new morality, a new religion, which would lead him to be­ lieve that it is intrinsically wrong to destroy a species, cut


15 Ibid., p. 223.

16 John Passmore, Man'! Re s pons ibilit y for Nature, 2nd ed. (London: Duckworth, 1980), p. 188.
17 Ibid., p. 101.


down a tree, clear a wilde r ness . As I have already sug­ gested, these demands strike one, at a certain level, as merely ridiculous. 11
What is absurd for Passmore is the attempt of people like Leopold to suggest that since man and nature form one community, natural objects have the right to exist as does man. Passmore is troubled by the at­ tempts to extend rights to any sort of nonhuman creature and holds in scorn such attempts, which, to him, only create confusion. Passmore holds that intrinsic value should not be ascribed to natural objects out­ side of man. He goes only so far as to allow that some actions of hu­ mans can conceivably be intrinsically wrong, such as the inflicting of unnecessary pain on animals. He does, however, reject the idea that natural objects should be given rights, such as the right to exist for its own sake (which, for him, is another way of saying that such enti­ ties have intrinsic value).
For my part, I agree, in the long run, with the Sto ics : if men were even to decide that they ought to treat plants, animals, landscapes as if they were persons, if they were to think of them forming with man a moral community in a strict sense, that would make it impossible to civilise the wo rld - - o r , one might add, to act at all, or even to continue living. 19
For Passmore, the traditional Western metaphysical and ethical systems contain the seeds for any new development in the moral consideration of nature. That is why he views as unnecessary calls like Leopold's for a new ethic.






11 -, p. 111.
19 Ibid., p. 126.


Others have replied to Passmore's strong position. Eugene Har- grove writes:
Despite Passmore's claim that American environmentalists oppose all [land-use arguments], this balance of instrumen­ tal and intrinsic value remains part of the environmentalists viewpoint even today... [and] arguments involving intrin­ sic value, common in the early nineteenth century preser­ vation tradition, show a philosophical heritage extending continuously all the way back to Greek philosophy.9 0
Hargrove holds that Passmore's attempt at historical analysis of the Western basis of environmental thought is shallow and basically misguid­ ed:
The central issue is not whether or not there is any basis in Western civilization for nature preservation, since clearly there is, but rather whether there are any grounds for de­ fending natural objects and species from economic exploita­ tion. Passmore is dedicated to the idea that there will al­ ways be economic considerations which will override the preservation of anything. If this idea is ultimately trium­ phant, then there can never be an environmental ethic of any sort, and the environment can never be given any permanent protection. The correct approach seems to be to return to the notion of higher and lower goods. Even the most utilitarian philosophers always held that there were al­ ways some things which are of such great value that they are exempt from calculation based on instrumental and eco­ nomic good. In this context, the idea that some natural objects and some representatives of nearly all species ought to be preserved because of their intrinsic beauty and interest can, I believe, be defended as a reasonable and conservatively Western idea. It does not mean the end of Western civilization or the end of man since it does not by any means completely oppose the economic use of the Earth for human purposes. 91
Hargrove is clearly not alone in this idea of positing intrinsic value in nature, for Tom Regan holds that a truly environmental ethic must place what he calls inherent worth on natural entities. Regan uses the



9 0 Eugene Hargrove, "The Historical Foundations of American Environmental Attitudes," Environmental Ethics 1 (1979): 230-31.
91 - , pp. 239-40

term inherent goodness to aid in the distinction between an ethic for the use of the environment (such as what Passmore has in mind) and an ethic of the environment, something he wishes to establish. Regan seeks to create an environmental ethic in which humans have duties to the nonhuman realm, and such an ethic requires that there be value inhering in nature independent of human interest.
If I am right, the development of what can be properly called an environmental ethic requires that we postulate in­ herent value in nat ure . 92
Mark Sagoff agrees that an economic value approach to nature by itself will lead to unacceptable land use p ract ices . He holds that we , indeed, need a new environmental ethic that is based on non-economical principles.
A market or an economic approach to environmental policy, if it remains consistent and true to itself, is likely to con­ vert nature into a place 'where the action is ' . A policy based on moral conviction and aesthetic principle, however, would tend to preserve some environments for their own sake. 93
Economic values such as efficiency and equality are important to socie­ ty, he argues, but they are not the only important values. Respect and dignity are others. But, he notes, when non-economic values are sought, the charge against environmentalistis of elitism is often raised. The way to answer these charges, Sagoff holds, is for environmental philosophy to
emphasize the distinction between objects that are valuable as individual things, and objects that have some purpose that they serve. The distinction between intrinsic and in­ strumental value is one of the oldest in philosophy. Those

92 Regan, "Nature and Possibility," p. 34.
9 3 Mark Sagoff, "Do We Need a Land-Use Ethic?" Environmental Ethics
3 (1981): 309.


who love and admire the environment value it for what is and 'for its own sake'; they do not value it simply because of the satisfaction or utility it provides. 94
One way to emphasis this distinction, Sagoff suggests, is to modify or reject the prevalent anthropocentric view of the world that judges all things in terms of their utility for man.
Bryan Norton argues that the "assumption that environmental ethics must be nonanthropocentric in order to be adequate is mistaken. "' 5 This mistake, he says, has caused environmentalists to unnecessarily require the existence of intrinsic value in nature, absolutely and com­ pletely independent of all human perception, interests, and judgments. He argues that a modified anthropocentric axiology can be sufficient upon which to base a truly environmental ethic. He notes that in the standard anthropocentric position
every instance of value originates in a contribution to hu­ man values and that all elements in nature can, at most, have value instrumental to the satisfaction of human interests.''
While in the nonanth ropocentric position it may be that while human be­ ings are the source of all values, some nonhuman objects can serve as the loci of fundamental value. Norton sees the function of intrinsic or inherent value as basic to standard preservation arguments.
If it is wrong to destroy X, the wrongness must derive from harm to X or to some other natural object. But one can harm something only if it is a good in its own right in the sense of being a locus of fundamental value. 97

94 Ibid., p. 308.

n Bryan Norton, "Environmental Ethics and Weak Anthropocentrism," Environmental Ethics 6 (1984): 131.
,i; Ibid., p. 133.
9 7 lE.is!. , p. 134.


He distinguishes between a strong and a weak form of anthropocentrism present in various value theories and, by using the weak form only, he allows for adjudication of conflicts of actions and interests in environmental issues without recourse to locating intrinsic value in nat­ u raI objects.
Weak anthropocentrism is, therefore, an attractive position for environmentalists. It requires no radical, difficult-to­ justify claims about the intrinsic value of nonhuman objects and, at the same time, it provides a framework for stating obligations that goes beyond concern for satisfying human concerns. 91
For Norton, discussion and debate about the use of the resources of the environment "can take place without appeal to the intrinsic value of nonhuman objects."99 Whether or not this can be done is a question considered in later sections of this paper.
Norton is the only writer to explicitly develop this position. More typical is Robin Attfield, who believes that "people have obligations wit h respect to many nonhumans and that the flourishing of nonhumans is of intrinsic value." 10 0 He also holds that "we are responsible as ste­ wards and trustees to the class of moral agents, and that our responsi­ bilities are to foster and preserve intrinsic value among both humans and non humans." 101 After going over the historical traditions in the West concerning attitudes towards nature, he concludes that the sug­ gestion of stewardship and trusteeship of moral values in nature beyond

91 ll?.!.£., p. 138 .
99 J..e!2., p. 147.


lDD




1 D 1

Robin At tfie ld , "Western Traditions and En vi ronme nt al Et h ics , " in Environmental Philosophy, ed. Robert Alliot and Arran Gare (Lon­ don : Open University Press , 1983), p. 202.
Ibid . , p. 223.


the instrumental level "is faithful to those traditions as they historically developed, and that the historical existence of traditions of this sort is cause for very great encouragment to the advocates of an environmental ethic.n 102 The stewardship tradition of "management to serve intrinsic values," 103 as Attfield puts it, makes it possible for an environmental ethic to be developed out of the roots of Western thought, but not from mainstream Western thought. He maintains that

it is only the roots within existing traditions of belief in the presence of intrinsic value among nonhuman creatures which allow a revision insisting on a theory of value which affirms this presence to be credible. 10 ,.
In the next chapter I examine in greater detail various forms of environmental ethics, noting the difference between those based on an­ thropocentric and nonanthropocentric theories of intrinsic value .
























102 Ibid., p. 224.
103 Ibid.
104 Ibid., p. 226.





Chapter Ill
TWO MAIN DIVISIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS

In this chapter I present an explication and critique of various en­ vironmental ethics based on anthropocentric and nonanthropocentric theories of intrinsic value. In the process of this I also test a hy­ pothesis suggested by Good pas t e r 1 that there is a connection between what is held in each position to be of intrinsic value and what is judged to be morally considerable in each ethic. By "moral consideration" I mean the extension of the sphere of morality to an entity, that is, the taking of a particular entity into account when judging the morality of actions that involve in some way that entity. My initial conclusions are: (1) that Goodpaster's hypothesis is born out and that the kinds of entities held to deserve moral consideration depend on what is held to be of intrinsic value; (2) that a case can be made for both weak and strong senses of anthropocentric and nonanthropocentric theories of intrinsic value; (3) that a coherent, justifiable environmental ethic can be put forth based either on a weak theory of anthropocentric intrinsic value or on some nonanth ropocentric theory of value that ascribes or discovers intrinsic value in some nonhuman entities or features; and (4) that an effective program for environmental protection can incorporate preservation arguments based on both anthropocentric and nonanthropo­ centric theories of intrinsic value.


1 Kenneth Goodpaster, 11On Being Morally Considerable," Journal of Philosophy 75 (1978): 321.

- 57 -


ANTHROPOCENTRIC THEORIES OF INTRINSIC VALUE
Anthropocentric is defined as the position of "assuming man as the center or ultimate end" and "interpreting natural processes or phenome­ na, [such] as animal instincts, in terms of man or the human mind. " 2 I hold a theory of intrinsic value to be anthropocentric if it is one that judges only human states, experiences, abilities, needs, preferences or concerns to be of intrinsic value. Other entities are judged to be of some kind of extrinsic value insofar as they are insturmental in or con­ tribute toward the achieving of that human state or experience held to be of intrinsic value. A reflection of this anthropocentric position can be seen in William Frankena's statement that "it is hard to see how money, cars, and other material possessions, even paintings can have any goodness or value at all, extrinsic or inherent, if the experiences that they make possible are not in some way enjoyable or good in them­ selves."3 Fran ken a does not question the presupposition here that what is held to be of intrinsic value is grounded in human experiences. He goes on to say that
we can also say of certain sorts of experiences that they are good because they contribute to the good life, or be­ cause if they are inc l uded in one's life they make it intrinsically better.4
Notice the implicit anthropocentrism here as he classifies t hings as con­ tributory to an intrinsically valued experience, the good life.




2 Webster'! 3rd International Dict io na ry, p. 93.

3 William Frankena, Ethics, 2nd ed . (Englewood Cliffs, New J e r s ey : Prentice Hall, 1973) pp . 81-82 .
" Ibid., p. 82.


This kind of anthropocentric position reflects a subjectivist theory of aesthetic value. In this theory a work of art itself has an extrinsic, contributory value. Although such a value may be held to be inherent in the art object, the object would not itself be of intrinsic value, only the aesthetic experience that resulted from appreciating it.
An environmental ethic based on such an anthropocentric theory of intrinsic value would be what Regan referred to earlier as an ethic "for the use of the environment." The environment is to be managed in such a way as to maximize or provide for the realization of various hu­ man needs or intrinsically valued human experiences. These things could be intellectual, aesthetic, moral, or spiritual states, or psycho­ logical states such as pleasure or happiness. By this valuing of certain human experiences or states this ethic would allow for the censure or praise of actions done by humans toward the environment, in light of whether the actions hindered or aided in the realization of these ex­ periences. For instance, if the aesthetic appreciation of beauty is held to be of intrinsic value, then the strip mining of an area held by many to be of great natural beauty could be censured on the gronds that it destroyed the natural objects that, in Frankena's terms, contributed to the aesthetic experience. It should be noted that by the same reason­ ing the same act of strip mining the area could be commended in that the act was contributory to the realization of happiness in the stock­ holders of the mining company due to the financial profit made from the mining.
Another form of anth ropocentrism is the one described earlier by Norton as "weak anthropocentrism," in which values are determined by

60
the perceptions or judgments of humans but can be independent of hu­ man interests. A weak anthropocentrist could judge that a work of art has a value independent of any value it contributes to producing an aesthetic experience in the valuer. For example, an art object could be judged to have intrinsic value by the valuer. This position would re­ capture the intuition that a work of art is valuable even if no one sees the object, and in doing so goes beyond the standard anthropocentric view which judges all art objects themselves as only extrinsically valua­ ble. The weak anthropocentric position can also explain why an origi­ nal art object is valued more than a masterful copy or forgery, since it would locate a value in the object over and above the objects ability to contribute to a valued aesthetic experience.
This position can apply to natural objects as well, for through it an action such as the strip mining could be censured as morally wrong be­ cause a group of people have rationally decided that the continued un­ sullied existence of the area is a considered preference of theirs in ac­ cordance with certain shared ideals. Note that in both versions of the anthropocentric theory the reference for morality is still human experi­ ence, values, or prefe re nces . The sphere of morality covers only hu­ mans that have or could have such experiences or preferences, or those entities to whom humans have attributed intrinsic value.
The anthropocentric environmental ethic can lead to the position that all our understanding of the environment and our claims about what are right and wrong ways of behaving toward nature are human referential. This position holds that what we come to know and value about nature is structured by our human perspective. We cannot think like a


mountain, as Aldo Leopold suggested. We can only think like a person thinks. This position finds its support in the Kantian phenomena_!/ noumenal distinction between what is knowable through human experi­ ence and modes of knowledge and what reality is in itself. We cannot know what a mountain thinks, if it thinks at all. We can only know and value the world through our human perspective. Henryk Skolimow­ ski makes this clear when he says that:
all claims made on behalf of the biotic community are made by human beings; they are filtered by human sensitivities and by human compassion; they are based on our human sense of justice, on our human recognition of how things are and how they ought to be; they are pervaded with hu­ man values--all these claims are therefore deeply and pro­ foundly embedded in our anthropocentrism whether we care to recognize this or not.5
In Skolimowski's view any environmental ethic cannot help but to be an­ thropocentric, even in the axiologies of intrinsic value. Given the va­ rieties of human states or experiences, it is not surprising to find en­ vironmental ethics based on the attribution of intrinsic value to different states or experiences. In the remainder of this section I ex­ plicate and critique the environmental ethics of four writers, Kant, Richard Watson, John Passmore, and Bryan Norton, showing how each one embodies an anthropocentric theory of intrinsic value.













5 Henryk Skolimowski, "The Dogma of Anti-Anthropocentrism and Eco­ philosophy," Environmental Ethics 6 (1984): 284.

1.1 Kant
Kant's ethical theory clearly involves an anthropocentirc view of intrinsic value, for he holds that "rational nature exists as an end in itself."6 Kant also says that "nothing in the world--indeed nothing be­ yond the world--can possibily be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will. 07 The sphere of morality en­ closes rational beings, which generally includes most human beings. What is judged to be of intrinsic value is rational nature, and, given that most human beings have a rational nature, this ascription intrinsic value to a particular feature of human beings makes this an anthopo­ centric theory. Whatever does not have a rational nature has, for Kant, only an extrinsic instrumental value. Thus, animals are judged by him to be mere means. Animals are not rational in his view, and exist to serve man instrumentally, as means to human ends. As he says, "Animals are not self-conscious and are there merely as means to an end."' Regan could definitely judge this ethic to be "for the envi­ ronment. 11 From Callicott's point of view, mentioned in chapter one, Kant's moral theory is an environmental ethic because Kant presents what he holds to be right and wrong ways of treating nonhuman natural entities. The point is that the rightness or the wrongness of an action is grounded in his anthropocentric conception of intrinsic value.




6 Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Met a ph y s ics of Morals, ed. H. J.
Paton (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 96.
7 - , p. 96.

Immanuel Kant, "Duties to Animals and Spirits," in Lectures on Eth­ ics, trans. Louis Infield (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), p.23r


Certain acts, such as cruelty to animals for s port , i.e., bullfight­ ing, Kant would judge to be wrong. The deliberate destruction of cer­ tain natural objects by a vandal would also be held to be wrong. The laboratory use of animals for vivisection, while cruel, is not, for Kant, a moral crime against the animal, and the reason why illustrates the way in which Kant's anthropocentric theory of value shapes his ethic and his sphere of moral considerability. A person should shun cruelty to animals because it harms

in himself that humanity which it is his duty to show man­ kind . If he is not to stifle his human feeling he must prac­ tice kindness toward animals because he who cruel to ani­ mals becomes hard in his dealing with men ... [And that] tender feelings toward dumb animals develop human feelings towards mankind.'
Our duties towards animals are only indirect duties because animals are not ends in themselves, only means to ends. Hence, for Kant, the practice of vivisection is justified because the gain of medical knowledge and skill is useful for mankind. Although Kant admits such practices are cruel, animals do not have intrinsic value and are viewed as means to human ends. If the human ends are good, then that justifies what­ ever way the animals are treated. As he says,
Vivisectionists, who use living animals for their experi­ ments, certainly act cruelly, although their aim is praise­ worthy, and they can justify their cruelty, since animals must be regarded as man's instruments; but any such cru­ elty for sport cannot be justified. 10
According to Kant, the suffering of animals, pe r se, could not be used as criteria to condemn the actions of an otherwise upright citizen who secretly tortured stray cat s . Kant would regard such acts are morally

9 Ib id . , p. 240.
10 Ibid.

censurable, i.e., wrong, but not because of the suffering of the cats, but only because of the dimunition in humanity in the citizen himself.
Kant holds that as rational beings we have indirect duties not only to animals but also to nonliving natural obects. Natural objects are means to ends. They do not have intrinsic value since they are not rational beings. The value of natural objects lies for Kant in their in­ strumentality, their utility. Kant tells us that it is immoral to destroy things, but only because natural objects, trees, the land, etc., may be of use to someone. Their value is purely extrinsic.
Destructiveness is immoral; we ought not destroy things which can still be put to some use. No man ought to mar the beauty of nature; for what he has no use for may still be of use to someone else. He need, of course, pay no heed to the thing itself, but he ought to consider his neighbor. 11
Presumably, one who was callous in his use of natural objects, for in­ stance, destroying the mineral formations of a cave merely for the feel­ ing of destruction, would, for Kant, be censurable because the vandal was denying further use of the cave as such to any other. But again, the censure comes not from consideration of the thing in itself, but be­ cause the callous treatment of nature would engender callous feeling to­ ward people. The sole value of natural objects lies, for Kant, in their utility for human ends. Natural objects are not valuable in themselves, but only, like animals, as means to ends.
Kant seems to be aware of the value of the study of nature, not only on a scientific level, but also as a source of inspiration for morally correct ways of treating people. The way animals protect and care for their young provides examples of how humans are to care their own

11 Ibid., p. 241.

65
young:

The more we come into contact with animals and observe their behavior, the more we love them, for we see how great is their care for their young. It is then difficult for us to be cruel in thought even to a wolf. 12

As long as animals and other natural objects are judged by Kant to have value solely as means to human ends, they will have only an ex­ t rins ic , instrumental value. What has intrinsic value for Kant is ra­ tional nature, and this anthropocentric conception of intrinsic value marks out a limited range of what is deserving of moral consideration.
For an entity, x, to deserve moral consideration from agent A, x must be a rational being. This limitation of consideration to rational (human) beings results, as our hypothesis suggests, from Kant's posi­ tion that only rational beings have intrinsic value, value as ends in themselves. Animals and other nonhuman natural entities receive only an indirect moral consideration insofar as they are means to human ends. They do not receive direct moral consideration because they are not rational. Also, by limiting his sphere of moral consideration to ra­ tional beings, Kant seems to exclude from consideration certain kinds of humans, such as infants and the severely mentally handicaped. Thus, fetuses would not deserve moral consideration because they are not ra­ tional beings.
Kant could modify the position several ways. One way would be to hold that the rational ability of actual nd potential human beings is of intrinsic value. This would extend direct consideration to fetuses, in­ fants, and children. Kant could also claim that having the potential for rational ability still qualifies a person to direct consideration thus

12 I bid . , p. 240.

66

including in the moral sphere all but the hopelessly mentally retarded h uma ns . If an entity, however, has no rational ability, we would n t have direct moral duties to that ent it y . Thus, Kant still would rule out direct moral consideration of animals and other nonhuman natural ob­ jects.
Another way to modify the Kantian position is to hold that being a rational human being is a sufficient, but not necessary condition for moral consideration. This would cause the sphere of moral consideration of rational entities to widen a bit to include some nonhu­ man beings.

3. 1.2 Watson
This seems to be the way Richard Watson 13 is going when he argues that certain nonhuman entites such as cetaceans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and dogs are moral entities because they give good behavioral evidence that they are self-conscious and rational to a significant degree.
Although Watson does not speak of the question of intrinsic value, he does deal with the question of intrinsic rights. The rights of a moral agent are things "we have to earn as cooperating citizens of a moral community." 14 The moral community is expanded by Watson be­ yond its Kantian circle, but it is expanded on the basis of the reci­ procity of rights and duties, and for this reason is to be expanded on a species by species basis. Thus, only a few other species besides



13 Richard A. Watson, "Self-Consciousness and the Rights of Nonhuman Animals and Nature," Environmental Ethics 1 (1979): 99-129.

14 Richard A. Watson, "A Critique of Anti-Anthropocentric Biocen­ trism," Environmental Ethics 5 (1983): 259.

67

humans can be regarded as moral agents, and no nonliving entities can be such agents. Watson's environmental ethic does not deal with value, extrinsic or intrinsic, but does provide guidance for the treatment of nonhuman entities. Moreover, we ought to adapt ecological insights into our treatment of natural entities, Watson argues, because such insights will benefit humans. As he puts it, "There is a very good reason for thinking ecologically, and for encouraging human beings to act in such a way as to preserve a rich and balanced planetary ecology: human survival depends on it."15
In this respect Watson is like Kant. We need to treat nature better than we have because such treatment will further a human end, i. e . , the survival of our own s pec ies . Natural objects have, at best, only instrumental value in Watson's view. Watson's ethic is an anthropocen­ tric one because, while it provides guidance for how we are to treat natural entities, it justifies itself in terms of what is best for man, survival of the human species. But at least he allows that "what may be best for man may also be best for the whole biological communit y . " 16 This position, nevertheless, requires a clear explanation of what is best for man (which Watson does not give explicitly) and it sounds similar to the self-centeredness that produced the saying "What is good for Gen­ eral Motors is good for America."
Although Watson does expand the moral sphere, other writers have argued that such an expansion is neither needed nor warranted. One such anthropocentic writer is John Passmore.


15 Ibid . , p. 259.
16 Ibid.

3.1.3 Passmore
Passmore develops an environmental ethic based on a theory !)f intrinsic value that is clearly ant hropoce nt ric . As he considers the is­ sue of the preservation of natural entities such as wilderness areas and species, he lays out two opposing positions regarding the kind of value these entities are held to have. He claims they can be said to have
either a purely instrumental or an intrinsic value. On the first view, wildernesses and species ought to be preserved only if, and in so far as, they are useful to man. On the second, they ought to be preserved even if their continued existence were demonstrably harmful to human int e res t s . As is sometimes put, they have a ' right to exist.'17
Regarding the instrumental value position, Passmore holds that "useful­ ness" need not be restricted in meaning solely to economic utility and that
wildernesses and species ... are valuable not only as eco­ nomic resources, actual and potential, but as providing op­ portunities for the pursuit of science, for recreation and retreat, as sources of moral renewal and aesthetic de­ light. ll
By giving instrumental value to wildernesses and species, Passmore is able to hold that they have a contributory value to certain experiences or states of humans which are themselves of intrinsic value. As noted earlier, the ascription of instrumental or contributory value implies that there is something, ultimately, that is of intrinsic value . Passmore does not explicitly state whether these experiences themselves are intrinsically valuable or if they are contributory to something such as the "good life" for man which is intrinsically valuable. The closest Passmore comes is when he argues that some activities are good because

17 Passmore, Man'! Res po ns ibi lit y for Nature, p. 101.
11 Ibid., pp. 101-02.

of the pleasure or happiness they afford. Some preservation argu- ments, which he possibily does not himself hold, are based on
the presumption that our descendants will still delight in what now delights only some of us and did not delight our predecessors. [These arguments] do not call upon us en­ tirely to sacrifice present enjoyments for the future; we, anyhow, can find pleasure in biologic inquiry, in wilder­ ness-recreation--even if most of us prefer the tamed to the true wilderness--and in the sight and smell and sound of wild animals, plants and birds. 19
Notice here the use of the terms delight, enjoyments, and pleasure. It appears that, for Passmore, certain human activities or experiences are either intrinsically valuable themselves or valuable partly for the lnt­ rinstically valuable state of happiness or pleasure that they can bring.
In considering whether or not natural entities other than man have intrinsic value Passmore presents a position that seems to confuse intrinsic value with the right to exist. To say that a wilderness area has intrinsic value means that such an area is valuable in itself, for its own sake, valued independent of its utility, that its value does not de­ rive from any other valued thing. It does not necessarily follow that an intrinsically valued natural entity has a "right" to exist solely by the virtue of it being of intrinsic value. It requires another argument to show that such a thing has this right. Passmore presents a distor­ tion of the case for the intrinsic value of, say, species, when he claims that it leads to one holding that such entities should be "preserved
even if ther continued existence were demonstrably harmful to human interests."2° Criteria for the valuing of one species over another may be based on human interests, as in the valuing of a song bird species



19 Ibid., p. 110.
20 -, p. 101.


over that of a certain parasite. But there is nothing in the recognition of the intrinsic value of a species or a wilde r ness that requires the preservation of such species against the interests of h umans . It may be that a natural entity is judged to be of intrinsic value but still not preserved because of some human preference or interest. By introdu­ cing the issue of adjucation between human and nonhuman interests, Passmore has created a tangential issue, one that is not directly con­ nected to whether or not natural entities can have intrinsic value. Nonetheless, it is clear that Passmore holds that natural entities are valued instrumentally for human conce r ns . The ethic he develops is an anthropocentric one, an ethic for the best use of the environment.

Passmore's position is a fully environmental ethic, even from Calli­ cott's standpoint, since it provides guidance for dealing with natural ent it ies . Passmore holds that humans are responsible for nature, hence, the title of his work is Man'! Res p ons ibilit y For Nature. The traditional Western attitudes and ethical posit io ns , especially the ste­ wardship t radit io n towards the land, are, he holds , adequate to de rive sound environmental policies for the preservation of natural entities, the conservation of limited natural resoures, the control of pollut io n and other pressing environmental issues. He rejects as unnecessary the call for a new kind of environmental ethic (presumably one that ascribes int r ins ic value to natural entities).
It is at this point , indeed, that the cry grows loudest for a new morality, a new religion, which would lead him to be­ lieve that it is int r i ns ic a lly wrong to destroy a s pec ies , cut down a tree, clear a wilderness. As I have already sug­ gested, these demands strike one, at a certain level, as merely rid ic u lous . 11

21 Ibid . , p . 126.


It is the anthropocentric position, Passmore holds, that is sufficient to provide ground for the censure of particular actions towards the envi­ ronment. Take, for example, his dealing with the issue of animal suf­ fering.
Passmore holds that cruelty to animals, the deliberate inflicting of needless pain, is morally wrong . But the wrongness of the action does not derive from the fact that natural entities are of intrinsic value. The wrongness derives from the Kantian position that causing needless suffering in animals reflects a moral defect in a human being. Passmore justifies the censure of cruelty to animals on anthropocentric grounds.
We have already suggested, however, that the condemnation of cruelty to animals does not depend on the presumption that men and animals, let alone men, animals, plants, soil­ form a single moral communit y . It has been a movement of sensibility, a movement based on the growing recognition that not a positive delight in suffering--so much the morali­ ty has always admitted--but even callousness, an insensi­ tivity to suffering is a moral defect in a human being . It is one thing to say that it is wrong to treat animals cruel­ ly, quite another to say that animals have rights. 22
We have responsibility toward natural objects such as animals, like to not inflict needless pain on them, but we also have, Passmore holds, obligations only toward human be i ngs . The obligations arise for him because only humans are members of a moral community. Animals and other natural ent it ies cannot have "rights" because they cannot be part of such a communit y . He says, "But if it is essential to a community that the members of it have common interests and recognize mutual obli­ gations then men, plants, animals and soil do not form a community. "Zl But surely this is an artificially restricted meaning to community. Nor

22 .!.!2.!£. , p . 117.
23 Ib id . , p. 116.

72
is there any reason why the "interests" of a thing must be interpreted in such a narrow sense. The notion of mutual obligations also is not necessary for the maintaining of a stable community based on common interests. It is not at all essential that members of a community recog­ nize mutual obligations; nor is it clear why obligations must be mutual.
Passmore would appear to be committed to keeping the sphere of moral consideration limited to human being. But because of his ambigu­ ity, noted above, concerning intrinsic value, this anthropocentric envi­ ronmental ethic is not clearly established. If it is "the good life for man" that is of intrinsic value, and experiences of a rational, spiritual, aesthetic, and moral nature, plus states such as pleasure and happiness contribute to the realizing of this intrinsically valued condition, then the sphere would include only those capable of such a life. But, if it is the experience of pleasure that is of intrinsic value, then the sphere ought to be extended to all entities, human and nonhuman alike, capa­ ble of that experience or state. Without a clarification by Passmore concerning just what is of intrinsic value, his discussion of moral rights and responsibilities for animals cannot be settled. If indifference to the suffering of animals is censured because it reflects a lack of moral sen­ sitivity on the part of a person, and this moral state is one of those things possible only to humans that is of intrinsic value, then the suf­ fering, , cannot be used to as a ground for censure. But if the experience of pleasure is held to be of intrinsic value, then the suffer­ ing can serve as ground, thereby moving the ethic away from a purely anthropocentric theory of intrinsic value toward one commonly shared by positions such as the animal rights movement.

73
With Passmore the attempts to maintain an anthropocentrically based environmental ethic reveal difficulties, so much so that many write s have called for a nonanthropocentric environmental ethic. However, Bryan Norton has argued that the "assumption that environmental ethics must be nonanthropocentric in order to be adequate is mistaken. " 2 4

3. 1.4 Norton
Norton takes exception to Passmore's argument that there is no need for a new, distinctive, ethic of the enivironment. He argues that such a new ethic is needed, but that it cannot be derived either from the rights or interests of nonhumans, or from the rights and interests of future generations of humans. The trend is, he notes, to posit intrinsic value in nonhuman nature and derive an environmental ethic from that positing. By attributing intrinsic value to natural objects, Norton notes, two kinds of environmental ethics usually arise, one based on an anthropocentric theory of intrinsic value, and the other based on a non-anthropocentric theory. In the former theory only hu­
mans are the 12£!. of what he calls fundamental value. This fundamental
value is intrinsic value in the sense of it being a nonderivatory value. The latter theory holds that a nonhuman entity can also be a locus of such fundamental value. He argues that the general rejection of an­ th ropocentrism so prevalent in environmental ethics is not required, and it is possible to develop an adequate environmental ethics that is an­ thropocentric in form and does not posit the existence of intrinsic value in nature.


24 Norton, "Weak Anthropocentrism," p. 131.


Norton attempts to present an adequate anthropocentric environmental ethic by noting that there is an ambiguity in the term anthropocentrism. Most writers apply this term to
positions which treat humans as the only locus of intrinsic value. Anthropocentrists are therefore taken to believe that every instance of value originates in a contribution to human values and that all elements of nature can, at most, have value instrumental to the satisfaction of human inter­ ests. 25
In this way, anth ropocentrism is defined by reference to the position taken on the loci of value. Against this position nonanthropocentrists argue that, while humans are the source of value, some nonhuman enti­ ties are loci of fundamental value. A common argument offered against the standard anthropocentric position is the "last people" argument mentioned earlier. The nonanthropocentrists argue that if it is wrong for such a last man to destroy a natural object, then
the wrongness must derive from harm [to the object] or to some other natural object. But one can harm something only if it is a good in its own right in the sense of being a loci of fundamental value. 26
7The anthropocentrists are open to attack, Norton holds, because they claim that the loci of value are located in human interests. They are unaware of an ambiguity in what constitutes "human interests." Norton distinguishes between felt preferences of humans and considered pref­ erences. The former are "any desire or need of a human individual that can at least temporarily be sated by some specifiable experience of that individual. " 2 The latter is "any desire or need that a human
7


25 Ibid., p. 133.
25 Ibid . , p. 134.
27 lpi_d.


would express after careful deliberation, including a judgment that the desire or need is consistent with a rationally adopted world view.1121 The felt preferences are ones that are insulated from the criticism that satisfaction of these preferences might impact the environment in some negative way, since the environment is seen as being for such satisfac­ tions. These preferences are often used to determine ti interest" in eco­ nomic decisions or policy judgments. A considered preference, on the other hand, is based on an idealization humans can have about how the world is or ought to be and represents an ongoing activity by rational beings to critique felt preferences against a world view of some kind.

Once this distinction between felt and considered preferences is no­ ted it is possible to describe two kinds of a nth ropocentrism--a weak form and a strong form. Value theories previously labeled only "an­ thropocentric" can now be classified as either strongly or weakly an­ thropocentric in light of their position on felt and considered prefer- ences.
A value theory is strongly anthropocentric if all value countenanced by it is explained by reference to satisfac­ tions of felt preferences of human individuals. 29
Such a theory "takes unquestioned felt preferences of human individuals as determining value, "JD and as such provides no check on those indi­ viduals who regard nature as a vast storehouse of resources to be ex­ ploited.




21 -Ibid.
29 - , p. 134.
30 Ibid., p. 135.

A strong anthropocentric value theory could not provide a basis for an ethic "of the environment," as has been defined in these pages, be­ cause it places intrinsic value only on human interests, desires, needs, or experiences. At best a strongly anthropocentric value theory could provide a theory for the best use of the environment, with "best use" determined by felt preferences of individuals. As long as it is felt preferences that determine the value of human actions, then no criticism of the use of natural objects for the satisfaction of felt preferences is possible, since there is no criteria for deciding whether one felt pref­ erence is better than another.
A weakly anthropocentric value theory, on the other hand, does not focus solely on felt preferences. It is a value theory in which
value countenanced by it is explained by reference to some felt preference of a human individual or by reference to its bearing on the ideals which exist as elements in a world
view essential to determinations of considered preferen­ ces. 31

This position recognizes that some preferences can be considered, i.e., rational. They can be held in light of some evaluating idea of what the world is like or ought to be. Some considered preferences could even be opposed to immediately held felt preferences. This position allows for a criticism of various attitudes that deal with the environment. For instance, a highly exploitive attitude toward nature could be criticized because it might be in conflict with a rationally held, considered pre­ ference that we ought to live in ecological harmony with nature. The weakly anthropocentric view makes possible the kind of environmental ethics described earlier by Callicott, that is, an ethic that provides


31 -Ibid.


reasons to praise or censure certain human actions toward the environment. But it also allows for the rejection of certain felt prefe ­ ences because these would be incompatable with a considered world view. Holders of this view also could praise the preservation of certain natural entities because they symbolize values or cultural attitudes that certain people have decided to value. Such a position would censure the destruction of a wilderness area or the extinction of bald eagles be­ cause these are a part of the national image of America collectively held by many people in this country. Thus, by reference to human values, natural entities can be valued. The weak anthropocentrist can argue for the preservation of certain natural entities because people have ra­ tionally decided from a human standpoint (that being the only stand­ point possible for them) that preservation actions are morally good ac­ tions and ones that morally good people ought to do.

Norton claims that his weak anthropocentric position has certain ad­ vantages and features that make it an attractive alternative to both strong anth ropocentrism and any environmental ethic based on a nonan­ thropocentric theory of intrinsic value. By maintaining the dichotomy between acting on the basis of felt preferences and acting on the basis of some rationally maintained ideal, it is possible to censure practices generally held to be environmentally destructive. The weak anthropo­ centric position can, among other things, provide a reply to the "last person" scenario mentioned earlier, something the strongly anthropocen­ tric position cannot do.
Suppose that human beings choose, for rational or religious reasons, to live according to an ideal of maximum harmony with nature. Suppose also that this ideal is taken seriously and that anyone who impairs that harmony (by destroying another species, by polluting air and water, etc.) would

be judged harshly. [These harsh judgments] can be justified as being implied by the ideal of harmony with na- ture. This ideal, in turn, can be justified either on relig- ious grounds refering to human spiritual development or as being a fitting part of a rationally defensible world view. 32
A strongly anthropocentric view cannot provide for limits on behaviors based on anything other than that of the satisfaction of human felt preferences. A weakly anthropocentric position can, however, provide constraints on behavior derived from some ideal such as living in har­ mony wih nature.
In addition to offering a reply to the last person, the weak anthro­ pocetric position is attractive, Norton holds, because an adequate envi­ ronmental ethic can be developed from it, and be developed without at­ tributing nonanthropocentric intrinsic value to non humans. For Norton, an adequate environmental ethic will include 0 t he statement of some set of principles from which rules can be derived proscribing the behaviors included in the set which virtually all environmentally sensitive individ­ uals agree are environmentally destructive. "3 3 Weak anthropocentrism can act as the basis for deriving an ethic "of the environment" rather than one "for the best use of the environment."
I argue that weak anthropocentrism, an environmental ethic that distinguishes between actual felt preferences (which may be irrational) and considered felt references (rationally justifiable references) is adequate in this sense. While the pursuit of selfish, short-term, consumptive desires may lead to the destruction of nature, a far-sighted individual with scientific knowledge, rationally defensible moral ideals, and a set of preferences consistent with such a world view wou Id protect nature for human reasons.3 i.



32 Ibid., p. 136.
33 Ibid., p. 132.
3 .. Bryan Norton, "IN
vi ronmental Ethics




RE: E & A V/3, White's Review of Norton's 'En­ and Weak Anthropocentrism',11 Ethics and Animals

79

Since most environmentally sensitive individuals would agree about the kinds of behavior to be censured or limited regarding the environmen , the weak anthropoentric position can provide support for an environ­ mental ethic that can be of guidance for environmental policy makers.
Norton holds that he has shown

that environmental policy makers need not choose between strong anthropocentrism, the view that nature has value only for fulfilling the demands that our currently misguided society register, and nonanth ropocentrism, which posits intrinsic value for nonhuman species.

That pro-environmental policy makers might wish to avoid this choice is indicated by the almost complete lack of theoretical explanation and justification of claims attributing intrinsic value to non humans.3 5
Thus, not only is his position adequate to guide policy, but it also is to be favored since it does not require the introduction of a problematic issue, the attribution of nonanthropocentric intrinsic value to nonhu­ mans. Norton claims that his position is simpler conceptually while pro­ viding the features desired for a truly environmental ethic.
Norton does not deny that it may be possible to develop a nonan­ thropocentric environmental ethic. He holds, rather, that such a posi­ tion, if developed, would support his already existing adequate posi­ tion. However, given what Norton considers the dubious ontological status of such a value theory, and the pressing need for guidance re­ garding environmental problems, he holds that his position is one that can now be utilized to make environmentally sound policy decisions. Then, should a nonanthropocentric environmental ethic be articulated, it can be brought in to augment the weak anthropocentric position.

5, no. 4 (Dec. 1984): 133.
35 Norton, "White's Review," p. 133.

The other benefit of his position, Norton believes, is that it is non­ individualistic, unlike most contemporary ethical syst ems . What makes for a distinctivly environmental ethic is not whether or not it has an anthropocentric value theory but that it be a nonindividualistic theory. Norton argues that both the contemporary utilitarian and deontological positions are essentially individualistic in that "t he basic unit of ethical concerns are interests or claims of individuals. " 36 He holds that such ind iv id ual is t ic systems of et hics cannot take future generations into ac­ count when justifying current decis ions . Since the prohibitions against actions that have negative effects only in the future (necessary for a truly environmental ethic) cannot, Norton holds, be derived from indi­ vidualistic ethical syst ems , his weak anthropocentric position is appeal­ ing to environmentally sensitive individuals in that such prohibitions can be derived from his position.
On the grounds that weak anthropocentrism can provide a founda­ tion for an adequate nonindividualistic environmental et hic without re­ quiring the attributing of intrinsic value in nature, Norton holds that his position is an attractive one for environmentalists.
I have argued that an adequate environmental ethics need not be nonanth ropocentric and that an adequate environ­ mental ethic must not be limited to considerations of indi­
vidual int e res -t s From these considerations a new direction
for environmental ethics emerges which is weakly anth ropo­ cent r ic- - it finds all value in human loc i- - and which is also nonindividualistc in the sense that value is not restricted to satisfaction of felt preserences of human ind ivid ua ls . 3 7





35 Ib id . , p. 140.
37 I bid . , p. 141.

Norton's position can appeal to those who wish to develop a framework for criticizing destructive human attitudes toward the environment but are reluctant to place fundamental value on loci outside of human be­ ings.
However, in order for Norton's position to remain an attractive one, the dichotomy between weak and strong anthropocentrism must be main­ tained. If not, weak anthropocentrism collapses into the strong. Such a collapse would occur if "all values can, ultimatly, be interpreted as satisfaction of preferences. "31 If this were shown to be the case, then all ideals would be reducible to human preferences. Norton is aware of the need to reject this reduction.
It is true that weak anthropocentrists must deny that pref­ erence satisfaction is the only measure of human value. They must take human ideals seriously enough so that they can be set against preference satisfaction as a limit upon them. It is therefore no surprise that weak anthropocen­
trists reject the reductionistic position popular among utilit­ arians. 39

This issue of reduction seems to be the point upon which the weak an­ thropocentric position depends. Should ideals be shown to be human preferences, then the weak anthropocentric position would collapse back into the strong, and there would be a need for a nonanthropocentrically based environmental ethic. Until such a reduction is shown to occur, however, the weak anthropocentric position can provide a framework for an adequate environmental ethic, one that can extend moral consideration to nonhuman individuals.




31 Ibid., p. 138.
39 -Ibid.

Norton holds that there are things of "fundamental value," presum­ ably things of intrinsic value. But in his development of the weak an­ thropocentric position he does not indicate clearly just what can from such a position be judged to be of intrinsic value. It appears that he holds that some human experiences or states such as aesthetic apprecia­ tion of nature or the ideal of living in harmony with nature or value formation due to contact with nature, are of intrinsic value. But he does not indicate in his paper specifically what is of intrinsic value from a weak anthropocentric position and how it differs from the strong anthropocentric position. As matters stand he has not indicated any crucial difference.
It is possible, I hold, to develop the weak anthropocentric position further than that done by Norton. It can be argued that the differ­ ence between a strong and weak anthropocentric position is that the strong position holds that nature only has instrumental value, while the weak position atributtes both instrumental and intrinsic value to nature. This can be done by noting that the term anthropocentric can refer to value judgments are made from a human perspective or point of view. This meaning does not equate all value with human needs or interests, but still has humans that are doing the valuing. If this meaning is ac­ cepted, then it is possible for the weak anthropocentrist to attribute intrinsic value to nature as well as instrumental value. In this way, one could claim that a natural entity is valued not only for its value in satisfying human needs such as aestheitc satisfaction, scientific curiou­ sity, recreation needs, or spiritual renewal, but also just for what it is in itself. A weak anthropocentrist may claim that some natural entities

have only instrumental value, some only an ascribed intrinsic value, and some a mixture of both kinds of value, the way Plato described value as mentioned in the begining of this paper. He may hold that a natural feature can be given intrinsic value independent of any other value it has. In this way the weak anthropocentric position may hold that some things over and above human states and experiences may have an intrinsic value. It can recapture the intuitive sense of wrong­ ness in the idea that nature has only instrumental value, which the strong version would imply, and posit both kinds of value in nature. It must be noted, however, that in this position intrinsic value is al­ ways going to posited in nature by humans, for the weak anthropocen­ tric position, as so modified, makes not reference to any values in na­ ture independent of the valuing done by humans. From this position all value is ascribed to nature, located in nature by value agents, but, nonetheless, always by human agency.
There are, nevertheless, those who do not share the position that intrinsic value can only be attributed to nature. For them it is possi­ ble that values can be found in nature, values that are independent of any human values, or valuing activity of humans. Such writers have put forward environmental ethics based upon some nonanthropocentric theory of intrinsic value.

NONANTHROPOCENTRIC THEORIES OF INTRINSIC VALUE
In recent years many writers in environmental ethics have put for­ ward ethical proposals that are based on nonanthropocentric theories of intrinsic value. These writers hold that positing intrinsic value only to human beings or to rational beings, their qualities experiences, or ideals results in an unacceptably narrow range of moral consideration. While it is not denied by these writers that human beings can be both a source and loci of value, it also asserted that loci other than that of humans can or should be loci of intrinsic value as well.
These writers have regarded the intractable environmental moral problems resulting from man's destructive impact on the planet as un­ solvable th rough the application of normal western ethical theory. As Callicott puts it:
There is something clearly morally wrong about this human assault on non-human forms of life and natural systems. Normal (anthropocentric) moral theory, however, can only explicate this intuitively felt wrongness in terms of actual and potential losses of natural resources (either material or spiritual) and disruption of natural services. But there seems to be something wrong about the radical destruction of non-human life on Earth and/or the ubiquitous replace­ ment by human beings and human symbionts of non-human forms of life that goes beyond the diminishment of natural aesthetic amenities, or the loss of medical or other resour­ ces, or even the destabilization of the human life support system, "Spaceship Earth," (as sometimes it is called from a subconscious anthropocentric point of view).4 0
The appeal here is to an "intuitively felt wrongness," an intuition that comes before rational arguments that something is morally wrong about certain environmental practices, and this wrongness seems to arise out of something over and above nature's instrumentality. Callicott makes reference to the

4 ° Callicott, "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 300.


deeply felt and widely shared moral intuition that extant non-human species and the biosphere in its current state have intrinsic value [and that there] is something valuable, it seems intuitively certain, about our world (with us in it!) which nevertheless resists reduction to our interests or to our tastes. For its articulation and explanation this in­ tuition, if it is to withstand critical examination, will re­ quire a moral theory that is at once humanistic, but not anthropocentric.4 1
Part of the claim that a new nonanthropocentric environmental ethic is needed (and that it should be based on a theory that locates some intrinsic value in nature) finds support in an appeal to moral intuition. It is appropriate then, at this point to explicate what is meant by "moral intuition" as it is applied to environmental practices.

Moral Intuition and Environmental Ethics
Tom Reg a n 42 has distinguished four senses of the term "moral intui­ tion." The first sense is that proposed by G. E. Moore, where the term intuition refers to those ethical propositions that, on his view, are incapable of proof. A second sense is that of Moore's contemporary, W.
D. Ross, who characterizes moral intuitions as self-evident" moral truths. It is clear, Regan holds, that neither of these meanings is what is commonly meant by most to be moral intuition. A third mean­ ing, a more common one, refers to our unexamined moral convictions, our "gut-reaction" or initial response to hard moral cases. Regan re­ fers to these as 11pre- reflective" judgments about what is right and wrong. In this sense, "appeals to intuition" are "what is meant when one asks whether a given ethical principle conforms with our moral

4 l l.21!!. , p . 304.
112 Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights, (Berkeley, Calif.: Univer­ sity of California Press, 1983), pp. 133-35.

intuitions or holds that conformity with them is a legitimate test of an ethical principle's rational credentials.""3 Over and against these three meanings, Regan distinguishes what he calls the "reflective sense" of intuition, in which
our intutions are those moral beliefs we hold after we have made a conscientious effort to satisfy . . . the criteria of making an ideal moral judgment. [The judgements] we make after we have made this effort are not our "gut responses," nor are they merely expressions of what we happen to be­ lieve : they are our considered beliefs, beliefs we hold when, and only when, we have done our best to be impar­ tial, rational, cool, and so forth,""
Regan holds that we need to strive to maintain a Rawlsian "reflective equilibrium" between our considered beliefs and our moral principles, using each to test the validity of the other. In this sense, the appeal to our intuitions is an appeal to our considered beliefs, "beliefs that stand up under the heat of our best reflective consideration."u
We can legitimately use our moral intuitions, as defined in this last sense, to form ethical principles. Regan suggests that we "identify a variety of considered beliefs ... then seek to unify they by formulating ethical principles that identify their plausible common ground.""' By seeking out the commonality among these considered beliefs moral prin­ ciples can be created that reflect what we hold to be the case about the world around us, what we hold after consideration.





"3 Ibid., p. 133.
"" Ibid., p. 134.
"5 -, p. 135.
4G Ib id .

There are two features of this position that bear upon environmental ethics. The first is the similarity between Regan's "considered beliefs 0 and Norton's "considered preferences." In Regan's case our moral intuitions are those beliefs that we have about what is right and wrong based upon cairn, rational reflection about how we judge the world to be. In Norton's case, considered preferences are those preferences we have after taking into account certain rational ideals about how the world is or ought to be. This similarity can provide support for Nor­ ton's "weak anthropocentric" position in that moral intuitions can pro­ vide the emergent ground for moral principles. The second feature is that moral intuitions about environmental actions can be judged to have legitimacy and serve as the foundation or test for ethical principles about the environment because such intuitions can reflect considered insights about what is the case concerning the environment drawn from ecologic and other scientific sources. Our moral intuitions about the environment need not be considered just "gut-reactions" to hard envi­ ronmental cases; rather, they can be seen as a reflective ground from which ethical positions can emerge. Such intuitions, guided by scien­ tific, social, or political insights, make legitimate the "deeply felt and wid es p re ad0 feeling mentioned by Callicott that certain actions toward nature are wrong in ways that go beyond anthropocentric reasons. This interpretation of moral intuition provides the legitimacy for the
calls for a new environmental ethic based upon a nonanth ropocentric theory of intrinsic value.

88
Characteristics of a Nonanthropocentric Theory

Concerning the issue of nonhuman entities having intrinsic valuf:!, the term nonanthropocentric generally refers to the locating, ascribing, discovering, or placing of intrinsic value on loci other than humans, their experiences or their states. It is an inclusive rather than exclu­ sive term, meaning that the set of entities of intrinsic value includes but is not limited to the things so ascribed by anthropocentric theories. As was noted above, Watson argues for the expansion of moral consideration to all those entities, human and nonhuman, who are ra­ tional or self-conscious, on the grounds that rationality (rather than being human) is the foundation of intrinsic value. In addition to ra­ tionality, other features such as psychological, biological, or ontological states have been proposed by nonanthropocentrists as criteria for
intrinsic value. follow Callicott, who argues that the criteria for a
truly nonanthropocentric environmental ethic must include at least the following:
The ethic must provide for the intrinsic value of both individual organisms and a hierarchy of superorganism­ ic entities.

The ethic must provide different intrinsic value for wild and domestic organisms/species.

The ethic must be completely concordant with modern evolutionary and ecological biology.

The ethic must provide for the intrinsic value of our present ecosystem, its component parts and complement of species, and not give equal value to any ecosys­ tem. 47






47 Callicott, "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 304.

89
It is important to note that there is an ambiguity in the term nonanthropocen­ tric, as was the case in the term anthropocentric.
On be one hand, nonanthropocentric can used as Callicott does, to refer to a value theory or axiology that "confers intrinsic value on some non-human beings ...,., In this theory some nonhuman entities have intrinsic value attrib­ uted to them anthropocentrically by human valuing agents. This position ac­ cepts that humans are source of value, but are not necessarily the only ob­ jects of value . Values are objective in the sense that they are attributed to objects in the world, even though the source of values are humans. As Cal­ licott puts it, ..Values may be grounded in human feelings, but neither the feelings themselves, nor, necessarily, the breast or self in which they reside are their natural objects . . ."'." Following the terminologies introduced by Norton, I propose to refer to this sense of nonanthropocentrism as "weak non-anthropocentrism." On the other hand, a "strong nonanthropocentrism" is an axiology that claims that there are some values, some natural intrinsic values, that exist independently of any human valuing agent. In this sense, natural values are objectively real in the world and some nonhuman entities have intrinsic value apart from the value attribution of human agents. It is this strong sense of nonanthropocentrism that is found in the axiology devel­ oped by Holmes Rolston, 111 when he speaks of "emergent values" and of "natural value." 5 0 In this section I examine the positions of various writers who argue for environmental ethics based on both the weak and the strong senses of nonanthropocentric theories of intrinsic val ue . I also examine the

"' Callicott "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 299. "' I bid . , p . 305.
50 Holmes Rolston, Ill, "Are Values in Nature Subjective or Objective?" Environmental Ethics 4 (1982): 125-51.

90
types of environmental ethics that can be developed out of such axiologies, and I show that expanding the set of what is held to be of intrinsic value expands the sphere of what is held to deserve moral consideration.

Environmental Ethics based on Weak Nonanthropocentrism
As mentioned above, a weak nonanth ropocentrism is one that ex­ pands the range of what is held to be of intrinsic value by the attribu­ tion of intrinsic value to nonhuman entites in some way. The attribu­ ting is made anthropocentrically by humans, but the object of intrinsic value is something not necessarily restricted only to humans.
A simple expansion is to attribute intrinsic value to other psycho­ logical states or experiences. A common such state is sentience, or the ability to experience pleasure or happiness. According to our hypothe­ sis, if sentience is judged (anthropocentrically) to be of intrinsic value, then moral consideration is due to any entity capable of suffering and experiencing pleasure or happiness.
With this expansion, a truly environmental ethic based on a nonan­ thropocentric concept of intrinsic value results, for, clearly, the ex­ perience of pain or pleasure is something not limited to humans alone. This nonanth ropocentric environmental ethic requires moral consideration for beings not included by Kant or Watson. In this position, for all A, x deserves moral consideration from A if and only if x is capable of suffering pain or experiencing enjoyment. It is the experience of pleasure or pain, not the entity that has this experience, which is judged to have intrinsic value or disvalue. But the capacity of having such an experience is what justifies the granting of moral consideration.

91
This is the position taken in various environmental ethics by Geoffrey Warnock, Peter Singer, Tom Regan, and William Frankena, among oth- ers.
For Warnock the condition for being a proper beneficiary of moral action is "the capacity of suffering the ills of the predicament--and for that reason [moral consideration] is not confined to rational beings, not even to potential members of that class."5 1 Thus, Warnock conceives of the object of morality as contributing to the reduction of suffering, the amelioration of the predicament in which beings (human and nonhuman) find themselves. In this way moral consideration based on the capacity for suffering establishes the foundation for a fully environmental ethic, since it clearly extends consideration to nonhuman being s .
3Peter Singer is in agreement with Warnock that moral consideration should be extended to all beings who can s uff e r . He writes that "the capacity to suffer or experience enjoyment or happiness is the only de­ fensible boundary of concern for the interests of others.1152 He also uses the criterion of sentience to exclude certain beings from moral consideration. "If a being is not capable of suffering, or experiencing enjoyment or happiness, there is nothing to be taken into account. "5 By (anthropocentrically) holding that sentience is of intrinsic value, Singer is allowing that nonsentient creatures only have extrinsic value. Thus, we may kill plants for our food, but not sentient animals.
3

51 Geoffrey Warnock, The Ob ject of Mo.ralit y (London: Methuen & Co., 1971), p. 151.
u Peter Singer, "All Animals are Equal," in Tom Regan and Peter Singer, eds. Animal Rights and Human Obligations (Englewood Cliffs, N. J . : Prentice Hall, 1976), p. 316.
53 Ibid., p. 316.


William Frankena has developed an environmental ethic based on a nonanthropocentric conception of intrinsic value that provides a very systematic exposition of the sentience criterion for moral consideration. For Frankena various things including sentience are of intrinsic value as long as it is understood that "it is the experience of them that is good in itself. "54 It is the experience of pleasure, not the object of pleasure, or the experience of knowing, not the objects of knowledge that are of intrinsic value. He argues that the objects that can cause such experiences have inherent value. He rejects as inadequate the ethics of humanism and personalism found in writers such as Kant, and argues for an environmental ethic that will "include not only human be­ ings and/or persons, but all consciously sentient beings. 1155 He agrees with Warnock that
there are right and wrong ways to treat infants, animals, imbeciles and idiots even if or even though (as the case may be) they are not persons or human beings--just be­ cause they are capable of suffering and pleasure, and not because their lives happen to have some value to or for those who are clearly persons or human beings.5 &
Since the experience of pleasure is of intrinsic value for Frankena, moral consideration is extended to those beings who are sentient, who can experience pleasure or pain. Beings who are not sentient need not be taken into account when we consider the morality of our actions. That is why Frankena limits his scope to sentience rather than to just being alive. He says he

54 Frankena, Ethics, p. 89.

55 William Frankena, "Ethics and the Environment," in K. E. Goodpaster and K. M. Sayre, eds., Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), p. 5.
56 Ibid., p. 10.


I can see no reason, from the moral point of view, why we should respect something that is alive but has not conscious sentiency and so can experience no pleasure or pain, joy or suffering, unless perhaps it is potentially a sentient being, as in the case of a fetus. Why, if leaves and trees have no capacity to feel pleasure or to suffer, should I tear no leaf from a tree? Why should I respect its location any more than that of a stone in my driveway, if no benefit or harm comes to any person or sentient being by my moving it?S7


Indeed, if a stalactite feels no pain in my breaking it off merely for fun and no one will ever see the stump and experience aesthetic pain at the sight, there is no reason why I, under Frankena's reasoning, should be morally censured. Frankena is in agreement with Singer who, as was noted above, held that nonsentient beings were outside of the sphere of moral consideration since they do not have the capacity to suffer or feel pleasure. The sentience criterion, based on the view that the experi­ ence of pleasure or happiness is of intrinsic value, is widely used in ethics.
A new adaptation of the sentience criterion is found in the writings of Jay Mc Dan ie l st and Charles Hartshorne." They take support from the "new physics." According to this view the distinction between mind and matter has vanished. Everything to some degree is sentient. If sentience is of intrinsic value, then everything is in some degree intrinsically valuable. McDaniel joins the new physics with the meta­ phyics of Whitehead, grounding the intrinsic value of matter, such as a rock, in what he calls the "creative sentience" that he holds to exist in

57 Ibid., p. 15.

51 Jay McDaniel, "Physical Matter as Creative and Sentient," Environ­ mental Ethics 5 (1982): 291-317.

5 9 Charles Hartshorne, "The Rights of the Subhuman World," Environ­ mental Ethics 1 (1979): 49-60.

the physical world. For him, experience is valuable in itself and

]the fact that energy composing a rock exhibits unconscious reality-for-itself [what he elsewhere calls 0 non- co ns c ious creative sent ie nc y11 means that the rock has intrinsic val­ ue, for intrinsic value is nothing else than the reality a given entity has for itself, independently of its realilty for the observer.so
]
The expansion of ethics to include all living things creates a truly non­ anthropocentric environmental ethic, one that is "biocentric, 11 since it includes all living things.
The environmental ethics that have been developed from this biocen­ tric position are based on an axiology that Callicott terms "ethical cona­ tivism." It is a nonanthropocentric value theory that embraces living, nonhuman entities, and is based upon the view that living things all share certain conations or interests. As Callicott describes the posi­ tion, it is one that
defines interests in terms of conations (hypostatized as the will-to-live in Schweitzer} and intrinsic value in terms of interests. Something is intrinsically valuable and owed moral consideration if interests, construed in the broadest possible sense, may be intelligently assigned it.'1
Ethical conativism can, then, provide for the moral standing of all liv­ ing things. This is Goodpaster's position. As he puts it:
Nothing short of being alive seems to me to be a plausible and non-arbitrary criterion. What is more, this criterion, if taken seriously, could admit of application to entities and systems of entities heretofore unimagined as claimants on our moral attention (such as the biosphere itself). 62





u McDaniel, "Physical Matter, 11 p. 315.
' 1 Callicott, "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 301.
,z Goodpaster, "On Being Morally Considerable" p. 310.

With this position we have clearly moved from an anthropocentric envi ronmental ethic into one that is biocentric. According to our hypoth ­ sis, there should be a connection in this biocentric environmental ethic between some concept of intrinsic value and the expanded range of moral consideration. Such a biocentric position takes its strength from an attitude of respect for all of nature. This position can be found in Albert Schweitzer's 11 reverenc e for life ethic." Schweitzer writes:
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives. He does not ask how far this or that life deserves one's sympathy or being valuable, not
... whether or to what degree it is capable of feelings. Life as such is sacred to him. He tears no leaf from a tree, plucks no flower, and takes care to crush no in­ sect.'2
It is life itself that is of intrinsic value here. We are urged to respect all life for what it is in itself rather than solely for the utility which living things may have as means to our own ends.
This approach has been further developed by Paul Taylor. He has proposed a biocentric environmental ethic that has as one of its founda­ tions "a certain ultimate moral attitude toward nature" which he calls "respect for nature. 1164 All moral agents who have this attitude grant respect to all living things on the basis of what he calls the "inherent worth" of each organism. I examine Taylor's position in detail because, first, it is a very systematic statement of a biocentric based environ­ mental ethic, and second, it is an ethic that clearly shows the connec­ tion between moral consideration and intrinsic value.


63 Albert Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics trans. by C. T. Campion, 3rd. ed. (London: A. & C. Black, 1946), p. 344.

64 Paul Taylor, "The Ethics of Respect for Nature," Environmental Et h­ ics 3 (1981): 197.


Taylor's position is clearly an ethic of the environment, rather than an ethic for the use of the environment, since it is grounded in t e moral attitude of respect for all living things. The scope of moral consideration is pushed further out to include all communities of life on Earth, on the grounds that all living beings can be said to have a good of their own. He says that "it is the good (well-being, welfare) of in­ dividual organisms, considered as entities, that have inherent worth, that determines our moral relations with the Earth's wild communities of life."ss In this biocentric environmental ethic we, as moral agents, have obligations to morally consider our actions toward all living things. Taylor argues that, from the biocentric position,

we have prima facie moral obligations that are owed to wild plants and animals themselves as members of the Earth's bi­ otic community. We are morally bound (other things being equal) to protect or promote their good for their sake... [And such] obligations are due these living things out of recogniton of their inherent worth."
These obligations are additional and independent of any we have toward other humans and we need to consider them as having merit for their own sake just as we consider our duties toward other people. This is because "their we ll- being , as well as human well-being, is something to be realized as an end in itself. 1167 The well-being of living things is not be viewed solely as means to human ends but as ends in themselves.
To accept a biocentric environmental ethic based on the respect for nature, two concepts need to be considered, the concept of the good of a living being and the concept of inherent worth. Taylor states,

' 5 .!.hlg. , p . 198.
" -Ibid.
67 Ibid.


"Every organism, species population, and community of life has a good of its own which moral agents can intentionally further or damage by their actions. "GB To say that an entity has a good of its own is to say that it can, without reference to any other entity, be harmed or ben­ efited. Since we have defined intrinsic value as a nonderivational val­ ue, the good of an entity is of intrinsic value. We, as moral agents, can act in the interest of a living being or contrary to its interest by creating environmental conditons that are favorable or unfavorable for that being's welfare. Thus, Taylor argues that "What is good for an entity is what 'does it good' in the sense of enhancing or preserving its life and well- being."" In Taylor's view a living being can be an indi­ vidual living entity or it can be a population or community of living be­ ings. In the case of the individual being, its good consists in the full development of its biological powers, being healthy and strong, able to cope with the environment, able to preserve its existence throughout the life cycle of its species. For a population or community of life its good consists in "maintaining itself from generation to generation as a coherent system of genetically and ecological related organisms whose average good is at an optimum level for the given environment. " 7 0

Taylor takes pains to point out that the good of an entity does not mean that the entity must be aware of its interests or take an active interest in what affects its life. Living entities have goods, things that are good for them, whether they "take an interest" in the realization of

" I bid . , p. 199.
' 9 Ibid.
70 Ibid.


their goods or not . Nor does Taylor hold that a being's good is coextensive with sentience or the capacity for pain . It is doubtful that plants feel pain (The Secret Life of Plants notwithstanding), but it is clear that they can be said to have a good. Added to this concept of a good for each living thing is the idea of the inherent worth of the be­ ing. This second concept is necessary for Taylor's biocentric ethic, since "we take the moral attitude of respect for nature when and only when we regard them as entities possessing inherent worth. "71
To say that a being that has a good of its own, has inherent worth, is to say that it deserves moral consideration and that the realization of that being's good is of intrinsic value. With the concept of inherent worth Taylor ties together the two parts of our hypothesis in a neces­ sary relation, giving it further plausibility. The principle of moral consideration is taken to mean that "wild living things are deserving of the concern and consideration of all moral agents simply in virtue of their being members of the Earth's community of life." 72 That is to say, every entity having its own good is des e rving of moral consideration. Since all living things have their own good, the range of moral consideration is expanded to include all beings that have a good or in­ terest (used in a broad sense). Taylor argues that moral consideration is to be given to beings that have their own good, and if an entity is a member of the Ea rt h' s community of life, then the realization of its good is of intrinsic value. What is of intrinsic value is not the being itself, but the welfare or well-being of the entity. The being is said to have


71 Ib id . , p . 201.
72 -Ibid.

inherent worth, but the concept of intrinsic value applies only to the realization of that being's good. Its good is an end in itself and " is prima facie worthy of being preserved or promoted as an end inself and for the sake of the entity whose good it is. The well-being of each is judged to have value in and of itself."7 3
To say that the realization of the good of an entity is of intrinsic value is to say that this realization is a nonderivational value and that it is sought for its own sake. Also, it is the nature of the realization, rather than any consequences of that realization, that is of intrinsic value. Any living thing, Taylor says, "must never be treated as if it were a mere object or thing whose entire value lies in being instrumen­ tal to the good of some other entity."74 To hold that living things are of inherent worth is to extend to them moral consideration and to judge the realization of their good to be of intrinsic value. Due to this in­ herent worth of all things we, as moral agents, have an obligation to extend concern and consideration to all living beings and to respect the intrinsic value of the realization of their own good as an end in itself, for the sake of the beings themselves. Taylor writes:
The duties owed to wild organisms, species populations, and communities of life in the Earth's natural ecosystems are grounded on their inherent worth. When rational, autono­ mous agents regard such entities as possessing inherent worth, they place intrinsic value on the realization of their good and so hold themselves responsible for performing ac­ tions that will have this effect and for refraining from ac­ tions having contrary effect. 75



73 Ibid.
74 l bi -
75 Ibid., pp. 201-02.


This connection between the inherent worth of entities, their moral consideration, and their intrinsic value is shared by other writers who hold a biocentric viewpoint.
Robin Attfield, for example, holds that "people have obligations with respect to many nonhumans and that the flourishing of nonhumans is of intrinsic value." 76 Presumably the term flourishing means the same as the well-being or welfare of a living thing. Attfield holds that the re­ alization of the interests of all living things, not just sentient ones, is of intrinsic value. "I have arrived at a position on which whatever has interests of its own has moral standing and on which the realization of those interests has intrinsic value." 77
Joel Feinberg also wants moral rights or consideration extended to all beings who have interests. However, Feinberg conceives of inter­ ests in a narrow sense, unlike Taylor or Attfield, by insisting that "in­ terests" logically presuppose desires, wants, or aims. While a plant can be said to have a good for itself, Feinberg holds that the mental equipment for having desires, wants, or aims is not shared by plants and he thus does not extend moral consideration to it. By holding that only humans, actual and potential, as well as some "higher" animals can be said to have interests, Feinberg is taking a restricted nonanthropo­ centric position using sentience for a criterion for considerability. But this narrow conception of interests also excludes from moral consideration some human beings, i.e., those that are extremely mental­ ly deficient. Given that we would not want to exclude such humans


76 Robin Attfield, The Ethics of Environmental Concern (New York: Co­ lumbia University Press, 1983), p. 160.
7 7 Ibid. , p. 160


from consideration, it is not unreasonable to equate the interests of an entity with its good and not restrict it to desires, wants, or aims.

However, if a biocentric environmental ethic is to be adopted, there is the challenge put forth by Frankena. Is it not arbitrary to limit moral consideration only to living entities, just as it is to limit it to ra­ tionality, self-consciousness, or sentience? Why give moral consideration only to living things? Fran kena would, as we saw above, draw the line at sentience, but admits that an environmental ethic that gives moral patiency to everything is conce iv ab le . He views positions like that of Taylor's as a halfway house between his own and that of the new broader range of considerabilty just me nt io ned .
Several writers have argued against limiting moral consideration merely to living beings. Tom Regan has said that "limiting the class of beings which have inherent value to the class of living beings seems to be an arbitrary decision. 1178 This charge of arbitrariness is serious, all the more so because of the weak anthropocentric position developed by No rto n-.
It could be argued by Norton that all the above positions which I characterized as "weak nonanthropocentric" can be reduced to his "weak anthropocentric" posit ion , since each such instance of ascription of intrinsic value to some feature of nature, be it rationality, sentience, or merely being alive, is an ascription done a nth ropocent rica lly . It may be that there are good, rational, ecologically sound reasons for this vesting of value in nature, but Norton could argue that each such in­ stance is done accord ing to some considered preference, some ideal or


78 Regan, "Nat ure and Possibility, 11 p. 160.


standard that human beings have about how the world is or should be. Given this possible challenge it would seem that most no na nt h ropocent r_ic environmental ethics would collapse into some form of weak anthropocen­ trism. All the positions that vested value in nature, postulated the intrinsic value of nonhuman entities, ascribed value to things such as wildernesses, could be shown to be anthropocentrically based et hics . But what does that mean for the project of providing an ethic nof the environment"? ls it the case that the "revolutionary aspirations" of such an ethic, as described earlier by Callicott, are doomed, and an­
thropocentrism (even thought it is well-considered) is the only ap­ proach? This might be the case if !!! the nonanthropocentric env i ron­ mental ethics were what I characterized as "weak.11 But there are also
what I have called "strong nonanthropocentric" ethics.
A possible response to the challenge of Norton is to argue that some cases of intrinsic value in nature are independent of any anthropocen­ tric valuing activity, that there are some objective natural values in nat ure . Another possibility is that the noninstrumental value of nature is neither objective nor subjective. Environmental ethics that reflect these approaches to value I term "strong nonanthropocentric." 1 dis­ cuss next the kinds of ethics that have been developed on such an ax­ iology.

Environmental Ethics based on Strong Nonanthropocentrism
The strong nonanthropocentric position is one that finds natural value in nature, independent of any human valuing agent. This posi­ tion does not deny the c ja ims about intrinsic value made by the weak

anthropocentric and weak nonanthropocentric positions, but it goes be­ yond either position in the positing of an objective reality to certain values, a reality not dependent upon the ascription or even the discov­ ery of value by human valuing agents. It is even possible that such values are neither subjective nor objective, but are something quite different.
Several different environmental ethics can be developed from this axiology. One such approach focuses on experience as a common fea­ ture of all entities. It was noted above that various writers placed intrinsic value on the experience of pleasure or pain, and gave inherent value to the objects of such experience. The previous limitation was to beings that could experience self-consciousness, pleasure, or happi­ ness. In this expanded view, experience is taken to be a basic feature of all events in the cosmos. Every entity has experience as it partici­ pates in some event or process. Entities at the sub-atomic level, all the way up through the macrocosmos, have experiences. Thus Charles Birch and John Cobb, Jr. argue that:
experience is always valuable, events have intrinsic value. All things therefore have some intrinsic value either in themselves or in their constituent parts. [And that] we should respect (i.e., grant moral consideration to) every entity for its intrinsic value as well as for its instrumental value to others, including ourselves. Its intrinsic value is the richness of its experience or the experience of its constitutent parts.n
Moral consideration should be given to those entities that can have ex­ periences because we have a duty to respect the right to full realization of experiences possible for any entity, and this realization is of



79 John Cobb Jr. and Charles Birch, The Liberation of Life (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981) 152. - --

intrinsic value. The plausibility of this ethic rests on a Whiteheadian interpretation of experience, the idea of richness of experience as bei g of intrinsic value and the ontology of process philosophy. This position is an ethic based on a strongly nonanth ropocentric axiology because the intrinsic value of entities is objectively held, independent of any human valuing activity. Another such ethic is based on a theistic axiology.
A theistic axiology is one that has God as the arbiter of value in reality. It is a strong nonanthropocentric theory of value in that the world is reveled as good-in-itself, independent of any instrumental val­ uing it may have for humans, and independent of any attributing of intrinsic value that valuing agents may give to nonhuman entities. Cal­ licott argues this point when he says that
If God, moreover, is conceived as in the Judeo-Ch ristian tradition to be the creator of the natural world, and to have declared His creation to be good, then the creation as a whole, including, as its centerpiece, the biosphere, and its components of the creation, species prominently among them, have, by immediate inference, intrinsic value. 0
From this theistic axiology of the intrinsic value of God's creation, an environmental ethic has been developed. This ethic is often refered to as the "stewardship tradition."
According to this position human actions toward nature are morally praiseworthy if they preserve creation, if they aid in maintaining the world as God made it. Man has a specific role, in that one of the ac­ tions of man required by God is to act as a good steward over the land, to preserve and keep it, not to dominate it, because it is of intrinsic value to God. A recent description of the stewardship tradi­ tion in biblical thought has been presented by Ian Barbour. He writes:

1 ° Callicott, "Non-anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 302.

We have seen that the first chapter of Genesis speaks of domination over nature. But according to the second chap- ter (the Adam and Eve story, which is held by most schol- ars to be considerably older), human beings are put in the garden to "till it and keep it." Throughout the Bible, hu­ mankind does not have absolute and unlimited domination, but is responsible to God. "The earth is the Lord's" be- cause He created it. The land belongs ultimately to God; we are only trustees, caretakers, or stewards, responsible for the welfare of the land that is entrusted to us, and ac­ countable for our treatment of it. In the last analysis, the biblical outlet is neither anthropocentric nor biocentric, but theocentric. 1
In acting as stewards, we can act in ways that fit the trans-individual requirements of an environmental ethic as mentioned earlier by Callicott: in dressing the garden and keeping it, our task is not pri­
marily one of preventing individual animal suffering or looking out for the interests of individual plants and ani- mals, but of preserving species, maintaining the integrity of natural communities, and insuring the healthy functioning of the biosphere. the garden as a whole. 82
In this stewardship tradition it is morally wrong for man to cause the deliberate destruction of species because it has mandated by God to preserve species, since they are intrinsically valued by God as part of an intrinsically good creation. The steardship tradition has been artic­ ulated by several other writers besides Barbour, including John Pass­ more 3 and David Ehrenfeld.,. who maintain the intrinsic value of natu­ ral entities based on a theistic axiology can provide the basis for an adequate environmental ethic.




11 Ian Barbour, Technology, Environment, and Human Values, (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1980), pp. 24- 25.
12 Callicott, "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 302.
83 Passmore Man's Res po ns ibilit y, esp. chapter two.

1David Ehrenfeld, "The Conservation of Non-Resources," American Scientist 64 (1976): 648-55.
1


Another axiology supporting strong nonanthropocentic ethics is one that locates an objective, non-theistic and impersonal Good as the source of all other val ue . Such an axiology can be found in Plato, most notably in the Gorgias, as discussed in the previous chapter. Support for this position, called "rational holism" by Callicott, 15 can also be found in Spinoza and Leibniz. In this axiology,

Things, or more generally and abstractly, phenomena, ac­ cordingly are intrinsically good or valuable to the degree that they exemply the characteristics of the Good. Clearly, this is not an anthropocentric axioloy since value is not de­ termined in terms either of human nature or of human in­ terests.''
Callicott notes that a suitable nonanthropocentric environmental ethic could be developed from the Platonic concept of the Good were it not for the difficulty in determining what this transcendent Good actually is. But even though this position has this difficulty, other support can be drawn from the modern rationalists.
Spinoza appears to offer a foundation for a strong nonanthropocen­ tric axiology since he throughly rejects the anthropocentric perspective. He holds that humans do start out with a confused, anthropocentric idea of themselves existing as unique, separate beings, but, as under­ standing grows, this idea is clarified and the illusion of separateness is recognized for what it is. Man has, for Spinoza, no privileged position in the cosmos that is separate from the rest of nat ure . This is under­ standable given Spinoza's concept of God as nature and his concept of substance. Part of our "intellectual love of God" is the rational under­ standing of the unity of nature and the place of humans as part of this

15 Callicott, "No n- Ant h ropoce nt r ic Value Theory," p. 302.
, - , p. 302.


unity. The highest good for man lies in the union of the mind of man with nature. The recognition of the transcendent goodness of all n ­ ture does appear to offer the kind of support needed for a nonanthro­ pocentric ethic, in that what is of intrinsic goodness is something inde­ pendent of human concerns. The recognition of humans having no priviledged place in the cosmos also supports this axiology since what is good is an objective value of the unity of reality and not naive human interests. A Spinozistic environmental ethic might hold that right ac­ tions would include those that increase our understanding of this unity. This could explain part of the interest by contemporary environmental­ ists in Spinoza's views. Whether or not Spinoza can be used as part of a foundation for a rationalistic holistic axiology will be discussed in the next chapter. But even if Spinoza's position is ruled out, this axiology can draw support from Leibniz .
Leibniz also rejected the view that man has a special place, unique and spearate in the cosmos. "[ I ]f we think that God has made the world only for us, it is a great blunder ... 1." Leibniz shared with Spinoza the view of a fundamental unity of reality, and he also held that nature is not to be seen as merely a mechanical machine, but as alive, and that . ".. the universe is properly understood as an organ­ ism--a system of entities internally interrelated so that any change in one of them makes a difference in all the others."' This recognition of the interrelationships of all things is a basic tenet of much ecologic

17 G. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, chap. 19, Le ib n iz: Basic Writings, trans. G. R. Montgomery (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1962), p. 34.

88 Walter H. O'Briant, "Leibniz's Contribution to Environmental Philosophy," Environmental Ethics 2 (1980) : 218.


thought today, lending support to rational holism as a suitable basis for a nonanthropocentric ethic. Leibniz also held that the world as a while is good in itself because it "combines unity and variety to the greatest possible ext ent . 111 1 What is of intrinsic value is the cosmos as a whole since it is has that balance of order, variety, and unity. This value is objective in that such a balance exists independent of human values or interests. With Leibniz there is a movement away from some transcen­ dent, objective goodness to the perception of the value of the empiri­ cally knowlable universe in itself, though his doctrine of monads does reflect some sort of transcendent, though objective realit y .

The rise of subjective theories of value eclipsed some modern at­ tempts to locate value in objective reality, partly due to the rise of a view of reality based on Lockean primary and secondary qualities which left little place for values in such a materialistic world. But there are contemporary attempts to locate value in objective reality viewed in a holistic way . One such attempt is found in the Gaia Hypothesis of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis.9 0 This concept claims that all life on Earth functions through its oceans and atmosphere as one self-regulating or­ ganism. This is a strong nonanthropocentric position because the Earth as a whole is viewed as an objective, living entitiy. It is not the lives of individual entities within Gaia, such as humans, that are held to be of intrinsic value, but the proper functioning of Gaia herself, the self­ realization of her own objective ends that is of va lue . This is Attfield's idea of "flourishing" writ large. The good of Gaia is of instrinsic value

19 Ib id . , p. 219.

90 James Lovelock and Lynn Ma rg u lis , Gaia (New York: Oxford Univer­ sity Press), 1976.





\

and we are to extend moral consideration to all entities, individuals and systems alike, insofar as they contribute to the health or well being f Gaia. That is to say, moral consideration is to be given to biotic and abiotic features and to systems as they contribute to Gaia as a whole. These positions, however, do not have intrinsic value, since, they are only of contributory value to the maintainence of Gaia.
'Another position that discovers an objective value in nature consid­ ered as a whole and, hence, worthy of moral consideration is the "land ethic" of Aldo Leopold. The "land" as viewed by Leopold is the total community of life with both biotic and abiotic components, not just bio­ tic ones. The land itself is deserving of moral considerstion because of the intrinsic value of the land, expresed in its stability, integrity, and beauty. Thus Leopold writes, "A thing is right when it tends to pre­ serve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. 11 1 Leopold's position is a transitional biocentrically based environmental ethic because nonliving entities are given moral consideration as well as biotic ones, sine they are both necessary components of the land. It appears that the land is of ob­ jective intrinsic value while the various components of the land have extrinsic value insofar as they contribute to the integrity, stability, and beauty of the whole. It is the land itself that is the highest good, the ground for the different extrinsic values of the components of the land. The land as a whole is an objective moral source of all other moral values.
'




' 1 Aldo Leopold, A Sand Cou nt y Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 225.


Each of the positions considered here under the axiology called "rational holism" allows for the objective value of the natural system i ­ self, whether it be considered in terms of nature, Gaia, or "the land." Subjective valuing by human valuers of specific features of the system can also occur but the system itself has objective, intrinsic value either in a transcendent way as in Plato and Spinoza, or in a direct fashion recognized by moral intuitions shaped by ecologic and environmental thought, as in Lovelock and Leopold. Reality, viewed as nature/Good, Gaia, or "the land" is the objective ground, good in itself, from which other values are derived. This is clearly a strong nonanthropocentric value theory, and the ethics developed from it can successfully resist the attempt to conflate them to a weak anthropocentric position because what is done by human value agents is to describe, not ascribe, the objective value of the land. The value of the system is presented in terms that have as a criteria of intrinsic value the system itself, as a whole, independent of any considered preferences human valuers may have about the land. A rational holistic axiology, based on Platonic, Spinozistic, and Leibnizian foundations, made concordant with modern evolutionary and ecologic biology by insights from Lovelock and Leopold can provide for a strongly nonanthropocentric envirnomental ethic. As noted by Callicott, this axiology avoids atomism and individualism, fea­ tures even Norton recognized as being antithetical to a true ethic of the environment.
From the classical rationalistic axiological perspective, the system itself, classically the cosmos and its various micro­ cosmic sub-systems, often including human society, was considered valuable , or at least to exemplify or in­ stantiate "the Good." In its present adapation to non-an­ th ropocentric environmental ethics, rational holism would consider the biosystem as a whole and its several sub-sys-


tems--biomes, biocoenoses, and the micro-ecosystems, species, and their populations--to be valuable. 92

In fact, so completely does the rational holism position exclude hu­ man interests that there is the danger that adopting this axiology would make difficult, if not impossible, an attempt to explain why the present ecosystems are to be preserved. That is to say, why are the particu­ lar parts of this biosystem, existing now, to be preserved rather than some future system devoid of great variety and complexity? Callicott has argued in several places 93 that Leopold's position is concordant with modern evolutionary and ecological biology, and, because of Leo­ pold's adoption of Darwin's theory on the origin of ethics (itself based on Hume's subjective and affective theory of value), that a nonanthro­ pocentric, yet humanistic environmental ethic can be developed from Le­ opold. This is in contrast to the almost anti-humanist conception of Gaia, who will continue to exist indifferent to the presence or absence of humans. Gaia alone cannot explain the very real environmental intu­ ition that there is something of value to this world with us in it.
Callicott does not believe that the introduction of Hume's subjective axiology makes Leopold's "land ethic" an anthropocentric one. Even though value depends, for Hurne, on human sentiment, the
moral sentiments are, by definition, othe r -o r ie nt ed. And they are intentional, that is, they are not valued them­ selves, or even experienced apart from some object which excites them and onto which they are, as it were, project­ ed. Their natural objects are not limited, except by con­ vention, to other human beings.,,.

92 Callicott, "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory,"," p. 303.

93 Callicott, "Elements," pp. 71-81 and J. Baird Callicott, "Hume's Is/ Ought Dichotomy and the Relation of Ecology to Leopold's Land Eth­ ic," Environmental Ethics 4 (1982): 163-74.


Many kinds of objective nonhuman entities can excite the moral sentiments of humans. This approach is a balancing act between sub­ jective and objective axiologies, attempting to keep separate the per­ spective of the valuing agent and the source of the sentiment of value.

Therefore, the Darwin-Leopold environmental ethic, ground­ ed in the axiology of Hume, is genuinely and straightfor­ wardly non-anthropocentric, since it provides for the intrinsic value of non-human natural entities. It is also, nonetheless, humanistic since intrinsic value ultimately de­ pends upon human valuers. It provides both for the intrinsic value of non-human individual organisms and for su perorgan ismic entities- -populations, species, biocoenoses, biomes, and the b iosp he re . 95
In this way, Callicott holds, the Darwin-Leopold ethic meets all the cri­ teria for a suitable nonanthropocentric environmental ethic. His efforts on behalf of Leopold represent an attempt to overcome the traditional split between self and object that has resulted, in western thought, in subjective and objective theories of moral and aesthetic value. Callicott himself rejects the idea that values must be either subjective or purely objective. He argues that the recent developments in quantum physics have done away with the traditional dualism between self and object. What he argues is that nature is continuous with the self, that there are no clear, distinct boundaries between myself and my circumstances. By taking the idea that the self is of intrinsic value, he concludes that nature is also, therefore, of intrinsic val ue . When we act to realize the interests of nature, we are also acting to realize our interests:
Now if we assume, (a) ... that nature is one and continuous with the self, and (b) with the bulk of modern moral theo­ ry, that egoism is axiologically given and that self-interest­ ed behavior has a p rima facie claim to be rational behavior,

916 Callicott, "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 305.
95 Ib id . , p . 305.


then the central axiological problem of environmental ethics, the problem of intrinsic value in nature, may be directly and simply solved. If quantum theory and ecology both im­ ply in structurally similar ways in both the physical and organic domains of nature, the continuity of self and na­ ture, and if the self is intrinsically valuable, then nature is intrinsically valuable. If it is rational for me to act in my own best interest, and I and nature are one, then it is ra­ tional for me to act in the best interests of nature.9 6
Here we have the conflation of self and nature, person and planet. Callicott brings us back to Kant arguing that the loss of ecologic sta­ bility or integrity is a personal loss. Its loss diminishes me as a per­ son. Thus, when the bell tolls for the passing of the blue whale or of a cavern system, truly it tolls for thee. It is a dimunition of one's ex­ panded sense of self.
Now, if Callicott is granted his two premises, that nature is one and continous with the self, and that egoism is accepted, then he has cre­ ated a full environmental ethic concordant with the criteria he set up. This is a nonanthropocentric ethic that gives moral consideration to all features, individual and superorgansimic, of nature. The merits of this position ride or fall on these two assumptions. I consider this position later, noting only for now that even if Callicott's position is not accept­ ed, another way is open for developing an ethic based on a strong no­ nanthropocentric axiology. This is the position of Holmes Rolston 111.












u J. Baird Callicott, "Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environ­ mental Ethics," Environmental Ethics 7 (1985): 274-75.

Rolston on Natural Value
In a recent paper,9 7 Holmes Rolston argues for the existence of obje - tive value in nature. now present an extended explication of this case because Rolston has developed all the criteria set out by Callicott for a truly nonanthropocentric environmental ethic based upon the ob­ jective value of nature. I do so because Rolston addresses all the major issues that have been brought up in the development of this thesis. He considers the question of the subjectivity or objectivity of values, the fact/value dichotomy, the relation of aesthetic values to natural val­ ues, the nature and possibility of intrinsic value in nature, and the re­ lationship between modern science, especially ecology, and axiology. Clearly, this is an extensive task. I find in Rolston a fully developed case for an environmental ethic based on what I have called a strong nonanthropocentric axiology, one that discovers intrinsic natural value in the world as well as other values, independent of human values.
Rolston begins with a description of the common subjectivist posi­ tion, held by many, regarding the origin of value. In this position human beings are the creators of value in a world otherwise empty of value. R. B. Perry's statement is typical. "Natural substances... are without value until a use is found for them [and that any] object, whatever it be, acquires value when any interest, whatever it be, is taken in it."" Value here is dependent upon human volition, for, with­ out humans taking an interest in a natural entity, such an object has


97 Holmes Rolston, 111, "Are Values in Nature Subjective or Objective?" Environmental Ethics 4 (1982): 125-51.

Ralph Barton Perry, General The ory of Value (Cambridge, Massa­ chusetts: Harvard University Press, 1954), pp. 125, 115f.


no value. Against this subjectivity Rolston argues that the lessons gained from the ecological sciences have called into question the attempt to see values solely in subjective terms; and claims, instead, that there is objective natural value existing in the world.

Rolston notes that the view that value is some kind of gift, some­ thing that is addded to an object by an observer, has its roots in the rise of modern science. The Galilian/Lockean view that developed, with objectivity located only in matter in motion, led to a qualitative split. The primary qualities of a thing were held to be objective, independent of an observer, while the secondary qualities were reduced to being observer dependent, created by the observer from the primary quali­ ties. This reduction left little or no room for values existing anywhere except as judgment by the obser ve r . With no sense organs for the perception of value, it came to be held that moral or aesthetic values resulted from the attention of a subjective val ue r .
By the twentieth century the concept of objective matter, existing independent of the investigator, was overthrown by relativity and quantum physics, as the smallest objects of scientific investigation re­ flected the subjective concerns of the investigator. This is, perhaps, the kind of scientific insight needed to inform a coherent environmental ethic, and Callicott's radical subjectivity that merges mind and matter is correct. Rolston does not deny that any interpretation of reality is al­ ways full of subjective theory, that every interpreter imports part of himself to the investigation. But what must also be noted, in Ralston's view, is that much of the physical sciences today, especially quantum physics, deal with a substrata of reality and leave out consideration of

daily events and levels of understanding of the world that the biological sciences have taught us to appreciate. Even though subjectivity h s swallowed up the distinction at the subatomic level between self and ob­ ject, between the values of the observer and the fact of observation, we still live and act at a middle level of experienced reality where we believe that we know some nonsubjective things about the physical world. Rolston holds that the knowledge that we claim to have about this middle level of reality, as gained through experience and through scientific interpretation, is neither illusory, nor false, nor merely an account of subjective mental events, even though it is perspectival and approximate. Our view of nature is relative, but it is one of relation, a reciprocity between knower and known, valuer and valued, that af­ fects the reality of both. Of nature, Rolston says that "things are not entirely inventions of the mind, although they reveal our perspectival and theoretical reach to the microscopic and astronomical levels."9 9 The subjectivity and indeterminancy at the ultimate levels of reality do not prevent an objective knowing at the middle levels. And, importantly for any examination of the value of nature, value judgments made about this middle range can be seen as genuine, if limited, claims about a phenomenal world, one "locally objective in common experience and in natural history."10 0
What physics has revealed, at the subatomic level, has produced a swallowing up of objectivity, leaving values seen as subjective judg­ ments brought to the interpretaitons of realtiy made by science.


9 9 Rolston, "Subjective or Objective," p. 129.
lD D Ibid., p. 130.

117
Rolston, however, has recognized the imperative which Callicott set out about a truly nonanthropocentric axiology being one that takes all the insights of science into account. Relativity and quantum theory are the appropriate methods for investigating macro and micro levels of reality, but at the middle, experiential level, the insights of biology and ecolo­ gy are required. What is needed, Rolston claims, is a gestalt switch to the other end of the spectrum of balance things, to deal with the rich­ ness of natural systems lost by reduction, and to recover value theory from total subjectivity. It is at the middle level that the similarity be­ tween scientific judgments (as third order interpretations) of the world and that of values judgments is not ed . As with scientific claims, value judgments can be about what is the case in the experienced wo r ld .
This similarity of judgments underlies Rolston's whole approach to the issue. For him cognitive and value judgments are activities which map out what we consider to be an objective reality. Attempts to de­ scribe complex natural systems such as a forest using the concepts of primary and secondary qualities are inadequate for the complexity of the structure, and that the observations made at the third level are ac­ curate, though tentative accounts what what we hold the natural world to be.
One of the insights gained about this natural world is that there is value out there, value independent of us . Value judgments emerge out of our experience of nature as we discover that different things can and do have value for entities, whether they are individuals or super­ organismic entities. We discover that there is presubjective, instru­ mental value for things by living things that is neither human nor

118
experienced value. Living things are what Rolston calls "going con­ cerns," i.e., they have interests and things can be correctly judged o be of value for them. Part of our scientific understanding of the world is a discovering of this natural, objective value that emerges as our understanding of nature develops.
Value here attaches to a whole form of life and is not just resident in the detached parts as elementary units. It ov­ erleaps although it is instantiated in the individual. It ap­ pears in a holistic cross play where neutral, lesser valued, and even disvalued parts may assume transformed value in a larger matrix. Value emerges in pronounced forms at ad­ vanced structural levels and may not be visible as a Locke­ an primary or secondary quality. 10 1
Instead of being an addition upon reality by an observer, value emerg­ es in quantum, as does our other pieces of knowledge of the world. Scientific discovery of the natural world goes hand in hand with the discovery of value in that world, the world of common experience of which we believe we know things concerning its structures.

While it is true in one sense that all judgments of fact and of value are subjectivily made by knowers/valuers. But equally so, Rolston claims that [the objectivist can reassert] "the common world of experi­ ence and the impressive observational force of science. We all do be­ lieve that in our native ranges humans know something about the struc­ tural levels of nature."1 02 We value the sciences that provide us with better maps, better access into what natural types and processes are like. [And] "when we pass to judge whether this natural type is good or that life process has value, we are merely continuing the effort to

101 Ibid., p. 131.
l D 2. Ibid., p. 133.

119
map reality." 103 This is a reciprocal relationship between the investi­ gating mind and the investigated matter. There is no gap between judgments of fact and judgments of value because they both are efforts to further map out reality. As Rolston notes, "in value theory too we have as much reason to think that our appreciative apparatus is some­ thing facilitating, not preventing, getting to know what is really there."1 oi. But the switch to the other end of the spectrum does more than close up the fact/value gap. It reveals a new, experiential rela­ tion between self and objects in nature, one more concordant with envi­ ronmental and ecological ins ig ht s .
Our experience of the world is not one of isolated self at polar op­ posite to the natural wo r ld . Our experience, rather, is one of humans­ in-nature, where we find the subject matter of our study thrown at us from all sides . We have access to facts about the world because we are also part of the world. The self is enclosed by the environment, the natural, objective, experiential world. In Rolston's memorable phrase, "The self has a semi - permeable membrane. " 10 5 Objects of study and the self interact and stand in relation to each other within the natural field in which they have coevolved. The knower and the known coexist in a field. And it is also the case with the valuer and the valued. Like scientific judgments, valuing is a relational, interactive affair. As the scientific investigator discovers localized structures or phenomena in the world, so too does the valuer discover values existing in the world.




103

1 o,.

105

Ibid.
Ibid., p. 134.
Ibid., p. 135.

120
These values may be like other phenomena, unevenly distributed and brought to our attention piecemeal, but they do so with enough regu­ larity that we can make judgments about values in nature. This should not be too surprising considering that valuing subjects and the objects of value have evolved together out of and within the same natural field.
The detached, independent observer of modern science, unaffecting and unaffected by the investigated world, presented a picture of reality where value was a subjective addition, a gift to an otherwise value free world. The ecological sciences place the investigator within an objec­ tive field, standing in reciprocal relation to other objects, both in knowing and in valuing.
I find myself a valuing agent, located within that circum­ scribing field. I do not have the valued object in "my field," but find myself emplaced in a concentric field for valuing. The whole possibility is among natural events, including the openness in my appraising... . I say that valuing is in as well as of nature. What seems a dialectical relationship7s an ecological one. 1116

The switch from the subatomic level to the ecological level reveals natu­ ral value objectively in the world. The subjectivity present at the sub­ atomic level changes to a perspective of a network of interlocking ob­ jects in a field, standing in reciprical realtion to each other. At the former level value is the gift of the observer, at the latter it is the gift of nature.
An interlocking kinship suggests that values are not merely in the mind but at hand in the world. We start out by valuing nature like land appraisers figuring out what it is worth to us, only to discover that we are part and parcel of this nature we appraise. The earthen landscape has upraised this landscape appraiser. We do not simply bestow value on nature, nature also conveys value to us. 107

10& Ibid., p. 135.


So what then is this given value, this objective natural value discovered, like other things, to be part of the natural world? If the experience of value, like that of knowing, is relational, what is the connection between the experience of value by a subject and the objec­ tive base of that experience? In attempting to describe natural value Rolston offers what he sees as five individually inadequate accounts of natural value. They are inadequate, not incorrect, because each deals with only a part of our experience of value. When taken together they form a more comprehensive account of natural value.
The first account treats natural value as an epiphenomena, some­ thing adventitious and unreal in the world. In this account value is only real in the subjective mind. While judgments of value occur in the mind of value agents, this account is inadequate because it does not explain why value appears. This account treats value as an anomaly in the world and "if taken for the whole, leaves the human valuing subject eccentrtic to his world." 101 It leaves out the intimate reciprocal relation between valuer and valued object, for it is there that the why of value is found.
Another account of natural value focuses only on the subjective aspect, making value a reflection of our personal standards or criteria of value and taste. This view is found in Samuel Alexander. He says that the "nature we find beautiful is not bare nature as she exists apart from us, but nature as seen by the artistic eye."1 0 9 Even though



107

101

109


Ibid . , p. 138.
Ibid., p. 139.

Samuel Alexander, Beaut y and Other Forms of Value (London: Mac­ millan & Co., 1933), p. 30.


Alexander is dealing with the aesthetic value of nature and els ewhe re 1 1a grants that some other kinds of value can exist in nature, he does not, in this position, account for a certain fact, i.e., that human beings have evolved the capability of valuing. As Rolston puts it, "We are endowed with naturally selected capacities to value such things. Is the whole evolution of valuing an irrational, seredipitous afterglow?° 111 The previous account was inadequate because it could not explain the why of value. This account leaves out the selective advantage to the ability to value, to enable entities to function in the world. "The echoing is most often working the other way around, the human valuer is reflect­ ing what is actually there."1u

The two previous accounts of natural value reflected the subjective stance, that valuing occurs in the mind of the valuing agent, analogous to the relationship between knowing and knowledge. This is partially the case, Rolston grants, but not the whole story. Nor will it do to hold, solely, that natural value emerges out of what in nature poten­ tially has value for a conscious mind. This third view, that natural value emerges with the coming of consciousness, would imply that na­ ture was value free for all the long eons before humans first experienced value in nature. This account would place the realization of value only in human experience. But other creatures also experience value. They have "going concerns" as well. This would cause valuing to dilute "across the simplifying of the central nervous system, but, if



11 a


111

112


Ibid., pp. 285-99 and Space, Time, and Diety (London: Macmillan &
Co., 1920), 2:302-14.
Ibid., p. 140. Ibid.


we rely entirely on the emergent account, value is never extraneural. Where there are no centers of experience, value ceases and value van­ ishes."11 1 This points out the inadequacy of this account. The emer­ gent account explains only a limited range of values, not the main range. It is true that some values emerge with consciousness, such as in aesthetic experience and the joyful interaction between persons, held to be of intrinsic value by G. E. Moore. But the emergent account does not deal with valuable preconscious levels of reality. Rolston agrees that there "are values that only come with consciousness, but it does not follow that consciousness, when it brings its new values, con­ fers all value and discovers none." 114 While some values emerge with consciousness, it is not the case that all values are products of the conscious mind.

The remaining two accounts of natural value attempt to balance the subjective stance of the previous accounts by developing the relational aspect of the experience of value. In the fourth account, natural value as an entrance, there is a fulfillment resulting from the reciprocal in­ teraction of subject and object within a natural field. Each aspect en­ ters into the other. "Subjective experience emerges to appreciate what was before u na ppreciat ed . "1 1 5 This account is more adequate than the previous ones because it takes the situation, the circumstance within which valuing occurs, into regard. It is therefore a more ecological account of value, taking into account the situation of the valuer, which



113 Ibid., p. 141.
114 Ibid.
115 Ibid., p. 142.

the previous ones did not.

We ought not to forget the noblest step, but we ought not to mistake the last step for the whole history. Valuing is not apart form the whole, it is a part in the whole. Value is not isolable into a miraculous epiphenomenon or echo, even though some valued events may be happenstance. It is systemically grounded in major constructive thrusts in nature. The most satisfactory account is an ecocentric model, one which recognizes the emergence of consciousness as a novel value, but which also finds this consciousness to make its entrance into a realm of objective nature value. [In the experience of natural value] we have a sense of en­ trance into events ongoing independently of our subjective presence. We cannot genuinely care here, unless we care what happens after we are gone.1u
take care in my movements th rough a cave. I cave softly, not only to preserve the fragile crystal formations that I have come upon for the next visitor's aestheitc satisfaction, but also because the formations are ongoing processes which will continue after and any other visitor have gone. I discover that I come upon natural events that will continue in­ dependent of my entrance to the scene. I care that the processes con­ tinue even after I am gone, so I preserve what I have discovered.
The final account of natual value sees this value as an education. As we discover ourselves within a field of natural objects, we can be taught by these objects what they are like and how they interact with the other objects of the natural field. There is value in this education, for it can lead us into new areas of knowledge, self-expression and personal growth. But Rolston points out that it would be a mistake to conclude that all values in nature derive entirely from our compositions and none from our posit ions . The value of nature comes partially from its power to teach, but that is not the sole value of nature.



llS Ibid.

Taking all of these accounts of natural value together, Rolston has presented a case of the objective reality of natural value. But even so, the idea of nature as a value carrier is ambiguous and needs to be clarified. First, it is true that all things depend on a thing structually congenial for support, and this applies to value carriers. Also other values may require specific carriers, and finally, other values require a pregnancy with a natural kind. Values and the natural objects that make up their carriers are in an interrelational stance with each other.
Nature both offers and constrains value, often surprising us. We value a thing to discover we are under the sway of its valence, inducing our behavior. It has among its "strengths" (Latin: valeo, be strong) this capacity to car­ ry value to us. [This] potential cannot always be of the empty sort which a glass has for carrying water. It is of­ ten a pregnant fullness. In the energy throughput model nature is indeed a carrier of value, but it is also objective­ ly a carrier of energy and of life. 117
In short, nature presents itself as a carrier of objective natural values. We, as conscious beings within the world, can add to the values already present there, but can never be the sole source of value. In this way Rolston offers an axiology that admits to some subjective value but also holds to the existence of independent, objective natural value. Now that he has established the existence of objective natural value, the next step for Rolston is to show that there is a fundamental intrinsic natural value that grounds all the instrumental natural values discov­ ered. When that is done, it will be possible to have a strong nonan­ thropocentric axiology that can serve as the foundation for an environ­ mental ethic.




117 - , p. 143.

In presenting his case for intrinsic natural value Rolston continues the same approach he did when developing the general position of natu­ ral value, that is, he does not deny that there is a certain sense in which value, in this case, intrinsic value, may be found in human ex­ periences. But, as it was a mistake to consider those emergent values to be the sole form of value, so too would it be mistaken to claim that only human experiences can be ones of intrinsic value. Rolston is con­ tinuing the idea that a full ecocentric axiology must not focus only on human subjects and their experiences. This being the case, intrinsic natural value is one that "recognizes value inhereing in some natural occasions, without contributory human reference." 118 Even though some natural objects can have contributory value for an intrinsically valuable human experience, natural objects can have such value over and above the contributions they might make.
A more traditional view of intrinsic value would limit such value to subjects that can have the experience of having an object of interest. This view could allow for nonhuman but not nonsubjective intrinsic val­ ue. This is the view noted earlier in the chapter that finds intrinsic value in the experience of subjects in the world. The problem with this view is that "experience" is a term that can have such a broad, inclusive meaning that it can be applied to most anything. If a subject is a center for experience, and experience is that which can be infered in that subject by motor-aff ect ive responses, then experience and intrinsic value would be limited to higher animals with a nervous system capable of having such an experience. But with the lower animals and


118 Ibid., p. 145.

plants these centers of experience fade away. Yet plants and even crystals exhibit patterns of individuality and direction of development.
In the botanical realm, we find programs promoted, life courses generated and held to, steering cores which lock onto an individual centeredness. There is a kind of object­ with-will even though the feeling is gone. Every genetic set is in that sense a normative set, there is some ought­ to-be beyond the is, and so the plant grows, repairs itself, reproduces, and defends its kind... . Even a crystal is an identifiable, bounded individual, a natural kind which I may wish to protect, although it has not genetic core. 119
It is an inadequate account of intrinsic value, Rolston holds, to locate value only in experiencing subjects, because value can attach to things obviously not 0 s ub je ct s " in the usual sense. Intrinsic value is located in natural objects that maintian some form of identity and regularity of structure over time, showing homeostasis or developmental integrity. In this way intrinsic objective value can be located on individual natural objects but also on superorganismic entites like ecosystems and species as well. A natural object can be one that is valued by me for what it is in itself, i.e., I can discover intrinsic objective value, but that val­ ue was part of the object before I came upon the scene and will contin­ ue to have such value after I am gone on to other valuing activities.
Rolston takes the concept of instrinsic objective value even further. Since all value, even instrinsic value, must be seen in an ecocentric perspective, the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction loses meaning when seen as occuring within a field, a community of valuers and valued objects. This traditional distinction, so prevalent in Western value theory, re­ flects the subject/object dichotomy of the standard ontologies. What ecological thinking has taught is that any natural object should not be


11 9 .!.2!2. , p . 146.


considered solely as an isolated entity, apart from the circumstances around it. Natural objects need to be seen as Janus-faced, looking in­ ward toward an individual perspective and looking outward toward an ecological, relational perspective of it as object-in-the-world. So any natural object characterized as "good-in-itself" must also be character­ ized as "good-in-community," reflecting the ecological relationships it has with other natural objects. Note, too, that this is something other than characterizing the object as "good-for-the-community." Natural objects can have both intrinsic and instrumental value. The point here is that any account of intrinsic objective value must reflect the position of that object in relation to other natural objects.
Every intrinsic value has leading and trailing ends pointing to values from which it comes and towards which it moves. Natural fitness and positioning make individualistic intrinsic value too system independent. Neither single subject nor single object is alone. Everything is good in a role, in a whole, although we can speak of intrinsic goodness wherev­ er a point experience... is so satisfying that we pronounce it good without need to enlarge our focus. Here, while ex­ perience is indeed a value, a thing can have values which go unexperienced. 12 0
In this way intrinsic value is not limited to natural subjects, capable of experiencing value. Intrinsic objective value occurs also with the sin­ gle fern growing at the mouth of the cave, the individual crystal for­ mation deep within the cave, the ecosystems of biotic and abiotic enti­ ties that are in the cave, and the cave itself, as a landform may have intrinsic objective value due to being a natural project.
In Rolston's position not every natural affair has intrinsic value. Nor does it necessarily follow from his position that such value be per­ manently attached to an object. Natural value may be generated and

12 0 .!El2·, p. 146.

may be lost as well. As Rolston puts it: "Anything is of value here which has a good story to it. Anything is of value which has intense harmony, or is a project of quality." 121 What Rolston appears to mean is that nature has a power to generate natural objects, whether human subjects are present or aware of these things. And the value of these natural projects is for what they are in themselves and in community with other such entities, whether or not we take notice of them or as­ cribe value to them. Any adequate account of intrinsic value in nature must reflect the constructive, generative feature of nature that operates independent of humans.
Intrinsic natural value is a term which presides over a fad­ ing of subjective value into objective value, but also fans out from the individual to its role and matrix. Things do not have their separate natures merely in and for them­ selves but they face outward and co-fit into broader na­ tures. Value-in-itself is smeared out to become value-in­ togetherness. Value seeps out into the system, and we lose our capacity to identify the individual, whether subject or object, as the sole locus of value. 122
There is really just one kind of valuing for natural objects, not two, as the terms intrinsic and extrinsic would imply. The ecocentric perspec­ tive holds both forms of value together for an object in the natural world. The ecocentric perspective allows us to see that natural objects can have both intrinsic and extrinsic value. Intrinsic objective value refers to the value a natural project has both for itself as an individual entity and for it as a part of a natural community existing in nature. Extrinsic objective value then refers to the contributory, instrumental value a thing has towards other projects and concerns.




12 l 122

Ibid., p. 147.
Ibid., p. 147.


By showing that there is both extrinsic and intrinsic natural value in the world, Rolston has provided the axiological foundation for a true ethic of the environment. By making the case for objective natural value, Rolston makes possible an environmental ethic, strongly nona­ thropocentirc, which is not reducable to the position of Norton where value in nature comes from the attributing of value to natural entities by human being based on rational considerations. Rolston would not deny that such valuing activity can and does occur, but he points out that such valuing activites by humans is not the only way value comes into existence in the world. Rolston can argue that Norton's position is a very real, but limited, case of valuing in the world, and that there is much more to the experience of value than that activity alone. Ralston's ecocentric position can also give answer to the last persons scenario mentioned earlier. He says, "That last race of valuers, if they had conscience still, ought not to destroy the remaining biosphere. Nor would this be for interest in whatever slight subjectivity might re­ main, for it would be better for this much ecosystem to remain, even if the principal valuers were taken out.11123 By finding ourselves within a world of previously existing values, we can recognize that the natural world has value even if we are not present in it, and should be pre­ served for its sake, if not ours.

With Rolston, the case for environmental ethics based on a strong nonanth ropocentric axiology is most completely made. His positions fits all the criteria set out by Callicott for an adequate environmental ethic based on a nonanthropocentric axiology. He can provide for the

123 - , p. 150.

131

intrinsic value of both individual and superorganismic entities because intrinsic natural value is found not only on subjects but on all kinds of "going concerns" or natural projects, including species and ecosystems. By holding that intrinsic and extrinsic value is found in nature, he can explain why certain wild entities, as opposed to their domesticated kin, should be given value for the ecological role they play as opposed to the extrinsic, contributory value their domesticaled kin have for hu­ mans. His position is most certainly concordant with modern evolution­ ary and ecological science, since he has shown how objective natural value has evolved with value carriers within an ecological relationship. And Rolston can show that this present biosphere, the one with us in it, is of special value because it is the system within which all natural value occurs. His position fills out the range of environmental ethics that can be developed out of weak and strong anthropocentric and no­ nanthropocentric theories of inrinsic value. In the final chapter I cri­ tique these positions, indicating what problems are found in them, what strengths and merits they have, and how a combination of axiologies can be made to present a coherent, effective foundation for environ­ mental protection.





Chapter IV
CRITIQUE AND CONCLUSIONS


In chapter two it was established that intrinsic value is a philosophic concept with a long and extensive history. The term as defined here is nonderivational value, resulting whenever something's value does not depend wholly or in part on some other value. Consequently it can be held without contradiction that something can have both extrinsic and intrinsic value. In the former a thing can be valued for any of its ef­ fects or consequences, while in the latter it is valued for its own sake, for its own nature, over and above its instrumentality. This latter value also need not reside in an object as is often implied with the term inherent value. Nor need intrinsic value be limited solely to that which is valued by a valuer. Intrinsic value is possible even if a valuer is not aware of an entity holding intrinsic value. Nor does this meaning commit one to any specific ontology to support the axiology, both tradi­ tional metaphysics and process metaphysics can provide support for this meaning.
It was shown in chapter three that there is a connection between what entities are held to deserve moral consideration and a judgment that the entities either themselves or some feature or experience of the entities are of intrinsic value or that there is some non-derivatory good that results from effects of that entity. This connection is not an acci­ dental one and reflects the necessity of intrinsic value to moral agents


- 132 -

133
giving moral consideration to any entity. To judge an entity, x, to be deserving of moral consideration one judges also that x in some w y partakes in a moral good. To say that an entity deserves moral consideration is to say that there are morally right and wrong ways to treat the entity. One of the aspects of such consideration is to ask whether, we are to treat the entity solely as a means to an end, or are we to consider it as possibilty being valuable for its own sake, having a final, nonderivatory value. There is a connection between ascribing intrinsic value to different entities and describing the sphere of moral consideration. As the thing held to be of intrinsic value is considered in more and more universal terms, the sphere of moral consideration is also widened.
In that discussion of moral consideration and intrinsic value two dif­ ferent kinds of environmental ethics were noted. One kind is based on anthropocentric theories of intrinsic value and the other on nonanth ro­ pocentric theories. I now critique the various ethical positions pre­ sented in light of the following question: does a truly environmental ethic require a nonanthropocentric theory of intrinsic value as its axiol­ ogy or are the traditional Western ethical positions adequate for such an ethic?
It was previously noted that Kant's ethical theory is an ethic that does guide our actions toward natural nonhuman entities, but that it ruled out direct moral consideration for animals and other natural ob­ jects. Callous actions toward natural entities were judged anth ropocen­ trically. Only insofar as such actions fostered immoral actions or atti­ tudes in and toward persons were they immoral. The weakness of

134
Kant's position lies in his empirical premise. He takes it for granted that callous attitudes toward animals will result in callous attitudes to­ ward persons. 1 2.1o If it were so, it would then be an easy matter to set­ tle the veracity of the premise by empirical means th rough some kind of sociological study as to whether or not it is indeed the case that cruel­ ty to animals or unrestricted strip mining also creates ruthlessness to­ ward persons. Further, if it could be shown that such ruthlessness toward nature does not translate into ruthlessness toward people, would that remove all environmental objections to such actions or attitudes? This question must be answered before Kant's position can serve as a sound basis for an environmental ethic.
Watson holds that some nonhumans have moral rights due to their ability to be self-conscious. But any entity that is not self-conscious is not granted moral rights which we ought to respect. Watson is una­ bashedly individualistic and rationalistic as he says,
[In] the inner worlds of environmental ethics you hear more and more about species and life itself, and less and less about individual self-conscious entities. (You realize that I think that only individual self-conscious entities know or can know what the hell is going on.) 12 5
He bases his approach to environmental issues on what he sees as clear dangers, i.e., ecological destruction, extinction of species, and nuclear holocaust, but these dangers are seen as dangers primarily to humans and other self - c onsc io us bearers of moral rights. He is unashamedly "a son of the Enlightenment"126 in his humanist perspective, but in


124 Though the philathropic efforts of some of the nineteenth-century American "robber barons" might be cou nt e r - e vid e nce to this idea.

125 Richard A.
(1985): 13.

Watson, "Eco- Et h ics 0 Whole Earth Review, no. 45

135
fairness to him Watson does support the efforts to avoid ecological dam­ ages, even if he is sceptical of most solutions to the problems. But Watson's position alone is inadequate to extend moral opprobrium to act­ tions that do not affect individual humans in significant ways. He can­ not, by this position alone, decry the extinction of certain species or the elimination of some natural feature, if these actions do not affect significantly human beings. Some further criteria would be needed. And his position is still open to the challenge that although "what may be best for man may also be best for the whole biologic community," 12 7 what is to be done if it isn't? Should human interests always override other interests? Watson pessimistically feels humans usually do override the interests of other entities, but that is not a sufficient answer.
Bryan Norton, however, tries to preserve the anthropocentric form of environmental ethics by introducing his weak anthropocentrism. The merits of his position are many, including providing for the criticism of environmentally exploited felt preferences of humans, contraints on hu­ man behavior according to ideals such as living in harmony with nature, and, especially, making the important difference between felt and con­ sidered preferences. It should be noted that Norton avoids the prob­ lems of Watson's position concerning moral rights and moral agents by allowing for moral consideration to be extended to some nonindividualis­ tic entities such as ecosystems and future generations.






126 Ibid., p. 9.
127 Watson, "A Critique," p. 259.


Norton's position meets more of Callicott's criteria for a truly envi­ ronmental ethic than does Kant or Watson's. The weakness of his pos_i­ tion lies in the usage of "rationally held world views" to make up what he calls "considered preferences." By "rational" he does not appear to mean merely the use of reason to make a preference, but the recogni­ tion of some societal standard of what many would hold to be good or acceptable. His weak anthropocentrism requires such considered pref­ erences, but he admits they are hypothetical idealizations insofar as they refer to a never completed process and are preferences that would be adopted if a rational being has rationally accepted an entire world view.
But it can be argued that much of the history of the exploitation of nature represents not the activity of "felt preferences" but of another rationally held world view, i.e., the domination tradition of man using the world as seems best. One can "rationally" calculate one's best in­ terest, as well as adopt some "rationally" held world view. Norton's use of "rational" is somewhat arbitrary and confusing since he never makes clear the specific sense in which he is using the term. It seems that Norton holds a world view to be "rational" in that it would be held by any or all persons once subjective, felt preferences are set aside. This would fit in with the position of Aristotle mentioned earlier con­ cerning the perceptions of the good man. In this sense then, a ration­ al world view is held by those who are able to see what is good or en­ vironmentally sound beyond one's own immediate preferences. To be sure, there are some world views that do create environmentally accep­ table considered preferences (he mentions the Jains and Hindus, as well


as Thoreau), but there is no argument by Norton showing why a ra­ tionally adopted world view will create preferences that are favorable to the environment, only that some world views do allow for such prefer­ ences to be made by humans. Norton seems to believe that if we were only a little more wise, a little more rational, if we only would learn from ecology and evolution, we would then create a rationally held world view that would guide us to environmentally sound considered preferences. And it appears also that Norton holds that any environ­ mentally unsound practice is ipso facto irrational and counter to any ideal and would thus not be adopted. It is not inconceivable that hu­ man values may change in time, and that natural objects may not be valued over artificial objects that resemble the original, or the human preferences, felt or considered, may be for extensive artificial environ­ ments. Given the popularity of completely artificial environments such as those in Walt Disney World and cultural preferences for artifacts and time scales of a nonnatural basis 121 it is possible that future genera­ tions may rationally decide that "from the perspective of wealth, power, comfort, amenity, and ecology--nothing is wrong with plastic trees."12 9

Norton's position allows for the possibility that future humans could rationally adopt a world view that better, more fully human beings would result from efforts to maximize human happiness at the expense



121 Recall how prevalent it is to hear highly urbanized people refer to nature as boring. Highly technological peoples, for better or for worse live in an environment that moves at a speed much faster than natural speeds and such a culture contains values that fit the artificiality of the culture, values that are sometimes rationally ac­ cepted.

129 Mark Sagoff, "On Preserving the Natural Environment," Yale Law Journal 84 (1974): 206.

of other natural entities without moral regard to those entitites. Norton assumes that a life amidst plastic trees would be less enriching for hu­ mans than one lived among live trees, that we would be less human in a moral sense if we rejected moral consideration for nonhumans. That may be so, and doubtless many would agree, but as long as his weak anthropocentrism is based on considered preferences per , without giving us criteria for adjudicating between competing considered prefer­ ences and rationally held world views, it allows for the possible adop­ tion of environmentally destructive practices as well as environmentally sound ones.
As noted earlier, Norton has not clearly indicated just what things can, from a weak anthropocentric view, be of intrinsic value, and al­ though he appears to be in favor of allowing people to attribute intrinsic value to nonhuman entities, his position still focuses on human values that place intrinsic value in human states or experiences. How­ ever, as I noted above, a weak anthropocentric position can be devel­ oped that holds that humans can attribute intrinsic value to nonhuman entities. And by doing so the power of the weak anthropocentric posi­ tion stands forth, so much so that many of the nonanthropocentric po­ sitions that were examined can be seen as variations of weak anth ropo­ centrism.
Nevertheless, even if his position is expanded in this way, some difficulties still remain. For his position to be conceptually more at­ tractive, Norton needs to show just what his own ontological claims are and why he believes there are no problems with them. It would appear that Norton shares a common axiology with traditional Western

139
philosophy, that values exist in the subjective experience of valuers. Such a position is not above criticism, as Rolston has pointed out. Given the challenge made by both quantum physics and ecology to the traditional western ontologies, Norton needs to show what claims his po­ sition has made. It may very well be that his position uses an ontology that is well supported, but that needs to be shown. If these internal problems can be overcome, and the position can be made stronger in the ways I mentioned above, then I am ready to agree that weak an­ thropocentrism is an adequate ethic of the environment. To be sure, some rationally held world views will engender considered preferences that are environmentally beneficial, and the position can be used to give sound preservation arguments for natural entities, especially to those environmental decision makers who are operating within the an­ thropocentric framework. But as long as the danger exists of people coming to prefer plastic trees, and internal problems remain, the wise plan of action would be to provide an environmental ethic based on a nonanthropocentric axiology as well. In this way an independent justi­ fication for the preservation of natural entities can be offered in addi­ tion to weak anthropocentric based justifications.
I have proposed that a distinction be made between environmental ethics based on axiologies I called "weakly nonanthropocentric" and those based on one "strongly nonanthropocentric." have argued that this distinction must be made because of the strength of Norton's weak anthropocentric position. Norton can argue that many of the attempts to locate value in the world independent of human interests are really subtle forms of his weak anthropocentric position. There is,

140
nevertheless, a genuine moral intuition that there is something of value to the natural world over and above those considered preferences th t humans may have for the world and the nonanthropocentric axiologies appear to support this intuition. It is possible that some of the posi­ tions described above as weak nonanth ropocentrism are merely versions of weak anthropocentrism, while the remaining strong nonanthropocen­ tric positions can serve as independent support to a complimentary, comprehensive ethic in the event that a weak anthropocentic position gains general acceptance.
In considering the positions of Singer, Frankena, and Warnock I showed that there is no theoretical reasons why the ethical hedonism that underlies each of their positions is to be restricted to humans. Indeed each of their positions represents the working out of classical utilitarian or deontologic ethical theory, showing how they should be applied to non humans as well as humans. The sentience criteria that each position shares are sufficient to create a truly environmental ethic. But attractive as the sentience criteria for moral consideration are, there are several grounds for finding this position inadequate.
First, such an ethic limits moral consideration only to beings capable of experiencing pain or pleasure. This ethic, as was noted earlier, would exclude plants. Such an ethic would result in clearly unaccepta­ ble practices as the following thought experiment shows. Imagine that, in the interests of avoiding unnecessary cruelty to some domestic live­ stock, a herd of cattle were removed to an island preserve, uninhabi­ tated by people, to live out their lives and continue as a wild herd. Now further suppose that these feral cattle will, if allowed to grow in

141
herd size, overgraze the plant life on the island and cause the extinc­ tion of a rare and endangered species found only on that island. The sentience criteria alone will not allow for the culling of the herd to avoid the extinction of the plant. Thus, to argue that even plant species ought not be allowed to die of in order to keep sentient beings alive requires that some other feature besides sentience be assigned intrinsic value.
Second, the sentience criteria make no distinction between wild and domestic entities. It has been argued that food production for domestic pets has grown so large that it is a contributor to the destruction of wild habitats cleared for agriculture. The sentience criteria offers no guidance except to consider all sentient beings. It also grants no moral consideration to superorganismic entities such as ecosystems, which clearly are no more sentient than plants, if that even. Thus, the non­ anthropocentric ethics based on the sentience criteria derived from eth­ ical hedonism are inadequate, and we are led to consider whether the ethics that give intrinsic value to all life are any more adequate.
The positions discussed earlier of Schweitzer, Goodpaster, Attfield and Taylor all are what Callicott calls "ethical conativism. t 13 0 This is an ethic based on the respect for the interests of an entity. Interests are defined in terms of conations (making interests applicable to all liv­ ing things) and if something has interests it has intrinsic value and is owed moral consideration. This position is clearly a nonanthropocentric environmental ethics. It is one that represents the stretching of tradi­ tional moral theory to embrace every living thing. In assigning


1 3 ° Callicott "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 301.


intrinsic value to all living things this approach represents a polar opposite to ethical egoism, and is a full biological egalitarianism. Moral censure is to be placed on those actions that interfere with the well-be­ ing, welfare, interests, or the flourishing of any living thing. As in the expanded ethical hedonist position, intrinsic value is assigned to individuals. Thus the positions are weakened because they cannot give justification for consideration of ecosystems, species, or the biosphere itself, only to the individual living beings that make up such struc­ tures. Also no justification is given within ethical conativism for dif­ ferential treatment of wild and domestic species or individuals. A full biological egalitarianism would be compelled to censure my efforts to keep the kudzu from overgrowing the trees and bushes in my yard. But perhaps the most telling weakness of the position of ethical cona­ tivism is that it, if consistently adhered to, and without some additional principle to value some living things over some others, would make liv­ ing nearly impossible. This is the point behind Goodpaster's criticism of the conativist position where he writes:
the clearest and most decisive refutation of the principle of respect for life is that one cannot live according to it,
... we must eat, experiment to gain knowledge, protect our­ selves from predation... . To take seriously the criterion of consideration being defended, all these things must be seen as somehow morally wrong." 13 1
Even Schweitzer was aware of the dilemma of his position when he wrote:
[it] remains a painful enigma how I am to live by the rule of reverence for life in a world ruled by creative will which is at the same time destructive will. 112

13 1 Goodpaster, "On Being Morally Considerable, 11 p. 324.
132 Schweitzer, Civilization and Ethics, p. 346.


And such a position flies in the face of ecological and evolutioary biology as Callicott points out:

Stretching normal ethical theory to its limits, first to pro­ vide moral standing to sentient, then conative entities, ironically results in a life-denying, rather than life-affirm­ ing moral philosophy. Not only would conativism's rigorous adherents be required to starve themselves to death, nature itself mocks and defies the intractable moral atomism which hedonism and conativism uncritically appropriates from the normal ethical paradigms. Nature notoriously appears in­ different to individual life and/or individual suffering. Struggle and death lie at the heart of natural processes, both ecologically and evolutionary. An adequate biocentric axiology for environmental ethics could hardly morally con­ demn the very processes which it is intended to foster and protect. 13 3

There are several ways for a conativist to respond to criticism Ii ke this. First of all, respect for life does not necessarily mean a slavish preservation on all life at all cost and the absolute rejection of any pain causing actions. The emphasis should be put upon respect, meaning to fully consider what one is doing and respect life even while taking it. Respect for life, if it is to truly be respectful takes into account what a good life for that entity is. Thus practices such as euthanasia, vac­ cination, and even some forms of animal food production are allowable under the conativist position. In this sense Callicott has presented a straw man position that even Schweitzer would not hold.
Another way to reply is to note that there is a difference between moral consideration and moral significance. It is possible to grant moral consideration to entities without having to preserve all life at all costs. I may grant moral consideration to both deer and humans and thus nei­ ther hunt nor murder either. But swerving my car into a deer in or­ der to avoid hitting a child does not imply that I grant no moral

133 Callicott "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 301.


consideration to the deer. It does imply that I have certain criteria according to which I hold that certain entities are more significant wht:;n making moral judgments. It is a further task for environmental ethics to provide new, clear criteria for moral significance.
I find that all of the ethics based on a weak nonanthropocentric ax­ iology have problems that weaken their effectiveness as ethics of the environment. Perhaps only Taylor's can be made stronger by coupling it with the theory of natural value developed by Rolston. If this were done it might be possible to argue for an expanded theory of interests. Any natural project would be judged as having "interests" and hence of value and worth of moral consideration. Whether or not this could be done is another further project for environmental ethics. Plus it seems likely that all of the weak nonanthropocentric positions are open to the charge of arbitariness mentioned earlier. Any of the things held to be of intrinsic value, rationality, sentience, being alive, or having inter­ ests, seem to be things choosen by humans according to some rational world view, making these things aspects of considered preferences de­ scribed by Norton. This being the case, these positions reduce back to Norton's weak anthropocentric position, giving further support for it. Now I consider the ethics developed by a strong nonanth ropocentric theory of value. The issue will be whether they can stand up to criti­ cism and to attempts to reduce them to Norton's position.
The first set of strongly nonanthropocentrically based ethics, those that find intrinsic value in the richness of experience, has some prob­ lems. The first problem involves the difficulty of the process metaphy­ sics that underlies the approach. (This same problem applies to the

145
weak anthropocentric positions that find experience of intrinsic value.) What needs to be done is to develop more completely why it is possible to extend the idea of experience beyond the usual boundaries of its us­ age. If this is done, then the second problem, a more serious one, must be addressed. This position holds that richness of experience is of intrinsic value, but it is not argued just why this is so. Against this position Callicott argues that the

value of "richness," so described, is certainly explicable instrumentally: a biologically rich world is aesthetically and epistemically more satisfying and it is materially more secure than an impoversihed or "poor" world, but these are clearly anthropocentric concerns. 134
It is not richness that is of intrinsic value, but certain human experi­ ences that are of such value. It appears that in this position the rich­ ness of experience is merely asserted to be of intrinsic value and never proven.
The theistic axiology appears to be much more strongly supported. It provides support for the stewardship ethic of the environment, which Passmore, as mentioned earlier, has developed fully. Callicott criticizes this position when he claims that this axiology is "primitive, essentially mythic, ambiguous, and inconsistent with modern science, and more es­ pecially with modern ecological, evolutionary biology, "13 5 However, Cal­ licott does not show how it is so inconsistent, nor does he show why an axiology that is mythic is, per !,! , inadequate. Perhaps Callicott has in mind the antagonism to modern science held by those who take a literal interpretation of the Bible. But this is really not a telling criticism,




134

13 5

Callicott, "Non-Anthropocentric Value Theory," p. 303. Ibid . , p . 302.

146
for it is quite possible that a more modern theology can provide an axiology that is both theistic and concordant with modern biological sci­ ences. Passmore, in his work mentioned earlier, has clearly laid out the foundation of the stewardship ethic, and this ethic builds on a theistic axiology. This ethic provides clear evidence that a theistic ax­ iology can provide the necessary support for an adequate ethic of the environment.
The rational holism approach is not as well supported. Some of the difficulties involved in using Plato's idea of the Good as a foundation were mentioned earlier. But there are also problems using Spinoza for support. Even though Spinoza rejected the anthropocentric perspec­ tive, he developed a thoroughgoing anthropocentric morality, holding that the needs, concerns, and interests of each species are so different that we need not take feelings of animals into account when deciding the morality of our actions toward them. Thus, although Spinoza su­ perficially offers support for an environmental ethic, he presents us with an ethic that is clearly unacceptable to many environmentalists. This feature, plus the general rejection of Leibniz's metaphysics, weak­ ens the case for rational holism as an adequate axiology.
This leaves Leopold, Callicott, and Rolston as possible supporters of a strong nonanthropocentric axiology. Callicott has, in my view, su­ cessfully shown that Leopold's "land ethic," when supported by Humean and Darwinian concepts, can be used as a strongly nonanth ropocentri­ cally based ethic of the environment, one that does not reduce back to Norton's position. In one sense it is true that the intrinsic value of "the land" can be anth ropocentricaly attributed by human valuers. But

147
even though humans do place value according to their concerns, fea­ tures such as the integrity of the land has a value that is independe!1t of these concerns as well. The Humean and Darwinian support to Leo­ pold overcomes the initial problem that Leopold never explained why a thing was right if it helps maintain the stability, integrity, and beauty of the land . Thru them Leopold's position reflects a blend of anthropo­ centric and nonanthropocentric theories. Callicott has shown that the ecological/ethical insight of Leopold can be justified making it suitable for an environmental et hic .

Callicott's own position is one that tries to give further support to Leopold. The position does support Leopold is showing that the land or nature is intrinsically valuable since it is identified with the intrinsical­ ly valued self. The merging of ethical hedonism and radical subjectivi­ ty may be supported by Callicott's arguments, and the creation of an axiology that is neither solely anthropocentric nor nonanthropocentirc is interesting. It may be argued that both Callicott's own position and the modified Leopold position do actually reduce to the weak anthropo­ centric position described. But I am not persuaded that the self is best seen as nature concentrated or that nature is best viewed as the self fully ext ended . This borders on a mysticism that Callicott sought to reject earlier in the theistic axiology.
More concordant with ecological insights is Rolston's theory of natu­ ral value. Instead of merging mind and matter, self and object, Rolston shows how both are interrelated in a reciprocal fashion in a natural field. Instead of conflating self and object, Rolston places them both in a natural world where value exists already. Rolston's position


is clearly a strong nonanthropocentric one, one that holds to natural objective value, both extrinsic and intrinsic. A particular merit of Rolston's position is that he can show how human value is possible in a world of objective natural values. He is able to incorporate a position like the weak anthropocentric one without losing any of the objective value that nature has. I noted in the previous chapter, when discuss­ ing Rolston's position, how it fits all the criteria Callicott has set out for an adequate nonanthropocentic environmental ethic, and for this reason I judge it to be, along with the stewardship ethic, based on a theistic axiology, and Leopold's updated "land ethic" to be adequate en­ vironmental ethics, all based on what I have called strong anthropocen­ tric axiologies .

I forsee a two-pronged pattern for arguments for the preservation of natural entities. Since the nonanthropocentric theories of intrinsic value do not exclude humans as a loci of value, it is possible to hold both a weak anthropocentric and a strong nonanth ropocentric theory of what has intrinsic value. One can argue for the adoption of certain environmentally acceptable world views and considered preferences based on ideals such as the stewardship tradition as well as the adop­ tion of arguments from the perspective of objective natural values. In this way arguments for the preservation of nonhuman entities can still have force even if the ontological status of intrinsic value in nonhumans cannot be maintained, and a counter can exist for the environmentally unsound considered preferences that might emerge from an anthropo­ centric position such as Norton's. see a well balanced set of argu­ ments for environmental protection to come from ethics based on both


the weak anthropocentric positions and from those ethics based on strong nonanthropocentric axiologies. It is, thus, with a combination ?f arguments from an anthropocentric and a nonanthropocentric perspective that a comprehensive program of environmental preservation can eme rge .






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27 world--can possibly be conceived which could be called good
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world--can possibly be conceived which could be called good
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