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    Individual natural entities should not be treated as mere... — Carmelics
    Home/Environmental Ethics
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Individual natural entities should not be treated as mere instruments and thus possess intrinsic value

    Environmental Ethics
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Individual natural entities are not designed by anyone to fulfill any purpose
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    • 2.Entities that lack intrinsic function (a function constituting part of their essence or identity conditions) should not be treated as mere instruments
      ?

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    • 3.Things that should not be treated as mere instruments possess intrinsic value
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Intrinsic value requires a valuing subject; value without a conscious experiencer is a category error (Korsgaard, 'Two Distinctions in Goodness').
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    • 2.Natural entities lack the sentience or rational agency required to be bearers of value independent of conscious evaluators.
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    • 3.Therefore, what natural entities possess is merely relational value contingent on human or sentient valuation, not intrinsic value.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.The inference from 'not designed for a purpose' to 'possesses intrinsic value' commits a non-sequitur; absence of instrumental function does not entail positive moral status.
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    • 2.Rocks and viruses also lack designed purposes, yet attributing intrinsic value to all purposeless entities produces an implausibly inflated and action-guiding-inert moral ontology.
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    • 3.A coherent environmental ethics can be grounded in instrumental and systemic value relative to sentient welfare without invoking intrinsic value in natural entities (Norton, 'Weak Anthropocentrism').
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    Topics

    Environmental Ethics

    Related

    A coherent environmental ethics can be grounded in instrumental and systemic val...Entities that lack intrinsic function (a function constituting part of their ess...Individual natural entities are not designed by anyone to fulfill any purposeIntrinsic value requires a valuing subject; value without a conscious experience...
    +5 moreShow less
    Natural entities lack the sentience or rational agency required to be bearers of...Rocks and viruses also lack designed purposes, yet attributing intrinsic value t...The inference from 'not designed for a purpose' to 'possesses intrinsic value' c...Therefore, what natural entities possess is merely relational value contingent o...Things that should not be treated as mere instruments possess intrinsic value

    Similar

    Things that should not be treated as mere instruments possess intrinsi...91%All natural entities, whether individuals or wholes, have intrinsic va...88%Entities that lack intrinsic function (a function constituting part of...83%All natural things, events, and states of affairs possess intrinsic va...83%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: ethics-environmental
    View source passageHide passage
    Individual natural entities (whether sentient or not, living or not), Andrew Brennan (1984, 2014) argues, are not designed by anyone to fulfill any purpose and therefore lack “intrinsic function” (i.e., the function of a thing that constitutes part of its essence or identity conditions). This, he proposes, is a reason for thinking that individual natural entities should not be treated as mere instruments, and thus a reason for assigning them intrinsic value. Furthermore, he argues that the same
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit