Philosophers’ adoption of the term “intrinsic” for this distinction reflects a common theory, according to which whatever is non-instrumentally good must be good in virtue of its intrinsic properties. This idea is supported by a natural argument: if something is good only because it is related to something else, the argument goes, then it must be its relation to the other thing that is non-instrumentally good, and the thing itself is good only because it is needed in order to obtain this relatio