What is the difference between intrinsic and instrumental value?

Something has instrumental value if it is valuable as a means to some further end; it has intrinsic value if it is valuable for its own sake. Environmental ethics asks whether nature has the latter.

Do you need to believe nature has intrinsic value to support conservation?

This is contested. Some argue intrinsic value provides the firmest basis for protection, while pragmatists hold that broad human-centered reasons can support conservation without it.

Intrinsic Value of Nature

The intrinsic value of nature is the claim that parts of the natural world are valuable in themselves, not merely as means to human ends, and the debate over whether and how such value can be defended.

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Definition

The property, asserted by many environmental ethicists, of being valuable for one's own sake rather than instrumentally; in environmental ethics, applied to non-human nature.

Scope

This topic covers the meanings of 'intrinsic value' (value as an end, non-instrumental value, and value independent of valuers), arguments for attributing such value to organisms, species, and ecosystems, and skeptical responses holding that all value is conferred by valuing subjects. It also covers the practical question of whether environmental protection requires belief in intrinsic value. The treatment is analytical and descriptive, surveying positions rather than affirming any.

Core questions

What does it mean to say nature has intrinsic value rather than instrumental value?
Can value exist independently of any valuing subject, or is all value subject-dependent?
Which entities—individual organisms, species, ecosystems—could bear intrinsic value?
Is attributing intrinsic value to nature necessary to justify its protection?

Key theories

Objective natural value: Holmes Rolston III argues that value can be located objectively in nature itself—in organisms that defend a good of their own and in 'projective' evolutionary systems—so that humans discover rather than merely confer it.
Distinguishing the senses of intrinsic value: John O'Neill distinguishes intrinsic value as non-instrumental value, as value independent of valuers, and as the value of intrinsic properties, arguing that environmental claims must specify which sense is meant.

History

Debate over intrinsic value intensified in the 1980s as environmental ethicists sought a non-anthropocentric foundation. Rolston defended an objectivist account, Callicott developed a subjectivist alternative drawing on Hume and Leopold, and analytic work by O'Neill and others clarified the competing senses of the term.

Debates

Objectivism versus subjectivism about value: Rolston holds that natural value is mind-independent and discovered, whereas Callicott argues value is conferred by valuing subjects yet can still be directed at nature for its own sake; critics question whether either secures the conclusions environmentalists want.

Key figures

Holmes Rolston III
John O'Neill
J. Baird Callicott
Paul Taylor

Seminal works

rolston1988
callicott1989

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between intrinsic and instrumental value?: Something has instrumental value if it is valuable as a means to some further end; it has intrinsic value if it is valuable for its own sake. Environmental ethics asks whether nature has the latter.
Do you need to believe nature has intrinsic value to support conservation?: This is contested. Some argue intrinsic value provides the firmest basis for protection, while pragmatists hold that broad human-centered reasons can support conservation without it.