Chapter 12: Intrinsic Value
I. Lounging
It was the first day of class for my Intrinsic Value seminar. I was in the Graduate Student Lounge, sitting on the desk just inside the door, dangling my feet over the edge, allowing the last few minutes before class to drift by.
One of my classmates came into the lounge and asked a question that I had been asking myself since I saw the class listed in the course roster. “How can we have a graduate student seminar on intrinsic value when there was no such thing as intrinsic value?”
We both shared the assumption that intrinsic value did not exist.
He thought that the professor was somebody who actually believed in intrinsic value. I, on the other hand, doubted that anybody at the level of college philosophy professor could hold such a belief. I thought that the class would either deal with the history of philosophy (classic philosophers and their views on intrinsic value), or use the term ‘intrinsic value’ in a sense that I was not fully familiar with.
It took me a long time to realize that some intelligent people still take the concept of intrinsic value seriously. This, in turn, caused me to question my assumption that such an idea was too absurd to be taken seriously.
II. A Problem with Intrinsic Value
Imagine a species of deer living in a forest with a diverse range of plants to eat. One of the species of grass was poisonous, and it killed off all of the members of that species of deer that liked its taste. Only those that disliked the taste of that particular species of grass remained.
Given the way the brain works, it is extremely likely that genetic underpinning for the dislike of this type of grass would have other effects on the structure of the brain. Perhaps the deer would acquire a distaste for a chemical in the species of poison grass (though not the poison, which remains tasteless). This chemical could exist in a few other species of harmless, nourishing grass, and the deer would end up leaving them alone as well. Given that these deer are not eating grass with that chemical, those grasses become more common. We end up with a forest of grasses that the deer do not like.
We can then introduce a second species of deer into our hypothetical forest. This species has a modification to its saliva glands so that it secretes a chemical that neutralizes this poison. These deer never develop a distaste for this particular type of grass. In fact, quite the opposite happens — not as a matter of evolutionary law but by accident. The very same signal that repels the first species of deer attracts this alternative species. What one species avoids, the other seeks out.
Now, for the sake of argument, let us assume that there is a property ‘out there’ that we can call ‘intrinsic value’. Certain states of affairs in nature emit ‘goodons’ or ‘badons’. Would we have evolved a faculty that would have allowed us to perceive these emissions? If so, then would it have included a component whereby we reacted appropriately to them, promoting the existence of goodon emitters and inhibiting the development of badon emitters?
These questions already assume that an impossible barrier has been cleared — the question of how entities that emit ‘I-ought-to-be-preserved’ (goodon) radiation or ‘I-ought-not-to-be-preserved’ (badon) radiation can even exist. It makes the equally unlikely assumption that we have a hidden faculty of goodon detection that allows us to distinguish these states and accurately measures their level of goodon emissions.
Even if we had an organ that functioned as a goodon/badon perceiver, it would have certainly been hijacked by evolutionary forces. If these goodon emissions existed, they would function much like the chemicals in the hypothetical grass and deer example above. There is no law of nature that dictates that goodon emissions must correspond to what promote human genetic replication. There is no logically necessary reason why the killing and eating of one’s own children might not be a goodon emitter. What is, and is not, a goodon emitter would be something to determine by experience (a posteriori), not as a matter of logical necessity (a priori).
Let us, then, assume, that our biological ancestors had an organ for detecting goodon emissions. Let us also assume the logically possible event that the killing and eating of one’s children is a goodon emitter. Third, let us assume that some of those ancestors were ‘defective’ in that, even though they had the organ for good detection, they had a perverse reaction that caused them to be repulsed by goodon emitters. As a result, they were repulsed by the thought of killing and eating their children, while those with properly tuned goodon receptors eagerly killed and ate their children.
Undoubtedly, we would be the descendants of these perverse ancestors, and revulsion to goodon emissions would become quite universal.
The problem that this raises for intrinsic value theory is that evolution gives us no way of knowing that we can perceive intrinsic value directly. We can know what we have evolved a disposition to like and dislike certain states of affairs, but those likes and dislikes are more likely molded by what brings about genetic replication. They are not likely influenced by some hypothetical goodon emissions and an organ to detect them.
Actually, consistent with the thesis that the simplest explanation is the best, we can return to the thesis that there are no goodon emitters. We evolved a tendency to like those things that, in liking them, our biological ancestors had offspring that, in turn, had more offspring. None of our values realize anything of ‘intrinsic’ merit.
Again, the strongest negative reaction I expect to this argument is one that suggests that killing and eating one’s own children cannot possibly be a goodon emitter (an intrinsic value). But, why not?
Male lions, when they take over a pride, kill off the cubs. The females go into season again, and the males impregnate them so that they can devote their energies to raising their own offspring. It is as reasonable to claim that the lions are reacting to an emission of goodons when they kill the cubs, as it is to say that we are reacting to such an emission when we condemn this type of action.
If there are goodon emitters, then they exist to be discovered by experience, and there is no way to determine in advance where we will find them. If intrinsic values exist, there is no way of ruling out a priori that killing and eating one’s child has intrinsic value. If intrinsic values exist, one still has to make a lot of entirely unwarranted assumptions to suggest that we have the capacity to perceive them correctly.
Intrinsic value theory simply has too many problems.
III. Misinterpretations Avoided
A. The Evolution of Value
When I mentioned this argument to one of my professors, he scoffed and made mumblings about the naturalistic fallacy and sent me off to do some research. That research involved looking at some articles expressing the views of sociobiolotists and some critiques of that particular way of thinking.
I came back with answers to his objections.
Evolutionary ethicists hold that morality consists of a group of evolved dispositions to be kind to strangers and to refrain from conflict because it was evolutionarily useful to do so. This professor assumed that I was arguing for some sort of evolutionary ethics.
Evolutionary ethics has a number of problems. Perhaps the greatest of these is its inability to cross the is/ought chasm. The evolutionary ethicist begins with all sorts of ‘is’ expressions about what is evolutionarily useful, and concludes with a set of ‘ought’ expressions, without once explaining how it derives ‘ought’ from ‘is’. It is a perfect target for Hume’s criticism.
The argument of the evolutionary ethicist would be no different than arguing that, “humans evolved to be bipedal, therefore humans ought to be bipedal,” or “humans can see in color therefore humans ought to be able to see in color.” In the case of ethics, the sociobiologists proclaim that we evolved certain dispositions — for example, to cooperate when we can and to fight when we must. These dispositions form the basis of our moral sentiments, and from these moral sentiments we derive what ought and ought not to be the case.
The moral philosopher says that the start of this is true; evolution had a great influence in shaping our desires. But, there is no logical justification from this to the claim that morality has any grounding in evolved sentiments. If we had a biological disposition to add “3 + 2” and get 6, the answer would still be wrong no matter how much evidence the sociobiologist comes up with showing that this is something that we evolved a disposition to do. Similarly, if we add “is” and “is” and get “ought” we are making a mistake, regardless of the sociobiolitist wants to believe.
My response to my professor was that, nowhere in my argument do I add “is” and “is” and get “ought”. I am using evolutionary theory as an argument that intrinsic values do not exist. I use evolution to show that even if such entities did exist, we have no reason to believe that we have evolved a faculty to perceive them correctly. In fact, this argument offers about the same criticism to the sociobiologist that the moral philosopher would offer. The “is” of evolving a disposition to sense value in something does not imply any sort of “oughtness” in that in which we sense value.
B. The Value of Evolution
I have also encountered another popular line of reasoning that links evolutionary success to value. This argument suggest that whatever makes a species evolutionarily successful is good; that which works against the evolutionary success of a species is bad.
This view does not work either. Effectively, it postulates that evolutionary success is some sort of goodon emitter, and evolutionary failure a badon emitter, such that the former is to be pursued and the latter avoided whenever possible. Ultimately, I will rely on the observation that there are no goodon and badon emitters.
Evolutionary success ethics leads to some very strange consequences when interpreted as a moral theory. Ultimately, it says that we ought to live every moment of our lives and base every choice on a single criterion, “Will this promote replication of my genetic code?”
One of the very first things my wife said to me, shortly after I asked her out for our first date, is that she could not have children. She thought I would see that as a reason not to commit to her. To the moral evolutionist, I should have seen it that way. With her, I would not be able to replicate my genes nearly as efficiently as I could with a fertile female. Concepts of kin selection (aiding replication of my genes by favoring those, such as nieces and nephews, who are genetically close to me) may offer a weak moral alternative. Yet, they still cannot be put forth as the best option and still pale in comparison to the alternative of finding a mate who can have children. The moral evolutionist says I should have said farewell to my future wife on the spot.
Promoting our genetic replication can even include killing off those who are genetically different, leaving more room and more resources for those who are genetically more closely related to us. These types of actions not only become permissible under an ethic of evolutionary success. They become obligatory.
People’s lives are filled with significant events that have nothing to do with replicating their own genes, from the enjoyment of listening to a comic to taking that extra slice of chocolate cake sitting in the kitchen.
Evolutionary success is not a goal of nature or of man. It is a side effect of pursuing those things that do have value, such as eating, sex, and freedom from pain. We are the descendants of those who, in seeking what they liked, happened to have children who happened to have their own children. Yet, it is always the “getting what one wants” that determined behavior, not evolutionary success.
C. Summary
There is, of course, a non-coincidental correlation between what we tend to see as having value and what gave our ancestors an evolutionary leg up on survival. We like high-calorie food because those of our ancestors who craved this food lived long enough to have children. That is as far as this argument can take us. Any attempt to go further goes beyond reason.
We can’t infer from the fact that we evolved to have certain values, that we ought to have those values and no others. As for those who argue that each of us should devote our lives entirely to our genetic success now (as opposed to pursuing that in which our we desire), I will hold that the radical change that this would demand in each of our lives speaks sufficiently against that option.
However, the mere fact that we are disposed to find value in that which served the evolutionary interests of our biological ancestors is all that I need to question the thesis that the universe holds intrinsic values. I do not need such entities as intrinsic value to explain anything about human desires. Even if intrinsic values existed, evolution may not allow us to sense them properly.
IV. Socrates, Plato, and Euthyphro
By this time in my college career, I had become familiar with Plato’s book EUTHYPHRO. In this famous book, centuries before the invention of Christianity, Plato had Socrates asking for moral guidance from a fellow Athenian citizen named Euthyphro.
To paraphrase, Socrates asked, “Is X good because it is loved by God? Or is X loved by God because it is good?”
A. X is good because it is loved by God.
Let us look at the first option. “X is good because it is loved by God.” If this is true, then it follows that if God happened to enjoy the torturing of young children, then this type of torture would be good. I am not here talking about some type of reluctant acceptance of torturing children, the way that Abraham reacted to the request to kill his infant son Isaac. I am talking about, “Hey, ma, get the kid ready! God said I can torture him!” would be a sign of great virtue.
“Sure, ma. Come along. Pack a lunch, just some bread and some condiments. We’ll have a barbeque!”
If God said, “Cheerfully barbeque your children; but do not kill them first, but let them die on the coals,” then those who tearfully barbequed their children (let alone those who refused to do so at all) would be evil, or would at least be tempted by evil, if they were tempted at all to let their child live.
All it would take is for God to say that he liked the idea. Furthermore, God has no reason not to like it, because he has no independent standard of “good” to appeal to in order to measure what He should like and should not like.
B. X is loved by God because it is good.
If we reject this option, then this leaves us with, “X is loved by God because it is good.” But, if this is true, than goodness is a standard that is independent of God, and God is not needed as a measure of value. God himself must look to this standard, whatever it may be, to decide what it is he should like and should not like.
If there is an independent standard that even God must submit to if God is to know the difference between good and evil, then man does not need to know about or believe in God to know what is good. Man, himself, can appeal to that independent standard — a standard that stands above and even governs the actions of God.
C. X is good if and only if it is loved by God.
One option that some people might advance is that God and goodness are interrelated that they cannot be separated. It is a part of the very essence of God that he is good, so God cannot possibly be the type of creature that enjoys the torturing of children. At the same time, goodness is tied into the nature of God in such a way that they cannot be separated. Thus, we cannot have goodness without God.
This type of close identity is actually nothing more than the sum of the two options listed above. Specifically, it says “X is good if and only if it is loved by God.” However, this is just the logician’s way of saying “X is good because it is loved by God AND X is loved by God because it is good.” However, if either part of the conjunction is proved false then the conjunction itself is also false. The proof against the first part of the conjunction can be found in the paragraphs above.
Logically, the argument takes the following form
1. (Loved by God <-> Good) -> (Loved by God -> Good) and (Good -> Loved by God)
2. not (Loved by God -> Good)
3. Therefore, not (Loved by God -> Good) and (Good -> Loved by God)
4. Therefore, not (Loved by God <-> Good)
D. Goodness Without God
In addition to omnibenevolence (perfectly good), God is also called omniscient (all knowing) and omnipotent (all powerful). ‘Degrees of power’ is a concept we easily understand without an appeal to God. We need only to watch any contest that nature makes available to us, we need only to look at our own power and compare it to our own wishes, and understand the concept of degrees of power. We need only to watch a child learn, and to witness our own struggles at discovery, to understand the concept of degrees of knowledge.
Accordingly, we only need to experience the fortunes of the people around us, and to suffer our own defeats and enjoy our own successes, to understand the concept of degrees of goodness.
I do not need to believe in God to know not to put my hand on a hot stove. I do not need to believe in God to know that it is better to eat cereal in the morning rather than shoe leather. And I do not need to believe in God to know that I am better off in a society where people help each other rather than a society where people hurt each other.
E. Summary
Even if God exists, goodness, like knowledge and power, is a standard that exists very much independent of God. We may apply it to God, but even God must be governed by it. This does not argue for imposing any limits on God, because a good person chooses to do good. We do not say that a good God lacks the power to do evil, only that he lacks the will to do so.
In the examination of intrinsic value, nearly two and a half millennia ago Plato taught us that intrinsic merit is not that which is loved by God. Rather, God loves that which has intrinsic merit, if He exists at all, and if He really is benevolent. We still need to find out what intrinsic value is. Socrates did not get his answer from Euthyphro. We are still waiting.
Whatever intrinsic value is, if it exists, it is not something created by religion, but something which even religion must be held accountable to.
V. Aristotle
Aristotle, in the book NICOMACEAN ETHICS, investigates the question of intrinsic value by distinguishing between things we value as means, and things we value as ends. He put the distinction as follows:
If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that rate the process would go on to infinity, so that our desire would be empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good.
Only, he said it in Greek.
A. For the Sake of Aristotle
This distinction between “desire for its own sake” and “desired for the sake of those things desired for their own sake” is commonly described as the distinction between intrinsic value and instrumental value.
However, describing the distinction in these terms begs some very important questions.
If we use “intrinsic value” as another way of saying “desired for its own sake”, we create an opportunity for a great deal of confusion. If something is “desired for its own sake”, then its value still depends on the desire. Eliminate the desire, and you eliminate the value of that which is the object of the desire. However, the desire itself is not intrinsic to that which is being evaluated — it is extrinsic. The desire and the state that is desired are two distinct and separate things. So, it would seem to make more sense to categorize “desired for its own sake” as a type of extrinsic value, rather than call it “intrinsic value”.
Some may protest that if something is valued for the sake of the desire, then it is not yet valued for its own sake. Under this objection, it makes no sense to say that something is desired for its own sake as long as there remains something outside of it, something extrinsic, for the sake of which it has value.
Let me clarify with an example. A person desires to have chocolate ice-cream. He knows that the effects (weight gain, cholesterol) are not good for him, yet he wants the chocolate ice cream in spite of its ill effects. Should we say that the person desires the chocolate ice cream for its own sake? Or should we say that the chocolate ice-cream is desired for the sake of fulfilling the desire? In other words, is eating the chocolate ice-cream an ‘end’ in the Aristotelian sense, or a ‘means’ for achieving the ‘end’ of desire fulfillment?
To answer this question, we have to examine the phrase “for the sake of.” Something can exist “because of” or “on account of” something else without existing “for the sake of” something else. Water flows down hill “because of” the working of gravity, but water does not flow down hill “for the sake of” gravity. In the same way, something can have value because it is desired for its own sake, without its having value for the sake of the desire.
To argue against the idea that the person values the ice-cream for the sake of fulfilling a desire, I would like to note that my cat also likes chocolate ice-cream. I do not let him have any, because I have heard that it is not good for him, but the efforts I must go through to keep him away from me while I eat it suggests it is something that he wants very much.
Now, let’s apply these two sets of concepts to my cat. One set of concepts says, simply, that the cat likes (wants, desires) chocolate ice-cream. This is the set that is best described by the phrase, “He desires the chocolate ice-cream for its own sake.” The other set of concepts says that the cat is seeking desire-fulfillment and recognizes that eating chocolate ice-cream is a useful means (or tool) for achieving this other, further end of desire-fulfillment.
Of the two options, I would argue that the latter over-intellectualizes the situation. The cat, as he waits for my attention to wane so he can pounce on my ice-cream, is not thinking, “Well, yes, I can see how that can be useful.” He is thinking, “I have got to get me some of that stuff”. He desires eating the chocolate ice-cream for its own sake, not for the sake of some further end.
B. End over Ends
Aristotle also wrote, in the quote given above, about “some end” and “the chief good” as if there can be only one final end.
Actually, Aristotle goes back and forth on this issue, at times writing as if there were only one ultimate end towards which everything else ultimately aims, and at other times writing about multiple ends as when he writes, “These, then, are the ends at which our inquiry aims.”
I simply want to point out that there is no foregone conclusion that human action can only aim toward one ultimate end. Like the physical forces acting on an object in space, we may be pulled my many (sometimes conflicting) desires at the same time. We may be torn between the suffering of personal pain and a concern for the well being of a son or daughter. Loyalty may stand in the way of personal comfort.
Ultimately, Aristotle does identify a single end for all human action. This is roughly translated as ‘happiness’, though this is a very rough translation indeed. Ancient Greek ‘eudaemonea’ is not simply the emotional state of glee. It includes “living well and doing well.” It is a state of being self-confident and secure, and in good standing in one’s community.
VI. The Hedonists
Everything that anybody ever does, they do for the sake of obtaining pleasure, or avoiding pain, or a combination of both to the maximum degree possible, or so the hedonist thinks.
This was the view of Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism (though elements of this view are clearly found in the writings of David Hume a few decades earlier). Some utilitarians substitute “happiness” and “unhappiness” for “pleasure” and “pain”, but they tend to mean by this the psychological state of joy, rather than the calm contentment of Aristotle’s eudaemonea.
For the purposes of this section, the distinction between Benthamite “pleasure/pain” and Aristotelian “eudaemonea” will not be relevant.
Aristotle and the hedonists offer these not only as accounts of the way the world should be, but as a way the world is. Aristotle was looking at the ultimate end of actions in fact, though he admitted that people often miss the mark and obtain less eudaemonistic contentment than they would otherwise obtain. Hedonists offer their pleasure/pain or joy/sorrow theory not only as an account of what people should do, but as an account of what people do in fact. Or, at least, what people are always trying to do in fact, with different degrees of success.
One may object that these views confuse “is” with “ought”; there is a distinction between what people do and what they should do. Any evidence to the effect that humans seek pleasure and the absence of pain, or joy and the absence of sorrow, is not evidence that they ought to. Consequently, these psychological theories leave the moral question unanswered.
Yet, two answers can be given to this objection. I offered the first answer already in discussing utilitarianism and the advantages of thinking of rules as etched into the brain and not open to exceptions. I pointed out that “ought” implies “can”, and “cannot” implies “it is not the case that one ought.”
Using “ought” implies “can”, it makes no sense to assert that a person ought to do something that the psychological laws dictate cannot be done. It might be possible to conceive of a case where a person ought to do something contrary to what these psychological rules may allow, just as we might imagine a case where a person has an obligation to negate gravity for a short while in order to float across a canyon. However, these imaginings have no relevance in the real world.
The second answer is to suggest a sensible distinction between “is” and “ought”. We “ought” to select that option that most maximizes our pleasure and minimizes our pain — or that leads to the greatest happiness over the least sorrow. Yet, we do not always choose the best option. That is to say, there is often a clear distinction between the option that the agent thinks will bring the greatest pleasure/least pain, and what will in fact give him the greatest pleasure and the least pain. Thus, we can preserve a distinction between what the agent does and what the agent should do. We still have a reasonable is/ought distinction even within the confines of psychological hedonism.
Neither of these defenses are necessary, of course, if Aristotelian eudaemonism, or the pain/pleasure or joy/sorrow version of hedonism can be proved false.
I already gave that proof in Chapter 2. There, I spoke of a case where a person is captured and given a choice among two options. One option is to suffer the false belief that one’s child is being tortured when the child is in fact happy. The other is to enjoy the false belief one’s child is living a happy life when the child is in fact being tortured.
Aristotelian eudaemonism and versions of hedonism predict that people will take the second option. They need to explain why most people in fact express a preference for the first option.
So, we can do away with psychological hedonism and psychological eudaemonism, and with that the value theories that depend on these types accounts. With it, we can do away with the idea that pleasure and freedom from pain are the sole bearers of intrinsic value, and that intrinsic value, if it exists at all, exists in things other than happiness and the absence of sorrow.
VII. G.E. Moore’s Preferred World
Near the turn of the century, British philosopher G.E. Moore asked his readers to imagine two different worlds. One was a beautiful world, and the other was disgusting and putrid. He asked us which would we prefer to have exist even if nobody were around to experience it.
In my mind, when I imagined a beautiful world, I imagined a planet with lush green meadows and clear blue sky, with tall trees waving gently in the wind, and the term “hay-fever” was as much a fantasy villain as “the boogey man”. When I imagined the ugly world, I imagined a world with mountains of excrement and oceans of sewage; dark, ominous, filled with bugs and slime.
Moore was right. If I had to pick one that would continue to exist even if it was never experienced, I would pick the beautiful world.
This is no different from the imprisoned parent example given above. That example showed how the well-being of the child had value to the parent even beyond the parent’s ability to experience it. Like the imprisoned family example, this example creates a problem for those who hold that the experience of pleasure over pain, or happiness over sorrow, is the sole criterion of value. But it does not provide a defense of intrinsic value.
I immediately imagined the same question that Moore was asking me being asked to an intelligent species of housefly or dung beetle. As Moore asked the question, the dung beetle would probably agree that he, too, would rather have the beautiful world persist in his absence than the ugly world.
However, when asked which world was which, the intelligent dung beetle would almost certainly not point to the same world that Moore or I would point to. The dung beetle and I would be using the same words in answering the question, but we are not in fact giving the same answer.
Moore’s test for intrinsic value gives us different answers for different people. This suggests that it offers us no evidence of intrinsic value — no evidence of any value that exists independent of the desires of the perceiver.
VIII. Beauty, health, murder, and other question-begging value terms.
Part of the problem with G.E. Moore’s argument is that he used the word “beautiful” in trying to describe an intrinsic good. “Beauty” is a value-laden term; goodness of some type is built into the meaning of the term. As a result, asking the question, “Is beauty good?” a bit like asking, “Is a circle round?”
The more meaningful question to ask would be, “Is X beautiful?” This question can further be broken down into two elements, “What is beauty?” and “Does X have those qualities?” Once we start asking questions such as “what is beauty?” we can start to see the problems that evolution raises for the idea of intrinsic value.
Our concept of “beauty” is going to be heavily influenced by evolutionary forces — we are going to be disposed to see beauty in those things that are useful for our genetic replication. Unless intrinsic value is also linked to what is useful for human genetic replication (as opposed to the genetic replication of the dung beetle), evolution is unlikely to give us a sense of intrinsic value.
The same type of objection applies to those who hold up “health” as an intrinsic value. Health is also a value-laden term; part of what it means to “be healthy” is for one’s physical and mental processes to be functioning well. The correct question to ask in the field of health and sickness is not, “Is health good and sickness bad?” but, “Is X a component of good health?” and “Is Y an illness?”
A third example of how the inability to recognize value-laden language clutters a discussion rests with those who try to defend ‘murder is wrong’ as some sort of moral absolute. By definition, murder is wrongful killing — any killing that is not wrongful is not murder. The statement ‘murder is wrong’ simply says, ‘wrongful killing is wrong’ — which, of course, is a tautology.
Again, if we want to discuss the universal nature of the wrongness of murder, we have to focus on the question, “Is X murder?” with its components, “What is murder?” and “Does X have the qualities that would qualify it as murder?”
Our language is filled with value-laden terminology. In all of these cases, it makes no sense to ask, “Is X good/bad?” because goodness and badness are written into the meanings of the terms. “Is virtue good?” “Are dangerous things potentially bad for you?” These are not meaningful questions.
Admittedly, I have most often seen these tautological claims offered as if they held some significance when some demagogue is seeking to sway a crowd to adopt his favorite prejudice. For example, rather than debating whether homosexuality is a sickness, conservatives make the assumption that it is a sickness and accuse their opponents of saying that “sickness is good”. But, of course, “sickness is good” is a nonsense claim, the opponents of the thesis that homosexuality is a sickness are then cast as people uttering absurdities. This allows the political demagogue to score points with listeners who are only partially paying attention.
However, I also encounter these claims in genuine debates about the nature of value. For example, the universal acceptance of ‘murder is wrong” is said to provide proof of a universal ethic. In fact, the only thing it provides evidence of is the proposition that ‘wrongful killing is not wrongful killing’ does not make any sense in any language. It implies no universal agreement on what types of killing are wrong.
IX. Kant’s Categorical Imperative
Thinking back on my college days, I do not remember if we discussed Kant’s metaphysics of morals in my intrinsic value class, or in any class for that matter. I do remember deciding to dedicate a Saturday to the project of understanding it. I let myself in to the philosophy building, went to the Graduate Student office in the basement of the Skinner Building, put a chair on top of the desk (so that I could read and write my notes while standing — a habit of mine), and spent the next ten hours going through a 60-page translation.
Kant divided up the world of ‘should’ into two types of statements. He called the most common type of ‘should’ statement a ‘hypothetical imperative.’ ‘Hypothetical’ means that it takes the form of an if-then clause; hypothetical imperatives aim at realizing something outside themselves.
Take, for example, the statement, “If you want to tape that program, then you should start setting up the VCR.” The ‘should’ within the ‘then’ part of the statement gets its authority from the truth of whatever is contained in the ‘if’ part of the statement. If you do not want to tape that program, then perhaps you should not start setting up the VCR. The word ‘perhaps’ is used because you might have some other reason to set up the VCR (to test it before giving it to your friend). Yet, that ‘should,’ like this one, is still ‘if’ dependent.
Categorical imperatives are independent of any conditions. Think of the statement, ‘I categorically deny that I ever laid eyes on that person before,’ to give an idea of what this means. Categorical imperatives are unequivocal, independent imperatives. A categorical ‘should’ does not aim at fulfilling a desire or at any other external end. It simply is.
When I read this, I found that the best understanding I could put to Kant’s argument came from thinking about beliefs. If one person believes that X is all red, and also believes that X is not all red, he contradicts himself. It is not possible for X to be both all red and not all red. Beliefs should not contradict each other.
This ‘should’ is a categorical imperative. There is no ‘if’ statement associated with this should. It is not the case that under one set of hypothetical conditions beliefs should contradict each other and under a different set of conditions they should not — and we happen to be working under those conditions where they should not. This ‘should’ is unequivocal and independent of conditions.
Moral imperatives, Kant argued, are categorical imperatives. They are not conditional upon happiness or desire, they are instead moral equivalents to the belief’s principle of non-contradiction.
In fact, one of Kant’s formulations of his moral categorical imperatives is very much like belief’s non-contradiction principle. “Always act on that maxim that you can, at the same time, will to be a universal law.” If you wish to lie to get an advantage, then imagine what would happen if everybody lied to gain an advantage. Imagine a society in which, “anyone may lie whenever it offers them an advantage’ was a universal moral principle. Doing so will put you at an extreme disadvantage. A moral ‘principle of noncontradiction’ then says the proper maxim for your action is to never lie. “You should not lie’ is a moral categorical imperative.
One question that immediately rises up against Kant is the question, “What is the maxim of my action?” What if I was living in NAZI Germany in 1940, and somebody asked me, “Would you hide Jews in your attic to keep them from the Nazis?” My answer is, “Of course.” What is my maxim? “Never lie except when it is useful to protect Jews from Nazis?” How about “Always lie to Nazis?” Perhaps my maxim is, “Always lie about the presence of Jews in the attic.”
More importantly, Kant’s theory does not seem to handle most of our every-day lives. I am sitting on a bus writing a philosophical essay. Can I will it to be a universal maxim that everybody be sitting on a bus writing a philosophical essay? No. For one thing, we can’t all fit in this particular seat. For another, if I included the bus driver in that option, it would make it difficult to drive the bus. If we cannot will my act of sitting on the bus writing the essay to be a universal law, then is it wrong?
X. Conclusion
As I studied these different theories of intrinsic value, they all broke apart on the same rocky shoals. Evolution would have distorted our ability to sense intrinsic value, twisting our senses so that we tended to desire that which was useful to our genetic replication, and had aversions to that which threatened our genetic replication.
In addition, there was more than one set of desires that would have been evolutionarily successful. We can see this by looking at the wide variety of life forms in the world and the things they desire. Elk spray themselves with their own urine, dung beetles fill their homes with manure, rabbits eat their feces, birds eat bugs and no doubt find them tasty, cats hate water while otters and beavers love water, male lions kill the cubs fathered by unrelated male lions, and a female mantis decapitates its mate during sex and eats him.
All of these options represent alternative “values” that humans could have adopted. There is no reason to believe that we, alone, acquired a capacity to sense ‘intrinsic’ values and all other forms of life got it wrong. Rather, we have one set of values among what is perhaps an infinitely long list of possible value sets. Even among humans, we are not all alike, and no reason to believe we should be.
Whatever values exist in the world, intrinsic values are not among them.
So, what values do exist?