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Intrinsic Value Will the Defenders of Nature Please Rise by ARNE NAESS

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Intrinsic Value Will the Defenders of Nature Please Rise by ARNE NAESS ARNE NAESS Intrinsic Value Will the Defenders of Nature Please Rise BY ARNE NAESS he venerable German philosopher Immanuel agree with you. The rational solution of value conflicts is Kant insisted that we never use a human being not something that is impossible to achieve. merely as a means to an end. But why should But what is intrinsic value? T this philosophy apply only to human beings? Expressions such as “this should be preserved for Are there not other beings with intrinsic value? What its own sake” are very common: but pseudoscientific about animals, plants, landscapes, and our very special philosophers and scientists find them objectionable old planet as a whole? when they are applied to natural phenomena. They I hope you all answer yes. Is it my privilege as a phi- insist that there must be a being valuing things—that losopher to announce what is of intrinsic value, whereas is, there must be humans in the picture. In a sense this scientists, as such, must stick to theories and observa- is true. Theories of value, like theories of gravity and tions? No, it is not—because you are not scientists as rules of logical or methodological inferences, are hu- such; you are autonomous, unique persons, with obliga- man products. But this does not rule out the possibil- tions to announce what has intrinsic value without any ity of truth or correctness. The positions in philosophy cowardly subclass saying that it is just your subjective often referred to as “value nihilism” and “subjectivity opinion or feeling. On the other hand, it does not fol- of value” reject the concept of valid norms. Other posi- low that you are entitled to “beat up on” those who dis- tions accept the concept. I accept it. Reference to original publication: Naess, A. (1993). Intrinsic value: Will the defenders of nature please rise. In P. Reed & D. Rothenberg (Eds.), Wisdom in the Open Air (pp. 70–82). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. This article is based on a keynote address at the 2nd International conference on conservation biology, Univ. of Michigan, May 1985, and was first published in M. Soulé (Ed.), (1985).Conservation Biology: The Science of Scarcity and Diversity. Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Associates. Permission for publication on OpenAirPhilosophy generously granted by the University of Minnesota Press and editor David Rothenberg. PHOTO ABOVE: JØRN MOEN The world of experience is the only world with as we may use the expression “for our own sake” in a which we are firmly acquainted. The world as spon- very abstract way. But everyday use of the expression taneously experienced, including appropriateness and is also legitimate. We undertake a hike for the sake of truth, cannot be denounced as less real than that of ourselves and our dog, but sometimes, in bad weather scientific theory, because we always ultimately refer to and having pressing things to do, we take the dog for a the immediate reality. Recent developments in physics walk for its own sake. There are cases of doubt, but to substantiate the primacy of immediate experience. As announce that we do everything for our own sake, that long as atoms were conceived of as small, hard things, is, that we, each of us, are the sole intrinsic value, is physical reality could be conceived of as the real world. plain rubbish from a semantic point of view. In short, Recent developments in quantum theory, however, of- the argument against the possibility of doing things for fer us a picture so abstract, so mathematical, that it the sake of others is untenable. is reasonable to see it as furnishing only the abstract Spontaneous value experience is something to be structure and outline of the real world, not its content. conveyed to others even in our capacity as scientists. Color hues are real in their own way, just as electro- What we feel spontaneously has weight when we de- magnetic “waves” are real in their function as abstract cide how to act, for instance, in regard to conservation entities. We experience good old friends as values in policies. And the public and politicians should know themselves on a par with ourselves, and we do things what carries weight for biologists. for their sakes as naturally as for our own. Our friends Let me mention a rather touching sentence I may be useful to us, but that is not all. Why shouldn’t found in a standard handbook of how to treat our do- this also apply to living beings other than humans? We mestic animals. It was extensively used in the 1920s are forced by modern science back to nature, basically and 1930s. The author talks about caressing pigs. The as the earlier naturalists conceived it. And it is, in its sentence reads approximately like this: “Those who essential features, worth protecting for its own sake. have experienced the satisfaction of pigs stroked in this The position that nothing in the natural world has way cannot but do it.” How can the author experience intrinsic value, that the whole conservation movement the satisfaction of a pig? The question is badly posed. is motivated only by narrow utilitarian aims centered It assumes a cleavage between the human subject and on human health and prosperity, corrodes in the long animal object. Actually such a cleavage does not be- run the public image of the movement. Highly dedi- long to spontaneous experience, and should not be cated persons who cannot help but work for conserva- introduced in order to make the sentence more scien- tion and for whom it is a vital need to live with nature tific. Much that passes for objectivity in scientific talk are confused by what they take to be the utter cynicism is really pseudoscientific and renders the language of of scientists and experts who use purely utilitarian, flat scientists gray and flat! language in their assessment of environmental risks, The quoted sentence is instructive in another way. “genetic resources,” and extinction. These experts are The last part, about compulsion, is marvelous: “Those often seen as traitors. who have experienced the satisfaction of pigs stroked There is an important philosophical argument in this way cannot but do it.” The farmer may say to against talking about protecting natural entities for himself, “Dear pig, I don‘t have time to stroke you to- their own sake. Is there not always, in any sort of valua- day,” but in vain. He just goes on stroking the pig. tion, a human subject that projects value into an object? Here also a so-called scientific textbook writer would Therefore, is not everything we do basically something object: of course the farmer can refrain from stroking we do for our own sake? I may answer “yes” insofar the pig. 2 OpenAirPhilosophy.org | Intrinsic Value: Will the Defenders of Nature Please Rise Of less importance but perhaps worth mentioning identification.[1] We tend to see ourselves in everything is the way the sentence reminds us that when we talk alive. As scientists we observe the death struggle of an about technical progress in the agricultural sector, we insect, but as mature human beings we spontaneously do not include techniques for caressing. Why? Better also experience our own death in a way, and feel senti- to be incomplete than to be accused of being senti- ments that relate to struggle, pain, and death. Spon- mental or unscientific. taneous identification is of course most obvious when Back to Immanuel Kant and the use of a human we react to the pain of persons we love. We do not being merely as a means to an end. What makes possi- observe that pain and by reflecting on it decide that it ble a vivid experience of intrinsic value corresponding is bad. What goes on is difficult to describe; it is a task to a vastly generalized Kantian maxim? In short, what of philosophical phenomenology to try to do the job. makes intense personal appreciation of diversity of life Here it may be sufficient to give some examples of the forms and the whole ecosphere possible? process of identification, or “seeing oneself in others.” There is one process that perhaps is more important A complete report on the death struggle of an insect as in this respect than any other: the process of so-called some of us experience such an event must include the positive and negative values that are attached to the event as firmly as the duration, the movements, and the colors involved. There is nothing unduly romantic or poetic here. Given our biological endowment, each of us has the capacity to identify with all living beings. In addition, given the physiological, psychological, and social basis of gestalt perception and apperception, humans have the capacity to experience the intimate relations be- tween organisms and the inorganic world—that is, be- tween the biosphere and the ecosphere in general. So we have natural expressions such as “living landscapes” and “the living planet.” There is nothing here that goes against the scientific attitude. I take it therefore to be an empirically testable hy- pothesis that the attainment of well-rounded human maturity leads to identification with all life forms in a wide sense of “life” and including the acknowledgment of the intrinsic value of these forms. The process of maturation is here conceived as something different from the mere learning of new skills. It encompasses the realization of different kinds of capabilities inher- ent in human nature. These capabilities are not nec- essarily related to increasing one‘s biological fitness. PHOTO: JØRN MOEN 1.
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