Life's Intrinsic Value Science, Ethics, and Nature

Name: Life's Intrinsic Value Science, Ethics, and Nature
Price: 3.57 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780231117876

ISBN-10: 0231117876

ISBN-13: 9780231117876

Edition: 2001

Authors: Nicholas Agar

List price: $42.00

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Are bacteriophage T4 and the long-nosed elephant fish valuable in their own right? Nicholas Agar defends an affirmative answer to this question by arguing that anything living is intrinsically valuable. This claim challenges received ethical wisdom according to which only human beings are valuable in themselves. The resulting biocentric or life-centered morality forms the platform for an ethic of the environment. Agar builds a bridge between the biological sciences and what he calls "folk" morality to arrive at a workable environmental ethic and a new spectrum -- a new hierarchy -- of living organisms. The book overturns common-sense moral belief as well as centuries of philosophical…

Book details

List price: $42.00
Copyright year: 2001
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication date: 5/7/2001
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 192
Size: 0.66" wide x 0.91" long x 0.05" tall
Weight: 0.682
Language: English



Acknowledgments


Preface



The Psychological View of Intrinsic Value


Life on Mars, Life on Earth


Defining Intrinsic Value?


Why Are Humans Morally Special?



Science's Bridge from Nature to Value


Scientific Facts and Values


The Limits of Ethical Extensionism


Beyond Ethical Extensionism?



Overlapping Kinds and Value


Two Types of Natural Kind Overlap


What to Do About Kind Overlaps


Descriptive Overlaps and Morality


Combining Descriptive and Metaphysical Kind Overlaps to Unearth Environmental Value



Recent Defenses of Biocentrism


The Value of Life


An Ethic to Live by?



A Morally Specialized Account of Life


Commonsense and Customized Accounts of Life


A Biofunctional Explanation of Self-Movement


Why the Representationally Alive Are Morally Important


Other- and Self-Directed Goals



The Contents of Biopreferences


The Teleological Account of Content


The Threat of Genic Selectionism


Sentience and Goals



Species and Ecosystems


The Shortcomings of Individualism


Environmental Value Holism


Individualistic Ethics of Species and Ecosystems



An Impossible Ethic?


Biocentrism, Consequentialism, and Cognitive Tractability


Does Life Value Leave Room for Human Lives?


Notes


References


Index