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Life's intrinsic value ; science, ethics, and nature / Nicholas Agar.
LIBRA GE42 .A38 2001
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Agar, Nicholas.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Environmental ethics.
- Philosophy of nature.
- Physical Description:
- x, 200 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Columbia University Press, [2001]
- Summary:
- Are bacteriophage T4 and the long-nosed elephant fish valuable in their own right? 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 analyzes and speaks to a wide array of historic and contemporary views, from Aristotle and Kant, to E. O. Wilson, Holmes Rolston II, and Baird Callicot. The result is a challenge to prevailing definitions of value and a call for a scientifically-informed appreciation of nature.
- Contents:
- 1. The Psychological View of Intrinsic Value 1
- Life on Mars, Life on Earth 1
- Defining Intrinsic Value? 7
- Why Are Humans Morally Special? 14
- 2. Science's Bridge from Nature to Value 19
- Scientific Facts and Values 19
- The Limits of Ethical Extensionism 24
- Beyond Ethical Extensionism? 30
- 3. Overlapping Kinds and Value 41
- Two Types of Natural Kind Overlap 41
- What to Do About Kind Overlaps 48
- Descriptive Overlaps and Morality 52
- Combining Descriptive and Metaphysical Kind Overlaps to Unearth Environmental Value 58
- 4. Recent Defenses of Biocentrism 63
- The Value of Life 63
- An Ethic to Live by? 78
- 5. A Morally Specialized Account of Life 87
- Commonsense and Customized Accounts of Life 87
- A Biofunctional Explanation of Self-Movement 90
- Why the Representationally Alive Are Morally Important 94
- Other- and Self-Directed Goals 97
- 6. The Contents of Biopreferences 101
- The Teleological Account of Content 101
- The Threat of Genic Selectionism 107
- Sentience and Goals 120
- 7. Species and Ecosystems 129
- The Shortcomings of Individualism 129
- Environmental Value Holism 132
- Individualistic Ethics of Species and Ecosystems 145
- 8. An Impossible Ethic? 153
- Biocentrism, Consequentialism, and Cognitive Tractability 153
- Does Life Value Leave Room for Human Lives? 159.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-190) and index.
- ISBN:
- 0231117868
- 0231117876
- OCLC:
- 45223520
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