Rolston and Hettinger
“[A]xiologically speaking, nature is always in the dark—unless and
until humans come.”
“The anthropogenic view values nature only in association with human participation. This leaves us with an uneasy concern that, however generously we may come to care for some nonhuman others, since it is only we who can place value anywhere, since it is only our own values that we can attend to or know about, humans really do remain at the center of concern. Their concern is all that matters, and it is not always going to be easy to get up concern for animals, plants, species, or ecosystems that really don’t matter in themselves….”
Anthropocentrism: Nature (nonhuman nature) has value only insofar as it has instrumental value for human beings.
Subjectivism: x is intrinsically valuable iff x is intrinsically valued by someone.
The Valuing Argument for Anthropocentrism:
1. There can be no value without a valuer. (Subjectivism)
2. If (1), then there can be no value without human beings.
3. If there can be no value without human beings, then anthropocentrism is true.
4. Therefore, anthropocentrism is true.
“Animals can value on their own, provided that they have preferences that can be satisfied or frustrated.”
“[W]hen we run out of psychological experience, value is over.”
Sentiocentrism: Nature (nonsentient nature) has value only insofar as it has instrumental value for sentient beings.
The Subject of Experience Argument for Sentiocentrism
1. There can be no value without a subject of conscious experience.
2. If (1), then there can be no value without sentient entities.
3. If there can be no value without sentient entities, then sentiocentrism is true.
4. Therefore, sentiocentrism is true.
“There is praise for the dragonfly wings in the Carboniferous, coming
from the scientists who study them. What is a philosopher to say? ‘Well,
those are interesting wings to the scientists who study them, but they were
of no value to the dragonflies.’ That seems implausible.”
“A plant is a spontaneous, self-maintaining system, sustaining and reproducing itself, executing its program, making a way through the world, checking against performance by means of responsive capacities with which to measure success. Something more that merely physical causes, even when less that sentience, is operating within every organism. There is information. … In such information lies the secret of nature.”
“We ask, of a failing tree, What’s the matter with that tree? If it is lacking sunshine and soil nutrients, and we arrange for these, we say, The tree is benefiting from them; and benefit is—everywhere else we encounter it—a value word.”
“Is a philosopher still going to insist: Well, all this inventiveness, strategy, remarkable efficiency, wisdom of the genes, exquisite organization to accomplish delicate tasks, and crucial discoveries in evolution to the contrary, there is nothing of value here? Maybe it is time to face up to a crisis?”
“[T]here is value wherever there is positive creativity. While such creativity can be present in subjects with their interests and preferences, it can also be present objectively in living organisms with their lives defended, and in species that defend an identity over time, and in systems that are self-organizing and that project storied achievements.”
Biocentrism: Some non-sentient natural things have intrinsic value.
Rolston’s Argument for Biocentrism:
“One of the most intuitively powerful arguments Rolston presents for nonanthropogenic value in nature is that it is arrogant to think that for hundreds of millions of years flourishing nature on Earth was actually valueless and then became valuable when humans arrived to bestow value on it. If all value depends on conscious human valuing, Roston suggests we would not be able to say that the earth in the age of the early dragonflies was of any actual [intrinsic] value. And this is something that most of want to say.”
The “Last Person” Argument for Biocentrism: