ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the critiques and explains what problems the critics have claimed that the concept of intrinsic value brings with it. It considers the various conceptions of intrinsic value invoked by environmental ethicists and outlines the differences among them. The chapter focuses on one of these conceptions and considers how damaging the criticisms are to it. There are many different views about what intrinsic value is, and the differences among them have made it difficult to judge the success or even the intended target of some of contemporary critics. Bryan Norton claims that believing in intrinsic value involves believing that value can exist “prior to human conceptualization, prior to any worldview.” Norton worries that insisting on intrinsic value claims will make specialists in other fields uninterested in what environmental ethicists have to say, since one of the grounding assumptions of these fields is that all value is value-to- humans.
