ABSTRACT
This chapter explores if it is possible to use the method of ethical naturalism to develop a more concrete understanding of value separate to its recognition. This builds on the conclusion of Chapter Six, that the different applications of critical realism to moral questions can be understood to have produced a synthesised theoretical model that has explanatory power with respect to the majority of the aspects of morality. The argument I advance is that if intrinsic value or worth is understood as a concept that refers to the specific properties that emerge from, but are not reducible to, relatively enduring structures and that have causal power with regard to the flourishing of structures then the understanding of morality that is found in the synthesised model is completed in a way that facilitates subsequent practical research. This is an account of worth that is consistent with Bhaskar and Collier, by seeing all aspects of reality as having some level of worth. And also aligns with Sayer, by explaining how some aspects of reality have intrinsic value, due to the relational properties of those specific aspects of reality with respect to human flourishing, within this overall wider understanding.
