ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the writings of environmental philosophers, and have placed these to some extent in a wider historical context. The problems described in this chapter have raised questions about how to ground intrinsic moral value in properties that natural things and systems are thought to possess. On the hierarchic conception, intrinsic value comes in degrees, so it is possible for some things to be higher in intrinsic value than others. According to the egalitarian model, however, such value must be spread equally across a given group. Descriptive properties are those that can in principle be detected by naturalistic means. The hierarchic model of value distribution therefore seems to require that Regan allocate different degrees of value to higher and lower animals. Taylors biocentrism implies that each living thing is just as inherently worthy as any other. A more recent answer from Enlightenment philosophy is that it comes from humanity understood as rational agency or autonomy.
