Intrinsic Value or Relative Value?

[Bill3000]

I believe in preservation of flora and fauna as well as art, literature, language and architecture unique to our countries (especially western countries).

...huh? How are the cultures of non-western countries any less deserving in preservation?

 

[Bast]

...huh? How are the cultures of non-western countries any less deserving in preservation?

That's a matter of opinion and I don't have to answer that question. I live in a western country and I'm talking from that perspective. I strongly believe we should preserve our cultural and environmental heritage.

 

[Guangxi]

mostly relative. my position is similar to Perfection`s [or at least what i think it is based on his posts in this thread].

 

[Masquerouge]

Some non-human things have a completely relative value when they have an impact on our own survival. Like the environment.
Other non-human things have a intrinsic value, that is often zero, when we're completely independent from them.
The intrinsic value of something is often tied to its degree of consciousness and since this is something we're having a lot of trouble evaluating, a lot of things have hazy intrinsic values (monkeys, dolphins, dogs, etc.)

 

[Bill3000]

That's a matter of opinion and I don't have to answer that question. I live in a western country and I'm talking from that perspective. I strongly believe we should preserve our cultural and environmental heritage.

Except the problem is that you are going under the presumption that culture has an intrinsic value - but you explicitly stated this for only western countries.

Would you admit that non-western countries should preserve their cultural heritages, then?

 

[WillJ]

Like other people, I'm confused about what exactly "useful" is supposed to mean. In fact, maybe this confusion is the one and only reason people haven't all voted for the same option.

If we're talking about utility in the sense that philosophers and economists talk about it (in which it is a very abstract concept), then the question makes no sense. After all, I am a human being. Whatever things I may value, I value them only insofar as a human being can value them; the value is "relative" to how much "utility" (that abstract concept) they bring me. So in this technical sense, saying that something has "intrinsic value" is absurd. Value is entirely relative (matter cannot have "value" inherently tied into it in the same sense that it has "mass")---but like Mise said, this is just a truism.

But then there's the more common meaning of "useful." For one reason or another, most people think of factories and cars and cell phones as "useful," but not paintings, music, etc. I don't like this way of thinking, as often it leads people into valuing production and exchange and consumerism for their own sake, forgetting that they are only means to an end. But at any rate, if this is what Prince_Imrahil meant by "useful," then the question actually makes sense, because it's basically asking us if we value the environment at least partly in the same way that we value a great piece of music, as well as if we value animals' lives in the same way that we value the lives of other people. If that's what's being asked, then yes, in my opinion the environment, animals (at least the more sentient ones), etc. have some "intrinsic value" (as well as, of course, being "useful").

 

[Brighteye]

Except the problem is that you are going under the presumption that culture has an intrinsic value - but you explicitly stated this for only western countries.

Would you admit that non-western countries should preserve their cultural heritages, then?

I don't know about his opinion, but I'd say that's entirely their business. They can if they want, but I certainly want my country to make an effort to preserve my culture, and to a lesser extent related cultures.