Life's intrinsic value ; science, ethics, and nature

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Title:

Author:

Agar, Nicholas.

ISBN:

9780231117876

9780231117869

Personal Author:

Agar, Nicholas.

Publication Information:

New York : Columbia University Press, 2001.

Physical Description:

x, 200 p. ; 23 cm.

General Note:

Includes index.

Contents:

The Psychological View of Intrinsic Value. Life on Mars, Life on Earth. Defining Intrinsic Value? Why Are Humans Morally Special? -- Science's Bridge from Nature to Value. Scientific Facts and Values. The Limits of Ethical Extensionism. Beyond Ethical Extensionism? -- Overlapping Kinds and Value. Two Types of Natural Kind Overlap. What to Do About Kind Overlaps. Descriptive Overlaps and Morality. Combining Descriptive and Metaphysical Kind Overlap to Unearth Environmental Value -- Recent Defenses of Biocentrism. The Value of Life. An Ethic to Live by? -- A Morally Specialized Account of Life. Commonsense and Customized Accounts of Life. A Biofunctional Explanation of Self-Movement. Why the Representationally Alive Are Morally Important. GEN-BOOK- and Self-Directed Goals -- The Contents of Biopreferences. The Teleological Account of Content. The Threat of Genic Selectionism. Sentience and Goals -- Species and Ecosystems. The Shortcomings of Individualism. Environmental Value Holism. Individualistic Ethics of Species and Ecosystems -- An Impossible Ethic? Biocentrism, Consequentialism, and Cognitive Tractability. Does Life Value Leave Room for Human Lives?

Subject Term:

Environmental ethics.

Philosophy of nature.

Copies:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... IIEMSA	General Books	33168025513090	179.1 A261L 2001	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Are bacteriophage T4 and the long-nosed elephant fish valuable in their own right? Nicholas Agar defends an affirmative answer to this question by arguing that anything living is intrinsically valuable. This claim challenges received ethical wisdom according to which only human beings are valuable in themselves. The resulting biocentric or life-centered morality forms the platform for an ethic of the environment.

Agar builds a bridge between the biological sciences and what he calls "folk" morality to arrive at a workable environmental ethic and a new spectrum--a new hierarchy--of living organisms. The book overturns common-sense moral belief as well as centuries of philosophical speculation on the exclusive moral significance of humans. Spanning several fields, including philosophy of psychology, philosophy of science, and other areas of contemporary analytic philosophy, Agar analyzes and speaks to a wide array of historic and contemporary views, from Aristotle and Kant, to E. O. Wilson, Holmes Rolston II, and Baird Callicot. The result is a challenge to prevailing definitions of value and a call for a scientifically-informed appreciation of nature.