Keekok+Lee

=**Keekok Lee **=

Influenced by Callicott and Rolston, Lee creates his own theory about value. There are two types of value which are either instrumental or intrinsic. Given we know what instrumental value is (something having value to you only if it can satisfy a need); we know this value exists regardless of humans. There are two senses of intrinsic value (pg 155). The first intrinsic value generates its value “for itself” and the second is that which has value “in itself”. The first relates to a biotic relationship while the second form is connected with consciousness, reason, and capacity for language.

Given that instrumental value exists for humans and nonhumans alike, Lee would suggest intrinsic value should exist as well. The example given here is the worm (pg 156). The worm is instrumentally valuable to the bird as its food source. The bird is then food for a cat. Through this chain, the worm served as an intrinsic value “for itself” to the cat, because the bird eats the worm to satisfy itself and to satisfy the cat’s hunger. From this, one can deduce that humans are neither the source nor locus of intrinsic values.

Humans have “goods of their own” which they know to be of instrumental value (pg 156) and can recognize others’ instrumental value, so therefore they have value “in itself”. Whereas humans understand the correlations of instrumental value of both the cat and tiger, the cat only knows instrumental value attaining to its own needs and not the tiger’s. This concludes that a human is capable of being both valuable “for itself” and “in itself”, while the animal only has value “for itself”. Humans are the source and locus of intrinsic value “in itself”. Humans and other natural beings are both the source and the locus of intrinsic value “for themselves”.

He then distinguishes the two aspects of values which can be mutely enacted values (MEV) and recognized-articulated (RAV) values. Only humans have this awareness and this ability to be self-conscious resulting in RAV being anthropogenic (ok, but more to the point RAV is the awareness that MEV exists for others...). MEV exists in humans, but is not limited to them nor is it necessary to have them and thereby can also be non-anthropogenic. MEV can exist independent of the presence of human consciousness. If humans are non-existent MEV but not RAV will exist. In a world with humans there are both MEV and RAV.

Humans contain this awareness (that MEV exists for other creatures) and posses the power to decide whether animals live or not. They have the power to destroy and are aware of this power. Animals on the other hand, may have the power to destroy another but do so for their immediate need and not under contemplation or awareness of MEV in others.

When we destroy or harm animals’ lives indirectly (pollution), they are unaware that we are responsible (158). While human intervention is one way to cause harm, other natural beings or physical processes can too. This harming of value creates the idea or term “disvalue”, which one would say we ought not to do. This raises the question, should we intervene when a bird eats a worm? (pg 158) The bird is generating value for themselves while disvaluing their prey. The answer to such a question is simple: for the evolution of new life, we need destruction of old life. The point of the question is for it to not be considered as is, but for us to reevaluate our ability to express our power in a “pro” value way. As humans we possess a unique type of conscious and reason which gives us the ability to generate RAV, and therefore we should use our awareness of value to promote further value. To do so, we must deliberate to decide what has intrinsic and instrumental value; should we express our power to destroy or not destroy; and ask ourselves the moral question “whether nature is there only to serve human ends?”