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Naturalizing Values: Organisms and Species by Holmes Rolston III
Naturalizing Values: Organisms and Species by Holmes Rolston III
Naturalizing Values: Organisms and Species by Holmes Rolston III
12
Naturalizing Values: Organisms and Species
HOLMES ROLSTON 01
Holmes Rolston III is professor of philosophy at ident of the International Society for Environmental
Colorado State University at Fort Collins. He is the pres- Ethics and author of several works on environmental
ethics, including Philosophy Gone Wild: Essays in
Environmental Ethics (1986) and Environmental Ethics:
This paper, "Naturalizing Values," copyright C 1998 Holmes Duties to and Values in the Natural World (1988).
Rolston III, was delivered at the North American Association on
Social Philosophy in December t 998 and appears in print here for
In this essay, Rolston examines the fact/value prob-
the first time. Used by permission of the author. lem as it applies to nature. He argues that values are
76 Chapter Three: Does Nature Have Intrinsic Value? Biocentric and Ecocentric Ethics and Deep Ecology
objective in nature, and that just as philosophers are . to shame" (Vogel, 1998). Dragonflies have to change
naturalizing ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, their wing shape in flight without benefit of muscles (as
they should naturalize values. in birds and bats), so they use a flexible aerofoil with
veins that enables the wing surface to twist in direct
In an age of naturalism, philosophers seem as yet response to aerodynamic loading when suddenly chang-
unable to naturalize values. They are naturalizing ing directions or shifting from upstroke to downstroke.
ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. They have con- A hind-wing base mechanism is especially impressive in
nected human ethical behavior to Darwinian reciproc- the way it mixes flexibility and rigidity. "The 'smart'
ity, kin selection, genetic fitness, and so on. They wing-base mechanism is best interpreted as an elegant
analyze human capacities for epistemology with care to means of maintaining downstroke efficiency in the pres-
notice how our human perceptions, our sense organs, ence of these adaptations to improve upstroke useful-
have an evolutionary history. Our mind and its cogni- ness" (Wootton et aI., 1998).
tive capacities are pragmatic ways of functioning in the Botanists report studies in what they caU "a plant's
world. They interpret ideologies and metaphysical dilemma. " Plants need to photosynthesize to gain
views ~s means of coping, worldviews that enable energy from the sun, which requires access to carbon
humans in their societies to cohere and to outcompete dioxide in the atmosphere. They also need to conserve
other societies. Ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics water, vital to their metabolism, and access to atmos-
are survival tools, whatever else they may also become. phere which evaporates water. This forces a trade-off
But philosophers are slow to naturalize axiology. H in leaves between too much and too little exposure to
they do, they try to demonstrate the biological roots of atmosphere. The problem is solved by stomata on the
human values. They show that our values root in our undersides of leaves, which can open and close, letting
biological needs-for food, shelter, security, resources, in or shutting out the air. "The stomatal aperture is
self-defense~ offspring, stability, and status in our soci- controlled by osmotic adjustment in the surrounding
eties. Beyond that, philosophers do not naturalize values cells. In a sophisticated regulatory mechanism, light,
in any deeper sense. They cannot disconnect nature from the carbon dioxide required for photosynthesis, and
humans so that anything else in nature can have any the water status of the plant are integrated to regulate
intrinsic value on its own. That is disconcerting. Nature stomatal aperture for optimization of the plant's ~
comes to have value only when humans take it up into growth and performance" (Grill and Ziegler, 1998).
their experience. This, they may think, is a naturalized The details of such "plant strategies" vary in different
account of value; but, I shall argue here, such analysis species but are quite complex, integrating multiple
has not yet come within reach of a biologically based environmental and metabolic variables-water avail-
account of values. Somewhat curiously, the more obvi- ability, drought, heat, cold, sunlight, water stress, and
ous kind of naturalizing-showing that our values are energy needs in the plant-for sophisticated solutions
framed by our evolutionary embodiment in the world- to the plant's dilemma.
blinds us to the deeper kind of naturalizing-recogniz- Even the cyanobacteria, blue-green algae, which are
ing an evolutionary world in which values, some of relatively primitive single-celled organisms, can track
which we.share, are pervasively embodied in the nonhu- day and night with molecular clocks built with a genetic
man world. oscillator rather similar to those in more advanced
The debate is complex and multi-leveled. We touch organisms. Discovering this, Marcia Barinaga says,
the nerve of it here by focusing on value as this is pres- "Keeping track of day-night cycles is apparently so
ent in living organisms and their species lines. Let's start essential, perhaps because it helps organisms prepare for
by looking over the shoulders of some recent scientists the special physiological needs they will have at various
and their discoveries. times during the daily cycle, that clocks seem to have
arisen multiple times, recreating the same design each
time" (1998).
1. Dragonflies, Leaf Stomata, Reporting a June 1998 conference on "Molecular
Bacterial Clocks, and Genomes Strategies in Evolution," geneticists have found so many
examples of "how the genome readies itself for evolu-
Studies of dragonflies in the Carboniferous show that tion" that they are making a "paradigm shih."
their wings "are proving to be spectacular examples of Abandoning the idea that genetic mutation is entirely
microengineering" giving them "the agile, versatile blind and random, and that genetic errors are sup-
fljght necessary to cateh prey in flight." They are pressed to minimize change, geneticists are impressed
"adapted for high-performance flight" (Wootton et aI., with the innovative, creative capacities in the genome.
1998). "To execute these aerobatic maneuvers, the These "new findings are persuading them that the most
insects come equipped with highly engineered wings successful genomes may be those that have evolved to be
that automatically change their flight shape in response able to change quickly and substantially if necessary"
to airflow, putting the designers of the latest jet fighters (Pennisi, 1998). Genes do this by using transposons-
78 Chapter Three: Does Nature Have Intrinsic Value? Biocentric and Ecocentric Ethics and Deep Ecology
something "wonderful." But, you will insist, this is only something discovered which was there before we came.
"wonderful" when cell biologists get there to wonder "There can be no value apart from an evaluator, all
about it. Perhaps nothing is "astounding" until a human value is as it were in the eye of the beholder [and] .
being comes around to be astounded. We do not think therefore, is humanly dependent" (1989, p. 26). Such
that the genomes are astounded. Still, the biological value is "anthropogenic" (1992, p. 132).
achievements are there long before we get let in on them.
The source of all value is human consciousness, but it by
Set aside the wonder. In the objective facts-leaf stom-
no means follows that the locus of all value is conscious-
ata, genome evolution, bacterial clocks-is there any-
ness itself•... An intrinsically valuable thing on this
thing there of value?
reading is valuable for its own sake, for itself, but it is
not valuable in itself, that is, completely independently of
any consciousness, since no vaJue can, in principle, be
2. Anthropic Valuers and Their Values altogether independent of a valuing consciousness .
Value is, as it were, projected onto natural objects or
Most philosophers insist there is not. Values in nature
events by the subjective feelings of observers. If all con-
are always "anthropocentric," human-eentered, or at
sciousness were annihilated at a stroke, there would be
least "anthropogenic" (generated by humans). Bryan G.
no good and evil, no beauty and ugliness, no right and
Norton concludes: "Moralists among environmental
wrong; only impassive phenomena would remain. (1989,
ethicists have erred in looking for a value in living
pp. 133-134, 147)
, things that is independent of human valuing. They have
therefore forgotten a most elementary point about valu- What that means, of course, is that the dragonfly wings
~g an~g. Yaluing always ocqus.frQm the viewpoint were..no "good" to-them, or at least of DO- "va!uc" to
of a conscious valuer.... Only the humans are valuing them. Though insects, sand dollars, bacteria, and plants
agents" (1991, p. 251). Norton, of course, believes in may engineer their own genomes, there is nothing valu-
an objective world that he is anxious to conserve. able about any of these activities, much less right or
Walking along a beach, he values, for example, the beautiful. Take our evaluating consciousness away, and
sand dollars (Mellita quinquiesperforata) he .finds there. there remain only impassive phenomena.
He has respect for life (1991, pp. 3-13). He chose a These philosophers have to conclude so because
sand dollar to picture on the cover of his book. Such according to classical value theory only humans produce
encounters make him a better person, give him an value; wild nature is intrinsically valueless. That seems
enlarged sense of his place in the world, and increase his to be a metaphysical claim in Callicott. We can know
wonder over the world he lives in. So he celebrates "the what is there without us: impassive phenomena; we can
character-building transformative value of interactions know what is not there: intrinsic value. Or if not so
with nature" (1987, pp. 10-11). He gets a lot of good ontological, this is at least an epistemological claim, as
out of respecting sand dollars. with Norton: we are unable to know ·what is there with-
But Norton does not want any epistemological out us. All we can know is that some things in nature,
"foundationalism" or "metaphysical realism,;' as before we get there, have the potential to be evaluated
though humans (whether scientists or philosophers) by h~ans. We know this because if and when we
could actually know anything out there in nature inde- humans appear, we may incline, sometimes, t9 value
pendently of ourselves, much less that there are values nature in noninstrumental ways, as when we project
intrinsic to some of these nonhuman organisms out intrinsic value onto sequoia trees while hiking through
there. There is no getting out of our epistemological the forest, or have transformative experiences encoun-
bondage, no getting past "interactions"; it is naive for tering sand dollars on a beach.
humans to claim to know objective value in sand dol- The best we can do is to give a dispositional twist to
lars. Norton regrets that I, when I claim to know more value. To say that n is valuable means that n (some
than "interactions," have fallen into the "devastating object in nature) is able to be valued, if and when human
legacy" of "outmoded" Cartesian dualism, "a bewitch- valuers, H's (some Humans), come along, although n
ment of ossi6ed language" (1992, pp. 216-218, p. 224). has these properties whether or not humans arrive. The
J. Baird Callicott, equally zealous for the conservation object ·plays· its necessary part, though this is not suffi-
of nature, is equally clear about our unique human vaJue- cient without the subject. Nature contains "a range of
ability. All intrinsic value attached to nature is "grounded potential values in nature actualizable upon interaction
in human feelings" but is "projected" onto the natural with consciousness" (Callicott, 1992, p. 129). By this
object that "excites" the value. "Intrinsic vaJue ultimately account there is no actual value ownership autonomous
depends upon human valuers." "Value depends upon to the dragonflies, bacteria, plants, or genome lines-
human sentiments" (1984, p. 305). We humans can and none at least that we can know about. When cellular
ought place such value on natural things, at times, but biologists arrive with their wonder and resolve to
there is no value already in place before we come. Intrinsic admire and perhaps also to conserve these things, there
value is our construct, interactively with nature, but not is value ignition. Intrinsic value in the realized sense
80 Chapter Three: Does Nature Have Intrinsic Value? Biocentric and Ecocentric Ethics and Deep Ecology
thing on Earth is still quite valueless, unless and until ought to defer to animals who are close enough kin to
these humans come along-and place intrinsic value there. us to share some of our cognitive and perceptual abili-
As Callicott insists, until humans do this, "there simply ties. Beyond that, value is over.
is no inherent :or intrinsic value in nature" (1989, p. Social philosophers are likely to be quite sure about
160). Singer is more generous than Callicott to the inver- this, and quite uncomfortable with the idea of natural
tebrates. Still he claims that we must stop "somewhere values apart from human persons in their society.
between a shrimp and an oyster" (1990, p. 174). Beyond Milton Rokeach defines a value this way: "I consider a
that, he insists, "there is nothing to be taken into value to be a type of belief, centrally located within one's
account" (1990, p. 8). With Singer, too, most of the bio- belief system, about how one ought or ought not to
logical world has yet to be taken into account. behave, or about some end-state of existence worth or
Moving any further is impossible on a sentience- not worth obtaining." These belief systems are culturally
based theory. Value, like a tickle or remorse, must be felt constructed and transmitted; they are personally
to be there. Its esse is percipi. Nonsensed value is non- endorsed, enjoyed, and critiqued. Values have to be
sense. Only beings with "insides" to them have value. thought about, chosen from among options, persistently
There is no unexperienced value, no value without an held, and to satisfy felt preferences (Rokeach, 1968, p.
experiencing valuer. According to the classical para- 124). H so, ipso facto, there are none in mere organisms
digm, so long dominant that to Norton and Callicott it which have no such capacities. So much for the dragon-
seems elementary, there is no value without an experi- flies and their wings, sand dollars, plants with their leaf
encing valuer, just as there are no thoughts without_ a stomata, bacteria with their clocks, and those genomes
thinker, no percepts without a perceiver, no deeds with- getting ready for evolution.
out a doer, no targets without an aimer. Valuing is felt
preferring by human choosers. Extend~g this paradigm,
sentient animals may also value. Nothing else. 4. Organisms and Their Biocentric Values
But the problem with the "no value without a valuer"
axiom is that it is too subjectivist; it look~ for some cen- Maybe the problem is that we have let ourselves get
ter of value located in a subjective self. And we nowhere imprisoned in our own felt experiences. There is an
wish to deny that such valuers are sufficient for value. epistemological problem, but look at it another way.
But that is not the whole account of value. Perhaps there We do have blinders on, psychological and philosophi-
can be no doing science without a scientist, no religion cal blinders, that leave us unable to detect anything but
without ~ believer, no tickle without sonlebody tickled. experientially based valuers and their felt values. So we
But there can be law without a lawgiver, history without are unable to accept a biologicaily based value account
a -historian; there is biology without biologists, physics that is otherwise staring us in the face. Let's take
without physicists, creativity without creators, achieve- another, look at organisms and their biocentric values,
ment without conscious achievers-and value without focusing on plants, to make sure we are not hoping for
experiencing valuers. minimal neural experience.
A sentient valuer is not necessary for value. Another A plant is not an experiencing subject, but neither is
way is for there to be a value-generating system able to it an inanimate object, like a stone. Nor is it a geomor-
generate value, such as a plant or a genome. If you like, phological process, like a river. Plants are quite alive.
that is another meaning of value-er; any x is a valuer if Plants, like all other organisms, are self-actualizing.
x is value-able, able to produce values. Plants are unified entities of the botanical though not of
No, comes the protest, naturalizing value has to be the zoological kind; that is, they are not unitary organ-
kept close in to our human embodiment. We simply do isms highly integrated with centered neural control, but
not have the cognitive capacities to know all this about they are modular organisms, with a meristem that can
other valuers out there. Metaphysics, epistemology, and repeatedly and indefinitely produce new vegetative mod-
ethics can and ought to be naturalized, but that does not -ules, additional stem nodes, and leaves when there is
mean there are any metaphysicians, epistemologists, or available space and resources, as well as new reproduc-
ethicists among the dragonflies, the bacteria, or the tive modules, fruits, and seeds.
plants; we only mean that when humans do these activ- Plants repair injuries and move water, nutrients, and
ities, they do so using their naturally evolved capacities. photosynthate from cell to cell; they store sugars; they
Similarly with axiology, which can and ought to be nat- make tannin and other toxins and regulate their levels in
uralized, that is interpreted in terms of our naturally defense against grazers; they make nectars and emit
evolved capacities. But there are no philosophical axiol- pheromones to influence the behavior of pollinating
ogists in wild nature, any more than there are meta- insects and the responses of other plants; they emit
physicians, epistemologists, or ethicists. allelopathic agents to suppress invaders; they make
Maybe we can extend feelings into the higher ani- thorns, trap insects, and so 00. They can reject geneti-
mals, because evolution does teach their kinship with us. cally incompatible grafts. They have engineered those
So vertebragenic axiology is a possibility. We can and remarkable stomata.
82 Chapter Three: Does Nature Have Intrinsic Value? Biocentric and Ecocentric Ethics and Deep Ecology
(multiple and variant copies of a gene in multigene The result, according to David S. Thaler, is "the evolu-
families) that shields the species from accidental loss of tion of genetic intelligence" (1994). So it seems that if
a beneficial gene, provides flexibility-both overlap- we recognize that there are smart computers, we must
ping backup and unique detail-on which these also recognize that there are even smarter genes.
enzymes can work. Smarter, and more vital.
John H. Campbell, a molecular geneticist, writes, Leslie E. Orgel, summarizing the origin of life on
"Cells are richly provided with special enzymes to tam- Earth, says "Life emerged only after self-reproducing
per with DNA structure," enzymes that biologists are molecules appeared.... Such molecules yielded a biol-
extracting and using for genetic engineering. But this ogy based on ribonucleic acids. The RNA system then
"engineering" is already going on in spontaneous nature: invented proteins. As the RNA system evolved, proteins
became the main workers in cells, and DNA became the
Gene-processing enzymes also engineer comparable
prime repository of genetic information." "The emer-
changes in genes in vivo.... We have discovered
gence of catalytic RNA was a crucial early step" (1994,
enzymes and enzyme pathways for almost every conceiv-
p. 4). That is interesting, because here is "a crucial early
able change in the structure of genes. The scope for self-
step" among Callicottts mere "impassive phenomena."
engineering of multigene families seems to be limited only
Not only does such problem solving take place early
by the ingenuity of control systems for regulating these
OD, and continuously thereafter, but the genes, over the
pathways. (1983, pp. 408--409)
millennia, get better at it. Past achievements are recapit-
These pathways may have "governors" that are "extra- ulated in the present, with variations; and these results
ordinarily sophisticated." "Self-governed genes are get tested today and then folded into the future.
'smart' machines in the current vernacular sense. Smart Christopher WiHs concludes,
genes suggest smart cells and smart evolution. It is the There is an accumulated wisdom of the genes that actually
promise of radically new genetic and evolutionary prin- makes them better at evolving (and sometimes makes them
ciples that are motivating roday's study ..." (1983, pp. better at not evolving) than were the genes of our distant
410,414). ancestors.... This wisdom consists both of the ways that
In a study of whether species as historical lines can be genes have become organized in the course of evolution
considered "intelligent,» Jonathan Schull concludes: and the ways in which the factors that change the genes
Plant and animal species are information-processing enti- have actually become better at their task. (1989, pp. 6-8)
ties of such complexity, integration, and adaptive compe- At least we seem to be getting better and better impas-
tence that it may be scientifically fruitful to consider them sive phenomena.
intelligent. . .. Plant and animal species process informa- Donald ]. Cram, accepting the Nobel prize for his
"-
tion via multiple nested levels of variation and selection work deciphering how complex and unique biological
in a manner that is surprisingly similar to what must go molecules recognize each other and interlock, concludes:
on in intelligent animals. As biological entities, and as "Few scientists acquainted with the chemistry of biolog-
processors of information, plant and animal species are ical systems at the molecular level can avoid being
no less complicated than, say, monkeys. Their adaptive inspired. Evolution has produced chemical compounds
achievements (the brilliant design and exquisite produc- that are exquisitely organized to accomplish the most
tion of biological organisms) are no less impressive, and complicated and delicate of tasks." Organic chemists
certainly rival those of the animal and electronic systems can hardly "dream of designing and synthesizing" such
to which the term "intelligence" is routinely (and perhaps "marvels" (1988, p. 760). Marvels they may be, but not
validly) applied today. (1990, p. 63) until we get there, Norton must say, and experience
their "transformative value."
Analogies with artificial intelligence in computers are
Talk of a genetic "str~tegy" has become common-
particularly striking. Such cognitive processing is not
place among biologists, not thereby implying conscious-
conscious, but that does not mean it is not intelligent,
ness, but strongly suggesting a problem-solving skill. A
where there are clever means of problem solving in a
marine snail has evolved a "strategy for rapid immobi-
phyletic lineage. Schull continues:
lization of prey" and can "capture prey with remarkable
Gene pools in evolving populations acquire, store, trans- efficiency at:td speed" (Teriau et aI., 1998). Well, maybe
mit, transform, and use vast amounts of fitness-relative "strategy" is a metaphor, but what the facts that under-
information.... The information-processing capacities of lie the metaphor still force is the question whether these
these massively paraJlel distributed processing systems snails "know how" to capture the fish they catch. And
surpasses that of even the most sophisticated man-made this is only one instance of information pervasively pres-
systems.. It seems likely that an evolving species is a
o. • ent as needed for .an organism's competence in its eco-
better simulation of "real" intelligence than even the best logical niche. All biology is cybernetic; the information
computer program likely to be produced by cognitive sci- storage in DNA, the know-how for life, is the principal
entists for many years. (1990, pp. 64, 74) difference between biology and chemistry or physics.
84 Chapter Three: Does Nature Have Intrinsic Value? Biocentric and Ecocentric Ethics and Deep Ecology
be preserved. That latter step requires philosophical they survive over the millennia. At least we will have to
analysis past any biological description. recognize the possibility of intrinsic value in nature, and
Man is the measure of things, said Protagoras. it will seem arrogant to retreat into a human-eentered
Humans are the measurers, the valuers of things, even enyironmental ethics. This is true no matter how much
when we measure what they are in themselves. So the anti-foundationalists and the anti-realists protest
humans are the only evaluators who can reflect about that we humans cannot know enough about what these
what is going on at this global scale, who can deliberate animals and plants are like in themselves to escape our
about what they ought to do conserving it. When own blinders.
humans do this, they must set up the scales; and humans Does it not rather seem that when we are describing
are the measurers of things. Animals, organisms, species, what benefits the dragonflies or the snails, the plants
ecosystems, Earth cannot teach us how to do this evalu- with their leaf stomata, or the bacteria with their clocks,
ating. Perhaps not, but still they can and do display what such value is pretty much fact of the matter. If we refuse
it is that is to be evaluated. The axiological scales we con- to recognize such values as objectively there, have we
struct do not constitute the value any more than the sci- committed some fallacy? Rather, the danger is the other
entific scales we erect create what we thereby measure. way round. We commit the subjectivist fallacy if we
What are we evaluating? Among much else, we are think all values lie in subjective experience, and, worse
appraising organisms in species lines with their adaptive still, the anthropocentrist fallacy if we think all values lie
fits. In this evaluation, we do consider our options, and in human options and preferences. These plants and ani-
'. adopt attitudes toward nature with conscious reflection mals do not make man the measure of things at all.
(such as whether we choose and why to save endangered Humans are not so much lighting up value in a merely
species) that may result in the values we humans choose. potentiaUy valuable world, as they are psychologically
But in the biological world which we have under consid- joining ongoing planetary natural history in which there
eration, such capacities drop out. The plants and animals is value wherever there is positive creativity. While such
are Dot so capable. But that does not mean that value dis- creativity can be present in subjects with their interests
appears, only that it shihs to the biological level. and preferences, it can also be present objectively in liv-
An organism cannot survive without situated envi- . ing organisms with their lives defended, and in species
ronmental fitness. There organisms 40 mostly uncon- that defend an identity over time, and in systems that are
sciously (and sometimes consciously) defend their lives self-organizing and that project storied achievements.
and their kinds. Might they be bad kinds? The cautious The valuing human subject in an otherwise valueless
philosophical critic will say that~ even though an organ- world is an insufficient premise for the experienced con-
ism evolves to have a situated environmental fitness, not clusions of those who value natural history.
all such situations are necessarily good arrangements; Conversion to a biological and geological view seems
some can be clumsy or bad. They could involve bad truer to world experience and more logically compelling.
organisms in bad evolutionary patterns-perhaps those This too is a perspective, but ecologically better
efficient and venomous snails, destroying those fish, or informed; we know our place on a home planet, which is
dragonflies so efficient in flight that they devastate their not only our home but that for five or ten million other
prey and upset previously stable ecosystems. Perhaps, at species. From this more objective viewpoint, there is
times. But with rare exceptions, organisms are well something subjective, something philosophically naive,
adapted to the niches they fiU, and remain so as the co- and even something hazardous in a time of ecological cri-
evolutionary process goes OD. By natural selection their sis, about living in a reference frame where one species
ecosystemic roles must mesh with the kinds of goods to takes itself as absolute and values every thing else in
which they are genetically programmed. At least we nature relative to its potential to produce value for itself.
ought to put the burden of proof on a human evaluator
to say why any natural kind is a bad kind and ought not
to call forth admiring respect. Notes
The world is a field of the contest of values. We can
hardly deny that, even if we suppose that those are bad 1. Callicott recognized this possibility from the start,
snails killing those fish, or that pest insects come along, despite his insistence that humans project all the value
eat plant leaves, and capture the stored energy that present in nature (1989, p. 26).
plants would have otherwise used to preserve their own 2. See further analysis and sources in Rolston, 1999, pp.
good kinds. When we recognize how the ecosystem is a 23-37.
perpetuaJ contest of goods in dialectic and exchange, it
will become difficult to say that all or even any of the References
organisms in it are bad kinds, ill-situated in their niches.
The misfits are extinct, or soon will be. Rather it seems Abbas, Abul K., Andrew H. Lichtman, and Jordan S. Pober,
that many of them, maybe even all of them, will have to 1991. Cellular and Molecular Immunology. Philadel-
be respected for the skills and achievements by which phia: W. B. Saunders.
13
Comments on Holmes Rolston's "Naturalizing Values"
NED HETIINGER
Ned Hettinger is professor of philosophy at the College Holmes Rolston has been forcefully defending the value
of Charleston and the author of several works in envi- of nature for over twenty-five years. He does so again
ronmental ethics. See his essay in Reading 20. here today with his characteristic mix of deep biological
and philosophical insight. It is a pleasure to help us think
about the ideas and arguments of this most able philo-
"A Response to Holmes Rolston rUt" C 1998 Ned Hettinger, was
first delivered at the North American Society for Social Philosophy in sophical defender of nature.
Washington, D.C., in December 1998, and appears here in print for Professor Rolston has argued that much natural value
the first time. It is reprinted by permission of the author. is nonanthropocentric; that is, that nature is valuable
86 Chapter Three: Does Nature Have Intrinsic Value? Biocentric and Ecocentric Ethics and Deep Ecology
independently of its use to humans. Humans valuing say, I think~ that there is no value there, because there is
nature as an end and not simply as a means is an exam- not enough "positive creativity" in the processes of that
ple of such nonanthropocentric value. For instance, peo- planet. Rolston has said similar things about the lack of
ple who value the existence of the Aretic National value of clouds and dust devils here on Earth. But he has
Wildlife Refuge--even though they have no intentions also suggested that some abiotic features of the earth are
of ever visiting it-value the Refuge for reasons other remarkable, valuable achievements that ought to call
than its utility to them. Such noninstrumental valuing of forth our admiring respect. Work remains in explaining
nature, though not anthropocentric, is nonetheless why, for example, building roads to the top of fourteen-
anthropogenic. Rolston argues that much natural value thousand-foot mountains destroys value in these geolog-
is also not generated by humans and that it is not depen- ical marvels, while nothing humans could do to Jupiter
dent on humans in any way. Nature's usefulness to non- would destroy any value there.
human sentient animals clearly illustrates these Rolston is known for his defense of "objective" value
human-independent values. Deer are instrumentally in nature, and we again get such a defense today. By
valuable to wolves, whether or not these animals benefit "objective value," I mean value that is not dependent on
humans or are noninstrumentally valued by them. a valuing subject. Rolston rejects the psychological
Sentient animals may also demonstrate another of account of value that allows value only where there are
Rolston's claims: that there is nonanthropogenic intrin- mental states. Value on this subjectivist view is con-
sic value in nature. I don't know whether a mother wolf scious valuing. Rolston points out that instrumental
'can intrinsically value her young as Rolston ~uggests; goods for insentient organisms are clear examples of
wolves may not have the cognitive equipment such judg- nonpsychological, objective values in nature. Insentient
ments of value about others may require. Nevertheless, organisms are not subjects; they have no experiential life
wolves would seem to value the experience of pleasure and thus do not consciously value anything; yet much is
in their lives, immediately and for itself. The presence of good or bad for them. Such biological goods strongly
such intrinsic valuing in nonhuman nature has nothing support objectivism about value.
to do with human utility or valuing. Interestingly, when Rolston finds value in nature, he
Rolston's defense of natural value independent of . tends to posit some valuing of that value. He suggests,
humans goes well beyond the existence of instrumental for example, that because water is' good for trees, trees
value for sentient animals or their possible intrinsic value water, though they obviously do not do so con-
valuings. Rolston argues that instrumental value per- sciously or psychologically. Thus, Rolston rejects that
meates the biological world. The dragonfly's wings are value requires a conscious valuer, but he clings to the
useful to it, and sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water idea that value requires a valuer of some sort. I suggest
are instrumentally valuable for plants, even though he drop this second connection as well. Once we reject a
these organisms do not take a conscious interest in mental state theory of value, we'd do better to drop the
what benefits them. I think Rolston is right that only a assumed necessary connection between value and valu-
philosopher in the grip of a theory would deny th.at ing entirely. Claiming that insentient organisms are valu-
there are instrumental goods for all living beings, ing entities stretches our concept of valuing in a way that
including insentient ones. Rolston suggests that biolog- is not helpful, nor needed. That something is good for a
ical descriptions about what is good for organisms are being does not imply that the being values it. A suicidal
factual statements about values in the natural world. person may not value food, but the food is nonetheless
Here, he suggests, there is no gap between facts and good for her. A vegetarian-fed cat may have a vitamin
values. Biological description alone, however, will not deficiency but not value the supplements she needs. Why
allow us to conclude that water is good for plants in a think a tree needs to value water in order for water to be
way that oil is not also good for machines. As Rolston good for it?
knows, we need an argument to show that what is Rolston argues for both objective instrumental and
good for machines is only good because machines are objective intrinsic value in nature. The pleasures of sen-
useful to humans, while living beings have goods of tient animals mentioned above demonstrate only subjec-
their own that do not require such further contributory tive intrinsic value or intrinsic valuing in nature, not
reference. objective intrinsic value. On one standard view of the
. Rolston also argues that human-independent natur~1 relation between instrumental and intrinsic values, we
value exists in species and ecosystems, because they too can infer the existence of intrinsic goods from the instru-
are the beneficiaries of instrumental value. Particular mental goods of insentient organisms. If instrumental
genes are good or bad for species and certain species are goods are good only insofar as they are a means to some
beneficial or destructive for self-organizing natural sys- other good, and if we rule out an endless series or loop
tems. Rolston avoids the potentially problematic posi- of instrumental values (as some pragmatists would'
tion that value is everywhere in nature, theorizing allow), then objective instrumental goods for insentient
instead that value is present wherever there is positive organisms entail the existence of objective intrinsic
creativity. Thus, nothing matters on Jupiter; which is to goods. If water is instrumentally good for trees without
88 Chapter Three: Does Nature Have Intrinsic Value? Biocentric and Ecocentric Ethics and Deep Ecology
exampJe of an anthropogenic value that is not anthro- liberal critic of environmental laws that is not possible
pocentric. on a subjectivist account of nature's value. Do you think
4. Explain why Hettinger thinks that a certain account of he is right?
nature's value as objective can provide a response to a