Intrinsic Value

This book addresses some basic questions about intrinsic value: What is it? What has it? What justifies our beliefs about it? In the first six chapters the author defends the existence of a plurality of intrinsic goods, the thesis of organic unities, the view that some goods are ‘higher’ than others, and the view that intrinsic value can be explicated in terms of ‘fitting’ emotional attitudes. The final three chapters explore the justification of our beliefs about intrinsic value, including coherence theories and the idea that some value beliefs are warranted on the basis of emotional experience. Professor Lemos defends the view that some value beliefs enjoy ‘modest’ a priori justification. The book is intended primarily for professional philosophers and their graduate students working in ethics, value theory, and epistemology.

• Important area of philosophy - ethical theory • Very little published on this

Preface; Acknowledgements; Part I. Value, Plurality, Parts and Wholes: 1. The Concept of Intrinsic Value; 2. The Bearers of Intrinsic Value; 3. Organic Unities and the Principle of Universality; 4. Higher goods and the myth of Tithonus; 5. Pleasure and its intrinsic value; 6. Consciousness, knowledge and the consciousness thesis; Part II. Naturalism, Nonnaturalism and Warrant: 7. The distinctiveness of intrinsic value; 8. Intrinsic value and modest a priori justification; 9. Coherence and experience; Appendices; Selected bibliography; Index.