The Concept of Intrinsic Value: A Critical Analysis after G. E. Moore

Abstract

The notion of intrinsic value is of paramount importance in ethics, and that this claim has been defended from different corners and Moore is one of the main contenders in it. In ethics we talk about many varieties of goodness and badness, accordingly there are intrinsic goodness and badness which is a central point of attention. The many varieties of goodness and badness may be understood with a strong grounding of intrinsic value. We analyze the terms with questions of virtue and vice, right and wrong etc. on the basis of the intrinsic goodness and badness. Accordingly philosophers have chosen two different routes to explicate the concept of intrinsic value i.e. deontological and consequential. Moore falls under the consequentialists’ category and his ethical theory recognizes to promote what makes something good or what is something that is intrinsic. I will try to find out the different meanings of the concept of intrinsic value and how these meanings signify the dichotomy between subjective/objective interpretations of it when intrinsic value is ascribed in nature. At the same time I also reject Moore’s concept of trans-worldly intrinsic value.