Value and Disvalue

Abstract

AbstractMany natural entities have cultural value, but some have cultural disvalue. An entity acquires this kind of disvalue when it undermines a meaningful and valuable whole, as when an earthquake destabilizes one’s religious faith. But entities can also acquire cultural disvalue by contributing to wholes that are meaningful but disvaluable, as when—for example—a particular flower is adopted as an emblem of an evil political cause. In cases of the latter sort, the whole will count as disvaluable, even though it is valued by devotees of the relevant cause. And those entities that contribute to that disvaluable whole will thereby acquire cultural disvalue. If, by contrast, a meaningful whole is not morally bad but merely based on false beliefs, it might nonetheless qualify as valuable and, accordingly, natural entities might acquire constitutive value because of the roles they play in it. The same may be said of traditions and other meaningful wholes that have recently been invented. They, too, might qualify as valuable, and natural entities might therefore have constitutive value because of the roles they play in them. These issues are explored by means of four further case studies: The Great Lisbon Earthquake, Cornflowers, Dark skies, and Eating whales.