Naturalizing values: organisms and species
Date
2001
Authors
Rolston, Holmes, 1932-, author
Wadsworth, publisher
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
Philosophers are seem unable and unwilling to naturalize value. But values are deeply embedded in evolutionary and ecological natural history. Biologists are regularly discovering such values; survival value is a key to natural selection and adapted fit. Nevertheless, most philosophers insist that value is anthropocentric, allowing only dispositional value to nature, also value where there is sentient life. These psychological accounts are incomplete. This is evidenced in non-sentient organisms, in species lines, and in genetic knowledge. Unless we naturalize values, we face an epistemic and axiological crisis.
Description
Paper given at American Philosophical Association, Washington, DC, December 1998.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 85-86).
Includes bibliographical references (pages 85-86).
Rights Access
Subject
biocentric values
axiology
metaphysics
epistemology
ethics
values
naturalism
dragonflies
leaf stomata
bacterial clocks