Intrinsic vs. instrumental value

One of the concepts conservationists often try to use to indicate the limitations of economic approaches to valuation is the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental value.

• Something is said to have intrinsic value if it is good ``in and of itself,'' i.e., not merely as a means for acquiring something else.

  Happiness might be an example of an intrinsic value, because being happy is good just because it's good to be happy, not because being happy leads to anything else.

• Something is said to have instrumental value if it is good because it provides the means for acquiring something else of value.

  Having a net worth of a million dollars is an instrumental value. Having those assets is good only to the extent that you can use them to get something else - like happiness.

Biodiversity, those who argue in this vein would claim, is intrinsically valuable. Attempts to quantify this intrinsic value, seem wrongheaded. How can you put a price on the existence of a species or an ecosystem if it has its own value independent of humans? Perhaps if we all agreed about the source of intrinsic value in nature this would be a compelling argument. Things that are intrinsically valuable seem to be of virtually infinite value, so it is worth almost any price to save them. Unfortunately, I doubt that we'll ever agree on exactly what intrinsic value is. To see why, let's take a brief tour through some different ethical theories.1