Intrinsic Value Essay

Although this investment class can be considered the most conservative of the three, the low yield of government bonds in the past 10 years does not lend a comparative metric against many other investment opportunities (Jacobs, 2012). The fixed rate of these instruments allows for a guaranteed return, but should only be utilized at a point in an investing cycle when risk is higher than potential income growth. The 25% allocation that is invested in this class is positioned to provide a long term guaranteed investment, with the possible that these lower rates will not rise significantly in the next few years.

Hence, as Augustine says […]'by a most just ordinance of the Creator, both their life and their death are subject to our use'" ("Summa"). In other words, animals have utility value only.

British philosopher Jeremy Bentham famously coined the phrase, “It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.” What defines as a “good” for one person, may not necessarily be the same definition for another. However, Garrett Hardin defines what the “greatest good” is for our society in his essay titled, “Tragedy of the Commons,” in which he argues that in order to preserve the commons we must surrender our inalienable right to breed. Similarly, Peter Singer writes in piece titled, “Animal Liberation,” that, like humans, animals feel pain and therefore should be considered part of our society which requires humans to adjust and conform to meet the demanding needs of this particular group. Utilitarianism

In this passage the central conclusion is that the value of life, whether that be humans or animals is contributed to the quality of life, the quality is related to its richness being related to the life’s capacity of enrichment. (LaFollette, Hugh. Ethics in Practice: An Anthology. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997. Print.) Frey gives support to this conclusion by recognizing that not all individuals from a moral group are individuals that have lives with equal value or significance within both humans and animals. (LaFollette, Hugh. Ethics in Practice: An Anthology. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997. Print.) In support this statement, Frey claims there are different moral standings of most human lives. Some examples were an infant with disadvantages, a disabled person and elderly person with a severe case of Alzheimer’s disease. Frey then supports these claims by saying that if we agree with these claims it is clear that we are not using species membership to determine the value and moral standing of an individual but instead as the quality of an individual’s life. An additional support of the central conclusion is that this view allows for animals to have more value than a human

As aforementioned, God is the foundation of values in Christian theism, but for naturalists, values are created by human beings. The problem is, without any transcendent standard of good or bad, how does one derive what “ought” to be from what “is”? Naturalists believe that all people have a sense of moral values acquired by intuition and authority or picked up from their environment. For them, good action is the action that promotes harmony and survival within the community. This is the view held by postmodernists as well, where society determines what social good ought to be. Ethics thus becomes autonomous and situational rejecting the need for any theological sanction.

In “The Case for Animal Rights,” Regan states that instead of viewing animals as existing solely for human disposal, or as having value only because they retain the same feelings of pain and satisfaction humans do, we should consider animals as

This way it becomes easier to understand how vulnerable the things the world takes for granted are. Better understanding and insight of the value leads to appreciating it more, and provides a stronger awareness and protection of the environment and habitat of the ecosystem. Calculating a monetary value makes it even more powerful, because it seems like people have an easier time valuing services that have their economic value in numbers over services that have a moral value only described through the importance of them. Having a monetary value also makes it easier for governments to make reasonable decisions and policies about the ecosystem. But at the same time, putting an obvious price and financial value on nature makes it a ‘commodity’ that can be traded, which can put its biodiversity into dangerous, especially for rare species and habitats. (Valuing Ecosystem, Biodiversity

1. Does a good life require us to pursue just one intrinsic value or several?

Land ethics is understood to be an ethical concept that includes man, his society, and (soil, water, plants, and animals collectively making up) the land. This philosophical approach focusses on cooperation and interdependency. (Leopold)

Justice and forgiveness are often used in similar ways, except they are hypothetically opposites. Forgiveness is a term performed by someone when they are genuinely accepting an apology from someone who is sorry. Whether or not they accept that apology, is the simple thing that distinguishes justice from forgiveness. Although, justice and forgiveness do not go hand in hand. There are many other ways that these terms get interpreted incorrectly.

One topic in the field of Narcissistic Personality Disorder that I have found is not written about often is the narcissistic adult son or daughter.  Many people have written to me over the months asking how they should deal with their toxic children who have shown them time and time again that they have no respect for their parents.  Nothing the parent does is ever good enough.  Some believe the world owes them a living.  They threaten to withhold  contact with grandchildren unless their ever increasing demands are met.  How do you deal with this type of toxicity when this young person is someone who you have brought into this world?

Experiencing subjects of a life, in the eyes of Regan, are argued to have an inherent value, a basic right that is equal amongst individuals. Regan believes that because an individual is a subject experiencing life, said subject has an inherent value. Regan notes that critics argue that only humans have inherent value, but if such delegation of species takes place, speciesism, a form of discrimination, the fact of the matter becomes essentially immoral. The reduction of a subject’s inherent value based on grouping of species is indeed a form of inequality…of speciesism. He argues that in order for inherent value to be portrayed equally, discrimination of the sort cannot be morally acceptable, nor tolerated. Regan accepts that simply saying that humans have more inherent value than animals is not a rational justification. One can say that an individual’s mother has more worth than a dog’s mother; however, on what grounds does this argument lie? This is merely an irrational and immoral statement that degrades an individual. In turn, the justification of which individual has more

Once again there is another group of skeptics that think GM crops will actually cost us more money and not help the amount of food in the world. One of the pros for modified plants is they help farmers grow bigger, better crops faster. This means food will be cheaper and more of it for the world (“Paturel and Yamakawa”). GMO 's are different from how we improved plants in the past because it 's a lot faster. In the past it took years to raise different generations in outside fields to get the right traits. Now they grow several generations in a lab; no waiting for seasons the lab has perfect conditions (“Paturel and Yamakawa”). By 2050 there is estimated to be 9 billion people in the world (“Paturel and Yamakawa”). We are not gaining any

Humans depend on plants in numerous ways. One reason we depend on plants is for consumption. Plants have the unique ability of producing their own food through a process called photosynthesis. In this process, plants are able to produce macromolecules such as carbohydrates that cannot be produced in animals or humans. In humans, the only to gain these macromolecules is to consume plant matter, or consume plant-eating animals (herbivores).

Intrinsic value has also been named as non-instrumental value. The general understanding of non-instrumental value is that a thing is valuable for its own sake and its value is not related to other things. Zimmerman explains the intrinsic value by using the example of the conversation with someone. He says that suppose person A asks person B that whether helping people is good or not; B will answer that helping others is good. Then, A keeps asking that why it is good; B might response that it is just good by fulfilling others’ needs. After that, A can still ask B that why fulfilling others’ needs is good. If B keep answering these questions by adding other