Buying into conservation: intrinsic versus instrumental valueAn ethical rationale for conservation decisionsWhat is intrinsic value and what has intrinsic value?What is instrumental value?Decisions require tradeoffsIntrinsic values of non-human entities cannot be measured, prioritized or traded offInstrumental value fully appreciatedAcknowledgementsReferencesBuying into conservatio n: intrinsicversus instrumental valueJames Justus1,2, Mark Colyvan2, Helen Regan3and Lynn Maguire41Philosophy Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA2Philosophy Department, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia3Biology Department, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA4Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0328, USAMany conservation biologists believe the best ethicalbasis for conserving natural entities is their claimedintrinsic value, not their instrumental value for humans.But there is significant confusion about what intrinsicvalue is and how it could govern conservation decisionmaking. After examining what intrinsic value is sup-posed to be, we argue that it cannot guide the decisionmaking conservation requires. An adequate ethical basisfor conservation must do this, and instrumental valuedoes it best.An ethical rationale for conservation decisionsConservation biologists often argue natural entities (e.g.non-human species, ecosystems) should be attributedintrinsic value to secure a compelling ethical rationalefor their protection. Soule´[1] states that ‘biotic diversityhas intrinsic value irrespective of its instrumental orutilitarian value,’ and claims this is a necessary normativeprinciple of conservation biology. Noss and Cooperrider [2]similarly assert that ‘intrinsic values...offer the leastbiased and ultimately most secure arguments for conser-vation,’ and McCauley [3] recently invoked the concept ofintrinsic value to criticize conservation actions based onmonetization of ecosystem services. Given its currencyamong conservation biologists, clarity about intrinsic valueand its efficacy as an ethical basis for conservation isimperative.What is intrinsic value and what has intrinsic value?Ascribing intrinsic value to non-human natural entities isintended to underscore reverence for nature by accordingthem a value independent of humans, thereby liberatinghumans from narrow anthropocentrism about value.Accordingly, conservation biologists have attributedintrinsic value to a broad range of things. One way ofclarifying a concept is to search for patterns in the thingsto which it is applied. No pattern is apparent in the use ofthe term ‘intrinsic value’ in conservation biology. It hasbeen attributed to ecosystems [4,5], all biological entitiesand their environments [6], wilderness [7,8], wastelandhabitats and wild organisms [9], genetic variation thatincreases probability of population persistence [10] andeven all entities produced by natural processes [4]. Theapparent lack of any unifying principle underlying theseattributions shows that the use of intrinsic value in con-servation biology requires scrutiny.One way to determine which entities of conservationinterest have intrinsic value is to appeal to traditionalethical theories originally developed to govern humanaction. These theories argue that the properties of plea-sure, rationality or virtuous character, and entities posses-sing them, are intrinsically valuable [11]. For example,humans and other sentient organisms that experiencepleasure have intrinsic value according to one theory,whereas only humans can exhibit rationality or virtuouscharacter and thus have intrinsic value according to othertheories. By analogy, entities of conservation interest couldbe considered intrinsically valuable if they possessed atleast one of these intrinsically valuable properties.Except sentient animals, however, non-human naturalentities that are legitimate targets of conservation (e.g.plants, ecosystems) do not possess any properties con-sidered intrinsically valuable by traditional ethicaltheories. Some nontraditional theories accord these enti-ties intrinsic value, but such theories are not widelyaccepted and remain highly controversial [12]. Proponentsof intrinsic value in conservation biology therefore need adefensible account of the concept that allows these entitiesto possess it, and an argument showing they do. Besidesunhelpful allusions – that an intrinsically valuable entityis valuable in itself or as an end in itself [13,14], valuable inthe absence of humans and other intelligent organisms [6]or of priceless and/or infinite value [3] – explicit descrip-tions of what intrinsic value is and a convincing account ofwhy non-human natural entities have it have not beengiven. The above characterizations are not compatible ordefensible, and they do not provide workable criteria fordetermining which entities are intrinsically valuable.Unsurprisingly, articles discussing intrinsic value pub-lished in scientific journals often fail to define the conceptexplicitly (e.g. [4,6]).What is instrumental value?Instead of saying what intrinsic value is, attempts toclarify the concept often focus on what it is not, namely,instrumental value. Entities with instrumentally valuableproperties are valuable to the extent they are or will beconsidered valuable by valuers, such as humans and per-haps other cognitively complex organisms. For example,great art is instrumentally valuable because experiencingOpinionCorresponding author: Justus, J. ([email protected]).0169-5347/$ – see front matter ß 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2008.11.011 Available online 27 February 2009187it is aesthetically and emotionally pleasurable. Art isinstrumentally, not intrinsically, valuable because itsvalue is dependent on and derives from the responses itproduces in humans (e.g. pleasure). If experiencing a workof art ceased to produce these responses, if it no longerproduced pleasure, for example, the art would lose itsinstrumental value.Different properties of an entity can be valuable fordifferent reasons, so instrumental value has a wide varietyof different sources (Table 1). Given its diverse sources,market-based assessments of an entity’s instrumentalvalue can be inappropriate, favoring those that can beevaluated with well-developed economic methods (e.g.natural resources, ecosystem services, visitor admissionrevenues) over those whose market value is