对万物之内在价值的一个哲学辩护

A Philosophical Defense for the Intrinsic Values of Everything

按照一般人的观点,任何事物的价值要么就是其商业价值,要么就是其使用价值。换言之,脱离人类价值主体的"价值赋予活动",客观事物自身是没有其内在价值的。而我们则试图对这种"人类中心主义"的价值观提出挑战。我们试图论证,对于任何事物而言,在它所具有的所有价值属性中,至少有一些属性是不依赖于人类的"价值赋予"活动而存在的,而是内在于事物自身的。从这个元伦理学立场出发,我们还将引申出一个规范伦理学的结论,即对于事物内在价值的尊重,应当成为我们和事物打交道时一个不可被还原的"可被否决的理由"。

According to a commonsensical meta-ethical point of view,the values of anything,especially those of ordinary physical objects,do not exist in themselves unless they are attributed in terms of some value-evaluators for their own sake.For instance,the commercial value of a cell-phone is attribnted in terms of how much it can be sold in the market,while its value-in-use is decided by its specific owner under a specific use of it.But this article is intended to challenge this anthropocentric picture of the values of everything by arguing that at least some values of ordinary objects do exit independently of how people assess them.Values of this type are labeled as 'intrinsic values,' with contrast to 'extrinsic values'(like value-in-use).From this meta-ethical observation,we can also derive a corollary with normative ethical implications,viz.,the considerations of the intrinsic values of something can always provide us with some defeasible reasons for(or against) treating them in a specific manner,and these reasons are as irreducible as the intrinsic value themselves.