Department of History and Philosophy of Science will hold the 46th Tokyo Colloquium of Cognitive Philosophy. Everyone is welcome.

Date & Time: 30 May, 2014, 18:00-20:00
Venue: the 14th Building, Room 708 on the 7th floor, Komaba Campus

Presenter: Kanako Takae(The University of Tokyo)
Title: A reconsideration of the concept of intrinsic value in environmental ethics via the moral considerability argument

Abstract:
Since the very beginning, environmental ethicists saw their task as one of demonstrating the necessity of constructing a new ethical framework for the age of ecology. Their main goal was to expand the moral circle of members worth considering by appealing to the concept of intrinsic value. This attempt, however, did not succeed, mainly because they failed to argue for the significance of intrinsic value. In this presentation, I will argue that the move to expand the moral circle, known as the "moral considerability argument", is wrong-headed in the following way: the argument is trapped between two senses of the objectivity of 'intrinsic value' and this is the main reason for its failure. I conclude by arguing that we need to rethink the concept of intrinsic value in a very different way.