The Nature of Intrinsic Value [Paperback]

readers will have to admire Zimmerman's close attention to detail, exemplary intellectual honesty, modesty, and expertise....Zimmerman has produced an incisive and illuminating book...The Nature of Intrinsic Value is a magnificent reconsideration of the great themes that were brought to prominence by G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica. These are the themes that fueled western moral philosophy throughout the twentieth century. Although this is by no means a mere resuscitation of Moorean doctrines, Zimmerman's work is a brilliant reminder of all that was best about Moore's work. Like Moore, Zimmerman displays enormous intellectual integrity, painstaking attention to detail, moral and metaphysical insight, and an open-minded and uncompromising commitment to getting it right. This book should help to restore the concept of intrinsic value to its central position in moral philosophy. It clearly establishes Zimmerman as the premier authority in the field.At the heart of ethics lies the concept of intrinsic value. It is at work when we assess whether a person is virtuous or vicious, and acts rightly or wrongly. This book investigates the nature of intrinsic value: what sort of thing has it, and how it is measured or quantified.At the heart of ethics reside the concepts of good and bad; they are at work when we assess whether a person is virtuous or vicious, an act right or wrong, a decision defensible or indefensible, a goal desirable or undesirable. But there are many varieties of goodness and badness. At their core lie intrinsic goodness and badness, the sort of value that something has for its own sake. It is in virtue of intrinsic value that other types of value may be understood, and hence that we can begin to come to terms with questions of virtue and vice, right and wrong, and so on. This book investigates the nature of intrinsic value: just what it is for something to be valuable for its own sake, just what sort of thing can have such value, just how such a value is tols!