Abstract

Toby Svoboda (2011, 2015) argues that humans cannot ever justifiably attribute intrinsic value to nature because we can never have evidence that any part of non-human nature has intrinsic value. We argue that, at best, Svoboda's position leaves us with uncertainty about whether there is intrinsic value in the non-human natural world. This uncertainty, however, together with reason to believe that at least some non-human natural entities would possess intrinsic value if anything does, leaves us in a position to acquire evidence that non-human nature has intrinsic value. We appeal to Michael Huemer's (2013) Probabilistic Reasons Principle to argue that we have direct reasons to not act in ways destructive to non-human nature, even if this reason is defeasible. Hence, if having intrinsic value just is being a source of direct reasons, it also implies that non-human nature has intrinsic value.