Is Life Intrinsically Valuable?
A response to David Oderberg
In my exploration of the ethics of assisted death, I’ve been looking into arguments that supposedly show that life is noninstrumentally (or intrinsically) valuable. This fundamental claim is often paired with a deontological constraint against killing innocent human beings.
One such argument is presented by David Oderberg in his Moral Theory. He states the following:
We saw that all of the basic human goods are ultimately pursued for their own sakes, because together they make up human happiness: human happiness is not something over and above the goods, but is a complex condition made of those goods. Since the pursuit of any of those goods cannot be separated in thought from the idea of life itself - every pursuit of a good being a pursuit by a living human being - life is itself necessarily pursued for its own sake, as a constituent of happiness, along with every other good… So my life itself, which is conceptually inseparable from the pursuit of knowledge, must also be pursued as an ultimate constituent of human fulfilment, moreover as the basic precondition of fulfilment. In addition, there are many aspects of life, in particular the various elements of physical health and psychological well-being which, like knowledge, are pursued in themselves as ultimate constituents of happiness. In this way life reveals its dual role as a good: it is the basic precondition of the pursuit of all other goods, and it is a good in its own right, whose fostering helps us to flourish as human beings. p. 141-142
I think the main part of his argument can be presented formally in the following way:
If x is conceptually inseparable from y, and y is a constituent of human flourishing, then x is a constituent of human flourishing.
Life is conceptually inseparable from other goods that are constituents of human flourishing.
Therefore, life is a constituent of human flourishing. (This follows 1 and 2.)
Anything that’s a constituent of human flourishing is an intrinsic good.
Therefore, life is an intrinsic good. (This follows 3 and 4.)
In response, this argument doesn’t show that life is intrinsically good. Like others I’ve encountered, it only shows that life is a precondition to attaining the good, which I agree with.
Importantly, the argument can be flipped such that life is seemingly an intrinsic bad. Consider the following:
If x is conceptually inseparable from y, and y is a constituent of human ill-being, then x is a constituent of human ill-being.
Life is conceptually inseparable from other bads that are constituents of human ill-being.
Therefore, life is a constituent of human ill-being. (This follows 1 and 2.)
Anything that’s a constituent of human ill-being is an intrinsic bad.
Therefore, life is an intrinsic bad. (This follows 3 and 4.)
I suspect we wouldn’t find this argument convincing even though it follows the same logic.
A critic may point out that my reconstruction is inaccurate because Oderberg explicitly mentions the “pursuit of a good” and not a good itself. Hence, the reconstruction should read as follows:
If x is conceptually inseparable from the pursuit of y, and y is a constituent of human flourishing, then x is a constituent of human flourishing.
Life is conceptually inseparable from the pursuit of goods that are constituents of human flourishing.
Therefore, life is a constituent of human flourishing. (This follows 1 and 2.)
Anything that’s a constituent of human flourishing is an intrinsic good.
Therefore, life is an intrinsic good. (This follows 3 and 4.)
I didn’t initially present the argument this way because it was less concise, and because it doesn’t change the outcome. Note that I could still present the inverse argument.
If x is conceptually inseparable from the pursuit of y, and y is a constituent of human ill-being, then x is a constituent of human ill-being.
Life is conceptually inseparable from the pursuit of bads that are constituents of human ill-being.
Therefore, life is a constituent of human ill-being. (This follows 1 and 2.)
Anything that’s a constituent of human ill-being is an intrinsic bad.
Therefore, life is an intrinsic bad. (This follows 3 and 4.)
Again, I don’t think we’d accept this argument even though it follows the same logic.
To be fair, it’s very difficult to argue that something is noninstrumentally valuable. In fact, I don’t know of any easy way of doing it. It may just have to be a first principle, meaning a claim that can’t be deduced from anything else. Hence, if two people disagree over it, there may be an impasse.
Without a convincing argument, I maintain that life is only instrumentally valuable because it does a better job of making sense of my intuitions in a variety of situations, one of them being that I don’t think it’s better for me to be in a permanently unconscious state than to be dead. Accordingly, if being alive results in more overall well-being for me, then life is good for me. And if it results in more overall ill-being, then life is bad for me.
Another claim Oderberg makes is that we pursue physical health as an ultimate constituent of happiness.
I actually don’t think this is true. I don’t want my heart to pump blood the way it’s supposed to because I think it’s intrinsically valuable for my heart to pump that much blood in that amount of time and with a particular rhythm. I only care about my heart functioning properly because it’s necessary to attain things that are actually ultimately good for me, and because it’s necessary to avoid things that are bad for me. This reflects my thoughts about the value of being healthy in general—that is, I think health is only instrumentally valuable.