Intrinsic Value (ethics)
Intrinsic value is an ethical and philosophic property. It is the ethical or philosophic value that an object has "in itself" or "for its own sake", as an intrinsic property. An object with intrinsic value may be regarded as an end or (in Kantian terminolgy) end-in-itself.
It is contrasted with instrumental value (or extrinsic value), the value of which depends on how much it generates intrinsic value. For an eudaemonist, happiness has intrinsic value, while having a family may not have intrinsic value, yet be instrumental, since it generates happiness. Intrinsic value is a term employed in axiology, the study of quality or value.
Read more about Intrinsic Value (ethics): Life Stances and Intrinsic Value, Quantity, Concrete and Abstract, Absolute and Relative
Famous quotes containing the word intrinsic:
“Three elements go to make up an idea. The first is its intrinsic quality as a feeling. The second is the energy with which it affects other ideas, an energy which is infinite in the here-and-nowness of immediate sensation, finite and relative in the recency of the past. The third element is the tendency of an idea to bring along other ideas with it.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)