Pleasure is only pleasurable in regards to something else...you take pleasure in a glass of wine...so it can't be intrinsically valuable. Also pleasure is always a becoming it is never an end in itself.

Human life.

The primary example of something that has intrinsic value is Pleasure. Hedonism is the Value-Theory that asserts that Pleasure/enjoyment is the ONLY thing that has intrinsic value. — Mitchell

that looks to me like a grammatical proposition that is true by definition and hence amounts to as much as saying "I like what I like". i.e. our language doesn't represent what we mean by value, rather our use of language expresses it.

Can you think of anything else that has intrinsic value? — Mitchell

Knowledge, virtue, justice (the distribution of goods based on merit), beauty. Hedonism is false because it misinterprets these other goods as being derivative from pleasure when in fact they stand independently of pleasure.

It is tempting to adopt hedonism, however, because sensuous experiences, particularly pain, seem to motivate people far more effectively than anything else. Other goods may be independently good, but nevertheless may require that there be a certain threshold of pain that is kept in check. We cannot pursue knowledge, or act virtuously, or distribute justice, or appreciate beauty when we are suffering. It does seem to be the case that, when push comes to shove, suffering and pleasure usually disable these other goods, and not the other way around.

It does seem to be the case that, when push comes to shove, suffering and pleasure usually disable these other goods, and not the other way around. — darthbarracuda

Good point!

Seems an odd start because most defenders of intrinsic value are usually against pleasure. :D Not to say I am one of them....

Though I think it does depend on what you mean by pleasure.

I sort of wonder about the phrase "in and of itself" to be honest. And "desire" too since it's a defining term of said term -- if something is desirable without leading to anything else then isn't that just what pleasure means? To satisfy desire, to find what one is lacking (at least in a usual sense of desire) -- isn't that just tautological to your definition of intrinsic value?

To have intrinsic value is to be desirable in and of itself — Mitchell

How about defining intrinsic value as value that's not derived from common agreement. Food, for example. The value of food does not depend on people believing in it, in contrast to things like dollars or bitcoin whose value is a function of society's belief in it.

To have intrinsic value is to be desirable in and of itself, independently of whether it leads to anything else. — Mitchell

If that's the definition of "intrinsic value," then I don't think it exists. Values that I would think of as intrinsic are those that are built into us as humans. Let's see - pleasure, ok. What else, avoidance of pain and fear; love for family; desire for human attachment; satisfaction of hunger, thirst, and sexual desire. I'm not sure of all of those and there are others not listed.

The Virtues.

Honestly, when I think of intrinsic value I always ask, according to who or what? Because objectively speaking, reality has no intrinsic value, and by virtue of saying so is tantamount to a person holding superstitious believes positing that something has some sort of "meaning". The word intrinsic implies belonging to or innate to something. When we value something, we desire said thing. The question is who does it belong to, why and how?

We desire pleasure, but pleasure is subjective and every person derives pleasure from whatever they desire. The point is humans, being naturally evolved creatures, have a set of genes that drives them to bear intrinsic values. Food is intrinsically valuable to us for obvious reasons.

The word "value" is a strange concept if you think about it. It seems like biological organisms are the only ones who bear this thing since we have this qualia we call "pain" and we rather steer clear of it.

We, humans, have more sophisticated values because we evolutionarily developed intellect. We value education, our personal hobbies, money... abstract things that go beyond basic animalistic instinct.

Other natural phenomenon don't bear this thing we like to call value, for example, does fire have "value"? when you steer a raging ember, fire doesn't long to stay ablaze. The flame is equally neutral to being oxidised or bereft of oxygen while living things have this natural propensity towards things that will help them survive.

To have intrinsic value is to be desirable in and of itself, independently of whether it leads to anything else. The primary example of something that has intrinsic value is Pleasure. Hedonism is the Value-Theory that asserts that Pleasure/enjoyment is the ONLY thing that has intrinsic value. Can you think of anything else that has intrinsic value? — Mitchell

Knowledge, love, persons, virtue, are other examples of things that have intrinsic value.

The pleasure you get from wine or other things has intrinsic value. It's your experience regardless of where it come from.

It can have instrumental value, no?

Yes, many things that have intrinsic value have extrinsic value also. Paper money has extrinsic value, but very little, if any, intrinsic value.

So, how does one differentiate from what has instrumental value over intrinsic value? After all one could say reasonably that everything is of instrumental value to the self interested man.

So, how does one differentiate from what has instrumental value over intrinsic value? After all one could say reasonably that everything is of instrumental value to the self interested man. — Posty McPostface

Well, the way I see it is as follows: It's not a matter of what I think or believe that makes something intrinsically valuable - if that were the case, then one could claim that injustice has intrinsic worth or value.

To have intrinsic value is to be desirable in and of itself — Mitchell

To me value is just what we value, not what we desire. The conflation of the two happens, for instance, in some versions of theories of choice, often consumerist ones: as if preferences, as expressed through desires, could be equated to value. This is a pejorative view of value in my world.

For example, to me heroism has 'intrinsic value'. It's one of those words that's in our language and other languages as an expression of evaluative good. Like 'glory'. Or 'good'.

Well, mcdoodle mentioned desire. So, I find it hard to imagine something I want without desire or instrumental value. I'm just playing devil's advocate.

I'd offer a slightly different definition of "intrinsic value" as being that which has value in itself as opposed "to be desirable in and of itself. The use of "desirable" forces us to your example of hedonism because it suggests that achievement of desire is of value. Removing the desire element from the definition leaves us with more worthy results, like justice, morality, love, and things we'd have stand alone as valuable, even should no one happen to desire them.

Honestly, when I think of intrinsic value I always ask, according to who or what? Because objectively speaking, reality has no intrinsic value, and by virtue of saying so is tantamount to a person holding superstitious believes positing that something has some sort of "meaning". The word intrinsic implies belonging to or innate to something. When we value something, we desire said thing. The question is who does it belong to, why and how? — Susu

Pleasure is something that is valued by humans, and there is an objectivity to the pleasure, so others can see it and participate in it. For example, people derive pleasure from music, we can objectively see it as we watch others, and we can experience it directly. Reality has intrinsic worth for us, at least much of it does - for example, watching a beautiful sunset. Without persons reality would have no intrinsic worth, because as you say, intrinsic value to whom?

Well, we can desire things that have both intrinsic value and extrinsic value. Much of what we desire has some value whether real or perceived.

hedonism is the Value-Theory that asserts that Pleasure/enjoyment is the ONLY thing that has intrinsic value. Can you think of anything else that has intrinsic value? — Mitchell

Pain relief.

To me value is just what we value, not what we desire

I couldn't agree with you more, and in fact, I have argued so in print.

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I think that there is a wider and a narrower sense of 'desire'. The wider sense tells us nothing about WHAT motivates us, but only THAT we are so motivated. This sense, for which we also use the term "want", is the one which we use when it is claimed that everything we do intentionally, we must have wanted to do in some way, other wise we wouldn't have done it. See Ways of Desire.

But, we only value or appreciate things like knowledge, justice, morality, and other things mostly when we need them.

How do you explain that?

To me value is just what we value, not what we desire

Which brings us to a central question: "What is it to value something?"

I agree, our desires may align with the intrinsic worth of a thing, but desire is not what gives something value. If that were the case my desire to murder would have value.

Perhaps what we need to do is to tie intrinsic value to needs not wants.

Which brings us to a central question: "What is it to value something?" — Mitchell

But why is that the central question, with "value" being a verb and not a noun. That is, why isn't the real question, what is value? To ask it as you have triggers my same objection as before, which is that if you ask what is it to value something, you simply ask the subjective question, making the most logical response a psychological one, as in "to value something is to hold it in high regard." It's likely I value things of no value and ignore things of value, thus ignoring the deeper question of what value is.

I agree; but, then what is the value of philosophy?

Perhaps what we need to do is to tie intrinsic value to needs not wants. — Mitchell

If it's tied to needs (or wants), I'd argue it's not intrinsic, but dependent. That is, if my needs are better fulfilled by cheating, does justice now lack intrinsic worth?