Pretty much everyone agrees that knowledge is valuable. But philosophers disagree over the kind of value that knowledge possesses. Does knowledge have only extrinsic value? For example, does it have only instrumental value; i.e. is it valuable only because it helps us to achieve other valuable things? Or is knowledge intrinsically valuable?
1) Defining intrinsic value
There has been endless debate over how exactly to define "intrinsic value". However, intrinsic value and extrinsic value are generally considered to be mutually exclusive, and many philosophers agree in defining X's extrinsic value as the value that X has by virtue of X's relations to other things. Therefore, I'll define intrinsic value as value that's independent of relations to other things.[1]
However, an ambiguity remains. The sentence "X has value" is ambiguous between "People value X" and "X is objectively valuable". Whether or not one believes in objective value, these two meanings are clearly distinct.
Thus, the sentence "X has intrinsic value" has two possible senses—a "subjective" sense and an "objective" sense:
1. Subjective: People value X apart from concerns about X's relations to other things.
2. Objective: X is objectively valuable independent of X's relations to other things.
The sentence "X has extrinsic value" likewise has two possible senses:
1. Subjective: People value X because of X's relations to other things.
2. Objective: X is objectively valuable by virtue of X's relations to other things.
Now, if we take "intrinsic value" and "extrinsic value" in the subjective sense, then it's obvious that knowledge has intrinsic value for some people. Some people clearly value knowledge apart from concerns about its relations to other things. If everyone valued knowledge only because of its relations to other things, then everyone would agree that knowledge has only extrinsic value, and there wouldn't even be a debate about whether knowledge has intrinsic value.
So if someone is going to claim that knowledge has only extrinsic value, not intrinsic value, then he must be talking about objective value.
2) Intuition and extrinsic value
Can one argue that knowledge's objective value is only extrinsic?
Well, the obvious initial question is "What reason do we have for thinking that an object has objective value at all?" The only answer seems to be "By intuition". We think that X has objective value either (1) because we intuit that X has value or (2) because we intuit that Y has value and the fact that Y has value entails that X has value.[2]
Now I want to make the following claim: whenever we simply intuit that something has value, the value that we are intuiting cannot be extrinsic value.
I'm not claiming that we can never intuit that something has extrinsic value. For example, many people intuit that historical monuments have value because of their relation to important historical events. In this case, the value that is being intuited is extrinsic value. However, notice: when people intuit that historical monuments have value, they have that intuition while thinking about the monuments in relation to those events. If someone didn't know that a building was connected to an important historical event, then she wouldn't intuit that the building has value. So we can intuit that X has value in relation to other things, and in that case the value that we intuit is extrinsic value. But if we simply intuit that X has value, period, then the value in question can't be extrinsic value.
Therefore, I draw the following conclusion: if someone simply intuits that X has value, then either (1) the intuition is an illusion or (2) the value that we are intuiting is intrinsic value.
3) An example
Perhaps the following example will help to clarify the appeal of this conclusion.
Suppose that I have a basic intuition that happiness is valuable, and I conclude that I should try to maximize global happiness. But suppose that I also have another intuition—that the presence of a large Croatian immigrant population is valuable. In this case, I have prima facie reasons to think that happiness and a large Croatian immigrant population both have intrinsic value.
Now suppose that a person comes along and gives me a long, complex explanation showing that increasing global happiness will lead to a larger Croatian immigrant population. And suppose that this person concludes by saying, "So, you see, your intuition that happiness has value is correct, but the value is only instrumental value: happiness is valuable only because it helps to increase the Croatian immigrant population."
In that situation, I think the correct response would be "Uh … no." I don't deny that happiness may have instrumental value. And I don't deny that it may have instrumental value insofar as it helps to increase the Croatian immigrant population. But I deny that that instrumental value is what I intuit when I intuit that happiness has value.
4) The upshot
It's clear that many people simply intuit that knowledge has value, without reflecting upon knowledge's relations to other things. If they didn't have such intuitions, then everyone would agree that knowledge's value is purely extrinsic—purely due to knowledge's relations to other things. But everyone doesn't agree that knowledge's value is purely extrinsic; that's why this debate exists in the first place. As we have seen, if someone simply intuits that X has value, then the value in question can't be extrinsic value. Therefore, it follows that those who believe that knowledge has intrinsic value are, if not completely justified, then probably as justified as one can be when it comes to questions of value.
Now, the person who denies that knowledge has intrinsic value may lack this intuition (i.e. that knowledge is simply valuable, period). Thus, he may regard the intuition, when it occurs in others, as an illusion. But he has no real grounds for criticizing others who do think that knowledge has intrinsic value. For those others do have the intuition, and, as we have seen, the value being intuited can't be extrinsic value.
[1] The most obvious form of extrinsic value is instrumental value. X is instrumentally valuable if and only if X is valuable because X helps to achieve some other valuable thing. For example, money is instrumentally valuable, because it allows us to buy goods. However, a number of philosophers have pointed out that not all extrinsic value need be instrumental value.
[2] For example, if we intuit that Y has value, and X is conducive to Y, then it follows that X has instrumental value. Here's another example: suppose we intuit that Fs have value, and we discover that X is an F; then it follows that X has value.
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