Instrumental vs Relational Value

I just realised I've been using 'instrumental value' in two different ways pretty much ever since I started thinking philosophically. To bring this out I will attempt two definitions:

1. An entity or state of affairs has instrumental value iff it is valuable a means of achieving a certain desideratum, or a series of desiderata.
   
2. An entity or state of affairs has relational value iff its value depends on its relation to other entities or states of affairs.

Are these definitions co-extensive? Well, instrumental value is clearly a species of relational value, but we might think there relational values which aren't properly called instrumental. Let's consider two examples:

(a) a Van Gogh painting
(b) a letter from a friend

Both clearly have relational value: their importance is dependent upon their relation to a group of human beings. But do they have instrumental value? Well, the Van Gogh might do: if you have a gallery it might attract patrons, if you are its owner it might function as a status symbol. Nevertheless, even once these factors have been accounted for, I would suggest there is some extra kind of valuing left over.

To make this kind clearer let's turn to the letter from a friend and suppose, for the sake of argument, that it is something you keep privately; the only people who know about it are you and its author. You value the letter highly, and resolve to keep it on your person until you die. Isn't your attachment to it an end in itself, not a means to an end? If so, then the letter possesses relational but non-instrumental value.

How to describe the foil we've revealed here? I'm tempted to label it 'intrinsic value', but skim-re-reading Weatherson (2008) suggests I shouldn't: it connotes a strong sense of self-subsistence which would make it seem non-relational. I also thought about 'independent value', in the sense of not depending on another value, though still, of course, upon a valuer (if it's a species of relational value). Finally, I wonder about 'fundamental' or 'founding' or 'basic' value, in so far as such values are presupposed by the notion of instrumental value, for I take it that they play the role of defining our desiderata. That is to say, it is our non-instrumental values which animate our pursuit of instrumental value.

But aren't our desiderata themselves always, ultimately, instrumental? I think that there is a certain sense in which this is true but an important context in which this is false, namely that of motivation. To foreground the Darwinian flavour of this question, let's imagine a couple enjoying contraceptive sex. From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, we can explain their attraction towards this activity in terms of the paradigmatic 'desideratum' of genetic evolution; the propogation of genes. ( I place 'desideratum' in inverted commas, because, of course, natural selection is a blind effect of physical forces, not a volitional agent; thus not a literal subject of 'desires'. ) An ultimate explanation* of the couple's sexual desires can be given in a way which makes them look instrumental: in the context of a theory of genetic evolution we can say that these desires were selected for because of their instrumental value. But, speaking proximately, that is, in terms of the motivations of the agents themselves, contraceptive sex is clearly enjoyed for its own sake, not as a means of achieveing a further desideratum.

To return to the two ways in which I've been using instrumental value, let me take another example. In a discussion of environmental ethics, we might ask, for example: why we should save a particular natural landscape from destruction by property developers? The tensions in such a debate will arise due to a complex set of competing values, and within this set there will be discerned different types of value. The developer will justify her proposal in terms of instrumental value: she wants to harness the economic potential of the land. Those who oppose her proposal may cite instrumental reasons of a similar kind, such as the economic benefits that such a landscape brings to the community. In such a case they engage with the developer on her own terms, and show that leaving the land as it is is the better option economically. But, more likely, they will suggest that the landscape possess other kinds of value, which should be respected, or at least considered as part of the trade off. These values might be labelled 'aesthetic' or 'spiritual'; they are those which we enjoy when we talk a walk in the country, for example. But, thought I, isn't this attempt to cite non-instrumental values ultimately self-defeating: though we are now in the domain of non-economic values, we nevertheless remain within that of instrumental values - we've now assumed desiderata such as human happiness or spiritual well-being, and given the land value as a means to achieving these.

Any approach which remains within the terms of instrumental value seems somewhat unsatisfactory: if some other means of achieving our ends were available, say, for example, a virtual experience machine, then according to this approach we would no longer have any reason to preserve the natural landscape in question. There's an obvious intuitive resistance here; something about this conclusion feels wrong. Should we just bite this bullet, or is there a problem with the argument? Well, I'd like to suggest a diagnosis: namely that we have moved away from the proximate question 'how** do we as individuals value the landscape?' to the broader question 'why do we as a society value the landscape'? In this shift, we loose the crucial context of an individual valuing human subject - with all its rational and emotional complexities - and instead gravitate towards the abstract conception of a 'rational' society, composed of institutions that act and are founded solely upon intelligible reasons, not in terms of affective attachments. On most substantive (i.e. non-procedural) conceptions, their goal is to abstract from the affective to find common, intelligible, 'objective' values - but if my non-cognitivism about 'basic' values is correct, this is a rather misdirected project, that may well encourage a sterile instrumentalist mindset which fails to consider ethical questions in a genuinely human context.***

Notes:
* I'm inspired by Pinker (2003)'s ultimate / proximate distinction in this context.
** I write 'how' rather than 'why' because I think that most of the relevant valuations (e.g. the non-instrumental ones) are not amenable to 'why' questions, which ask for justification in terms of reasons; I take them to be emotional, i.e. irrational.
*** Perhaps a partial antidote to the problem suggested here would be to rephrase the broader question posed to society - in terms of a more descriptive 'how' instead of an (overly-)explanation-seeking 'why'?

References:
Pinker, S. (2003) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, (London: Penguin Books Ltd)
Weatherson, B. (2008) "Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Properties", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/intrinsic-extrinsic/>.

Henry David Thoreau on Simplicity

Thoreau (1854) says that people “try to solve the problem of a livelihood by a formula more complicted than the problem itself”. What does that mean?

The problem of a livelihood is simply the problem of how to satisfy one's physical needs, how to respond to the necessities of life. Thoreau argues that the problem of a livelihood is much more straightforward than is commonly thought. Really, he thinks, it is a simple problem which admits of a simple solution. Accordingly, Thoreau's 'poor' are those who 'try to solve the problem of a livelihood by a formula more complicated than the problem itself,' that is those who supply an overcomplicated response to the problem of a livelihood.

Thoreau takes such overcomplication to be widespread. According to him, it is due to a number of factors including:

(1) moralism - a sense of guilt arises if we don't work hard
(2) lack of imagination - what else could we do?
(3) false needs - we mistake 'wants' for 'needs', and so become dominated by our own desires

I think an evolutionary psychologist would add 'striving for status' to this list.

According to Thoreau (1854) we commonly live as we do because we think we have no choice. Explain what he means by that.

Thoreau laments the predominance of so called 'false needs', which give rise to the impression that our existence is necessarily far more arduous than it in fact has to be. He takes people in general to work far too hard, far beyond the minimum effort required a modest and happy livelihood. Thoreau thinks that people suffer from an overinflated conception of what they need, coming to view many luxury or 'desired' items as outright necessities. As a result, they become locked into painful striving for these luxuries - for they feel obliged to possess them - and their lives are passed away in endless toil. People forget how relatively little effort is needed to live, and end up being dominated by their work. If they could see the error of their ways, they could choose to live much happier lives under the maxim of 'simplicity, simplicity, simplicity'.

References:
Thoreau, H. (1854) 'Economy' in Walden and Other Essays, [ URL = http://www.princeton.edu/~batke/thoreau/wa01_economy ]

Henry David Thoreau

In what sense is philosophy and economy related according to Thoreau?
For Thoreau, economy is synonymous with philosophy. He broadens the meaning of the term 'economy' to incorporate all aspects of practical living. For example, he redefines 'cost' to mean 'the amount of life which is required to be exchanged for something.' Thoreau's 'poor' are those who try to solve the problem of a livelihood by a formula more complicated than the problem itself.