Book Review: Good for Us

Abstract

Introduction:  The notion of intrinsic value is often encountered in the context of environmental ethics these days. For example, does the existence of a species, or of a variety of species, have a value independent of any possible usefulness? What is the value of preserving a wilderness if one of the conditions of that preservation is that no one is allowed to visit it? I mention these questions because (curiously, as it seems to me), Zimmermann does not. While he makes it clear (p. vii) that he is concerned with ethical theory rather than its application, one result of neglecting the environmental context is that the development of the theory proceeds without any obvious sense of the challenge the above questions pose.