We have intrinsic moral value and thus we are not physical things
If our reason represents us to be intrinsically morally valuable, it is telling us that our moral value supervenes on some of our essential properties. That is 'being morally valuable' is a 'resultant' property- something is morally valuable 'because' it has certain other features.
If something is intrinsically morally valuable, then - by definition - it is morally valuable because of the kind of thing it is. This is why intrinsic moral value must supervene on some or all of a thing's essential features.
Yet as our reason does not represent shape, size, or any other physical property essential to extended things to be relevant to our moral value, it is representing us not to be extended things. To put it another way, if we are physical things then our intrinsic moral value would have to supervene on some of our essential features.....but it doesn't. Thus we are not physical things.
Maybe it will objected to this argument that the essential property that makes us morally valuable is our consciousness. However, consciousness is clearly not an essential attribute of a physical thing - at best it would be an accidental property of one. So as our moral value supervenes on some of our essential properties, then it can't be that one if, that is, we are a physical thing.
This is not to deny that consciousness may be an essential attribute of the kind of thing we are. Nor is it to deny that it may be the property in virtue of which we - the things that have it - are morally valuable. The point is that as consciousness is not an essential property of physical things, then we can conclude that the kinds of thing that are essentially conscious are not physical things.
Does this argument work? I think it does, but perhaps I am mistaken.
If something is intrinsically morally valuable, then - by definition - it is morally valuable because of the kind of thing it is. This is why intrinsic moral value must supervene on some or all of a thing's essential features.
Yet as our reason does not represent shape, size, or any other physical property essential to extended things to be relevant to our moral value, it is representing us not to be extended things. To put it another way, if we are physical things then our intrinsic moral value would have to supervene on some of our essential features.....but it doesn't. Thus we are not physical things.
Maybe it will objected to this argument that the essential property that makes us morally valuable is our consciousness. However, consciousness is clearly not an essential attribute of a physical thing - at best it would be an accidental property of one. So as our moral value supervenes on some of our essential properties, then it can't be that one if, that is, we are a physical thing.
This is not to deny that consciousness may be an essential attribute of the kind of thing we are. Nor is it to deny that it may be the property in virtue of which we - the things that have it - are morally valuable. The point is that as consciousness is not an essential property of physical things, then we can conclude that the kinds of thing that are essentially conscious are not physical things.
Does this argument work? I think it does, but perhaps I am mistaken.
Comments (41)
Can you clarify what it is to be morally valuable? Does having a moral value "supervene on some of our essential properties", or is it itself a property? IF "it is morally valuable because of the kind of thing it is" then isn't moral value a property of the thing - the kind of thing that it is - rather than something that supervenes on a property?
On the one hand, a thing has some set of properties and the moral value of that thing supervenes on at least some of those properties, while on the other, the moral value just is a property of the thing.
So isn't supposing that a thing can have an intrinsic moral value denying that values supervene on properties?
That something is morally valuable would be a property of that thing. But it would be a supervenient property, meaning that it is resultant from some of the thing's other properties. The difference, I take it, between something being 'intrinsically' morally valuable and 'extrinsically' morally valuable is that in the former case the moral value is supervening on essential properties of the thing, whereas in the latter case it is not.
So all moral value - whether possessed intrinsically or extrinsically - supervenes on something's other features. But intrinsic value supervenes on something's essential features. I think that's right, anyway.
The moral value of a thing is, for the purpose of the argument, an attitude towards that thing that supervenes on it.
Can we say that the attitude is intrinsic to the thing in question? That seems to be what would be implied by "it is morally valuable because of the kind of thing it is"...
non-physical (i.e. abstractions).
To use my valuing of something as an example, if I value something intrinsically, then I would be valuing it due to something essential to it, whereas if I value something extrinsically, then I would be valuing it due to something non-essential about it. Were I to say that I find something intrinsically valuable, then, I would be saying that I value it due to some of its essential properties, rather than saying that my valuing of it is an essential property of that thing.
Applied to moral value, for something to be intrinsically morally valuable is for it - the thing - to have moral value due to some its essential properties. I think that's correct anyway.
Yes, I see that. So you are right here:
Quoting Clarendon
Here you show again that the value supervenes on the property. It appears to me that what you have shown is that the idea of something's having an intrinsic value doesn't work in this scheme.
To be forthright, if the value is a property of the thing, then it can be intrinsic to the thing. But if instead it is a seperate property that does not belong to the thing but supervenes on the properties of that thing, then it is not a property of the thing.
In your argument I think you move from one to the other. So rather than showing that we are not physical things, perhaps you've shown that values are not intrinsic properties of things.
To my eye, what all this shows is the poverty of the notion of a property. Better by far to talk of predicates.
Welcome to the forum. I might argue that people do not have intrinsic moral value, but I wont do that here because I want to keep to the terms of your OP.
I dont understand why a person cannot have both moral value and an essential physical nature.
Quoting Clarendon
I dont understand the basis of the claim that something being intrinsically morally valuable implies the moral value is supervening on essential properties of the thing. Alternatively, I might claim that it is Gods judgment that people have intrinsic moral value. I think it would be fair to characterize that as an essential property. That brings us back to the possibility of having both a physical and a non-physical nature.
I guess what this boils down to is that I dont see youve demonstrated your claim from the OP.
I think this is an interesting argument that could be reworked to be valid and even sound. The idea is something like, "Our moral value does not derive from any physical attribute, therefore we are more than merely physical."
Quoting Clarendon
The counterargument would seem to be something which is essentially conscious and essentially physical. Or else, if your premise, "consciousness is not an essential property of physical things," means that no physical things are essentially conscious, then I would object to such a premise.
But what do you mean when you say, "X is an essential property of Y"?
I mean by "X is an essential property of Y" metaphysical essence - so, something that makes it the kind of object it is. I would take shape and size to be essential properties of physical objects, whereas 'colour' does not seem to be (though that is just to illustrate what I mean, but it would not affect my case if colour was an essential attribute of physical things).
I agree that if physical things are essentially conscious then that would stop the argument. But consciousness does not seem to be an essential feature of physical things. Those who believe us to be physical things do not - I think - typically hold that we are essentially conscious. Consciousness would then have to be held to be a feature of all physical things (and by extension, they would have to hold that all physical things are equally intrinsically morally valuable - which seems false).
My premise that consciousness is not an essential feature of physical things is not equivalent to denying that any physical things are conscious, for it is consistent with consciousness not being an essential feature of such things that nevertheless, some have that feature (just as, by analogy, if colour is not an essential feature of physical things, that does not prevent physical things from having colour). However, if the argument as a whole is sound, then I think it would establish that no physical thing is conscious. For if we are morally valuable because we are things of a sort that are conscious, then that would be an essential property of the kinds of thing we are, and as that is not an essential feature of physical things, the sorts of thing that have consciousness would have been demonstrated to be non-physical.
I dont have a background in philosophy, but Im wondering on what grounds we would say that we possess intrinsic moral value? What exactly is intrinsic moral value?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15203/in-any-objective-morality-existence-is-inherently-good/p1
Okay great, thanks for this elaboration.
Quoting Clarendon
This paragraph presents the tension I am worried about. First you say that your premise "is consistent with [some physical things being conscious]," but then you go on to say that the whole argument entails the proposition that no physical thing is conscious. I am wondering how we get to the conclusion, "No physical thing is conscious," especially given that humans seem to be an example of something which is simultaneously physical and conscious.
But if an object can have moral value in addition - rather than because - of its other features, then granted the argument would not work, for then we could not read more into what our reason represents to be the case.
Yes, I think the premise is consistent with that. And I'd say it is important that it is, for otherwise it would beg the question. However, the argument as a whole seems to entail that physical things are essentially not conscious. That wouldn't be question begging, but would constitute an apparent refutation of the idea that physical things can have conscious states.
I am not sure how best to lay out the argument. Here is an attempt:
1. If an object is intrinsically morally valuable, then it is morally valuable in virtue of some/all of its essential properties.
2. Our minds are intrinsically morally valuable objects
3. Conclusion: therefore the objects that are our minds are morally valuable in virtue of some/all of their essential properties
4. Our minds are (plausibly) intrinsically morally valuable because they bear conscious states
5. Conclusion: therefore the objects that are our minds have bearing conscious states as one of their essential properties.
5. Consciousness is not an essential property of physical objects
6. Conclusion: therefore, the objects that are our minds are not physical objects
As I see it premise 5 is not question begging, for taken in isolation it is consistent with physical objects being capable of having conscious states. Just as, by analogy, colour is (plausibly) not an essential feature of physical objects, yet that is consistent with physical objects having colour. And I think that premise 5 would be accepted by most physicalists about the mind, for they are not going to hold that any and all physical things have conscious states (or that any or all of them are intrinsically valuable). Their claim - typically and as I understand it - would be only that it is possible for physical objects to bear conscious states.
There are, no doubt, some who would deny this. Pansychists do, I think. But i think they would accept that they have the burden of making a case for that. That is, I think even they would accept that premise 5 is prima facie plausible.
The main weakness, as I see it anyway, in my case is the possible conflation of what might be termed (and probably is) 'definitional' essentialism and 'metaphysical' essentialism. To use a familiar example, a bachelor is essentially unmarried. But the person who is a bachelor is not essentially unmarried. And so perhaps it could be objected that a mind is by definition something that bears conscious states - and so consciousness is an essential feature of minds in the way that being unmarried is an essential feature of bachelors - but consciousness is not thereby an essential feature of the objects that are minds, anymore than being unmarried is an essential feature of those who are bachelors.
My reply to that, which I am not sure is successful, is that when it comes to intrinsic moral value, that attaches to the object rather than the concept that the object answers to.
Some item X has properties a,b,c... Moral values supervene on these properties, and so on X - value(a), value(b), value (c) and so on. The value of X is some summation of the value of its properties.
But an intrinsic value, instead of taking another property as its object, is understood as instead one of the items a,b,c...
Is that close to what you have in mind? If so, there are two approaches to value at work here.
Also, and parallel to this, there seems to be a presumption that a,b,c... are physical, while valuations are not. I agree, roughly, with this, and with the intuition that sits behind it, that moral values are not physical things. But I think here, it is presumed, rather than demonstrated.
Thoughts?
Wonderful - thank you for this.
Quoting Clarendon
Yes, that clarifies the point for me. It's a good argument! (A minor thing is that you have two 5's - you might fix that with an edit.)
Quoting Clarendon
Yes, very good.
Quoting Clarendon
All of this turns on the meaning of the clause in (4), "[Minds] bear conscious states." The metaphysical interpretation seems perfectly plausible to me, but someone can pursue the objection you note if they like.
But we could also ask whether the objection you note is valid. Suppose we grant that minds are definitionally conscious. Have we lost our conclusion? Or do we just open ourselves to a definitional objection?
Huh! I have never encountered this argument before, but it looks to be quite solid. Nice work. I will have to think on it more.
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Quoting Clarendon
Right, and this is the argument that I am familiar with.
I think all that's widely accepted - well, at least the idea that moral properties supervene on other properties (or, to put it another way, there can't be bare moral differences).
As such, if something is represented to be intrinsically morally valuable, then we can safely conclude that it has that moral value in virtue of some of its essential features. But when we consider all of those properties that are plausible candidates for being a physical thing's essential features - such as shape, size, location etc. - none of them seem to be that in virtue of which we have our intrinsic moral value. As such, the conclusion that is then forced is that we must be non-physical things.
The only plausible - and I'm not saying this 'is' the property in virtue of which we are intrinsically morally valuable, only that it is a good candidate (because 'if' something has this property, then it does seem to follow that it has intrinsic value) - candidate is that we have intrinsic moral value due to being the kind of thing that has conscious states. But as that doesn't seem to be an essential property of physical things - that is, it would be odd to suggest that part of what makes a physical thing a physical thing is that it can bear conscious states - then what we learn is that we're not physical things, but things that essentially bear conscious states.
I take the soundness of this case to be unaffected by what moral value itself is, as what it capitalizes upon is widely agreed-to seeming conceptual truths about moral value (ones that any plausible account of what moral value itself is would have to respect or be deemed implausible).
For what it's worth, there are a lot of anti-religious and a lot of mind/body monists on the forum, and both groups will view your OP with some suspicion. There is also some anti-essentialism on the forum, but that's more of a fad. The anti-essentialists seem to have never investigated essentialism with any level of seriousness.
From the perspective of Aristotelian hylomorphisma form of mind/body monisman objection is that a human being is essentially physical and essentially conscious. In your terms we might say that the human being has the essential property of physicality and the essential property of bearing conscious states. This means that, for the Aristotelian, although consciousness is not an essential property of physical objects, nevertheless consciousness is an essential property of the object "human being," which also possesses the essential property of physicality. Or in other words, the Aristotelian would agree that not all physical things bear conscious states without agreeing with the idea that no physical thing has 'bearing conscious states' as an essential property. The intuitive value of this lies in the fact that whereas for your theory we must reject the intuitive belief that we are physical beings, for the Aristotelian this is not necessary.
The crux here seems to be specification or taxonomical methodology, where you are thinking of a substratum of "physical object" to which properties then attach, such as "extensive," whereas the Aristotelian is thinking of a substratum of "human object," to which properties then attach, such as "physical" or "conscious." It comes down to the question of the nature of the property/predicate-bearer. This is a pretty common conflict when different forms of essentialism rub up against one another. I have a few posts relating to this problem, including <this one>.
What sources are you drawing on for your understanding of essentialism?
I gather that your argument now depends on physical properties not being the sort of thins that supervenes on an item, and since values do supervene, then values are not physical. Hence,
Quoting Clarendon
So your argument runs somethign like :
But a person, or a balloon, remains what it is despite change in shape, size or location. So these do not seem to be good candidates for essential properties. It seems to me that, for example, personality might be a good candidate for an essential property of a person, and that's not physical anyway. Seems your conclusion is already present in values not being physical. You've given a different articulation of Hume's fork.
But I might leave you to it. The notion of essential properties is far more problematic than just this.
Every object has inherent value in comparison to there being nothing. Meaning the core of morality is that existence is better than nothing. I argue from here that more existence is better than less existence. Existence is not only action, but potential.
Imagine that only sheep and grass existed. Eventually the sheep would breed to eat all the grass. All the sheep and grass would die. Introduce some wolves however, and the existence of sheep, grass, and wolves will go on forever.
Morality in human is about creating the most existence from our actions. Do we commit actions that build up the world, or tear it down? Do we create an environment of safety, free thought, creativity, and joy? Or do we create an environment of danger, restriction, mundanity, and fear?
However, though a physical thing's shape and size and location can change, it doesn't seem possible for it not to have a shape, size or location. The claim that these are essential features of a physical thing is not equivalent to the claim that they do not change, but only that without them it could not be that kind of thing at all.
Quoting Banno
I don't think I have committed to a view about the composition of moral values. I think my argument is neutral on that. Thank you for your comments though.
I suppose that if someone says humans are essentially physical and essentially conscious, that's consistent with what's of intrinsic value about us being something that is essentially not physical. And so I think I can agree with someone who says that humans are essentially physical and essentially conscious. I am a human, but I do not think I am essentially a human. If I were to discover I was a cow, my reason still represents me to be intrinsically morally valuable.
Someone who says that we - the things that are of intrinsic moral value - are essentially physical and essentially conscious would be saying that consciousness is an essential feature of physical things. And that, I think, does not appear to be true.
Perhaps something can be intrinsically morally valuable due to answering to a concept and the moral value supervene on something essential to the concept rather than the thing itself. For want of a better example, perhaps someone could be intrinsically morally valuable due to being a bachelor with the intrinsic value supervening on the fact they are unmarried. I think we would actually describe that as extrinsic value precisely because the one who is a bachelor is not essentially a bachelor. But even so, we can simply run the thought experiment where we ourselves are concerned and simply remove any and all of those features that our moral value is proposed to be supervening on and see if it remains.
For example, if my intrinsic moral value is claimed to be supervening on the fact I am a human, then I can simply imagine finding out that I am not one (as I did above) and see if this affects my intrinsic moral worth. As it does not, then my intrinsic moral worth is not grounded in that fact about me. And as that can continue until we arrive at something like "the fact I am a bearer of conscious states" - something that does not seem an essential feature of any physical thing - we still arrive at the conclusion that we are not physical things.
Maybe everything does have some intrinsic value. Even so, my argument would not really be affected, I think. As clearly I have a different order of intrinsic moral value to a germ. And so whatever my intrinsic features of me my moral value is supervening on will be different to those on which a germ's intrinsic moral value (if have it it does) is supervening on. And I think that's all my argument needs. For if I just focus on me, then my intrinsic moral value does not seem to be supervening on any of the plausible candidate intrinsic properties of physical things. My moral value seems to be supervening on the fact I am a bearer of conscious states. Thus I can conclude that I am essentially a bearer of conscious states - something no physical thing seems to be.
No one seems to agree or comment on it.
Okay, fair enough.
Quoting Clarendon
I think that's right.
Quoting Clarendon
Regarding these points, let's look at (1) (emphasis added):
Quoting Clarendon
Suppose object X is essentially conscious and essentially physical. If physical things are not essentially morally valuable, and yet conscious things are essentially morally valuable, then the question of whether object X is morally valuable turns on the matter of whether we employ "some" or "all" within (1). If we use "some" then X is morally valuable, whereas if we use "all" then X is not morally valuable.
(Of course, the substratum problem rears its head here as well, for one might object that, if the "all" interpretation is true and humans are essentially physical and essentially conscious, then this proposition must be false:
Quoting Clarendon
Perhaps. I would want more detail on how the "definitional" approach and the "metaphysical" approach diverge or converge.
Quoting Clarendon
Yes, that seems right to me.
Quoting Clarendon
I'm not so sure about this myself.
Quoting Clarendon
I think it all goes back to "some" versus "all." Aristotle would say that the dignity proper to a human being does not derive from physicality per se, and yet that humans are nevertheless essentially physical beings.
Of course we must ask what is happening on a mind/body dualism view, such as your own. This seems to turn on the matter of how we adjudicate the question of whether we are essentially physical/bodily. If we use "all" in (1) then the question is answered. In that case we cannot be essentially physical if we have moral worth. If we use "some" in (1) then the mind/body dualist must search out some other argument for why we are not essentially physical.
Quoting Clarendon
No, I don't think it does. But as I see it, that's weakness. There's nothing to appeal to which could give an intrinsic type of quality. I think.
But think of a photon.
What bothers me about your argument is the "hedgehog" - we cannot infer hedgehog conclusions from non-hedgehog premises. If that we are non-physical things is the conclusion of a deduction, then that conclusion must be present somewhere int he assumptions of the argument. You've built in to your argument that anything whose intrinsic value supervenes on consciousness is non-physical.
I think the talk of essences distracts from that basic problem. The Aristotelian idea of an essence - "that which makes something what it is" - vergers on useless. If the argument could be reworked in model terms, using necessary properties rather than essences, the issue might be made clearer.
I'll leave you to it.
Where a vice may arise is if one of the premises asserts the conclusion (although this would not by itself render the argument invalid - 'T, therefore T' is valid - so much as uninformative). But it seems to me that none of the premises of my argument assert the conclusion. And so if the conclusion follows from the premises, then nothing has been gotten out that was not put in. The argument will simply have successfully shown us what was implicit in what our reason already tells us.
For example, the claim that -
1. If an object is intrinsically morally valuable, then it is morally valuable in virtue of some/all of its essential properties.
- does not assert that no physical thing has consciousness as a property (and so does not beg the question of what kind of a thing our minds are).
Likewise -
2. Our minds are intrinsically morally valuable objects
does not assert it either. Both premises, taken by themselves, are entirely consistent with the thesis that we are physical things.
3. Conclusion: therefore the objects that are our minds are morally valuable in virtue of some/all of their essential properties
As this just follows deductively from 1 and 2, this is not question begging (for neither 1 nor 2 are question begging).
This -
4. Our minds are (plausibly) intrinsically morally valuable because they bear conscious states
is a neutral premise too. It does not assert that no physical thing can bear conscious states.
This -
5. Conclusion: therefore the objects that are our minds have bearing conscious states as one of their essential properties.
is entailed by 3 and 4 and so cannot possibly be question begging unless a premise that preceded it is.
This -
5. Consciousness is not an essential property of physical objects
is not question begging either. Indeed, I think most physicalists about the mind would accept it, for they do not typically argue that it is definitive of a physical object that it can bear conscious states, but make the much more modest claim that it is possible for physical objects to bear conscious states. This premise also seems independently verifiable by reason - it is prima facie implausible to think consciousness is a defining feature of a physical thing. (Even if there is disagreement over exactly what a physical things defining features are, consciousness seems clearly not to be among the plausible candidates).
And this -
6. Conclusion: therefore, the objects that are our minds are not physical objects
follows logically. And so 6 does not contain more than was in the premises and the premises whose implication it extracts are not question begging.
Maybe that's wrong and it does beg the question against the physicalist about the mind - but I don't think it does at this stage. I think the average physicalist about the mind would accept all the premises. Perhaps upon learning what their combined implication is they might set about trying to challenge one of the premises (although I personally think that would be question begging....), but that'd be a burden or cost or embarrassment given they each seem independently plausible.
I am not sure I can, not unless I am being asked to think of a very tiny shaped thing. But anyway, I think this misses the point - which is that whatever features are proposed as being definitive of a physical thing, they're not going to include consciousness. And that's really all my argument needs. Precisely what is definitive of a physical thing can be left open, then.
Quoting Banno
I do not see what you're getting at here. We could talk of intrinsic properties instead - the point is just that intrinsic moral value supervenes on intrinsic properties (which seems analytic). It's not clear to me that introducing necessity could make anything clearer, given the exact relationship between necessity and intrinsic properties seems open to some dispute.
But let's say - and I am not convinced this is true - that an object's essential (or intrinsic, if one prefers) properties are properties it has of necessity. Then all that would mean where my argument is concerned is that we are necessarily not physical things.
Great post. :up:
Someone who denies that anything has intrinsic moral value would also have to deny that anything has extrinsic moral value as well (as extrinsic moral value presupposes intrinsic moral value - not everything can be extrinsically morally valuable, for instance).
But that means denying intrinsic moral value means being a moral nihilist.
Now, of course a moral nihilist would reject my argument as unsound. But then all I'm going to do is say that my argument establishes the truth of this claim:
Either moral nihilism is true, or our minds are not physical things.
That, I think, is quite an astonishing conclusion! I think we can safely say that the vast bulk of physicalists about the mind have no idea they need to affirm moral nihilism if they're to be consistent!
Quoting Clarendon
We must take care here - if an argument is valid, then asserting the premises taken together is just asserting the conclusion. Nothing novel comes from a deductive argument. So if your argument is valid, then the conclusion is present in the assumptions. (added: that's the generic flaw in arguments for the existence of a god).
So, where?
Well,
Look at the critical premise: Premise: Physical essential properties (shape, size, location) are poor candidates; intrinsic moral value plausibly supervenes on consciousness or rationality.
There's an implicit assumption: "Any essential property that grounds intrinsic moral value cannot belong to a purely physical thing." This is already what the conclusion asserts: that intrinsic moral value depends on non-physical features, therefore, the bearer (us) is non-physical.
The argument is valid only because this assumption is built in, even if its unstated. Without it, the argument would only show that intrinsic moral value depends on consciousness, but not that consciousness is non-physical.
_______
There's a difference between imagining a photon and thinking about one. Photons are considered to be physical. Yet they do not have a determinate location, nor a size, nor a shape... unless you are willing to interpret those terms quite broadly.
_______
Added: I really should emphasis that I think your intuition that values are not physical is correct. But your argument can't demonstrate that it is correct.
Quoting Clarendon
There are at least two readings of "intrinsically morally valuable" that affect the plausibility of premise (1). You seem to take this premise as analytical, with "an object being intrinsically morally valuable" meaning "value grounded in intrinsic (or essential) properties of that object."
However, one could also read it as "valuable for its own sake." This reading is often assumed as the same as the first, but I think they are distinguishable. In this second sense, premise (1) is not definitionally true. An object may be valuable for its own sake, but this value being based on extrinsic properties of that object. For instance, the pen used by Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation might be valuable "for its own sake," being something we should respect and consider when we act, but this value is based on its extrinsic property of serving a role in an important historical event. Thus, it seems at least a coherent view that objects could be taken into consideration for "their own sake" without this being grounded in their essential properties.
Still, I think you are quite explicit that the meaning you intend is the first ("essential property") for premise (1), but I believe premise (2), in turn, is only clearly plausible given the second ("for its own sake") reading. And the physicalist that is also a moral realist could then insist on the second reading to avoid the force of your argument.
Quoting Clarendon
The physicalist might accept that our minds are valuable "for their own sakes" without committing to these being based on essential properties of the mind. What is intuitive about premise (2) is that our minds should be taken into moral consideration for their own sakes. In contrast, that the moral value of our minds is grounded in their essential properties does not strike me as nearly as initially plausible. So the strength of premise (2) might be affected by a conflation the two different readings.
Just as one possible example, "having a phenomenal past," that is, having had phenomenal experiences in the past, might be necessary for us being moral ends in ourselves, but "having a phenomenal past" does not seem essential to a mind. There was a point where a mind came to be when it had no phenomenal past: when it first came into existence! If true (which is very debatable), there is a non-essential property that determines intrinsic value "for its own sake." This example is likely controversial and would need much more defense, but I think it shows that it is a coherent idea that the value of our minds "for their own sake" could be grounded in something non-essential.
Given the stipulated, essentialist sense you use, the physicalist could just deny (2) because this premise is less plausible than it seems when untangled, while still avoiding the bitter taste of moral nihilism.
In either case, again, a very interesting argument.
I mentioned that something might be morally valuable due to intrinsic properties of the concept to which it answers, but that also something might be morally valuable due to intrinsic properties of the thing itself. I have now found that the distinction in question is expressed by talking about something's 'de re' identity versus its 'de dicto' identity. And so I now have the terminology I need to distinguish between something's being intrinsically valuable 'de re' (where this means that it is intrinsically valuable because of what it, the object itself, is) and something's being intrinsically valuable 'de dicto' (where this means that it is valuable due to intrinsic features of the concept to which it answers).
The pen example you gave would be an example of something that is intrinsically valuable de dicto, as it is morally valuable not because it is a physical thing - even though it is - but because it answers to the concept 'pen used by Lincoln'.
What I hold is that my mind's intrinsic moral value is represented to be de re, not de dicto. This is because whether I am represented to be this person, the thinker of this thought, the human being now speaking, or me with a phenomenal past or me without one, or in any other way that truly refers to me, the truth of what my reason represents to be the case is unchanged. That is, regardless of which description I am given, I am intrinsically morally valuable no less. This invariance under co-referring substitution shows that my reasons representation is de re: it concerns the object that I am, not any description or concept under which I may fall (I think).
if that is correct, then as my intrinsic moral value is intrinsic de re not de dicto, and none of any physical object's de re intrinsic properties are plausible candidates for the ground of my value, the argument goes through....I think.
So I do believe that everything has inherent moral value, but some hold more value than others based on the context of the situation. A germ or bacteria can be very helpful if it cleans up toxic waste, allowing more life to live overall.
In general, its a hierarchy. Non-life, life, conscious life. This is because there is a higher amount of actual and potential existence within more life and intelligent life. Rocks simply sit there. Chemical reactions eventually burn out. But life actively attempts to extend itself beyond a base chemical interaction. Intelligent life is able to alter the world in unique and amazing ways. This is what is good.
Quoting Clarendon
This is the mistake of hubris. You are a physical being. You are one aspect of a moral universe. The most moral in most contexts, but moral within the universe as part of the universe, not as something without.