158 ARGUMENTS: MONOTHEISTIC CONCEPTIONS(C) For any class C, if C’s having members has intrinsic worth, then for
any item X that belongs to C, X has intrinsic worth.
or something much like it is true. Perhaps we should distinguish between
exchangeable intrinsic worth and unexchangeable intrinsic worth. Having
exchangeable intrinsic worth is a matter of having intrinsic worth but its
not being wrong of an agent to eliminate it by causing there to be
something else that also has intrinsic worth. If cacti have intrinsic worth, it
is of the former sort. Extrinsic worth (including value by association) aside,
if Jim drives over Ron’s bush but apologizes and replaces it with another
that is relevantly similar, then Ron owes Jim no more. If Jim does not care
whether the bush is of the same sort, or whether the replacement item is a
bush rather than a tree, if Jim apologizes and replaces the original bush by
one of a different sort or by a tree, once again Ron owes Jim no more. But if
Ruth is babysitting for Rita’s child, loses her, and replaces her with another
of the same age, gender, weight, IQ, and the like, it is false that it is only
value by association that remains as a basis for Rita’s agonizing protest.
Those who accept (S) typically ascribe exchangeable intrinsic worth, not
unexchangeable intrinsic worth, to dinosaurs and the members of other
species. They need not deny (C) – the claim that For any class C, if C’s
having members has intrinsic worth, then for any item X that belongs to C,
X has intrinsic worth; they need only to take the members of the relevant
species to have exchangeable intrinsic worth. The monotheist can also grant
that dinosaurs have exchangeable intrinsic worth.
Even if God would need a morally sufficient reason to allow a species
whose members have exchangeable intrinsic natural worth to cease to exist
- even if it is true, for example, that
(D) God needs a morally sufficient reason for there once having been
dinosaurs and there not now being any.
- it also seems plain that God has one if it is the case that God replaced
dinosaurs by things of comparable exchangeable intrinsic worth (post-
dinosaurean mammals). On the other hand, if (D) is false, it is hard to see
why one should accept anything along the lines of:
(D*)God’s goodness is called into question by there once having been N
number of species and there now being N-minus-M number of
species around now or ever again.
It is worth noting that there is nothing in the notion of exchangeable
intrinsic value that requires that the replacements be of the same kind, or
in the same quantity, as what they replace.