No, ecosystems do not have intrinsic value! A response to the Conguillío Statement

1. The Conguillío Statement on the alleged values and responsibilities of ecologists claims that ecosystems are intrinsically valuable. This is a common claim by ecologists and the authors of the Conguillío Statement probably view it as uncontroversial. 2. Ecologists want to invoke the concept of intrinsic value because it seems to cover more of nature than instrumental value. However, ecologists of- ten use the term without recognizing that it can have significantly different meanings. In particular ecologists often invoke the conception of objective intrinsic value because it has more moral force than other conceptions. 3. The quintessential entities thought to have intrinsic value are individual human beings. There are two approaches to showing that ecosystems also have intrinsic value: monism and pluralism. Monism attempts to show that we can come to recognize the objective intrinsic value in ecosystems by showing that they have this value for reasons similar to those thought to engender it in individual humans. This position does not seem plausible. Pluralism attempts to account for the supposed intrinsic value of ecosystems for some other reason, and this account exists independently of our traditional human-centric ethics. The problem with the pluralist approach is that there is no principled way to reconcile the inevitable conflicts that will arise between human interests and the claimed intrinsic value of ecosystems. It seems that unless we are prepared to throw out our human ethics, pluralism will not work. 4. While there are active philosophical research programs aimed at resolving these conflicts, ecologists should probably treat the Conguillío Statement's claim of intrinsic value for ecosystems as an essentially contested concept- one that is inherently debatable and for which there is no single agreed-upon understanding or interpretation.