A thing's intrinsic value is the value it has in itself as opposed to the instrumental value it derives from causally producing something else. Such value is important for the theory of the right, since on most views at least one moral duty is to promote intrinsic goods and prevent intrinsic evils. But it also matters in itself. If an earthquake causes suffering no one could have prevented, the suffering is still intrinsically bad. In fact, it is distinctive of the concept of value that, unlike that of ought or right, it is not restricted to what is under our voluntary control. And intrinsic value is the central kind of value. Something is instrumentally good if it produces something else good, but on pain of infinite regress, what it produces must eventually be intrinsically good.

There are two types of questions about intrinsic value: conceptual questions...