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Exploring philosophy: faking nature
Exploring philosophy: faking nature

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4 The value of originality

The next section of Elliot’s article contains its key claim: Elliot’s answer to the question of why restoration is believed to entail a loss of value.

Activity 4

Timing: Spend around 30 minutes on this activity.

Read now to the bottom of p. 87 (‘…restoration policy’) of Elliot’s article [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , and answer the questions below.

  1. Why, according to Elliot, is pristine nature valued?
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Answer

  1. Elliot says: ‘We value the forest and river in part because they are representative of the world outside our dominion, because their existence is independent of us’ (p. 86).
  1. What two objections to his theory does Elliot consider?
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Answer

  1. The two objections are these:
    • a.That it is false that ‘what is natural is necessarily of value’ (p. 86).
    • b.That the preservation of natural wilderness is ‘achievable only by deliberate policy’ (p. 87).
  1. What two responses does he give to these objections?
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Answer

  1. The two responses are these:
    • a.He is ‘not claiming that all natural phenomena have value in virtue of being natural’ (p. 86).
    • b.He concedes this, but it does not damage his claim that what we value is ‘causal continuity with the past’ (p. 87).

Elliot’s claim is that nature is valued because it is ‘representative of the world outside our dominion, because their existence is independent of us’. There are two questions to ask about this. First, just because something ‘independent of us’ (in this sense), why should that make it valuable? Second, how significant is this value? Elliot evidently takes it to be very significant. Humankind has, for thousands of years, survived by extracting elements from the earth. Elliot says this comes at a cost – the cost of damaging something ‘outside of our dominion’ – which is, in some cases, sufficient to outweigh the benefits to human beings. That is, the cost is heavy enough to weigh against people being able to stave off the cold (extracting fuel) or feeding themselves (clearing forests for farming). The costs of damaging nature that mean people should bear harms that they would not otherwise bear were nature to be damaged. You will return to this idea next week.