I’m not nyan_sandwich, but here’s why I think those are different things and would use the former, not the latter, for what’s being said here. An “intrinsic value” is intrinsic to the thing being valued; e.g., perhaps some beautiful things are beautiful in a way that’s got nothing to do with the particular tastes human beings happen to have, and are just Beautiful In Themselves. A “terminal value” is terminal to the agent doing the valuing; e.g., perhaps my dislike of celery isn’t reducible to any other preferences and principles I have, but just Is What It Is, and other value judgements I make build on my fundamental, irreducible, dislike of celery.
There can be terminal values even if there aren’t intrinsic values (e.g., maybe no value judgement is ever meaningful outside the context of a particular value system, but some value systems really do have things sufficiently axiom-like to be rightly called terminal values). There can be intrinsic values even if there aren’t terminal values (e.g., maybe there is One True Value System but it doesn’t have the sort of logical structure that would make some of its values terminal).
nyan_sandwich is writing about the structure of human beings’ value systems, and suggesting that they don’t involve anything as axiom-like as terminal values. NS is not writing about the objective moral structure of the universe and suggesting that it doesn’t involve ascribing intrinsic value to particular things. Therefore, the proposition NS is endorsing is “we don’t have terminal values”, rather than “things don’t have intrinsic value”.
[EDITED to avoid formatting screwage from multiple underscores.]
Is there a reason you say “terminal value” rather than “intrinsic value”?
It’s the preferred local term. But if Wikipedia is to be believed, it’s also a term used by mainstream philosophers, just less commonly.
I’m not nyan_sandwich, but here’s why I think those are different things and would use the former, not the latter, for what’s being said here. An “intrinsic value” is intrinsic to the thing being valued; e.g., perhaps some beautiful things are beautiful in a way that’s got nothing to do with the particular tastes human beings happen to have, and are just Beautiful In Themselves. A “terminal value” is terminal to the agent doing the valuing; e.g., perhaps my dislike of celery isn’t reducible to any other preferences and principles I have, but just Is What It Is, and other value judgements I make build on my fundamental, irreducible, dislike of celery.
There can be terminal values even if there aren’t intrinsic values (e.g., maybe no value judgement is ever meaningful outside the context of a particular value system, but some value systems really do have things sufficiently axiom-like to be rightly called terminal values). There can be intrinsic values even if there aren’t terminal values (e.g., maybe there is One True Value System but it doesn’t have the sort of logical structure that would make some of its values terminal).
nyan_sandwich is writing about the structure of human beings’ value systems, and suggesting that they don’t involve anything as axiom-like as terminal values. NS is not writing about the objective moral structure of the universe and suggesting that it doesn’t involve ascribing intrinsic value to particular things. Therefore, the proposition NS is endorsing is “we don’t have terminal values”, rather than “things don’t have intrinsic value”.
[EDITED to avoid formatting screwage from multiple underscores.]