Comments on Hettinger

Hettinger's commentary on Rolston is something that I can for the most part agree with, but his response lacks in several categories. To begin with Hettinger does a good job questioning Rolston and showing how, in my opinion, Rolston is wrong, but Hettinger fails to offer alternative styles of thinking along with every criticism he makes. Moving on from that simple complaint, Hettinger notes if nature doesn't have intrinsic value people won't work to help it, law makers won't attempt to save it. Here I disagree. For us to say something has value we must be able to appreciate it whether it lead to something now, or it is currently happening. Whether we are meant to dominate nature is irrelevant, for human beings create the concept of value, the concept of sound, and so many more. Beautiful things in nature do not have intrinsic value, they are valued due to their beauty. Hettinger mentions something regarding the Arctic Wildlife Reserve, even something like this is set up because humans value it, not because it is intrinsically valuable. In centuries past nature was not taken care of in many ways because we did not value nature. Humans did not know the untold effects that would befall future generations. Even now some people ignore the future, but many people do realize that it is in their best interest to do something about environmental crises. Once it becomes more beneficial to save the environment than not the save the environment, it will surely happen. Not because of an intrinsic value, but because people bestow value upon the environment; if it was intrinsically valuable than something would already have been done, but people simply don't agree with that. Even the people who fight their whole lives to create sanctuaries, or keep parks open only do so because they have placed value on these things.