Naturalizing Values by Rolston

In Rolston’s piece he challenges what seem to be science, ethics/values and religion/ creation. He shows that humans can assign intrinsic value to the non-human world directly. He also describes how values are merely for human needs and desires. (Who are we to determine what had value?) Rolston dismisses this idea because disallows assigning value to anything natural or non-human. Rolston presents four positions occupied by those who discuss value in nature. He says there is the (1) anthropocentric value, in which case only human beings have intrinsic value, (2) the sentience-centered value which describes that only sentient things have intrinsic value, (3) anthropogenic values in which only humans can generate intrinsic values, and ascribe it to some non-sentient things, and lastly (4) the Anthropogenic values in nature which makes intrinsic values independent of humans. It was tough for me to understand exactly which value Rolston was taking on as his argument. I do know he would not choose number one or two, so it seems to be some variant of three and four.

I agree with Rolston when he mentions to non-human things acting as if they value things (such as the bat valuing her young and the flies), and nature in general always seems to be striving towards achieving things (through natural selection). There is no reason why we should not consider this valuing. Therefore, there is no reason why we should not consider that this valuing leads to intrinsic value.