Surely it is too restrictive to distinguish only "use values" and "exchange
values". Things can be intrinsically valuable to humans i.e. the enjoyment
of a sunset, the taste of an apple, etc.etc. without being of any particular
use in the ordinary sense of the world. "use values" recalls what
philosophers have often termed instrumental or extrinsic values. Things that
are good for some end or purpose. Does anyone know the history of "use
value"? Is it adopted from utilitarianism and the concept of utility? Anyway
there surely can be use values or instrumental values that have no
relationship to what humans value. Food and drink are instrumentally
valuable for dogs, cats, etc. Veterinary treatment for a dog's broken leg is
instrumentally valuable even though it would give great joy to the owner
that the dog suffer and die. Nature is instrumentally valuable in serving
the needs of other organisms as well as our own.
I do not comprehend deep ecology. Deep ecologists seem to give a value
to nature that is not just instrumental to human and other species needs nor
even to the intrinsic value felt by humans in contemplating nature or
biosystems. For deep ecologists nature has some value wholly independent of
any consciousness. The notion that the greater the biodiversity in a system
the more valuable it is in some intrinsic sense makes no sense to me. I can
see that it may be important from the point of view of instrumental value
that there be greater biodiversity but not in terms of intrinsic value.
G.E. Moore thinks of beauty as a type of value of the sort that deep
ecologists give to Nature. Moore said something like this: if you consider
two universes one filled with garbage etc and the other with flowers,
babbling brooks, etc that the former is less beautiful than the latter
independently of any consciousness that might be disgusted by the one and
enjoy the contemplation of the other. I think Moore is dead wrong unless he
simply means that there is more inherent value in the latter than the
former. Inherent values are qualities that produce intrinsic values such as
joy, aesthetic pleasure, etc. in consciousness. Biodiversity might produce
such values in some but not in others. Personally I enjoy relatively barren
country although I don't intend to migrate to Inuvik. Anyway the point is
that inherent values are really a special type of
instrumental value in nature whose value is relative to production of
intrinsic values but are not in themselves or intrinsically of any value.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message -----
From: Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 12:10 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:2341] the labor theory of value
>
>
> >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/26/00 12:01PM >>>
>
> By Chapter One of _Capital_, both Nature and human labor are
> sources of use-values. Only human labor is a source of exchange-values.
> =====
> I know that. My question was trying to get at whether Marx was saying that
> even though nature is the source of use-values, it "in-itself" does or
does
> not have value? In other words was he still operating within Lockean
> premises that nature has no value until somebody mixes her/his labor with
> it?
>
> (((((((((((((
>
> CB: My thought is that for Marx, Nature itself is the ultimate source of
all use-values. If I look around, I may be able to find a quote to this
effect. I know he says that human material exchange with Nature is necessary
for life itself, human life itself ( an obvious truth). And certainly human
life itself is in some sense the source of all human input into creating
use-values.
>
> Note: Marx actually does capitalize "Nature" in the usage we are
discussing, which indirectly addresses your question.
>
> ((((((((((((
>
>
> Is the source of use-value [then on to exchange value] itself valuable
> and what kind of value, if so, is it? Do we have to expand the taxonomy of
> values given to us by M.? I ask because it is the source of a big rift in
> the green "movement" which needs to be ameliorated in some form different
> from the ick given by deep ecology.
>
> (((((((((((
>
> CB: The source of use-value, to the extent that source is human labor
power, is valuable in Marx's scheme. Labor-power has both use-value and
exhange-value for Marx.
>
> To the extent the source of use-value is Nature, yes , Nature is
valuable. What kind of value or valuable is it ? It is use-value or
use-valuable. it has no exchange-value, because exchange-value is all human
labor, which in this context is contrasted with non-human Nature.
>
> Note: Use-value means of valuable use to humans. Exchange-value means
human labor in the abstract.
>
> So, there is no value to Nature that is not in some way related to humans.
Even use-values for which Nature is the source obtain their definition of
being usefully valuable by their usefulness to humans (in Marx's approach).
>
> So, before the human species existed, there was no value, and Nature was
not valuable ( use or exchange).
>
> Which is not to say that Nature didn't appreciate itself, in some
Animistic sense, Spinozanism or something ( but that's not Marxism)
>
> I believe Marx's idea is somewhat the opposite of the deep ecology idea.
Marxism is a form of humanism. I don't know if it helps with the rift in
the Greens, but it is sensible to me.
>
