IMHO if you are interested in moral aspects, you should look on how different ethics schools evaluate 'nature', since question on intrinsic values is rather philosophical scope. Unfortunately, you will probably find that only utilitarianism considers intrinsic values of nature, since both personalism and deontologism are anthropocentric. However, if you are looking for ecological services that cannot be considered in terms of money (but they still have value), there are some, like: aesthetic values of nature, general well-being, spiritual etc.

Hi Paola,

You might be interested in the article:

Farrell KN. 2007. Living with living systems: The co-evolution of values and valuation. Int J Sust Dev World 14:14-26.

Which considers the problem of methods for quantifying intrinsic values. also, two papers will be coming out some that address the issue broadly:

Doorn N. 2017. Do eco-systems have ethical rights? Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, forthcoming.

and

Rea AW, Munns WR Jr. 2017. The value of nature: economic, intrinsic, or both? Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management, forthcoming.

Thanks Michal for your answer. Recently researchers the ecosystem services field have integrated philosophical arguments about the ‘nature of value’. I agree with those scholars that have argued that monetary valuations are limited to articulate intrinsic values due to the inherent ontological contradiction between utilitarian monetary values and intrinsic values. I also agree with you, that some ecosystem services cannot be valued in monetary terms, but still have value.

Due to this ontological contradiction, I wonder if there is any valuation experience that has integrated both intrinsic values and the anthropocentric values attributed to ecosystems. How the notion of intrinsic values was integrated in the valuation exercise? Was a non-monetary valuation method applied towards this aim? How non-anthropocentric and anthropocentric values were balanced in the valuation exercise?

Thanks Klemens for your response and the reflexive questions you posted. I also believe that willingness to pay questions are not suitable for articulating intrinsic values. ES scholars have been promoting no-monetary valuation methods (e.g. narratives, willingness to donate time for ecosystems conservation, artistic performances). Such on ground valuation exercises would be relevant towards knowing how intrinsic values were represented (maybe not in a quantitative measure) and how this values were integrated in decision making as well as the anthropocentric ones. In line with your arguments, how these intrinsic values representations emphasized the emotional/esoterical aspects of human-nature relationships?

Thanks Wayne for your papers suggestion.

I have read Farrell's excellent paper :) I will also look forward for the other two papers you mentioned

Paola , I think you should start with deep reading of Austrian School of Economics authors like: Hazlitt, Misses, Rothbard, maybe Hayek. Especially Mises argued that there is no such thing as determined value, only subjective values. Also, they agreed that every limited resource possess some kind of value. All the ASE members stay in strong opposition to mainstream 'keynesian economics' which is just stupid, but all politicians use it as an argument for their decisions.  Last but not least, some of them (especially Rothbard) strongly criticized utilitarianism. You can find a really big library of free ebooks at liberty.me web page (registration is free).

All the best!