The Intrinsic Values of Knowledge and Achievement

This paper explores the idea that knowledge and achievement are intrinsic human goods – more specifically, that they’re objective or perfectionist goods, whose value doesn’t depend on our wanting or getting pleasure from them. It discusses what knowledge and achievement are, what makes them objectively good, and what distinguishes their more valuable from their less valuable instances. A central theme is that the two are parallel goods, with similar grounds and similar factors affecting their value.