Online Papers - Brian Weatherson

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties 609
possibilist, it is not clear that (LTG) should be true. For a problematic example, let
F be the property being square or being such that the number 21 does not exist. Every
possible object that is F is square, and hence intrinsically F, but it is not clear that F
is an intrinsic property. This question (like a few others we will discuss below) turns
on the metaphysics of properties. If two properties that are necessarily coextensive
are identical (as Lewis believes), or are guaranteed to be alike in whether they are
intrinsic or extrinsic (as Sider 1993 argues), then F will be intrinsic. If properties can
be individuated more finely than this, and if their intrinsicness or otherwise turns on
this fine-grained individuation, then maybe F is not intrinsic. We will return to this
issue in some of the discussions below.
2 Notions of Intrinsicness
Many different distinctions have been called the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. As
J. Michael Dunn (1990) notes, some authors have used ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ to
mean ‘essential’ and ‘accidental’. Dunn is surely right in saying that this is a misuse
of the terms. A more interesting distinction is noted by Brian (Ellis, 1991, discussed
in Humberstone (1996)). Ellis suggests we should distinguish between properties that
objects have independently of any outside forces acting on them (what we will call the
Ellis-intrinsic properties), and those that they have in virtue of those outside forces
(the Ellis-extrinsic properties). For many objects (such as, say, a stretched rubber
band) their shape will be dependent on the outside forces acting on them, so their
shape will be Ellis-extrinsic. If one is committed to the idea that shapes are intrinsic,
one should think this means that the distinction between the Ellis-intrinsic and
Ellis-extrinsic properties is not the same as the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction. Such a
judgement may seem a little hasty, but in any case we will turn now to distinctions
that have received more attention in the philosophical literature.
2.1 Relational vs. Non-Relational Properties
Many writers, especially in the literature on intrinsic value, use ‘relational’ for the
opposite of intrinsic. This seems to be a mistake for two reasons. The first reason is
that many properties seem to be both be relational and intrinsic. For example, most
people have the property having longer legs than arms, and indeed seem to have this
property intrinsically, even though the property consists in a certain relation being
satisfied. Maybe the property is not intrinsic if whether or not something is an arm
or a leg is extrinsic, so perhaps this isn’t a conclusive example, but it seems troubling.
As Humberstone notes, some might respond by suggesting that a relational property
is one such that if an object has it, then it bears some relation to a distinct thing. But
this won’t do either. Not being within a mile of a rhodadendron is clearly relational,
but does not consist in bearing a relation to any distinct individual, as we can see by
the fact that a non-rhodadendron all alone in a world can satisfy it.
A larger problem is that it seems being intrinsic and being relational are properties
of two very different kinds of things. Consider again the property F, being
square or being such that the number 21 does not exist. Assuming (as we do for now)
that we can make sense of the relational/non-relational distinction, F is a relational