  Sylvan and Plumwood hypothesise that what underpins the deontic prohibition of the last man’s act is the truth of the axiological claim that entities in non-human nature can possess more than mere instrumental value—non-human nature “can have value and create obligations not reducible (in any way) to human interests” (1980a, 129). While such items may have instrumental value, value as a means to human ends, advantaging us in various ways—e.g., the value of forests in supplying water for human consumption—they might also have “non-instrumental”, or what the Routleys called “intrinsic” value (1980a, 126 and 129). Thus, the rejection of human chauvinism in its deontological form (the assertion of and the argument to the falsity of the Freedom Principle) was accompanied by its rejection in axiological form: not only humans have intrinsic value; non-human nature may also be the locus of intrinsic (non-instrumental) value.