When is existence value useful?

Since its introduction to the field of environmental and natural resource economics in the late 1960s, existence value has faced a number of critiques from economists, psychologists and philosophers. Critics have taken aim at the notion's conceptual ambiguity and lack of connection to observable behavior; its incompatibility with cognitive processes and its sensitivity to cognitive biases; and ethical shortcomings in applying existence values for the purpose of environmental decision-making. The objective of this paper is to ascertain under what set of "behavioral" and ethical premises, and in which legal contexts, the concept remains policy-relevant. Unlike some critiques of existence value which draw on ethical frameworks for decision-making fundamentally at odds with cost-benefit analysis, we presume the decision-maker adopts a welfarist approach. We consider: i) whether or not the decision-maker has a legal duty for environmental preservation; ii) whether individuals adopt consequentialist or deontological frameworks; and iii) whether or not individuals are cognitively capable of assessing willingness-to-pay for existence. For each case, we apply economic, philosophical and/or psychological reasoning to determine whether ethically meaningful preferences could be ascertained and influence a rational policy decision in short, whether existence value is relevant. In only one case that featuring cognitively capable, consequentialist stakeholders in a policy decision for which the decision maker has no legal duty to preserve is existence value relevant. We explore the implications of this finding for the practice and utilization of non-market valuation of existence benefits in light of empirical evidence regarding the relative likelihood or prevalence of the cases.