To suggest otherwise, to suggest that living in a tolerant society is good independently of its consequences, that it is intrinsically good is, in their opinion, to reject humanism, for it amounts to asserting the intrinsic value of something which is not human life or its quality. 
To understand why such misgivings are misplaced, and to show that humanism is compatible with holding some collective goods to be intrinsically valuable, we have to remind ourselves of, and to amplify, a few distinctions introduced in the previous chapter. 
Something is instrumentally good if its value <tag "515648">derives</> from the fact that it makes certain consequences more likely, or that it can contribute to producing certain consequences.   

