There's no such thing as intrinsic value. Value in and of itself is a human phenomenon; thus, it must reside only within the human. The only possible thing that could be deduced to inherently possess this status is happiness.
"Intrinsic" has a specific meaning, meaning in itself in relation to no other thing. "Extrinsic" means in relation to other things, so it's much easier to determine why a thing is of value to you specifically.
Logically deduce anything you believe possesses this trait: gold, real estate, food, water, friendship, children. Ask yourself why you want this thing, then when you answer that question, ask yourself why again you want that next step, and repeat it all the way down. Inevitably, you arrive at you wanting that said thing so that you can be happy. Then, when you ask yourself why you want to be happy, you just do.
Imagine a world where there's only thing X. We would neither want, nor care, nor value thing X. It's everywhere, present in unlimited quantities. No other thing exists. It's only through the processing of a hierarchical ordinal system that we can deduce what is valuable to each of us IN RELATION to all the other things. I only know how much more I like apples by knowing how much less I dislike oranges, etc.
It's through this processing of realizing one's own relationships to these things, and intersubjectively relating these items to each other, that one could even remotely begin to bring about something called value.
But, BUT TK, everyone needs water, so it's something that's valuable to everyone, right?! Not quite.
Value is created at the margin of the individual's preferences; this is to say, simply, if I were to give you a fresh bucket of water every 5 minutes from now until forever, how long until that water becomes a burden for you, the individual, to deal with? Where's the line when this life-sustaining object becomes a net negative to you? The only one with enough relevance, data, and knowledge to know where this line resides is the individual himself. To make a blanket statement about something so obvious as a cure-all and justification for one thing being a right or needed is nonsensical. You only know how much the next unit of things is valuable to you in relation to your current ability to acquire or current stock of a certain good already obtained.
The next time anyone tries to tell you things have intrinsic value, refer to this thread to arm yourself with the knowledge to rebut those who would rather simplify the arguments into obscure gotchas.
