PHILOSOPHY OF VALUES. — The contemporary philosophy of values represents a distinct orientation which, in its various strands, asserts above all: a) the opposition between being (understood as the world of nature and experience, whether scientific or common) and the ought-to-be (understood as an objective norm in the dual sense of thought and action, or as a subjective exigency of affectivity and freedom); then, b) the emphasis on the moment of “emotion” (directed toward an ideal of pure knowledge) and of appraisal or esteem (in contrast to mere representation of what is); and finally, c) a primary interest in problems concerning the meaning of human existence and, consequently, the replacement of causal explanation (mechanistic) with “understanding” of the sense or ends of life. According to this threefold orientation—metaphysical, psychological, and ethical or religious—the various “axiologies” or doctrines of values currently enjoying the greatest credibility are classified.
In current philosophical usage, the term “value” denotes, objectively, the fact that things are more or less esteemed or desired, and, subjectively, it highlights the intrinsic excellence that grounds such esteem or confers a character of utility. The mathematical, logical, aesthetic, and economic meanings of “value” (cf. A. Lalande, *Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie*, Paris 1926, s.v.) are generally excluded from philosophical inquiry. In contemporary philosophy, the term “value” can refer either to a rule of universal validity or to a “sui generis” quality sometimes called a “tertiary quality,” equivalent to the terms “ends” and “bonum” (connecting with such terms as quality, virtue, good, end, perfection, norm).
Historical development reveals that all great philosophies are, in a certain sense, philosophies of values (Lavelle), whether through the ideas of order, hierarchy, and finalism they employ or, above all, through the ethical doctrines they entail. Although the Platonic influence is easily discernible in the axiologies of Scheler and N. Hartmann, and the Aristotelian in Brentano’s theory, it is with the Kantian revolution that speculation on value begins. Each of Kant’s three *Critiques* contributed an original element of inspiration: according to Rickert (cf. *Logos*, 9 [1920], pp. 1–42), the *Critique of Pure Reason* highlighted a subject that is neither the empiricist’s subject nor the spiritual substance of the metaphysicians, but an “irreale,” a point of connection that is at once *Wert* and *Geltung*. The objective world is constituted by these “geltende Wertformen.” The theses of the *Critique of Practical Reason* reappear in the distinction—especially influential in Protestant theology inspired by Ritschl (q.v.)—between *Seinsurteile* and *Werturteile*. The distinction between *reflektierende Urteilskraft* and *bestimmende Urteilskraft*, employed in the *Critique of Judgment*, recalls the modern opposition between explanation and understanding.
A proximate precursor of the philosophy of values is H. Lotze, with his terminology of “perceiving value,” “feeling,” “world of values,” and “receptivity to values” (*Wertempfindend, Gefühl, Welt der Werte, Empfänglichkeit für Werte*), in the antithesis he establishes between ancient morality, which he regards as based on the empirical concept of human nature, and authentic morality founded on “ethischen Ideen” (applicable to any spiritual being; cf. *Grundzüge*, cited in bibliography, ch. 1, pp. 1–9), or “Wertbestimmungen der Vernunft,” themselves expressions of a “Gefühl” identical in all times and places, despite the varied “forms” it assumes in different societies and cultures (*Mikrokosmos*, cited in bibliography, ch. 5, pp. 276ff.). But it is above all Nietzsche (q.v.) who assigns importance to the notion of value (which he intends to replace that of truth), a notion synonymous with both biological utility and a mysterious creative energy (whose symbol is Zarathustra), sustaining his project of an inversion of all values (*Umwertung der Werte*: subtitle of *Der Wille zur Macht*). It is an attempt to create a culture founded on vital values, whose source is a biologically grounded “will to power.”
The development of the philosophy of values owes much, in some of its most representative works (M. Scheler, N. Hartmann), to Husserl’s phenomenology. To these philosophical principles is added the “crisis of foundations” (*Krisis der Gründe*) through which Western civilization is passing. According to the realist conception developed by Scheler (and further by N. Hartmann), value is an immediate quality of things that manifests itself per se, like sensible qualities, entirely independent not only of the will but also of emotional perception, foreign alike to the ought (*Sollen*) that rests upon it and to the reality (nature, history, freedom) that it may represent rather than betray or distort. Value, N. Hartmann specifies, possesses an ideal being, akin to mathematical essences, but with the difference that while the latter impose themselves necessarily in the real, this is by no means the case with values (especially ethical values). The neo-Kantian conception identifies value and norm, the norm itself being defined by its relation to a universal validity (*Beziehung aus dem Zweck der Allgemeingültigkeit*). Cf. W. Windelband, *Präludien*, cited in bibliography, II, pp. 74ff.
Physical laws (*Naturgesetze*) merely state constant relations among facts (causality); norms, by contrast, define supreme ends that impose themselves on all in the order of thought and action; they thus imply a necessary relation to a (impersonal) subject. Hence value and ought (*Wert* and *Sollen*) are identified (cf. Rickert’s hesitations in *Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis*, Tübingen 1921, pp. 281ff.). In the psychologistic thesis, which revives the Spinozist and Hobbesian conception, value is a relation to *Begehren* (“Ehrenfels” distinct from *Fühlen*). More precisely, the value of an object consists in its *Begehrenarbeit* (according to Brentano, cf. *Vom Ursprung*, cited in bibliography, p. 17). In the subjective idealism of R. Polin, value is reduced to an imaginary construct that, in the successive phases of the axiological cycle, is determined finally into a norm and ultimately into action, only to be extinguished in the realized object, that is, a thing (*Création des valeurs*, cited in bibliography, pp. 45ff.). Finally, in the sociological thesis, value is a collective representation, a condensation of judgments of appraisal imposed on the individual as a norm of thought and action (cf. E. Durkheim, *Jugements de valeur et jugements de réalité*, in *Rev. mét. et mor.*, 19 [1911], pp. 437ff.).
As for the foundation of values, it is necessary to distinguish between the reason or justificatory criterion of values and their origin or appearance in history. For the axiological realism of Scheler, as well as for neo-Kantianism and even Brentano, values do not require any extrinsic justification: they impose themselves on all by right, through a sui generis evidence; they are justified in themselves and justify everything else, giving it meaning (cf. Simm.). However, with regard to their origin or appearance in history (or in nature), they are conditioned by a set of biological, cultural, ethnic, religious, etc., factors. In this sense, an axiological relativism is compatible with the objectivist thesis.
For psychological or sociologist theses, the problems of the origin and foundation of values tend to merge. Thus, at a certain stage of social evolution, its collective representations, along with dominant psychological tendencies (whether thought to be relatively immutable or in continuous flux), are both the source and the criterion of values. In individualist subjectivism, valuation constitutes the value and is at once the point of origin and the justification that this valuation highlights for an irrational will to power (Nietzsche) or for a freedom irreducible to biology (Polin). From a tested perspective, the Absolute is both the point of origin from which values derive and their ultimate justification (Lavelle, Le Senne).
Considered in their relations, values are susceptible to a twofold consideration, depending on whether one considers the relationship that unites them among themselves (internal relations) or that which refers them to their different factors of realization (external relations). In the first case, one speaks of relations of inclusion, exclusion, or indifference (hence a logic of values that is not limited to a simple logic of "value judgments"). But this presupposes a generic division of values that varies from one conception to another. Among the best known, one recalls the division into positive and negative values (not accepted by all; cf. R. Polin, *Du Laid*, etc., cited in bibliography, passim), analogous to Aristotle’s division of contraries understood as the extremes of the same genus, and which some have compared to the division of positive and negative quantities in mathematics, a concept introduced into philosophy by Kant; Scheler’s division: "Höhere, niedrigere Werte" [higher, lower values], which, together with the division into negative and positive values, constitutes the hierarchical order of values; "Personwerte" [personal values], "Sachwerte" [objective values], "Aktwerte" [act-values], "Funktionswerte" [functional values], etc. (division according to the immediate subjects of values). The second point of view considers the insertion of values into nature, history, and the various human societies (hence a static and dynamic sociology of values), and into individual freedom (thus a phenomenology of the various axiological attributions amply described by R. Polin, *Compréhension des valeurs*, Paris 1944; cf. also K. Jaspers, *Psychologie der Weltanschauungen*, Italian trans., Rome 1950).
Turning to the classification of values, important is Scheler’s classification according to their content, which establishes the following hierarchy: a) material values (economic); b) vital values (whose two extremes are the noble and the base: "Ungemein-Gemein"); c) spiritual values (subdivided into theoretical, aesthetic, and ethical values); d) religious values or values of the sacred. There is also the tripartite division: value-truth; value-utility; value-beauty (G. Tarde, cited by T. Ribot, *Logique des sentiments*, Paris 1905, p. 42 ff.), and Krejbig’s division into personal values (hygiene), interpersonal values (morality), and impersonal values (ethics). Rickert, independently of any form of hierarchy, made a deduction (which is at the same time a classification) starting from human "aspiration" (Streben), considered in three different moments: A) contemplation or impersonal values; a) theoretical (science); b) aesthetic (art); c) mystical (pantheism). B) action or personal values: a) ethical or ethico-social (morality); b) erotic (marriage, friendship, family); c) religious (the kingdom of God on earth through human harmony, concretely; Christianity: cf. *Logos*, 3 [1913], p. 295 ff.). Finally, L. Lavelle (*Traité*, cited in bibliography, I, pp. XIV–XV) proposes a subdivision into three different groups.