Axiology

The English word ‘axiology’ is a translation of the German ‘Werttheorie’ (Greek: axios = worth; logos= ‘study’), which means ‘study of value’. Although questions of value are as old is philosophy itself, 'axiology' refers primarily to the writings of the Austro-German phenomenologists such as Franz Brentano, Alexius Meinong, Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann. Their influence has been transmitted to the Anglophone world through the writings of G.E. Moore, W.D. Ross, Roderick Chisholm and more recently Robert Nozick.

The axiological movement emerges from the phenomenological method. The axiologists sought to characterise the notion of value in general, of which moral value is only one species. They argue (with notable differences between them) against Kant, that goodness does not exclusively derive from the will, but exists in objective hierarchies. They emphasise the extent to which it is through emotions and feelings that human beings discern values. The notion of right action is understood derivatively in terms of the values which emotions reveal.

Franz Brentano

Brentano's axiological theory depends on his conception of the structure of thought, which revolves crucially around the medieval notion of intentionality. The intentionality of mental states refers to the directedness of thought onto an object. This is, in more common language, its about-ness. For example, when someone thinks a thought of a rose, their thought is about a rose.

Brentano, following Descartes, presents a three-fold classification of psychological phenomena: (1) thinking, (2) judging, and (3) feeling or willing (in contrast with Kant Brentano does not draw a sharp division between will and feeling). Firstly, thinking involves the presentation of an objection to consciousness, as when one thinks about a rose, but does does not involve believing that it exists, or wanting it to exist. Thinking thoughts involves having ideas before one's mind but is more basic than and does not entail judging or willing. Secondly, Brentano distinguishes judging (or believing) from thinking be means of the notions of acceptance and rejection (or affirmation and denial). For example, judging that a rose exisits involves thinking of a rose and accepting it. Conversely, judging that no unicorns exist involves thinking of a unicorn and rejecting or denying it. Acceptance and rejection are held to be basic mental acts. Thirdly, Brentano distinguishes willing or feeling by means of attitudes of love or hate. So loving a person is differentiated from juding that a person exists by the nature of the act directed toward this person. Loving or hating involves adopting a particular attitude to that individual. It is important to notice that for Brentano, 'love' and 'hate' are terms of art, and are considerably broader than their customary English usage. It may in fact be more accurate to describe these attitudes as pro-feelings (love) and anti-feelings (hate). It should also be clear that loving and hating in the realm to value are analogues to the acceptance and rejection in the realm of truth.

A single mental act for Brentano may therefore constructed out of these three elements: (1) a presentation, (2) a judgement, and (3) a pro or anti-attitude (which Brenatano calls the phenomenon of interest). Thoughts are neither true or false; they are simply presentations before the mind (ideas). But judgments and pro and anti-attitudes posssess a features called correctness. In the realm of truth, this correctness is nothing other than truth, but the analogy holds for the phenomenon of interest also. His theory of value grows out of the analogy he sees between intellectual acts and evaluative acts.

One may have a pro-feeling or an anti-feeling towards objects. Brentano language is that of love and hate. Brentano explains the concept of goodness and badness in the same terms as he explains knowledge and truth. A thought is true when the belief about an object is correct. Similarly, a thing is intrinsically valuable to the extent that it is correct to love that object. Conversely, a thing is intrinsically bad to the extent that it is correct to hate it. Brentano sees the origin of all ethical knowledge as lying in our experience of correct love and hate.

Scheler and Hartmann

Max Scheler’s greatest work “Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values” is a rejection of Kantian thinking. Scheler’s basic point is that Kant is correct in thinking that values must be known a priori but incorrect in thinking that this means that values are known formally. Scheler argues that values are the intentional objects of feelings so that emotions are the way in which we know the good and bad, and other values. Goodness is not a formal property of the will but is a simple property (quite similar to G.E. Moore in fact). This is Scheler’s doctrine of the emotional a priori. Scheler’s ethics is therefore material rather than formal. Kant’s ethics is formal.

Hartmann’s axiology is also anti-Kantian. He is an objectivist about values but denies that values depend on the rational will as Kant argues. Instead values exist as objective essences as do the truths of logic and mathematics. In this respect, Hartmanna and Scheler seem to be Platonists. Values are discovered a priori. Values form a hierarchy.

G.E. Moore

A similar view of the objectivity and multiplicity of values was defended by G.E. Moore, who argued in the principia ethica that knowledge of values could not be derived from knowledge of facts, but only from intuition of the goodness of kinds of states of affairs such as beauty, pleasure, friendship, and knowledge. Right acts are those producing the most good, he held, thus advocating a form of utilitarianism going beyond hedonism. Moore is an ‘ideal consequentialist’, whose account of right action sees rightness as consisting in the production of goodness (see Consequentialism). Moore’s axiological theses reflect to some degree the influence of Brentano, whome Moore admired: Moore’s account of the faculty of moral intuition includes a reference to feeling and the will; his account of goodness and beauty is deeply indebted to Brentano, as is his account of ‘organic unities’ in value

W.D. Ross

Ross is best known for his intuitionist normative theory of prima facie duty. As regards axiology, he took over Moore’s open question argument against the definability of ‘good’ to argue that the term ‘right’ was similarly undefinable. Ross saw the term ‘good’ as attaching to states of affairs, whereas ‘rightness’ is applicable to acts. Ross offers a three-fold classification of values, combined with a thesis of value incommensurability. For example, the value of virtue cannot be compared with the value of pleasure. In this he adopts a view similar to J.S. Mill's in Utilitarianism

The decline of axiology

Historically, axiology went into decline after Moore and Ross. One reason for this was the influence of logical positivism, and another, the growing influence of evolutionary theory.

Logical positivism

The logical positivists embraced a theory of the linguistic meaning called the principle of verification. This principle says that a sentence is strictly meaningful only if it expresses something that can be confirmed or disconfirmed by empirical observation. For example, the sentence “there are possums in India” is meaningful because it could be verified or falsified by actually checking whether there are possums in India.

One important implication of the principle of verification is that axiological judgments are strictly meaningless. The sentence “murder is bad” cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by empirical experience. We may find that people believe that murder is wrong, or disapprove of murder, but there is nothing in world corresponding to ‘wrongness’ that could be investigated by empirical science. Therefore, according to the logical positivists, all evaluative judgments are meaningless and so they do not state facts.

Emotivism and prescriptivism may be understood as attempts to make sense of axiological language while adhering to the principle of verification. If all axiological judgments are meaningless, then what are people doing when they say that kindness is good, or that cruelty is bad?

Emotivists such as A.J. Ayer, and C.L. Stevenson, hold that evaluations express the speaker’s feelings and attitudes: saying that kindness is good is a way of expressing one’s approval of kindness. Similarly, R.M. Hare argues that evaluations are prescriptions (commands): saying that kindness is good is a way of telling people that they should be kind. Evaluative judgments are then understood as emotive or prescriptive, and are contrasted with descriptive judgments. Descriptive judgments are appraisable as true or false; evaluative judgments are not. In this way, a fact-value distinction is upheld.

Evolutionary theory

Evolutionary psychology seems to offer an account of the evolution of our ‘moral sense’ (see conscience) that dispenses with any reference to objective values. Its apparent elimination of objective values on the grounds of their being unneeded in explanation has led the skeptical writings of J.L. Mackie and Michael Ruse. By contrast, Robert Nozick has resisted this interpretation of evolution (1981) arguing that an evolutionary account of the moral sense can no more dispense with values than an evolutionary account of perception can dispense with perceptual objects objectively present in the world.

The resurgence of axiology

In recent years, with the decline of logical positivism, interest in axiological ethics has again begun to increase. Firstly, J.N. Findlay (1963), R.M. Chisholm and Maurice Mandelbaum have translated and transmitted the work of the German axiologists, notably Brentano into the English speaking world. John McDowell and David Wiggens are notable contemporary English philosophers now working in the axiological tradition.

Other axiologists in contemporary ethics are Platonists such as Iris Murdoch and Neo-Kantian theorists such as John Rawls and Robert Nozick. Nozick in particular has looked back to the Austrian and German schools of axiology as inspiration for his work, which even includes a delineation of the valuable ‘facets of being’, including such categories as ‘richness’, ‘completeness’ and ‘amplitude’, in the manner of Scheler and Hartmann.

See also

• phenomenology
• Max Scheler
• Franz Brentano
• Max Scheler
• Nicolai Hartmann
• Value theory

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Findlay, J. N. (1970). Axiological Ethics. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-00269-5
• Frondizi, R. (1971). What is value? An introduction to axiology. LaSalle, Ill: Open Court Pub.
• Grünberg, L., Grünberg, C., & Grünberg, L. (2000). The mystery of values studies in axiology. Value inquiry book series, 95. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN 9042006706
• Rescher, N. (2004). Value matters studies in axiology. Practical philosophy, Bd. 8. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. ISBN 3937202676 ISBN 9783937202679
• Rescher, Nicholas (2005). Value Matters: Studies in Axiology. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. ISBN 3-937202-67-6.

External links

General Philosophy Sources

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved December 7, 2007.
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved December 7, 2007.
• Philosophy Sources on Internet EpistemeLinks. Retrieved December 7, 2007.
• Guide to Philosophy on the Internet. Retrieved December 7, 2007.
• Paideia Project Online. Retrieved December 7, 2007.
• Project Gutenberg. Retrieved December 7, 2007.

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