Axiology

The English word ‘axiology’ is a transliteration of the German ‘Axiologie’ (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 writers of Austro-German phenomenologists such as Franz Brentano, 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 grew out of the phenomenological method. The axiologists worked out theories of the general nature of value, with moral value as one species. In opposition to Kant, they argued that through feeling we have access to a realm of real values. And they spelled out the structure of hierarchies of objectively existing values thus given to us. These values show the content of the good, and ultimately set the direction for right action.

Brentano

One of Brentano’s most important philosophical contributions was his revival of the medieval theory of intentionality. Intentionality is roughly the directedness of consciousness onto an object, or its about-ness. For example, when someone thinks a thought of a rose, his or her thought is about a rose. Brentano’s theory of value grows out of his theory of mental acts. In general, Brentano holds that in thought a person is directed toward an object of thought, which he may affirm or deny.

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.

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

Positivism and the decline of axiology

Historically, after Moore and Ross, axiology went into decline.One reason for this was the influence of 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.

The resurgence of axiology

In recent years, with the decline of logical postivism, interest in axiological ethics as again begun to increase. Firstly, J.N. Findlay (1963), R.M. Chisholm and Maurice Mandelbaum, have transmitted the work of the German axiologists such as Brentano into the English speaking world.

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

• Value theory

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Findlay, J. N. (1970). Axiological Ethics. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-00269-5. 100 pages.
• Rescher, Nicholas (2005). Value Matters: Studies in Axiology. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. ISBN 3-937202-67-6. 140 pages.

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.

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Axiology  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Axiology"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.