Phenomenology and Mind

23 | 2022

Phenomenology, Axiology, and Metaethics
Andrea Cimino, Dermot Moran and Andrea Staiti (dir.)

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ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

n. 23 - 2022

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PHENOMENOLOGY MIND
PHENOMENOLOGY,
AXIOLOGY, AND
METAETHICS
Edited by Andrea Cimino, Dermot Moran, Andrea Staiti

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CONTENTS

PHENOMENOLOGY, AXIOLOGY, AND METAETHICS
Andrea Cimino, Dermot Moran, Andrea Staiti
Introduction

12

Ingrid Vendrell Ferran
Emotions and Sentiments: Two Distinct Forms of Affective Intentionality

20

Nicola Spano
The Foundation of Evaluation and Volition on Cognition: A New Contribution to the Debate over
Husserl’s Account of Objectifying and Non-objectifying Acts

36

Alexis Delamare
Are Emotions Valueceptions or Responses to Values? Husserl’s Phenomenology of Affectivity
Reconsidered

54

Veniero Venier
Husserl and Non-Formal Ethics

66

Emanuele Caminada
Things, Goods, and Values: The Operative Function of Husserl’s Unitary Foundation in Scheler’s
Axiology

80

Cristiano Vidali
The Experience of Value. The Influence of Scheler on Sartre’s Early Ethics

96

Paola Premoli De Marchi
The Axiology of Dietrich von Hildebrand. From Phenomenology to Metaphysics

108

Roberta Guccinelli
„Schatten der Irresponsivität“: Pathos ohne Response/Response ohne Pathos. Trauma,
Widerstand und Schelers Begriff der seelischen Kausalität

120

REVIEW
Eugene Kelly
Review of Roberta de Monticelli’s Towards a Phenomenological Axiology

136

PHENOMENOLOGY,
AXIOLOGY, AND
METAETHICS

PHENOMENOLOGY, AXIOLOGY,
AND METAETHICS
Andrea Cimino, Dermot Moran, Andrea Staiti
Introduction
Ingrid Vendrell Ferran
Emotions and Sentiments: Two Distinct Forms of Affective Intentionality
Nicola Spano
The Foundation of Evaluation and Volition on Cognition: A New Contribution to the
Debate over Husserl’s Account of Objectifying and Non-objectifying Acts
Alexis Delamare
Are Emotions Valueceptions or Responses to Values? Husserl’s Phenomenology of
Affectivity Reconsidered
Veniero Venier
Husserl and Non-Formal Ethics
Emanuele Caminada
Things, Goods, and Values: The Operative Function of Husserl’s Unitary Foundation in
Scheler’s Axiology
Cristiano Vidali
The Experience of Value. The Influence of Scheler on Sartre’s Early Ethics
Paola Premoli De Marchi
The Axiology of Dietrich von Hildebrand. From Phenomenology to Metaphysics
Roberta Guccinelli
„Schatten der Irresponsivität“: Pathos ohne Response/Response ohne Pathos. Trauma,
Widerstand und Schelers Begriff der seelischen Kausalität

ANDREA CIMINO
KU Leuven
andrea.cimino@kuleuven.be

ANDREA SEBASTIANO STAITI
Università degli Studi di Parma
andreasebastiano.staiti@unipr.it

DERMOT MORAN
Boston College
morandg@bc.edu

INTRODUCTION1

1 Andrea Cimino’s research has been funded by the FWO junior postdoctoral fellowship (Project: 1288722N).
Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 12-19
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2300
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

INTRODUCTION

Phenomenological axiology (the theory of value) is the area of phenomenology that most
explicitly deals with problems currently explored in metaethics. As one authoritative source
describes it, metaethics is “the attempt to understand the metaphysical, epistemological,
semantic, and psychological presuppositions and commitments of moral thought, talk, and
practice” (Sayre-McCord 2014). However, the scope of axiology is broader than the scope
of metaethics, which is concerned exclusively with moral value. Axiology embraces values
of all kinds, including political, aesthetic, and religious. The distinctive contribution of
phenomenological axiology to metaethics is arguably twofold. First, phenomenology considers
values to be robust objects in their own right, rather than mere projections of our desires and
preferences. Second, and contrary to a potential intellectualistic misinterpretation of the first
point, phenomenology considers our emotional experiences to play a key role in the disclosure
and correct grasping of values.
Phenomenological axiology is thus almost diametrically opposed to the position expressed
by Christine Korsgaard in the following quote from The Sources of Normativity: “To talk about
values [...] is not to talk about entities, either mental or Platonic, but to talk in a shorthand way
about relations we have with ourselves and one another” (Korsgaard 1996, 138). By contrast,
for phenomenology to talk about values is to talk about entities that are neither mental, nor
Platonic. Rather, value-talk refers intentionally to entities that are experienced and posited as
valuable. At the most fundamental level, values are empirical objects and states of affairs that
are experienced as possessing certain value-properties, such as a delicious meal, a generous
action, and a beautiful painting. Axiologically qualified empirical objects are more properly
labeled “goods”1 in order to distinguish them from values as the objects of a higher-level mode
of experience, whose correlate is not an empirical, but rather an ideal object. In this higherlevel mode of experience values are potentially realized in an indefinite plurality of empirical
objects, but they are not themselves empirical. They are grasped as objects in their own right,
rather than as qualities of empirical objects. How to best interpret and articulate descriptively
the shift from lower-level experience of valuable objects to higher-level experience of values
as objects is one of the key issues on the agenda of phenomenological axiology.
As for the reference to our intersubjective relations in Korsgaard’s quote, phenomenological

1 For introductory purposes we can ignore Husserl’s more fine-grained distinction between goods and beauties. See,
for instance, Husserl 2004, 187–190.

13

ANDREA CIMINO, DERMOT MORAN, ANDREA STAITI

approaches to values do not downplay the cultural, historical, and social embeddedness of
values; however, the values themselves are not identical with the cultural, historical, and
social processes through which they are disclosed, obscured, devalued, reevalued, etc. To
say, for instance, that a landscape is beautiful is to talk about the landscape itself, and not
about relations we have with ourselves and others. We posit the landscape as beautiful in and
of itself and not just for us or for the animals that inhabit it. Indeed, value can be posited of
something without being subjectively experienced by us in an emotive or appreciative way.
We inhabit, and emotionally interact with, a ‘world of value’ (Wertewelt): a world that not only
contains objects endowed with natural properties but is also filled and saturated with values
that can be apprehended in a direct (non-inferential) sui generis ‘perceptual’ intuition, which
is labeled ‘Wertnehmung’ or ‘value-grasping’ and is analogous to perception (Wahrnehmung)
or ‘truth-grasping.’ Indeed, truth-grasping is just one form of valuing, as truth is also treated
as a value – the ‘truth-value’ – in this approach. How to best understand the sense in which
value-properties attach to objects of experience and how they are related to natural, i.e., nonaxiological properties is another important item of the phenomenologist’s agenda.
The only non-negotiable aspect of phenomenological axiology on this complex matter is
that, whatever description or theory turns out to be right, it should preserve the simple
evidence that value-properties are in the object and not in the eye of the beholder. On the
other hand, however, phenomenology of value does not rhyme with straightforward moral
realism in metaethics (see Cuneo 2007) or metanormative theory more generally. The fact
that value-properties are in the object and that values themselves can become objects when
the appropriate attitude is implemented does not mean that the relationship that holds
between values and subjective acts of evaluation is purely contingent. It does not mean that
there are moral (or more generally normative) facts that are entirely stance-independent.
At a minimum, phenomenologists generally agree that the givenness of value-properties
and values in evaluative experiences is essential to their very nature, in much the same
way in which it is essential to the nature of perceptual objects to be given (either actually or
potentially) in perception. The phenomenologists generally differ as to whether values are
grasped cognitively or emotionally. Generally speaking, all phenomenologists hold that we
directly intuit values in a quasi-perceptual manner, but there is scope for values being intuited
at many different levels of awareness, indeed we can even be oriented unconsciously by
values.
How to articulate the relationship between value-objects and values, on the one hand, and
evaluative experiences, on the other, while holding fast to the evidence that the former
are never reducible to the latter is thus an issue of primary interest in phenomenological
axiology. In Husserl’s reflections, for instance, a universal theory of values and the ideal
forms of evaluative experiences requires a general theory of pure constitution and hinges on
a transcendental theory of reason. The questions of the constitution, validity, and systematic
order of values as given in and through (inter-)subjective evaluative experiences are, indeed,
central for the development of a rational axiology that, in turn, is meant to provide the
foundation of rational ethics (Husserl 2004, 24).
How to articulate the relation between axiology and ethics is therefore another critical
question. Although the domain of phenomenological axiology includes moral values,
properties, and evaluations, the object-field of axiology tout court does not coincide with the
practical sphere. Consequently, a phenomenological theory of value cannot be simply reduced
to a meta-reflection on the fundamental notions, presuppositions, and insights informing
the philosophical discourse on ethical will, action, and practice. On the ontological-noematic
side, values and axiological properties are also theoretical, aesthetic, personal, etc. On the
noetic side, intentional evaluations and value-graspings are not forms of ethical rational
14

INTRODUCTION

consciousness. Furthermore, for Husserl, a complete axiology turns out to be insufficient for
a universal doctrine of rationally and normatively conscious will (Husserl 2004, 245). For the
systematic description of ‘what is a value,’ ‘what has value,’ ‘what is richer in value,’ etc., does
not answer to the guiding ethical questions concerning the conformity of will and action
to duty and purely rational norms, such as ‘what ought I to do?’ or ‘am I a moral agent?’. As
Husserl came to realize around the same time he was working on Ideas I, axiology and a formal
theory of practice (Praktik) are not yet ethics: on Husserlian standards, work on the theory
of value and correct action based on intuitively fulfilled valuing would not yet amount to a
complete meta-ethics. The latter also demands more comprehensive analyses on absolute
values that admit no comparison or hierarchy, on what ought to be unconditionally realized,
on sacrifice (Opfer), etc. (see Husserl 1988, 419-420 and 421-422).
Historically considered, the notion of value is common currency in early twentieth-century
German philosophy. Supposedly, the term “axiology” was first introduced by Eduard von
Hartmann (1842-1906) in his 1887 Aesthetik: Die Philosophie des Schönen [Philosophy of the
Beautiful]. Husserl discusses ‘axiology’ in his Ideas I (1913) §§ 117 and 147, where he introduces
the idea of a formal axiology, although he already developed this idea in some detail in
his lectures on ethics held in Göttingen a few years earlier (Husserl 1988). In this respect,
phenomenological axiology is also the venue where phenomenological thinking can engage,
both terminologically and theoretically, with other philosophical traditions, primarily NeoKantianism. It is nonetheless important to remark that the notion of value in phenomenology
stems from a line of thought that differs significantly from the Neo-Kantians’. The historical
antecedent of phenomenological axiology is undoubtedly Brentano’s influential lecture The
Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, where, on the basis of the idea of a thoroughgoing
analogy holding among different psychical phenomena, Brentano establishes the idea of
a correct feeling (Brentano 2009, 14), by analogy with insightful or evident judging (see
Centi 2019). One could argue that, in much the same way in which Brentano’s students,
including Husserl, introduced the notion of state-of-affairs (Sachverhalt) as the objective
counterpart of judgment in order to move beyond purely noetic notions such as evidence
or insightfulness to describe correct judging, phenomenologists introduced the notion of
value as the objective counterpart of emotional experience, as that which makes emotional
experience correct or incorrect. Without downplaying the otherwise significant differences
between phenomenological thinkers on the correct interpretation of value and evaluative
experience, it is no overstatement to say that all differences are as many variations of the
themes originally broached by Brentano. By contrast, among the Neo-Kantians, particularly
the Southwestern school spearheaded by Rickert, the notion of value is introduced to tag the
carrier of validity, Lotze’s famous Geltung, independently of subjective acts of recognition
(Anerkennung) in judgment (Rickert 2018). Thus, while for the phenomenologists the notion
of value is tied from the very beginning to the emotional and conative sphere, for Rickert and
his followers “value” designates the sphere of validity in general, particularly of theoretical
validity. On this account, to judge correctly is to take an affirmative stance toward a value, e.g.
the truth-value of a true proposition. Exploring in further detail the ramifications, as well as
the costs and benefits of these different approaches to value and valuing would far exceed the
scope of this introduction. The intention of the foregoing paragraph was just to highlight that
axiology is by no means an isolated endeavor and with its articulation phenomenology was
working at the cutting edge of the most influential debates of its time.
In sum, phenomenological axiology can be considered as both a fruitful contribution
to metaethical and metanormative issues in contemporary philosophy, and a venue for
productive engagement with other early Twentieth century philosophical traditions. From
this point of view, one can consider the shift toward existential phenomenology ushered
15

ANDREA CIMINO, DERMOT MORAN, ANDREA STAITI

in by Heidegger’s Being and Time and carried forward by Sartre and other French thinkers
as a significant transformation and, to some extent, as a loss in this respect. Arguably,
one distinctive trait of existential phenomenology vis-à-vis realist and transcendental
phenomenology is precisely the eclipse of axiology as a horizon of research. Heidegger’s early
critique of the concept of value (Ferencz-Flatz 2009) marks an important transition in the
conception of both scope and method of phenomenology, one that no longer interprets the
subject as active in a world of value disclosed by emotional experience, but as thrown into a
world whose practical significance is contingent upon one’s existential project, rather than the
correct appreciation of axiological properties, relations, and entities.
The present collection of papers aims to offer a first pass at a rediscovery of phenomenological
axiology and it does so following a recent trend that has blown the dust off some of the key
works and issues in this lesser-known area of phenomenological research (De Monticelli
2015, 2017, 2021; Drummond 2021; and Staiti 2020). Taken together, these texts offer a vivid
and fascinating picture of the several problems and figures involved in the articulation of a
phenomenological axiology. They discuss thinkers as complex and diverse as Husserl, Scheler,
Stein, Sartre, and von Hildebrand and contribute to shed light on various aspects of their
work on value. In addition, the contributions of this special issue directly engage with the
current analytic discussions on the nature of emotions (e.g., Mulligan, De Monticelli, Tappolet,
Nussbaum, Solomon, Drummond, etc.) as well as moral theorists such as R. M. Hare. Overall,
they pave the way for future research and set the stage for what has the potential to become a
renaissance of phenomenological value-theory, an approach that the editors of this issue hope
will come to be recognized as a solid and legitimate option in its own right in contemporary
philosophy.
The volume opens with Ingrid Vendrell Ferran’s “Emotions and Sentiments: Two Distinct
Forms of Affective Intentionality,” in which the author argues for the distinction between
‘emotions,’ such as envy, disgust, and shame, and ‘sentiments,’ such as love, hate, and
adoration. In contrast with the approach adopted by contemporary analytic philosophers
(e.g., Ben-ze’ev, Deonna, and Teroni) that discriminates between these two kinds of affective
phenomena on the basis of differences in their temporal structures, Vendrell Ferran develops
a novel alternative approach that relies on their different intentional structures. In particular,
departing from other intentional approaches that discern emotions from sensations mostly
in term of their axiological components (e.g., De Monticelli), Vendrell Ferran focuses on their
different forms of affective intentionality, and contends that “while emotions are responses to
values of the target, sentiments are forms of regard which project on the target values congruent
with the sentiment we are experiencing.”
In “The Foundation of Evaluation and Volition on Cognition: A New Contribution to the Debate
over Husserl’s Account of Objectifying and Non-objectifying Acts,” Nicola Spano examines
the foundational relation between ‘non-objectifying acts’ (i.e., volitions and evaluations) and
‘objectifying acts’ (i.e., cognitions) starting from Husserl’s notorious thesis according to which
“intentional experience is either an objectifying act or has its basis in such an act” (Husserl 1984,
514). Drawing from Husserl’s earlier and later works, Spano explores the idea of foundation in
connection with the change of attitude from the practical-evaluative to the theoretical sphere.
In dialogue with Drummond and Rinofner-Kreidl, Spano also supports Staiti’s analysis on the
intentional structure of evaluations and volitions against the criticisms of intellectualism
raised by Heidegger and Scheler against Husserl.
In “Are Emotions Valueceptions or Responses to Values? Husserl’s Phenomenology of
Affectivity Reconsidered,” Alexis Delamare counterposes two different accounts of value and
its relationship to emotions. The Meinongian account considers the emotions as the vehicles
through which we grasp values. By contrast, the Hildebrandian account posits special value16

INTRODUCTION

feelings by way of which values are grasped and argues that emotions only occasionally
accompany the grasp of values. The key phenomenon invoked by the Hildebrandians to defend
their account is so-called “cold” valueception, i.e., the possibility to acknowledge the presence
of value without being emotionally moved. Delamare shows convincingly that, contrary to a
widespread view, Husserl is not a straightforward Meinongian and he should be interpreted as
proposing an alternative account, which revolves around the distinction between experiences
of value in general, which can be cold, and originary experiences of values, which are
necessarily accompanied by emotion.
In “Husserl and Non-Formal Ethics,” Veniero Venier traces the development of Husserl’s ethics
from the formal axiology presented in his 1902 lectures in Göttingen to the reconfiguration
of ethics in the wake of his analysis of ethical life. The grasping function of feeling takes
center stage in Venier’s account and it plays a key role all the way to his later lectures titled
Introduction to Ethics.
In “Things, Goods, and Values: The Operative Function of Husserl’s Unitary Foundation in
Scheler’s Axiology,” Emanuele Caminada claims the formal axiological distinction between
things, goods, and values stands at the core of Scheler’s metaethics. Caminada suggests
understanding such a distinction in light of Husserl’s concepts of unitary foundation and, in
particular, in light of the second type of unitary foundation that is described in §21 of Husserl’s
Third Logical Investigation and that implicitly operates in Scheler’s description of how values
inhere in goods. A comparison between Scheler’s argument concerning the independence of
a world of goods, on the one hand, and Hare’s indiscernibility argument, on the other, also
brings to the fore the main formal-ontological difference between the phenomenological
account of unitary foundation and the analytic account of supervenience.
In “The Axiology of Dietrich von Hildebrand. From Phenomenology to Metaphysics,” Paola
Premoli De Marchi shows how Hildebrand’s value theory provides axiological properties (i.e.,
‘categories of importance’ in Hildebrand’s lexicon) with an objective foundation, allowing us
to conceive of them as irreducible to merely subjective evaluative capacities. Starting from
Hildebrand’s distinction of three categories of importance (i.e., the ‘subjectively satisfying,’
‘value,’ and the ‘objective good for the person’), their connection with motivation, and their
different kinds of foundation, Premoli De Marchi first elucidates how the essence of values
consists in “the foundation of all importance itself,” and then investigates the relation
between value and being through an examination of both ‘the value of being’ and ‘the being of
value.’ The analysis thus moves from phenomenological reflections to a metaphysical inquiry
into the relation between ‘being,’ ‘importance,’ and ‘ought-to-be’ that faces the question of
“whether good can triumph over evil” and leads to a conception of reality as the effect and
manifestation of the infinite goodness of a personal God.
The special issue also includes another contribution in the ‘Free Submission’ section. In her
Schatten der Irresponsivität: Pathos ohne Response/Response ohne Pathos. Trauma, Widerstand und
Schelers Begriff der seelischen Kausalität, Roberta Guccinelli examines the loss or impairment
of our ability to interact with others in the context of socio-affective cognition. The author
first compares Waldenfels’ responsive phenomenology with Scheler’s theory of values on the
basis of their common interest in Freudian psychoanalysis. Guccinelli then draws important
resources from Scheler’s criticisms of the implicit methodological assumptions that guide
Freud’s constructive associationism. Anomalies and pathological disturbances related to our
inability to interact with others are thus described as derivative phenomena: ‘deformations’ of
the normal or quasi-normal phenomenon of responsiveness in the language of Waldenfels, or
‘aberrations’ of normal drives and normal pulsional life in Scheler’s phenomenology.

17

ANDREA CIMINO, DERMOT MORAN, ANDREA STAITI

REFERENCES
Centi, B. (2019). Brentano, Husserl e l’etica formale. In «Archivio di storia della cultura», 32,
151-176;
Cuneo, T. (2007). Recent Faces of Moral Nonnaturalism. In «Philosophy Compass», 2, n. 6, 850-879;
Drummond, J. (2021). ‘Phenomenological method and contemporary ethics.’ Continental
Philosophy Review 54, 123-138;
Hartmann, E. Von (1887). Ästhetik: Die Philosophie des Schönen. Berlin: C. Duncker;
Husserl, E. (1976). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und Phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes
Buch. Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. In Husserliana 3/1-2. Karl Schuhmann
(Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff;
Husserl, E. (1984). Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und
Theorie der Erkenntnis. In Husserliana XIX, Ursula Panzer (Ed.). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff;
Husserl, E. (1988). Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre 1908-1914. In Husserliana XXVIII, Ullrich
Melle (Ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pulishers;
Husserl, E. (2004). Einleitung in die Ethik. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1920/1924. In Husserliana
XXXVII, Henning Peucker (Ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Pulishers;
De Monticelli, R. (2015). Al di qua del bene e del male. Torino: Einaudi;
De Monticelli, R. (2017). Il dono dei vincoli. Per leggere Husserl. Milano: Garzanti;
De Monticelli R. (2021). Towards a Phenomenological Axiology. Discovering What Matters. Palgrave
Macmillan;
Ferencz-Flatz, C. (2009), Obisnuit si neobisnuit in viata de zi cu zi: Fenomenologia situatiei si critica
conceptului de valoare la Martin Heidegger, Humanitas, Bucharest;
Rickert, H. (2018). Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis: Historisch-Kritische Ausgabe. Teil 1:2. Auflage
(1904). 1. Auflage Durch Editorischen Apparat. Teil 2:6. Auflage (1928). 3. und 4. /5. Auflage
Durch Editorischen Apparat. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter;
Sayre-McCord, G. (2014, Summer Edition). ‘Metaethics.’ In Edward N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/
entries/metaethics;
Staiti, A. (2020). Etica naturalistica e fenomenologia. Bologna: il Mulino.

18

ÍNGRID VENDRELL FERRAN
University of Marburg
ingrid.vendrell@uni-marburg.de

EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS:
TWO DISTINCT FORMS OF AFFECTIVE
INTENTIONALITY1
abstract
How to distinguish emotions such as envy, disgust, and shame from sentiments such as love, hate,
and adoration? While the standard approach argues that emotions and sentiments differ in terms
of their temporal structures (e.g., Ben-ze’ev, 2000; Deonna & Teroni, 2012), this paper sketches an
alternative approach according to which each of these states exhibits a distinctive intentional
structure. More precisely, this paper argues that emotions and sentiments exhibit distinct forms of
affective intentionality. The paper begins by examining the temporal criteria of duration, etiology, and
phenomenology widely employed to distinguish between both states. It demonstrates that none of them
provides a clear-cut distinction between emotions and sentiments. Next, it presents the intentional
approach as an alternative. To this end, it discusses what I call the axiological account (De Monticelli’s
2006; 2020), before introducing my version of the intentional approach according to which emotions and
sentiments exhibit different forms of affective intentionality. The main findings are summarized in the
conclusion.

keywords
Affective intentionality, emotion, sentiment, temporal structure, intentional object, value

1 I am grateful to the insightful comments and helpful suggestions provided by an anonymous reviewer on an early
version of this paper and to Simon Mussell for his help improving my English. Work on this project was funded by the
German Research Foundation (DFG) (Project; Mental Images and Imagination).
Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 20-142
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2301
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS

Introduction

How to distinguish between emotions such as envy, disgust, and shame from other affective
phenomena which resemble attitudes and are occasionally called “sentiments” such as love,
hate, and adoration? Contemporary analytic philosophers such as Ben-ze’ev (2000) and
Deonna and Teroni (2012) distinguish emotions from sentiments mostly in terms of their
temporal structures. While emotions have been regarded as episodic responses with a specific
phenomenology, it is widely agreed that sentiments as enduring states cannot be acutely
felt. In the “temporal approach” (hereafter TA), as I call it, differences between emotions and
sentiments are established according to the way in which each of these states extend over
time. In particular, differences in the temporal structure can be explained as differences in
the duration, the etiology, and/or phenomenology. These different criteria are sometimes
defended in isolation, sometimes in combination. However, as I shall demonstrate, none of
the variants can offer a clear-cut distinction between emotions and sentiments. Indeed, not
only sentiments but also emotions might be long-term states. Moreover, both emotions and
sentiments can be acutely felt.
Against this backdrop, I turn to the phenomenological tradition and suggest the “intentional
approach” (hereafter IA) as a plausible alternative. According to IA, emotions and sentiments
exhibit distinct intentional structures. In current philosophy, a version of IA has been put
forward by De Monticelli (2006, 2020) who explains the difference between emotions and
sentiments mostly in terms of their distinctive axiological structures. While emotions are
responses to values, sentiments are dispositions to present their objects as “domains of
axiological discovery” (De Monticelli, 2020, p. 284). Yet, though her account provides a
clear-cut distinction between emotions and sentiments, I will argue that it requires some
refinements in order to truly reflect the intentional nature of each of these affective states.
In particular, besides the axiology, other aspects of the intentional structure of both kinds
of states need to be analyzed, and the fact that sentiments exist not only in dispositional but
also in occurrent form should be considered. In view of this, I will develop a different version
of IA according to which emotions and sentiments differ not only in terms of their respective
axiological structures but also in how they relate to their targets. Put otherwise, I will argue
that emotions and sentiments differ in their respective forms of “affective intentionality”.
The paper is structured as follows. I introduce different versions of the temporal approach
and demonstrate that none of them provides a clear-cut distinction between emotions and
sentiments (section 1). Next, I present the intentional approach (IA) as an alternative. To this
end, I discuss De Monticelli’s account, before introducing my version of IA according to which
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ÍNGRID VENDRELL FERRAN

emotions and sentiments exhibit different forms of affective intentionality (section 2). The
main findings are summarized in the conclusion (section 3).
Recall the temporal approach:
TA (Temporal Approach): emotions and sentiments can be distinguished from each other in
terms of their respective temporal structures.
In this section, I discuss three criteria behind TA: duration, etiology, and phenomenology.
Each of these criteria focuses on a different aspect of the temporal structure of emotions and
sentiments.
TA-Duration: emotions and sentiments differ in terms of duration: while emotions are
episodes of shorter duration, sentiments stretch over time.
According to TA-Duration, while emotions are occurrent short-lived mental episodes,
sentiments are long-lasting states. TA-Duration has been widely defended among philosophers
and in current research it is the main criterion employed to distinguish between both states.
Proponents of this approach include Shand (1914), Broad (1954), Ben-Ze’ev (2000), and Naar
(2018) (the view is also popular among psychologists, see, e.g., Frijda et al., 1991).
At first sight, TA-Duration appears to be a quite plausible criterion. First, emotions such as
envy, disgust, and shame tend to have an episodic character with a definite temporal duration.
By contrast, sentiments such as love, hate, adoration, etc. exhibit a certain resemblance to
long-term attitudes insofar as they are always enduring states. In addition, emotions have
usually been compared or even assimilated to short-lived states such as perceptions.1 Cases of
emotions that last ten years would be as puzzling as perceptions that last so long.
However, on closer inspection, TA-Duration does not offer a clear-cut criterion to distinguish
between emotions and sentiments. To begin with, some emotions can also be long-lasting
states. Consider for instance the case of “existential envy”. This form of envy, which is
depicted in the biblical history of Cain and Abel, is a recurrent literary theme. Existential
envy is not an episodic, short-lived occurrence, but an enduring state which marks life-long
relations between individuals. Even if existential enviers do not live in a continuous and
permanent, acute state of envy, their envy is an enduring state of mind able to motivate
action, emotion, and thought. For instance, if A experiences existential envy toward her sister
B, A will be prone to devaluate B, to feel anger when B experiences a success, to think that B
does not deserve to be appreciated by others, etc. If cases of existential envy are possible, then
not all emotions are short-lived occurrences: some emotions might have an enduring nature.
Hence, duration cannot be employed as a clear-cut criterion to distinguish between emotions
and sentiments.
Against this view, however, the proponent of TA-Duration could try to develop two lines of
defense. First, she could argue that when we use an emotional term to refer to a short-lived
episode as well as to cases of long-lasting emotional states, the use of the emotional term is
ambiguous (for this line of reasoning, see Goldie, 2000 and Naar, 2018). For example, though
we employ the term “envy” to refer to “episodic envy” as well as to cases of “long-lasting
existential envy”, the term envy is employed here to refer to two distinct kinds of mental
state. The same could be applied to cases in which we use the expression “jealousy” to refer to
an episodic occurrence of jealousy and to cases in which we are jealous of someone for a long
period of time. Similarly, we might speak about being angry occasionally after being insulted

1 See, for this claim: Naar, 2018.

22

1. The Temporal
Approach,
Variants, and
Objections

1.1. Duration

EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS

and of being angry for ten years. Though in both sentences we employ the expression “anger”,
this term is used to refer to two different states.
Against this line of defense, it can be argued that the similarities between both envies, both
jealousies, and both angers are too strong to refer to two different mental states. Indeed, both
the occurrent episodic state and the long-lasting state target the same kind of objects, apprehend
these objects in the same way, and exhibit a similar phenomenology. Episodic and existential
envy target a rival as possessor of an object which the subject considers desirable but which
she cannot obtain, the object is presented as valuable and regarded as a good, and in both
cases, when it is experienced, envy has a similar negative hedonic valence, is accompanied by
particular sensations, etc. Similar cases could be construed for jealousy and anger.
The second line of defense elaborated by the proponent of TA-Duration consists in arguing
that some affective states might come in both configurations. Let’s call this strategy “the two
configurations view”. Note that this view concerns only some affective states but not all. In
this view, an affective state A, when it is of short duration, has to be considered an instance
of emotion, but when A is long-lasting then it has to be regarded as a sentiment. Many
proponents of this view tend to assimilate enduring emotions to sentiments. The view that
some affective states come in both configurations has been defended, for example, for the
case of hate. Psychologists such as Halperin (2008) and Halperin, Canetti & Kimhi (2012) have
argued that hate can be an immediate “burning” emotion as well as a “chronic” state. This
view is also implicit in Salice’s account of hate (2020). While the first line of defense mentioned
above argues that we use the same term to refer to two distinct kinds of mental states (e.g.,
episodic envy and existential envy are both called envy but they are in fact different kinds of
affective state), this line of defense argues that the same affective state might be an emotion as
well as a sentiment (e.g., hate is an emotion as well as a sentiment).
The problem with “the two configurations view” is that we do not have enough evidence for
it. Indeed, from the fact that some affective states – as seems to be the case for hate – can
be acutely felt and exist for longer periods of time, proponents of “the two configurations
view” extract the strong assumption that some affective states can be emotions as well as
sentiments. However, we lack support for this strong conclusion. In my view, rather than
the aforementioned strong conclusion, it is more reasonable to extract the following two
less problematic conclusions. First, emotions tend to be short-lived states but there are
also enduring emotions which on certain occasions one might come to feel acutely. Second,
sentiments, despite being enduring states, can be on certain occasions acutely felt. That
is, though there are no purely episodic sentiments (all sentiments are long-term states),
sentiments can be on certain occasions felt (when a sentiment is acutely felt, it is always
embedded in a long-term state). I will return to this alternative in section 3. However, my
thought is here that TA-Duration does not offer a clear-cut criterion to distinguish between
emotions and sentiments.
1.2. Etiology

TA-Etiology: Emotions and sentiments differ in their etiology: while emotions might arise
immediately, sentiments are the result of a process of sedimentation.
According to TA-Etiology, while emotions might arise suddenly, sentiments emerge as a result
of a process of sedimentation in which other affective states have taken place. This view has
been defended, for instance, by Broad (1954) and more recently by Deonna & Teroni (2012). For
these authors, sentiments emerge as a result of a process in which several affective states have
been involved. Though this view has been defended often in combination with TA-Duration, it
underscores a different aspect of the temporal structure of emotions and sentiments. Rather
than a question of length, TA-Etiology refers to the origins of each state.
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ÍNGRID VENDRELL FERRAN

The view that sentiments such as love, hate, and adoration presuppose a history between subject
and target has been widely stated in the literature. For instance, it has been argued that hate is
never the first reaction toward the target and that it has biographical components (see Kolnai,
2007; Sternberg & Sternberg, 2008; Szanto, 2020). Similar views can be defended for love and
adoration. There is a wide range of experiences that can lead to a sentiment. Cognitive, affective,
and conative elements might prepare the ground for a sentiment to emerge. For instance,
repeated thoughts, perceptions, emotions, and desires about a specific object might lead to a
sentiment of hate, love or adoration to emerge. By contrast, emotions like envy, disgust or shame
can arise quite soon after some changes in our vital situation have taken place.
Though TA-Etiology seems plausible at first sight, it too does not offer a clear-cut criterion to
distinguish between both states. Indeed, emotions might sometimes also arise after a series
of experiences with their target have taken place. Consider again the case of existential envy.
Usually, such cases arise among siblings, peers or friends and they presuppose a series of
experiences with the target that the subject regards as highly negative. Or consider certain
instances of fear. It might happen that an individual who did not experience a particular
target as dangerous, after a series of negative encounters with it, develops fear toward it. This
emotion of fear has in common with sentiments that it arises after a process of sedimentations
of negative experiences with an object has taken place.
Can a sentiment arise as an immediate response? Examples of sentiments such as love, hate,
adoration, benevolence, malevolence, friendship, and enmity presuppose in general that
we have made repeated interactions with their respective targets. Yet, on certain occasions
we might have the impression to feel love, hatred, adoration, benevolence or malevolence,
friendship or enmity toward a target even if we have not interacted with it. For instance, we
might love our children from the very moment we discover that we are pregnant, we might
hate someone from another ethnic group for the mere fact of belonging to this other ethnic
group, and so on. Though in these cases we have the impression that the sentiment arises as
immediate response, these are cases in which we have “inherited” from our environment a
sentiment toward particular targets. For instance, because of a specific religious uprising we
have learned to love an unborn child, or because of being immersed in a context dominated by
xenophobia, we have learned to hate persons belonging to another nationality. In these cases,
we have the impression that these sentiments arise immediately because through a process of
socialization, we have learned certain attitudes toward specific targets. Alternatively, it can be
the case that we might have the impression that these sentiments arise immediately because
we are not aware of the process of sedimentation that elicited them. For instance, it can be the
case that we are unaware that we love the unborn child after a pattern of emotional responses
(e.g., surprise, joy, excitement, expectation, etc.) has unfolded over time and that we hate
foreigners after a series of other emotional responses (e.g., fear, anxiety, etc.) towards people
from other countries has taken place.
Given that not only sentiments but also emotions might arise after a process of sedimentation,
and given that some “inherited” sentiments might arise as immediate responses toward
particular objects, the differences in the etiology of sentiments and emotions do not provide
a clear-cut criterion to distinguish between both states. As was the case for TA-Duration,
TA-Etiology indicates only differences of frequency: while emotions tend to be immediate
responses, sentiments tend to presuppose a history between subject and object.
TA-Phenomenology: Emotions and sentiments differ in their phenomenology: while emotions
are acutely felt, sentiments are dispositions which can only be experienced in terms of
other affective states.
24

1.3. Phenomenology

EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS

TA-Phenomenology argues that while emotions as occurrent states can be acutely felt and
have an associated phenomenology, sentiments exist only as dispositions to experience
other affective states. The reasoning behind this view goes as follows. Proponents of TAPhenomenology start with the premise that affective states which extend over long periods of
time cannot be continuously acutely felt. Indeed, it seems implausible to have an acute episode
of hate for five years. Accordingly, they argue that sentiments as long-term states cannot be
acutely felt all the time. From these premises they extract the conclusion that sentiments
exist only as dispositions to experience other states. For instance, after an incidence that took
place five years ago, person A hates person B. For the last five years, person’s A hate exists as a
disposition to feel rancor, revenge, anger, indignation, etc. toward person B. This view appears
often in combination with TA-Duration and it has been widely stated in the literature. For
instance, it is defended by Deonna & Teroni (2012). The meaning of this view has been laid out
clearly by psychologists Royzman, McCauley & Rozin for the case of hate. For them, hate “is
neither a special emotion nor a blend of emotions but rather a tendency to emote in a number
of ways to a number of situations involving the object of hatred” (Royzman, McCauley &
Rozin, 2005, p. 6). In this view, the phenomenology or the “what it feels like” of hate has to be
explained in term of the emotions that hate disposes us to experience. Similar views could be
stated for other sentiments such as love, adoration, benevolence, etc.
Without doubt, emotions are occurrent mental states which can be acutely felt.2 However, in
my view, emotions can be acute as well as dispositional states. When emotions extend over
time as I suggested above with the example of existential envy, then the subject is probably
not in a permanent state in which she experiences non-stop acute pangs of envy. When
existential envy is not acutely felt, it might exist in dispositional form and motivate other
mental states. In sum, though emotions tend to be acutely experienced, they are not always
acutely felt. According to this view, existential envy is only experienced acutely under certain
circumstances, for instance, when the envier sees or thinks about the envied target and good.
Yet, the proponent of TA-Phenomenology can employ my argument to deny the existence
of long-term emotions: she might argue that precisely because we do not feel pangs of envy
all the time, it is absurd to claim that envy can be a long-term state. Thus, we need a more
convincing argument against TA-Phenomenology.
A compelling argument against TA-Phenomenology can be developed by focusing on how
we experience sentiments. I do not see why long-term states such as sentiments cannot on
certain occasions be acutely experienced. The best proof of this view is provided by our own
experience. There is something that it feels like to hate, to love, to admire, to adore, to be
benevolent and so on, just as there is something that it is like to feel shame, envy, disgust
or fear. In brief, sentiments too have a phenomenology and their “what it is like” cannot be
reduced to the “what it is like” of other states they might motivate.
In my view, regarding their phenomenology, the only difference between emotions and
sentiments is that while we can have an acute episode of an emotion even if the emotion does
not exist as a long-term state, to have an acute episode of a sentiment, the sentiment must
exist as long-term state. Thus, to experience an occurrence of hatred, love, adoration and so
on presupposes that these sentiments exist already as enduring dispositions (either because of
a personal history or because we have “inherited” them from our environment). Every acute
episode of a sentiment is embedded in an enduring disposition: there are no purely episodic

2 This focus on the phenomenology does not imply that proponents of this criterion regard the emotions only as felt
experiences. Rather, the phenomenology is used as a criterion to distinguish both kinds of affective states but it does
not exclude the view that emotions and sentiments might also provide us with information about the environment.

25

ÍNGRID VENDRELL FERRAN

sentiments. By contrast, acute episodes of emotions may or may not be embedded in an
enduring disposition.
According to the model I am defending here, when emotions occur as mental episodes, they
are acutely felt (e.g., in seeing my neighbor’s car, I experience a pang of envy). Yet, when they
exist as dispositions, they make us prone to experience certain emotions (e.g., my existential
envy might prompt me to experience episodes of anger, indignation, etc.). Sentiments
exist as dispositions (e.g., my love for my son might prompt me to experience episodes
of joy, tenderness, etc.) but they can also be occurrent mental states with an associated
phenomenology (e.g., there is something that it feels like to love: I can have an acute
experience of love in the presence of a loved one).
If the proposed model is plausible, then TA-Phenomenology does not offer us a clear-cut
criterion to distinguish between emotions and sentiments. In fact, TA-Phenomenology is
based on a flawed reasoning. The premise according to which affective states of long duration
cannot be uninterruptedly felt and the premise that sentiments as long-term states cannot be
continuously felt are correct. However, from these premises it does not necessarily follow that
sentiments exist only as dispositions to emote. Like emotions, sentiments can be acutely felt as
well as exist in dispositional form.
So far, I have argued that none of the versions of TA can offer us clear-cut criteria to
distinguish between emotions and sentiments. In what follows, I will discuss the intentional
approach:
IA (Intentional Approach): Emotions and sentiments differ in their respective intentional
structures.
I will start by discussing De Monticelli’s version of IA and present, in a next step, what I take to
be a more plausible version of IA.
IA-Axiology: emotions and sentiments differ in their axiology: while emotions respond
to values, sentiments are dispositions to present their objects as domains of axiological
discovery.
Drawing on Scheler’s (1973) model of the stratification of the emotional life according to
which affective states can be placed at different levels of depth according to the rank of values
they respond to, De Monticelli (2006; 2020) argues that there are different layers of sensibility
which reflect the importance of the values concerned and the degree of personal involvement
(2020, p. 284). In this context, De Monticelli distinguishes between feelings and sentiments
along the following lines.
Like Scheler, she argues that feelings can be connected with the sphere of the sensory, vital,
personal, and divine values, which are revelatory of “how” we are. This happens in sensory
pleasures and pains, in vital feelings such as fatigue or drowsiness, as well as in emotions and
moods. Therefore, in De Monticelli’s model, the emotions (e.g., shame, envy) can be regarded
as belonging to the broad category “feelings”. As such, emotions are responses to values.
By contrast, according to De Monticelli, sentiments (e.g., admiration, contempt, love, hate)
tell us “who” we are. As she puts it, sentiments are “relatively abiding dispositions to assent
to or dissent from the very being and value of someone or something. The peculiarity of
sentiments is to present their objects to us as domains of axiological discovery” (De Monticelli
2020, p. 284). In her model, sentiments motivate and are the “ground” for long-term desires,
passions, intentions, choices, as well as high-level emotions. “Sentimental dispositions” – as
she calls them – belong to the personal layer of our sensibility and lead us to discover or
change value preferences.
26

2. The Intentional
Approach as an
Alternative

2.1. Axiology

EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS

In a more pointed way, in De Monticelli, the difference between emotions and sentiments
can be explained in terms of the axiological element of their respective intentional
structures: while emotions respond to values, sentiments are dispositions to present their
objects as domains of axiological discovery. IA-Axiology, as I call it, has the virtue of offering
a clear-cut criterion to distinguish between both states. While emotions such as fear,
disgust, envy, shame, and so on respond respectively to the dangerous, to the disgusting,
to a value possessed by the rival, to a potential disvalue in our own self, etc., sentiments
predispose us to discover values in the target and to respond to them with emotions,
choices, actions, desires, etc., of a certain kind.
Yet, though agreeing with the idea of differentiating between emotions and sentiments in
terms of their respective intentional structures, some aspects of De Monticelli’s account are
problematic. First, the difference between emotions and sentiments should be approached
without linking them to levels of depth. The notion of depth involves a rigid understanding
of our affectivity according to which some affective states are closer to one’s personal core,
i.e., to “who we are”, while others express only “how we feel”. However, not all sentiments
are revelatory of our personal identity. Consider, for instance, the case in which person A
who has a “good heart” experiences hate toward person B for having killed her family. Is
this hate constitutive of A’s identity? I do not think so. This hate does not chime with A’s
character nor does it reveal who she is (though it might reveal what she cares about). In
fact, person A might suffer precisely because the hate does not fit in with her psychology,
which is mostly dominated by love and benevolence. Thus, sentiments are not necessarily
constitutive of the person we are, though, like emotions, they reveal how we feel.
A second problematic aspect concerns De Monticelli’s understandings of sentiments in terms
of “dispositions” to make choices, act, behave, and emote. As I argued above, sentiments are
dispositions to experience other mental states but in the view presented above dispositions
can also be acutely felt. There is no doubt that sentiments predispose us to have other
mental states but it is also certain that they can be experienced as occurrent states. Love,
hate, adoration, veneration, etc. each feel a particular way: each of these sentiments has an
associated characteristic phenomenology.
Finally, De Monticelli’s model requires a refinement in two respects. First, while the
idea that emotions are responses to values was widely held in classical phenomenology
(Scheler 1973) and has been object of recent defenses (e.g., Mulligan 2009; Vendrell Ferran
2008), the specific axiological nature of sentiments must be the object of further research.
De Monticelli’s claims that sentiments present their objects as “domains of axiological
discovery” and that they “instigate a kind of search as exciting and fallible as any search
for truth” (2020, p. 285) have strong intuitive appeal, but they require further elucidation
(how to interpret the “axiological discovery”, the “search”, etc.?). Second, though axiology
is a central element of affective states, this element alone does not exhaust their intentional
structure. Indeed, the fact that emotions and sentiments are directed to objects (understood
in the broad sense as encompassing things, animals, persons, states of affairs, etc.) should
also be taken into account.
2.2. Affective
Intentionality

In what follows, I will develop a version of IA by analyzing two different elements of
their respective intentional structures. The analysis will lead to an alternative version
of IA according to which emotions and sentiments exhibit different forms of affective
intentionality.
As argued by Crane (1998), drawing on Brentano (2015) and the phenomenological tradition,
intentional states can be defined by two key elements: they target an object and they apprehend
27

ÍNGRID VENDRELL FERRAN

this object in a certain way.3 First, they exhibit a relational nature, i.e., they are directed toward
an object. In perception something is perceived, in imagination something is imagined, in
remembering something is remembered, in judging something is judged, etc. Second, intentional
states exhibit a fine-grained nature by virtue of which when an object (in the broad sense
stated above) is apprehended by an intentional state, it is apprehended in a particular way.
For instance, in perception the targeted object is presented as being there for the senses, in
imagining as being represented in image, in judgment as being true and false, etc.
Both elements can be employed to examine the nature of affective states such as emotions
and sentiments. First, affective states are directed toward objects of different kinds, which
the literature usually refers to as “material objects” (Kenny, 1963). Envy targets the rival as
the possessor of a coveted good, love targets a loved person, cheerfulness is directed toward
everything in my surroundings, etc. I will refer to this constitutive moment of affective states
in terms of “relationality”. Second, affective states present their objects under a particular
aspectual shape. More specifically, the objects are apprehended as being good or bad, that is,
as imbued with an evaluative property or value and as inviting us to adopt a pro- or a contraattitude toward them (this view can be found in Brentano, 2015; Scheler, 1973; and other
phenomenologists; for an overview see Vendrell Ferran, 2008). These evaluative properties or
values are the “formal objects” of affective states. While the material objects are not intimately
linked with the affective states, the formal objects of our affective states are limited. While my
fear can target animals, persons, objects, and situations of very different kinds, these targets
always present as having the evaluative property or value of the dangerous (formal object).4
This constitutive moment of affective states is what can be called (as I did it above) their
“axiology”. This phenomenological view of affectivity is particularly important in the context
of current research where philosophers are still discussing when a state should be considered
as belonging to the family of the “affective”. In fact, the phenomenological view suggests as a
hallmark of all affective states the fact that they present their objects not as being neutral but
rather as being related to values.
De Monticelli’s account is based precisely on this axiological element which determines the
fine-grained nature of emotions and sentiments (though the axiology of sentiments requires
a more detailed analysis). Yet, in my view, the first element regarding the relational structure
of affective states should also be explored. Only when we take into account both elements will
we be able to develop clear-cut criteria to distinguish between emotions and sentiments on
the basis of their respective intentional structures. Therefore, IA-Affective Intentionality will
employ a twofold criterion which takes into account the relationality as well as the axiology
of both states. In what follows, I will explore the thought according to which emotions and
sentiments substantially differ in the way in which they target their respective objects and
present them under a certain evaluative light. As I will suggest, each of these states exhibits a
distinctive relational and axiological structure and these differences provide us with clear-cut
criteria to distinguish between the two.
According to the first criterion, emotions and sentiments differ in terms of the relational
structure of each of these states. How to explain the distinctive relational structure of
emotions and sentiments?
3 According to “impure” intentionalists, such as Crane, intentional states cannot be defined exclusively by their
contents.
4 Here, I focus on two elements – the material and the formal object – which have been widely analyzed in current
research. However, I do not address the question whether other elements should also be involved. The focus on two
elements suffices to illustrate my point.

28

2.2.1. Relationality

EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS

Let’s focus first on the possibility that each of these states differ in terms of their respective
“contents”.5 To begin with, one possibility consists in arguing that emotions and sentiments
target objects of different kinds. Interestingly, within early phenomenology, Stein argued
that while emotions might target items, animals, persons, events, etc., sentiments target
only persons (Stein 1989, 101; she also defends a further claim to which I will return below
according to which sentiments are directed exclusively to personal values).6 I call this “the
only persons view”.
“The only persons view” is, however, quite controversial. Indeed, sentiments might have
targets other than persons. Whether a dog, a cat or a bird, we love our pets regardless. We
really hate racism, xenophobia, and misogyny. A child might adore fictional characters such
as Superman. If we can love animals, hate thoughts, adore fictional entities, abstract artifacts,
etc., then sentiments do not only have persons as targets. Therefore, “the only persons view”
is false.
Moreover, even if Stein were right and sentiments only have persons as targets, this would not
provide a clear-cut criterion to distinguish them from the emotions because emotions might
also target persons. We are envious of a friend, angry at a neighbor, etc. Indeed, if a subclass
of targets of the emotions is the same as the class of objects targeted by sentiments, the
difference between both states is not clearly defined.
An alternative way to spell out differences in the relational structure of emotions and
sentiments consists in focusing on “how” each of these states targets its respective object.
This suggests a focus on the “mode” in which emotions and sentiments respectively
apprehend their contents. In classical phenomenology, Pfänder argued that both emotions
and sentiments are directed to intentional objects which are presented via a cognitive state
(mainly a perception, imagining, memory or belief). In his view, emotions and sentiments
are oriented differently toward their targets. While emotions are states with a hedonic
valence, sentiments are described as “bridging the gap” between subject and object, showing
a “centrifugal” direction toward their targets, and “streaming” from subjects toward
objects (1913, p. 332–335).7 This metaphorical use of the language suggest that sentiments
for Pfänder exhibit a particular link between subject and object which cannot be found in
the emotions. Rather than being merely affected by the object, the subject of a sentiment
does something with the object: it affirms or denies it, it aims at uniting with it or creating a
distance with it.
Though Pfänder provides something of a metaphorical description of sentiments, I suggest
that we read him in the following sense. Sentiments, but not emotions, presuppose an
active involvement (what he calls a stream, a bridge) of the subject toward the object. The
subject is actively directed toward the object. This interpretation is also coherent with De
Monticelli’s observation that in sentiments there is a “search” in the target. Yet, I suggest here
to understand this aspect in the sense that sentiments are a “form of regard”, an expression
coined by Mason to describe affective states such as contempt (2003, p. 247). By contrast,
emotions involve the opposite movement from the object to the subject, i.e., they are a way of
being affected by the object and respond to it. This difference is a difference in how the subject
relates to the object of the sentiment in terms of being actively directed to it (as is the case for
the sentiments) or being passively affected by it (as is the case for the emotions).
5 Here and in 2.2.2. I work with the phenomenological distinction between “content” and “mode”.
6 This view is not shared by all early phenomenologists. See Pfänder (1913/1916) and Kolnai (2007).
7 For Pfänder (1913/1916), sentiments, like emotions, can exist in different temporal forms. As he puts it, sentiments
might be actual, habitual, and virtual. By actual he means what we would today call episodic; by habitual he refers to
what we would now call dispositional; with the term virtuality, he refers to the possibility for a sentiment to arise.

29

ÍNGRID VENDRELL FERRAN

Now we can specify in what sense the relational structure of emotions differs from that of
sentiments in the following terms:
IA-Relationality: Emotions and sentiments differ in their relational structure: while emotions
are responses to the target, sentiments are a form of regarding it.
As I shall show, the relationality of both states is intimately linked to their axiology which I
will interpret in terms of the mode in which each of these states evaluatively apprehends its
target.
Let’s explore more closely the axiological element of the intentional structure of emotions and
sentiments. This aspect was central to De Monticelli’s account. Here, I agree with the view that
emotions are responses to values. However, as I mentioned above, her claim that sentiments
present their targets as objects of “axiological discovery” and involve a “search” needs to
be elucidated further. How to understand, then, the axiological dimension of sentiments in
comparison with emotions?
For starters, one possibility put forward by Stein consists in looking for a difference in the
kind of values targeted by each of these states. Indeed, for Stein, sentiments are only directed
toward personal values (Stein, 1989). Though she is not fully clear about what is meant by
“personal values”, it seems that she is referring to the values which are constitutive of the
person one is. Let’s call this “the only personal values view”. Note that this view distinguishes
between emotions and sentiments in terms of their respective targeted contents.
However, this view cannot offer us a clear-cut criterion to distinguish between both states.
Emotions might be directed to personal values as well. Consider for instance the case of being
morally disgusted toward a person who exhibits racist behavior. If here we have an emotion
which targets a personal disvalue, then the axiological difference cannot be explained in terms
of a difference in the kind of targeted values.
Having rejected the claim that emotions and sentiments differ in terms of the kind of values
instantiated by the target, my suggestion here is to search for the difference between the two
states in how each of them evaluatively presents its target. That is, a focus on the “mode” in
which the target is evaluatively presented is needed. As mentioned above, differences in the
axiological structure of emotions and sentiments are related to differences in their relational
structure. This means that while I noted before that emotions are a form of being affected
by changes in our environment and sentiments are forms of regard, we can now make this
description more specific in evaluative terms. More precisely, my thought is that while emotions
are a form of being affected by evaluative properties of the target, sentiments are responsible for
presenting the target under a certain evaluative light. In other words, sentiments project onto the
target evaluative properties that are congruent with the sentiment we are experiencing. It is in
this sense that they present their objects as “domains of axiological discovery” and involve a
“search” in their targets, as De Monticelli puts it. Yet, note that unlike De Monticelli, I do not
think that sentiments reveal the person we are, but simply express how we feel about something.
Moreover, while De Monticelli describes sentiments in terms of a search for truths in the target
and of domains of axiological discovery, I describe sentiments in terms of projection of what we
feel in the target. That is, the fact that in hate the other seems to me to be odious is a product of
my projection and does not necessarily presuppose that the other is such.8

8 Note that while phenomenologists have usually been objectivists about values, here I defend the view that values
can also be projected into the environment depending on our own sentiment.

30

2.2.2. Axiology

EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS

To illustrate this point, consider for instance envy and hate as instances of emotion and
sentiment respectively. Envy is a response to the fact that another person, the rival, is
presented to us as worthy insofar as she has a good that we also covet. By contrast, hate is not
a way in which we are affected by a value instantiated by the target but rather a way to see the
target as evil. Put otherwise, hate is never a form of being affected by negative features of the
target. Why? First of all, we can hate persons with positive qualities and hate them precisely
for having these positive qualities. This occurs when someone hates another person for being
more intelligent, beautiful, etc. Second, though hate might arise after repeated negative
interactions with the target have taken place, the apprehension of negative properties in the
target does not necessarily elicit hate as a response. In fact, we could react toward a disvalue
of the other with indignation, anger, etc., even with compassion and pity. According to the
picture that I am suggesting here, rather than a form of being affected by an evaluative
property of the other, like the emotions, sentiments are a form of regarding the other under
a certain evaluative light. Finally, while emotions are something we suffer (as the Latin name
passio suggests), sentiments involve an active search for evaluative properties in the target
(for this view on love and hate, see Scheler, 1973; Kolnai, 2007; Ortega y Gasset, 1988). More
precisely, in hate we project disvalues on the target such as being morally depraved, evil,
menacing, etc., so that the other is presented as odious; in love we project positive values such
as being tender, attractive, cute, etc., so that the other is presented as lovable.
With this development in hand, we can now specify in what respect emotions and sentiments
differ in axiological terms:
IA-Axiology: Emotions and sentiments differ in the way in which they evaluatively
apprehend their respective objects: while emotions are responses to values of the target,
sentiments project onto the target evaluative properties congruent with the sentiment.
These differences in the axiology of both states provide clear-cut criteria to distinguish
between emotions and sentiments. Responding to the value of something is not the same as
regarding this something with a particular evaluative intention.
Let me sum up the findings of the last two sections (2.2.1. and 2.2.2.). As a result of these
differences regarding the relationality and axiology of both states, according to the proposed
model, emotions and sentiments exhibit different forms of affective intentionality. More
specifically, according to the version of IA developed here:
IA-Affective Intentionality: While emotions are responses to values of the target, sentiments
are forms of regard which project on the target values congruent with the sentiment we are
experiencing.
Note that the advantages of IA-Affective Intentionality in comparison to De Monticelli’s IAAxiology are that it can explain the difference between emotions and sentiments without
resorting to stratified models, it allows for sentiments to be not only dispositions but also
occurrent episodes, and it offers a specific interpretation of the axiological dimension of
sentiments in terms of projections of evaluative properties that are congruent with the
sentiment in question. Accordingly, it can explain why in hate a lovable object might appear to
us as odious, why in love we regard something odious as lovable, etc.
3. Conclusions

In this paper, I have argued that the Temporal Approach (TA) that distinguishes emotions
from sentiments on the basis of differences in their respective temporal structures (in terms
31

ÍNGRID VENDRELL FERRAN

of duration, etiology, and phenomenology) cannot offer clear-cut criteria to distinguish
between both states. I have argued that the Intentional Approach (IA) offers a more promising
alternative to distinguish between both states. I have discussed De Monticelli’s IA-Axiology as
a current version of the Intentional Approach (IA) and presented IA-Affective Intentionality as
a more plausible alternative. According to the proposed version, while emotions are responses
to values of the target, sentiments are forms of regard which project on the target values
congruent with the sentiment we are experiencing.
Note that while the term “affective intentionality” has been widely employed in current
research to refer to the genuine intentionality of the emotions, the way in which I am
using the term here is much broader because I use it also for other affective states such as
sentiments. While today’s researchers have widely argued that emotions are intentional states
which present their targets as imbued with values (though the ways in which this relation has
been interpreted differs from author to author: for some it is a perception of value, for others
it is a response to values apprehended by other means, etc.), they usually remain silent about
the affective intentionality of states other than emotions. Here I offered an account of the
affective intentionality exhibited by sentiments in comparison to the affective intentionality
exhibited by emotions.
Both forms of affective intentionality might be closely related. On the one hand, being
repeatedly negatively affected by someone might lead us to approach her in future encounters
with a negative attitude. For instance, after repeated negative emotional experiences of
indignation, anger, etc. we might come to develop a sentiment of hatred toward the other.
On the other hand, the sentiment we have toward someone might make us prone to certain
forms of being affected by the target. For instance, my love for a person presents this person
to me under a positive light such that I am more prone to being affected by her positive values
and experience joy, happiness, etc. However, both the emotion and the sentiment have to be
conceptually distinguished as exhibiting two distinct forms of affective intentionality.
Before concluding, I want to note two important implications of the proposed model. First,
the proposed approach sheds light on two different ways in which affective states are
linked to values. In particular, it suggests that affective intentionality is not unique for all
affective states and that it comes in different forms. Two of these forms have been explored
in this paper for the case of emotions and sentiments. As such, while Brentano and some
contemporary authors consider affective intentionality to be something unitary, here I have
suggested that we have good arguments to think that it comes in different forms.
Second, and in much broader terms, the proposed approach offers a specific tool to elaborate
a taxonomy of the affective realm. The differences between emotions and sentiments
identified above suggest that though it is the hallmark of all affective states that they are
linked to values, it is possible that not only do emotions and sentiments differ in their
intentional structure, but also that each kind of affective state exhibits a distinct form of
affective intentional structure. Why not, then, examine whether other affective states also
exhibit distinctive forms of affective intentionality and elaborate on this basis a taxonomy of
the affective realm? This would suppose that we analyze the affective intentional structure
of moods such as euphoria and melancholy, general feelings such as languor and vigor,
intentional feelings such as feeling unfairness and feeling disgust, etc., by focusing on the
mode in which they are directed to and apprehend their respective targets. In my view, a
version of the intentional approach for the case of moods is developed by Kriegel (2019).
According to him, moods as modes of apprehension exhibit a sui generis intentionality. The
idea that moods exhibit a sui generis intentionality can also be found in Ratcliffe (2013) who
regards moods as “pre-intentional”. Elsewhere, I have provided an analysis of vital feelings
focusing on their sui generis affective intentional structure (2021). Yet, to my knowledge, a
32

EMOTIONS AND SENTIMENTS

focus on relational and axiological elements of the intentional structure of different affective
states has not been employed yet to elaborate a taxonomy of the affective realm.
Early phenomenologists such as Scheler (1973) and Stein (1989) as well as more recent
accounts such as that provided by De Monticelli (2006, 2020) defend a stratified model of
the affective mind, according to which these phenomena belong to different strata of the
person and target values of different kinds (for instance, vital feelings target vital values,
emotions target aesthetic and moral values, etc.). In some of the early phenomenologists
such as Stein (1989), the stratification thesis could be interpreted as suggesting that each of
these layers exhibits a different form of intentional reference. For instance, Stein describes
the intentionality of moods as a “background intentionality” compared to the intentionality
of the emotions, which is object-directed.9 Independently of the stratification thesis, Scheler
(1973) and Reinach (2017) elaborate the distinction between emotions and intentional feelings
on the basis of differences in their respective intentional structure. Yet, note that the thesis
of different forms of affective intentionality is not necessarily linked to stratified models
in which differences between affective states are not stated in terms of differences in the
intentional structure but in terms of ranks of values and degrees of involvement.
The line of thought inaugurated in this paper opens the possibility to elaborate a taxonomy of
the affective mind based on different forms of affective intentionality, rather than in terms of
different temporal structures, as has been common practice in current research, or in terms of
levels of sensibility related to the hierarchy of values and the degree of personal involvement,
as has been usual in classical and more recent phenomenological accounts.
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Ben-ze’ev. A. (2000). The Subtlety of Emotions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press;
Brentano, F. (2015). Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge;
Broad, C. D. (1954). Emotion and Sentiment. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 13 (2):
203–214;
Crane, T. (1998). Intentionality as the Mark of the Mental. In A. O’Hear (Ed.), Contemporary Issues
in the Philosophy of Mind (pp. 229–251). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
De Monticelli, R. (2006). The Feeling of Values. For a Phenomenological Theory of Affectivity.
In S. Bagnara & G. Crampton Smith (Eds.), Theories and Practice in Interaction Design (pp. 57–76).
Mahwah, NJ: LEA;
De Monticelli, R. (2020). Values, Norms, Justification and the Appropriateness of Emotions. In
T. Szanto & H. Landweer (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology of Emotion (pp. 275–
287). Oxon: Routledge;
Deonna, J., & Teroni, F. (2012). The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. New York: Routledge;
Frijda, N. H., Mesquita, B., Sonnemans, J., & van Goozen, S. (1991). The Duration of Affective
Phenomena or Emotions, Sentiments, and Passions. In K. T. Strongman (Ed.), International
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9 For an analysis of Stein’s account, see Quepons 2015.

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Kolnai. A. (2007). Ekel, Hochmut, Hass: Zur Phänomenologie feindlicher Gefühle. Frankfurt a.M.:
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Kriegel, U. (2019). The Intentional Structure of Moods. Philosophers’ Imprint 19 (49): 1–20;
Mason, M. (2003). Contempt as a Moral Attitude. Ethics 113: 234–272;
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141–163). Paderborn: Mentis;
Naar, H. (2018). Sentiments. In H. Naar & F. Teroni (Eds.), The Ontology of Emotions (pp. 149–168).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
Ortega y Gasset, J. (1988). Falling in Love. In D. L. Norton & M. F. Kille (Eds.), Philosophies of Love
(pp. 14–20). Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield;
Pfänder, A. (1913/16). Zur Psychologie der Gesinnungen. Jahrbuch für Philosophie und
phänomenologische Forschung 1: 325–404 and 3: 1–125;
Quepons, I. (2015). Intentionality of Moods and Horizon Consciousness in Husserl’s
Phenomenology. In M. Ubiali & M. Wehrle (Eds.), Feeling and Value, Willing and Action (pp.
93–103). Heidelberg/New York/Dordrecht/London: Springer;
Ratcliffe, M. (2013). The Phenomenology of Mood and the Meaning of Life. In P. Goldie (Ed.),
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion (pp. 349–372). Oxford: Oxford University Press;
Reinach R. (2017). Three Texts on Ethics. Munich: Philosophia Verlag;
Royzman, E. B., McCauley, C., & Rozin, P. (2005). From Plato to Putnam: Four Ways to Think
About Hate. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The Psychology of Hate (pp. 3–36). Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association;
Salice, A. (2020). I Hate You. On Hatred and Its Paradigmatic Forms. Phenomenology and the
Cognitive Sciences 20 (4): 617–633;
Scheler, M. (1973). Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values. Evanston: Northwestern
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Shand, A. F. (1914). The Foundations of Character: Being a Study of the Tendencies of the Emotions and
Sentiments. London: Macmillan;
Stein, E. (1989). On the Problem of Empathy: The Collected Works of Edith Stein. Washington, DC: ICS
Publications;
Sternberg, R. J., & Sternberg, K. (2008). The Nature of Hate. Cambridge: Cambridge University
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Szanto, T. (2020). In Hate We Trust: The Collectivization and Habitualization of Hatred.
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 19 (3): 453–480;
Vendrell Ferran, Í. (2008). Die Emotionen. Gefühle in der realistischen Phänomenologie. Berlin:
Akademie Verlag;
Vendrell Ferran, Í. (2021). How to Understand Feelings of Vitality: An Approach to Their
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and Lived Experience (pp. 115–130). Cham: Springer.

34

NICOLA SPANO
Julius-Maximilians University of Würzburg
nicola.spano@uni-wuerzburg.de

THE FOUNDATION OF EVALUATION
AND VOLITION ON COGNITION:
A NEW CONTRIBUTION TO THE
DEBATE OVER HUSSERL’S ACCOUNT
OF OBJECTIFYING AND NONOBJECTIFYING ACTS1
abstract
In the present article I aim to make a new contribution to our phenomenological understanding of the
foundation between intentional experiences. In order to accomplish this goal, I discuss Husserl’s effort
to avoid the conflation of the class of non-objectifying acts, i.e., evaluations and volitions, with the class
of objectifying acts, i.e., cognitions. Through the analysis of the transition from his early to his mature
account, I explore how Husserl, by readdressing the idea of foundation in relation to the shift from the
practical-evaluative to the theoretical attitude, clarifies how evaluations and volitions can exert their
intentionality only on the basis of a foundation on cognitions without thereby being reduced to a mere
special case of founded representations.

keywords
Phenomenology, Husserl, Axiology, Metaethics
1 This research is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—Project-ID
446126658.
Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 36-142
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2302
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

THE FOUNDATION OF EVALUATION AND VOLITION ON COGNITION

1. Introduction

2. Analysis of the
foundation of nonobjectifying acts
on objectifying
acts

The analysis of the relation among cognition, evaluation, and volition is one of the most
complex aspects of Husserl’s phenomenology. The famous thesis that the so-called “nonobjectifying acts,” i.e., volitions and evaluations, are founded on “objectifying acts,” i.e.,
cognitions, has been extensively discussed and critiqued by scholars. In this paper, I aim
to take stock of the debate over Husserl’s account and make a new contribution to our
phenomenological understanding of the foundation of volition and evaluation on cognition.
In the first section of the paper, I first clarify why Husserl feels obliged to revise his early
account of the foundation of non-objectifying acts on objectifying acts that he develops in
the 5th Logical Investigation. Then, I explicate Husserl’s mature account that is contained in
the Lectures on Ethics and Value Theory from 1909-1914, Ideas II, and the Studies on the Structure
of Consciousness. In doing so, I show that Husserl, by readdressing the idea of foundation in
relation to the shift from the practical-evaluative to the theoretical attitude, eventually
manages to clarify how evaluations and volitions can exert their intentionality only on the
basis of a foundation on cognitions without thereby being reduced to a mere special case of
founded representations. This clarification is, by Husserl’s own admission, fundamental in
order to preserve the very distinction between objectifying and non-objectifying acts and
avoid the consequence that valuing and willing are conflated with knowing. In the second
section, I defend Husserl’s mature account against the charge of “intellectualism” leveled by
some followers and commentators. By taking into consideration Experience and Judgment, I
show, on the contrary, that Husserl gives a thorough analysis of how the experience of values,
goods, and actions can be prior to the thematic explication of the logical properties of objects.
In the Logical Investigations, Husserl distinguishes between “objectifying acts” and “nonobjectifying acts,” or, which is the same, between “primary intentions” and “secondary
intentions” (Hua XIX, 515).1 Whereas evaluations and actions are non-objectifying acts,
cognitions are objectifying acts. Objectifying and non-objectifying acts take their names
from the fact that the latter owe their intentionality to the foundation on the former
(see ibid.). Indeed, objectifying acts are “representations” (Vorstellungen) that provide the

1 Hereafter, where possible, all references to Husserl’s works will use the German pagination of the Husserliana
edition (abbreviated “Hua”) including volume and page number. If a published English translation is cited, the
reference page will be indicated in square brackets.

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NICOLA SPANO

non-objectifying acts founded upon them with an objective reference. As an example, the
experiencing subject can take delight in something, e.g., a blue sky, through the foundation of
a non-objectifying act of joy upon the objectifying act of perception that represents such an
object.
Although Husserl sticks to the above definition of objectifying and non-objectifying, he
thoroughly revises his own understanding of the reason for which non-objectifying acts owe
their intentionality to their foundation on objectifying acts. In order to clarify this crucial
change that takes place between his early and mature account, I will consider first his early
inquiry contained in the Logical Investigations and then his mature reflection contained in the
Lectures on Ethics and Value Theory from 1909 and 1914, Ideas II, and the Studies on the Structure of
Consciousness.
In the Logical Investigations, the reason for the a priori validity of the foundation of nonobjectifying acts on objectifying acts lies in Husserl’s principle that “[e]ach intentional
experience is either an objectifying act or has its basis in such an act, i.e., it must, in the latter case,
contain an objectifying act among its constituents, whose total matter is individually the same
as its total matter” (Hua XIX, 514). In order to understand this principle, let me clarify the
meaning of the phenomenological notion of “matter.”
In the 5th Logical Investigation, Husserl analyzes the structure of intentional experiences
by distinguishing between the “quality” and “matter” of an act (Hua XIX, 5th Investigation,
§20). The quality is the constituent part of an act that determines the type of intentional
experience, e.g., perceiving, judging, evaluating, willing. The matter is the constituent part
of an act that determines “the manner [Weise] of objective relation” (Hua XIX, 429), that is, it
establishes what object is intended as well as the properties under which it is intended. The
reason why non-objectifying acts are founded on objectifying acts is, specifically, that “all
matter, according to our principle, is the matter of an objectifying act and only through the
latter can it become matter for a new act-quality founded upon this” (Hua XIX, 514). That is
to say, objectifying acts provide the matter for the non-objectifying acts that are founded
upon them, such that these non-objectifying acts can refer to the intentional object in a
novel way through their specific act-quality.2 Thus, Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl (2013) notes that
non-objectifying acts “[…] do not establish any relation to an object and do not contribute
anything to the constitution of the object. They rather give a closer determination of the way
in which the subject of consciousness affectively, volitionally, and evaluatively (positively or
negatively) reacts to the given object being represented or judged” (p. 66, translation mine;
see also Melle, 1990, p. 41). For instance, when a subject delights in the blue sky, that subject
simply reacts evaluatively, on the basis of the act-quality of an act of joy, to the theoretical
representation of the purely logical properties of this object, such as color, extension,

2 More precisely, objectifying acts provide non-objectifying acts with a matter positionally qualified, as Staiti
observes (2020, pp. 85-87). The matter of objectifying acts is indeed always qualified by a “positional” quality.
“Positionality” is an essential feature of the quality of objectifying acts, on the basis of which the objects represented
through them are “posited” as having a specific mode of being (i.e., as real, irreal, possible, impossible, doubtful, true,
false, etc.). For example, in perception a blue sky is intended as actually existing, while in fantasy as non-existing.
The reason why the founding matter must be always positionally qualified is that it is not possible to combine an
act-quality of any kind with any matter. On the contrary, Husserl argues that: “[o]ne thinks that qualities of any
kind could be bound up with a single matter […]. Our law asserts that all this is not possible, that in each act there
must necessarily be an act-quality of the objectifying kind, since there can be no matter that is not the matter of
an objectifying act” (Hua XIX, 516 [168]). Given this, Staiti (2020, p. 87, footnote n. 2) is clearly right in pointing out,
contra Drummond (2005, p. 364), that an act must always be founded on a whole objectifying act (i.e., on its matter and
its positional quality) and not only on the mere matter of such an act.

38

2.1 Husserl’s account
in the Logical
Investigations

THE FOUNDATION OF EVALUATION AND VOLITION ON COGNITION

duration, shape, etc.,3 and not to the delightfulness that may characterize it as one of its “real”
(reel) axiological properties. Axiological properties do not indeed exist for the Husserl of the
Logical Investigations.
According to Staiti (2020, pp. 89-90), in the Logical Investigations Husserl neglects that the
axiological properties of objects come to manifestation through non-objectifying acts due
to the fact that his phenomenological analyses are deliberately focused on intentional
experiences and do not take into account the objective (noematic) dimension. However, even
though it is true that in the Logical Investigations the examination of the objective (noematic)
dimension of experience is missing, the narrow focus of Husserl’s analysis does not prevent
him from arguing that objectifying acts establish an intentional relation to objects and their
logical properties. Nevertheless, Husserl never argues that non-objectifying acts establish
an intentional relation to values, actions, and their axiological or practical properties. Given
this, it is my view that in the Logical Investigations Husserl is not negligent, rather he mistakenly
holds that there are no axiological and practical properties of objects, and that, as noted by
Rinofner-Kreidl, evaluative and volitional experiences just give a closer determination of
the way in which the experiencing subject volitionally and evaluatively reacts to the objects
theoretically represented. In support of my thesis, I would like to quote a passage from a very
early manuscript, written probably in either 1986 or 1897, in which Husserl clearly states that:
Is to be found a value moment in what is pleasing (truly pleasing, desirable, etc.), or in
the corresponding enjoying, wishing, etc.? No. In the object are to be found objective
predicates [gegenständliche Prädikate]; in it is to be found no value (Hua XLIII.2, 282).
Arguably, in the Logical Investigations Husserl still holds this position. It is no coincidence that,
in his later works, he openly admits that, in this book, he lets himself be deceived when he argues
that the fulfilment of a wish is tantamount to the fulfilment of the objectifying act directed
towards the desired object (see Hua XXVIII, 343). More generally, Husserl openly recognizes
that “pleasure, sadness, wish, and the like are also ‘directed’ towards something. They are not
directed towards the objectivities of their underlying objectivations. The joy at a matter of fact
[Tatsache] is not directed toward this matter of fact […]” (Hua XXVIII, 342, translation mine). I
further discuss Husserl’s dissatisfaction with his early account in the next section.
In conclusion, according to Husserl’s early account, non-objectifying acts are founded on
objectifying acts insofar as (i) evaluative and volitional acts do not have their own specific
intentional objects but rather refer to the objects represented in the underlying theoretical
acts, and (ii) these are the only kinds of experiences that can establish an intentional relation
to objects via their positionally qualified matter.
2.2 Preliminary
analysis of Husserl’s
account in the
Lectures on Ethics
and Value Theory
from 1909 and 1914

Rinofner-Kreidl’s observation about the intentionality of non-objectifying acts is valid with
respect to the Logical Investigations, but is not applicable to Husserl’s later works. Indeed, the
father of phenomenology soon recognizes that evaluative and volitional experiences have
their own specific intentional correlates, and, therefore, that they do establish a relation to
the object and do contribute to its constitution. This mature account is mainly articulated
in the Lectures on Ethics and Value Theory from 1909—1914 and Ideas II, but relevant texts can
3 As already pointed out by Staiti (2020, p. 91), Husserl deliberately calls the objective properties intended through
theoretical acts “logical” or “theoretical” rather than “natural.” The reason is that these properties are exhibited
also by objects that do not belong to the realm of nature, such as fictitious and unreal objects. For example, although
a unicorn is an object of fantasy, it still possesses the “logical” properties of extension, color, shape, etc., which
characterize natural objects (see Hua XXVIII, part C, §4b; see also ibid., 359, footnote 1).

39

NICOLA SPANO

also be found in the recently published Studies on the Structure of Consciousness (see especially
Hua XXVIII, Part A, §§6-8; Part C, especially §12; Appendix XII. Hua IV, §§4-7. Hua XLIII.2,
Appendixes VIII, IX, XII). Notably, it is Husserl himself who points out the unsatisfying
character of his early analysis. After stating that, in the Logical Investigations, he managed to
successfully clarify Brentano’s problematic notion of “representation” (Vorstellung), he adds:
“[o]n the other hand, I could not admittedly cope with the affective acts [Gemütsakten] and
the whole essence of the foundation of them and its relation to the objectifying acts […]” (Hua
XXVIII, 337). In his revisited account, the fact that evaluative and volitional acts have their
own specific intentional relation to objects is said to be unquestionable: “there is no doubt
that, as a consciousness, evaluating in its different forms, as pleasing, as desiring, as willing, as
acting, is the equivalent of the acts that we call perceiving, thinking, supposing, and the like,
[namely, NS] that it has its differentiated modes of relation to objectivities” (Hua XXVIII, 266;
see also ibid., 361). Importantly, Husserl states explicitly that these objectivities are not those
given in the underlying theoretical acts (see Hua XXVIII, 72; see also ibid., 340). Evaluative
acts are directed not towards the objects of sensible perception or judgment, but towards
values, which are nonetheless “something objective, something truly or actually existing
just as other objects” (Hua XXVIII, 255). Values are indeed “objects that have value, and that
objects have value means that they have certain inner or relative predicates that in turn are
valuable and make their subjects have value” (Hua XXVIII, 256).4 Husserl says, accordingly,
that “also the axiological predicates belong to objects; they also therefore have a certain unity
with theoretical predicates” (Hua XXVIII, 368). Instead, as Husserl thoroughly describes in the
volume ‘Will and Action’ of the recently published Studies on the Structure of Consciousness (Hua
XLIII.3), volitional acts are directed towards actions. Yet also actions are nothing but objects
that exhibit, as a fundamental practical property, the character of volitionality (Willentlichkeit)
(see Hua XLIII.3, ch. I), and, accordingly, are thematically experienced as the bearers of
practical properties.
The description of evaluative and volitional acts as intentional experiences having their
own intentional objectivities, i.e., values and actions, motivates Husserl to reconsider the
idea of foundation holding between objectifying and non-objectifying acts. After all, if
evaluations and volitions actually have their own intentional objects, do they still need to be
founded on cognitions? Husserl answers this question in the affirmative (see XXVIII, 359360). To explain why, he points out, to begin with, that axiological and practical predicates
always belong to objects, which come to manifestation only if they are represented in their
own logical properties through theoretical acts.5 Indeed, as Staiti (2020) notes, “the logical
properties are those that preserve the objectual unity according to the essence of the object
under consideration” (p. 91). The reason is that a theoretical object is “self-enclosed” (sich
abgeschlossen), that is to say, it preserves its self-identity even when it is thought only in its
purely logical properties, such as extension, duration, shape, color, etc. The reverse does not
hold true; for we cannot think about any axiological or practical property irrespective of
the theoretical object to which it belongs. Accordingly, axiological and practical properties
exist only as founded on the logical properties that make up the unity of such an object. As
an example, I can represent in pure phantasy a blue sky without thinking that this object

4 I will stick to this meaning of the term “value” throughout the article. By “value” I will thus refer to anything that,
in ordinary language, is called a “value object” or “valuable object,” such as a beautiful statue, an enjoyable blue sky, a
friendly person, etc.
5 According to Husserl, though, this does not mean that the bearers of axiological and practical properties, i.e., values
and actions, are originally experienced only as determinations of the theoretical objectivities founding them. See §III
below.

40

THE FOUNDATION OF EVALUATION AND VOLITION ON COGNITION

possesses any axiological property of joyfulness and is thereby something I can take delight
in. Yet, I cannot fantasize a blue sky as delightful without representing any of its logical
properties. Such a valuable object can neither be thought nor be; for the axiological property
of delightfulness gives itself only in conjunction with the logical properties of blueness,
immensity, airiness, etc., of the sky. Likewise, I can fantasize the logical properties of a bodily
movement, e.g., the extension, duration, direction, etc., of my hand-movement, without
representing the practical properties that make such a movement an external action, namely
the “fiat” (i.e., the volitional intention starting the action) and all the following “creative
moments” (i.e., the successive volitional intentions that govern the action springing forth
from the fiat). However, I cannot fantasize any external action without representing also the
logical properties of the bodily movement that the agent performs through it.
In conclusion, even though evaluative and volitional acts have their own intentional
objectivities, i.e., values and actions, for the late Husserl they must be founded on theoretical
acts insofar as axiological and practical predicates always belong to objects, which can be
constituted as self-enclosed intentional unities of sense only if they are represented according
to their logical properties. The scholar who has already taken into consideration and, in my
opinion, successfully clarified this aspect of Husserl’s mature account is Andrea Staiti (2020,
ch. III). However, in the next session I will show that the reference to the objectual unity
of the object alone is not yet sufficient to clarify the foundation of non-objectifying acts on
objectifying acts.
2.3 Conclusive
analysis of Husserl’s
account in the
Lectures on Ethics
and Value Theory
from 1909-1914 and
Ideas II

It must be noted that Husserl’s reflections discussed above do not represent the final solution
to the problem of the foundation of non-objectifying acts on objectifying acts. On the contrary,
they simply bring out the tremendous complexity of the phenomenological issue dealt with.
The long passage in which Husserl notes this deserves to be quoted in its entirety:
Obviously a problem now remains. I strongly emphasized against other views that an
evaluating act, e.g., a joy, exerts an intentionality through the medium of a founding
representation. If it now emerges that what is called intentionality here means
something different from what such a thing is called in objectifying acts, then it
remains to clarify, as an uneasy residue, the sense and function of this intentionality,
to sharply separate its pure phenomenological essence in naive evaluating [Werthalten]
as opposed to all other interpretations and reflective objectifications, and through such
investigations to subject the seriously compromised concept of ‘Act’ to a final analysis.
Does the concept of ‘Act’ still have unity? Is it not shattered by the recognition of the
double sense of intentionality? In any case, there is a deep gap here, a fundamental
essential difference that would be poorly described if one merely spoke of foundation.
We also have significant differences between simple and categorial objectifications, and
also the latter are characterized as founded; there too, the intentionality of the whole
act, of the act building up [sich emporbauend] in levels, in a certain way goes through
the underlying and ultimately simple acts. However, in all this we have unity of essence
and foundation [Fundiertsein] everywhere, and the speech of a continuous intentionality
has a completely different sense from that in the affective sphere [Gemütssphäre] (Hua
XXVIII, 337-338; see also Hua XXVIII, 333-334).
The fact that evaluative and volitional acts have an intentional relation to their own specific
objectivities jeopardizes the unity of the concept of “Act.” More specifically, it puts into
question the distinction between objectifying and non-objectifying acts; for Husserl realizes
that “if one tries to say that in evaluative acts values appear, then values are just objects
41

NICOLA SPANO

after all, and the acts in which objects appear are objectifying acts. The title ‘objectifying
act’ therefore devours everything, and there is no prospect of how one should hold onto the
concept of a non-objectifying act” (Hua XXVIII, 333). Importantly, to say that axiological
and practical objects are founded on logical objects, and, accordingly, can be constituted in
affective acts only if the full, self-contained logical object is constituted in theoretical acts, does
not solve the problem. The reason is that the same kind of foundational relation can actually be
found within the class of objectifying acts. Categorial objects are indeed founded on sensuous
objects in an analogous manner. For instance, the state of affairs “the sky is blue” constituted
in an act of judgment is founded on the thing “the sky” and its quality “blue” constituted in
acts of sensuous perception. As is the case with values and actions, the founded state of affairs
is an objectivity at a higher level, which, therefore, can be constituted only if the founding
objectivity at a lower level, i.e., the level of the sensuous object, is also constituted. The reverse
does not hold true, for the sensuous object can be perceived without any act of judgment
about it being performed. Shall we thus conclude that evaluative and volitional acts are
nothing but a specific kind of founded objectifying acts? We should not do so, because Husserl
insists that, under closer examination, the kind of intentionality exerted by affective acts
through the medium of founding representations is essentially different from the intentionality
of any founded objectifying act. Let me explain difference more precisely.
The fundamental question to be addressed, Husserl says, is the following: “how can evaluative
acts function as constituting?” (Hua XXVIII, 324). More specifically, it must be clarified how
“in these acts being-directed means that something shows itself in the act by virtue of its
foundation” (Hua XXVIII, 336).6 We just saw that one cannot simply argue that an evaluative
or volitional act establishes an intentional relation to an axiological or practical objectivity
by virtue of the fact that the founding theoretical act has established an intentional relation
to the underlying logical objectivity, for this argument does not rule out the possibility that
evaluative or volitional acts are just a specific kind of founded objectifying acts. In contrast
to his Neo-Kantian colleague Natorp, who “regards willing as knowing,” and, therefore,
“abandons the view that evaluating is something fundamentally different from perceiving and
judging, while the latter two belong together” (Hua XXVIII, 370-371), Husserl wants to hold
onto the distinction between these two classes of intentional experiences as non-objectifying
and objectifying acts, respectively. Accordingly, he stresses that “valuing is not seeing, an
intuition in the sense of perception” (Hua XXVIII, 366), and remarks that “[…] in the actual
sense only objectifying acts are directed towards objects, towards beings or non-beings,
whereas evaluative acts [are directed; NS] towards values, and more specifically, towards
positive and negative values” (Hua XXVIII, 72; see also ibid., 339-340). Of course, we saw that,
by Husserl’s own admission, values are “something objective, something truly or actually
existing just as other objects” (Hua XXVIII, 255). Yet the father of phenomenology tackles this
problem by making the following crucial remark: “evaluative acts are not directed towards
values as objects” (Hua XXVIII, 338).7 In Ideas II, he exemplifies what he means by giving the
following example: when we, seeing the radiant blue sky, live in the rapture of it, we are not
performing a seeing in the eminent sense of the term, such that the blue sky appears to us
as an object that is delightful (Hua IV, 9). More simply, we delight in the blue sky, without its
objective character of delightfulness becoming objectified. The value in question, i.e., the
6 As I already pointed out at the beginning of the section, Husserl maintains this definition of non-objectifying acts to
the very end.
7 In fact, Husserl never abandons the conviction he has had since the Logical Investigations, according to which the
intentional relation to an object in the strict sense of the term, i.e., as a being such and such determined, can be
established only through objectifying acts.

42

THE FOUNDATION OF EVALUATION AND VOLITION ON COGNITION

delightful blue sky, is rather an “object” only in the sense that it is the intentional correlate
of a “value-taking” (Wertnehmen) (Hua XXVIII, 370-371),8 namely it is something that the ego
intentionally relates to in the manner of feelings (see Hua IV, 9). As Husserl writes in Ideas II:
The most original constitution of value is performed in feelings as that pre-theoretical
(in a broad sense) delighting giving-in [Hingabe] on the part of the feeling Ego-subject
for which I used the term “value-taking” [Wertnehmen] already several decades ago in
my lectures. The term is meant to indicate, in the sphere of feelings, an analogon of
truth-taking [Wahr-nehmen; i.e., sensible perception; NS], one which, in the doxastic
sphere, signifies the Ego’s original (self-grasping) being in the presence of the object
itself. Thus, in the sphere of feelings what is meant by this talk of enjoying is precisely
that feeling in which the Ego lives with the consciousness of being in the presence of
the Object ‘itself’ in the manner of feelings (Hua IV, 9 [11], translation amended).
Value-taking, thus, is an act that is conscious of a value as its own intentional object;
importantly however, this act does not seize and posit the value as a self-identical “being”
(Seiendes) such and such determined, that is, as a substrate of properties that is characterized
by a given mode of existence, e.g., actual, possible, impossible, non-existent, etc. The
intentional directedness of value-taking is not doxic, but purely axiological, since the ego
is conscious of a value only to the extent that it feels an object in its valuable character
without determining this value character in any doxic manner. In the Studies on the Structure of
Consciousness, Husserl explicitly stresses the distinction between this original feeling of a value
and the “objectification of value” (Wertobjektivation) which can follow from it:
But is there not a distinction to be made here between the enjoying being turned toward
of the I [das genießende Zugewendet sein des Ich], which lives striving in pleasure [Lust],
and the being turned toward the determination of the value [das Zugewendet sein zu der
Bestimmung des Wertes] as toward determinations in general, or the judging-objectifying
attitude and the feeling attitude from the I? […] The I carries out the feeling as a feeling
[Gefühl], as an evaluation [Bewertung] of the founding object (the substrate of the feeling),
and that is different from the execution of a value objectification [Wertobjektivation].
Do I not have to say that I arrive at the objectification of value as an explicit, patently
accomplished one only through the fact that, after turning toward the founding object
and the relevant founding determination, I first carry out “enjoying” the valuating
feeling [„genießend“ das wertende Fühlen vollziehe], and only then can I move on to the value
judgment attitude? And does not this say as much as: at the outset, valuing [Werten] is not
an objectification […] (Hua XLIII.2, 212).
The “enjoying being turned toward of the I,” or, which is the same, its “enjoying valuing
feeling,” is the ego’s value-taking as the most original experience in which value is constituted.
This intentional experience is not an objectification but rather a non-objectifying act. Other
than the passages from Ideen II and the Studies quoted above, which give a clear exegetical
proof of this, the reader should keep in mind, more importantly, Husserl’s theoretical reason
for assuming this position: if value-taking, as the act in which the most original constitution of
value take place, were an objectifying act, then there would be no prospect of how one should

8 In German, perception is called Wahrnehmen, which literally means “truth-taking.” Given this, Husserl draws an
analogy between perceptual and evaluative acts by coining the term Wertnehmen, literally “value-taking.”

43

NICOLA SPANO

hold onto the idea that valuing is something fundamentally different from perceiving and not
just a specific class of founded objectifying act.
That said, how does the objectification of value originally constituted in value-taking take
place? Husserl writes:
Values are something objectifiable, but values as objects are objects of certain
objectifying acts; they constitute themselves in these [acts; NS] based on valuing acts, but do
not constitute themselves in the valuing acts. The valuing acts as peculiar acts are “directed”
towards something, but not towards objects, but rather it just belongs to their essence
that this direction of them can be grasped in an objectifying way [objektivierend erfaßt]
and can then be judged and determined objectively [objektivierend beurteilt und bestimmt]
(Hua XXVIII, 340, emphasis added. See also Hua IV, 15; Hua XLIII.2, 212-213).
In Ideas II Husserl illustrates what he argues above with the example of a work of art (see
Hua IV, 8-9 [10]; see also Hua XXVIII, 60). If we look at a picture “with delight,” i.e., if we
enjoy the picture, we relate to the picture exclusively in the manner of feelings, but as soon
as we judge the picture as beautiful, we are now performing a theoretical act that turns the
work of art into an “object” in the strict sense of the term. The work of art is now intuited
not only in sensuous intuition but in axiological intuition. That is to say, the work of art is
now intuited as the subject of the predicate of aesthetic enjoyableness, which makes up its
“what,” as it were (see Hua IV, 9). It is my opinion that the scholars have not properly clarified
this transition. Rinofner-Kreidl (2013, p. 71) and Staiti (2020, pp. 94-95) both argue that
values are objectified when they are analyzed as objects in themselves irrespective of their
possible real instantiations, such as when we consider, for example, the value of “Beauty,”
“Bravery,” “Friendship,” etc. Husserl’s thesis, however, is different, precisely because for him
an objectification takes place already when a value, from being a mere “object” of feelings
constituted in value-taking, “becomes a theoretical object, an object, that is, of an actively
performed positing of being in which the Ego lives and grasps what is objective, seizes and
posits it as a being [als Seiendes]” (Hua IV, 11 [13]). Importantly, this theoretical positing of
being does not take place only when a value is intended as an universal, but already when a
value is intended as an individual that is the bearer of axiological properties.9 In the Studien,
Husserl states this aspect clearly:
These value-taking acts are then the ground [Unterlage] for perceiving ones, namely for
those acts that perceive the value by purely seeing [rein schauend den Wert wahrnehmen]
(not value in abstracto; just as in perception that which is perceived is not the being
[das Sein] in abstracto, but the object, so is it also here: the value in its valuableness). […]
If we understand value-takings as something related to individual particulars, like perception,
then we have to add the value-seeing acts [wertschauenden Akte] related to the universal
(Hua XLIII.2, 271, emphasis added).
To sum up, whenever the experiencing subject intends something qua the real or ideal
substrate of axiological properties or, conversely, qua the axiological property of a real
9 In a recently published article, Claudio Maiolino (2022, footnote n. 15, pp. 195-196) stresses that Husserl never uses
the expression “ideal being” (ideale Seiende), since he uses the term “being” (Seiende) always and only to denote real
individuals and their own properties and relations. It is no coincidence, then, that Husserl uses the expression Seiendes
in the passage just quoted, precisely to indicate that a value is objectified as a real individual object and not yet as a
ideal general object.

44

THE FOUNDATION OF EVALUATION AND VOLITION ON COGNITION

or ideal substrate, the axiological strata of sense of the intentional object in question has
been objectified in addition to the logical strata. Accordingly, a value qua an object, be it an
ideal object (idealer Gegenstand) or a real being (reale Seiende), is a theoretical objectivity of a
higher level (see Hua IV, 9), which shows itself as endowed with axiological properties, e.g.,
delightfulness, other than sole logical properties, e.g., extension, color, shape, etc. The same
applies, mutatis mutandis, to practical objects.
Another important aspect that must be noted is that the theoretical act that objectifies a
value constituted in value-taking is not an act of reflection, which “turns back” upon the
evaluative act and makes it an intentional object. Husserl points out indeed that “through
abstraction [of the moments of evaluative acts; NS] we gain the ideas of evaluation in general,
of desire or will in general, of pleasure in general, but we do not gain a value and also not the
idea of ‘value’” (Hua XXVIII, 277). In Ideas II, he further clarifies this crucial point by making
a distinction between “the transition into the theoretical attitude and the transition into
reflection” (Hua IV, §6). The objectification of a value takes place through the former and
not through the latter, insofar as “[…] it is in the object itself that I find the beauty. Here ‘the
beautiful’ means anything but a predicate of reflection, as, e.g., if I say, ‘It is pleasing to me.’
The ‘pleasant,’ the ‘enjoyable,’ the ‘sad,’ and all similar predicates of objects are, as to their
Objective sense, not relation-predicates referring to the acts” (Hua IV, 14 [16]). Of course, one
can also objectify the evaluative act itself and judge, for instance, that “I take pleasure in this
object.” Yet the fact remains that the objectification of the delightful character of the object,
rather than the objectification of the evaluation directed towards it, requires the transition
into the theoretical attitude and not into reflection. I cannot, thus, agree with Rinofner-Kreidl
(2013, p. 71) and Staiti (2020, p. 108), who argue, on the contrary, that values are objectified in
reflection.
In order to fully understand Husserl’s mature account, it thus remains to clarify the precise
sense of the “theoretical attitude” through which, to use Husserl’s words from the Lecture on
Ethics, there takes place a certain looking into evaluative acts so that the value intentionally
intended in them is theoretically extracted (see Hua XXVIII, 366). In this respect, the first thing
to notice is that the phenomenon of “attitude,” and, more specifically, of “change of attitude,”
has, for Husserl, a transcendental-constitutive role that enables the experiencing subject to
disclose the stratified objective sense of intentional objects. Indeed, one and the same object
can be intended by giving thematic privilege to one of the three dimensions of sense, i.e., the
theoretical, the axiological, or the practical, that may characterize it. The shift of thematic
focus takes place precisely through a change of the ego’s attitude. For instance (but see also
Hua IV, 12-13), I may simply delight in looking at the blue sky, without the thematization of
the logical properties of extension, blueness, and airiness that characterize it as a mere thing.
In this case, I am in the evaluative attitude and not in the theoretical one. Yet, I can assume
this latter attitude, and thereby focus on the pure logical properties of the blue sky, while
its axiological property of delightfulness remains in the background. Or, I may be focused on
the practical realization of a work of art by means of a tool, e.g., I might be carving marble
with a chisel, without the thematization of the form, the orientation, and the dimension of
the chisel that I use to accomplish my work. By shifting from the practical to the theoretical
attitude, I can turn these properties into the privileged theme of my experience, while the
practical realization of the marble sculpture, although I continue to carry it out, recedes into
the background. The crucial point, however, is that the transition to the theoretical attitude
does not necessarily entail that the experiencing subject focuses on the intentional object as
the bearer of mere logical properties. In fact, through shifting to the theoretical attitude the ego can
also objectify values, goods, actions, and all other possible bearers of axiological and practical properties.
As Husserl states:
45

NICOLA SPANO

[…] we move about in the domain of the new, founded, qualities. We draw into the
sphere of theoretical interest, into the compass of the theoretical attitude, the predicates
correlative to these acts, too. And then we have not just mere things but precisely
values, goods, etc. (Hua IV, 17; see also Hua IV, 11, 16).
That said, let me discuss the details of the specific way in which, according to Husserl’s
mature account, non-objectifying acts exert their intentionality by virtue of the foundation
on objectifying acts. As discussed above, even though evaluative and volitional acts have
their own intentional objectivities, i.e., values and actions, they are one-sidedly founded on
theoretical acts insofar as axiological and practical properties are always properties of objects,
which must be represented according to their logical properties in order to be constituted
at all as intentional unities of sense. Yet we also discussed the fact that a similar situation
can be found within the class of objectifying acts, insofar as the constitution of the logical
objectivities of the higher order presupposes the constitution of the objectivities of the lower
order in certain founding acts. The paradigmatic example is the foundation of categorial
acts on sensuous acts. The former, too, exert intentionality by virtue of their foundation on
the latter. However, evaluative and volitional acts exert their intentionality by virtue of the
foundation on theoretical acts also because of the following aspect, which does not apply to
any founded objectifying acts, and, therefore, is the authentic reason for which evaluative and
volitional acts are non-objectifying: (iii) values and actions can be posited as a being endowed
with axiological and practical properties only through a shift to the theoretical attitude.
Given (iii), what exactly is the foundation on the basis of which non-objectifying acts can exert
their intentionality? In answering this question, it must be noted that in Husserl’s mature
account there are actually two foundational relations at play between non-objectifying acts
and objectifying acts. There is (I) a first foundational relation between, on the one hand, the
theoretical acts that constitute values and actions according to their logical properties, and,
on the other hand, the evaluative and volitional acts that constitute, although in a nonobjectifying manner, these values and actions according to their axiological and practical
properties. This foundational relation is, for example, that between the perception of the blue
sky as an extended, colored object, and the value-taking (Wertnehmen) of its value predicate of
beauty. In turn, there is (II) a second foundational relation between the evaluative or volitional
acts and the theoretical acts that are newly performed with the transition to the theoretical
attitude. It is only on the basis of this second foundational relation that theoretical acts
objectify values and actions, insofar as they draw the axiological and practical objectivities
that are “implicitly contained,” i.e., pre-constituted, in evaluative and volitional acts. In
the example of the blue sky, the foundational relation in question is the one between the
evaluative act through which the experiencing subject feels the beauty of this object and
the theoretical act through which the beauty is grasped (erfasst) theoretically as an objective
property of the sky.
It is important that the reader understands Husserl’s claim that “all acts which are not already
theoretical from the outset allow of being converted into such acts by means of a change in
attitude” (Hua IV, 8 [10]) and his similar claim that “[…] every act is implicitly Objectivating
at the same time” (Hua IV, 16 [18]) in terms of the foundational intertwining described here.
Indeed, it would be puzzling for Husserl, who wants to hold onto the distinction between
objectifying and non-objectifying acts, to eventually describe the essential difference between
these two kinds of intentional experiences by saying that one and the same non-objectifying
act can magically transform itself into an objectifying act through a change of attitude. That
the transformation of a non-objectifying act into an objectifying act rather consists in the
evaluative or volitional act serving as a foundation for a new theoretical act, which then
46

THE FOUNDATION OF EVALUATION AND VOLITION ON COGNITION

objectifies the value or action pre-constituted in the former, is openly declared by Husserl in
the Studien:
Thus, objectivation (judgment) and feeling (evaluation [Wertung]) are fundamentally
[grundwesentlich] different. The feeling qua feeling evaluates on the ground [aufgrund] of
some objectivation, it thereby grounds [begründet] a new objectivation, but it is not in itself
an objectivation (Hua XLIII.2, 213, emphasis added).10
One might point out, however, that in the case of this second foundational relation the
situation has in fact turned around, since the role of founding acts is played by evaluative
and the volitional acts, while the role of founded acts is played by theoretical acts. After
all, the experiencing subject is not obliged to shift from the evaluative or practical attitude
to the theoretical attitude, and thereby objectify the values and actions pre-constituted in
evaluative and volitional acts through the performance of new theoretical acts. Although
this is true, the fact remains that it is only through the performance of such theoretical acts
that evaluative and volitional acts can gain an intentional relation to values and actions qua
objects in the strict sense, i.e., qua something theoretically grasped, seized and posited as a
being.11 Therefore, one must acknowledge that, in order for the appearance of value or action
in axiological or practical intuition to take place, the foundation between, on the one hand,
evaluative and volitional acts, and, on the other hand, theoretical acts, is not one-sided, but
rather reciprocal. The cooperation of both sides is indeed needed for the appearance of values
and actions.12

10 Hua XLIII.2, 213, emphasis added. Further support can be found in the passage from the lectures on ethics from
1909 quoted above (see Hua XXVIII, 340), in which Husserl describes how values can be objectified, and by the passage
in which he states that a value “[…] comes to givenness by virtue of the cooperative evaluative acts” (Hua XXVIII,
366), since “[…] without evaluation there is no value” (Hua XXVIII, 277; see also Hua IV, 9). Other relevant passages
are contained in the lectures on ethics from 1914: “[a] judging can possibly build up only on the ground of affective acts
that evaluate the beautiful or the good (Hua XXVIII, 60, emphasis added); “[…] also valuing is therefore a holding as
[Dafürhalten], an intending [Vermeinen], and it is so qua affective-consciousness [Gemütsbewußtsein] and thus before
any judgments joining in” (Hua XXVIII, 61, emphasis added); “[t]he axiological reason with its constituents is hidden to
itself, so to speak. It becomes manifest only through the performance of knowledge on the ground of affective acts” (Hua
XXVIII, 63, emphasis added); “[b]ut mere evaluative reason does not see, does not understand, does not explicate, does
not predicate. Acts of the doxastic sphere, logical in the broadest sense of the word, must be intertwined with it. Only
through the performance of such acts can acts in general and that which they believe come to objective givenness,
and can we see then that evaluative acts are the ‘believing’ of the beautiful, of what is considered good, and then, that
they stand under the ideal predicates of right and wrong, etc.” (Hua XXVIII, 69, emphasis added).
11 In this respect, it must be noted that Husserl never abandons the conviction he has had since the Logical
Investigations, according to which the intentional relation to an object in the strict sense of the term, i.e., as a being
(Seiendes) such and such determined, can be established only through objectifying acts.
12 Husserl states that evaluative acts are founded on theoretical acts insofar as the latter are necessary for the
appearance of value in his 1914 lectures on ethics: “[…] every evaluating act is necessarily based on theoretical acts,
‘objectifying’ (representing or judging or presuming acts) in which the evaluated objectivities are represented and
possibly stand there as existing or non-existing in certainty or probability. And this being founded is not a merely
psychological one. Rather, the evaluating act is essentially founded on the intellectual act, insofar as it constitutes
the appearance of value” (Hua XXVIII, 72, emphasis added). Husserl argues something similar about volitional acts by
stating the following: “[t]he judgment is consciousness of an ‘it is so’; the will is consciousness of an ‘it should be so’.
However, the will alone cannot assert and cannot state that of which it is conscious in its own manner; this is its form of
non-independence [Unselbständigkeit]. In order to be able to speak, the will needs logical acts […] (Hua XXVIII, 63, emphasis
added). As one can see, Husserl characterizes the inability of volition to bring its own intentional object to objective
givenness as “its form of non-independence” (Unselbständigkeit), and hence foundation, on theoretical acts, since the
latter are needed for the appearance of such an object.

47

NICOLA SPANO

Husserl’s account of the foundation of non-objectifying acts on objectifying acts is still
an object of debate. On the one hand, Husserl’s contemporaries such as Martin Heidegger
(1927) and Max Scheler (1913–16), but also recent scholars such as John Drummond (2013)
and Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl (2013), undertake to criticize Husserl’s account, and even revise
it altogether. On the other hand, scholars such as Roberta De Monticelli (2018) and Andrea
Staiti (2020) find the account convincing. In particular, Staiti (2020, ch. III, §1) recently tried to
defend, successfully in my opinion, Husserl’s theses from the criticism of the abovementioned
scholars. In the following, I summarize the main points of the debate and try to further
support and develop Staiti’s analysis.
The main source the criticism of Husserl’s foundational account is its putative
“intellectualism.” These critics argue that the foundation of volitional and evaluative acts on
theoretical acts is not faithful to our experience, which is always practically and axiologically
connotated and does not seem to show a non-independence of volition and evaluation on
cognition. More specifically, Scheler (1913–16, pp. 17-18) argues that the perception of
values can even be prior to the perception of purely logical objects; while Heidegger (1927,
p. 130) contends that the two are co-original. By taking into account the position of these
two thinkers, Drummond (2013, p. 250, 256) does not reject Husserl’s foundational account
altogether, but calls for it to be rectified. According to Drummond, two problems must be
faced: (i) there is no real unity between objectifying and non-objectifying acts, for the latter
are merely “piled” on the former; (ii) the idea that theoretical acts have a priority over
evaluative acts is counterintuitive (p. 250). Drummond proposes two modifications to Husserl’s
account. In order to solve (i), one must (α) reinterpret the relation of foundation by specifying
that it does not actually hold between theoretical and evaluative acts, but rather between the
logical and the axiological objects that are intended through them (ibid.); in order to solve
(ii), one must recognize that (β) theoretical and evaluative experiences are co-original, as
Heidegger argues. On this view, we should say for instance that the subject perceives cooriginally the intentional object as a blue sky and as delightful, and that it is the axiological
property of being delightful that is founded on the logical properties of extension, blueness.,
etc., that belong to the sky as a natural thing.
According to Staiti, however, Drummond’s revision of the idea of foundation is not entirely
convincing. With respect to (α), Staiti remarks: “[t]his solution, however, seems to concede
too much to the critics of the Husserlian model. If we adopted it, we should admit a strange
asymmetry (this one really counterintuitive) between the structure of evaluative experiences,
which are not articulated in terms of foundation, and the objects that show themselves in
them, which are instead structured according to the stratification just mentioned” (Staiti,
2020. p. 93, translation mine). For my part, I agree with Staiti and I would like to further
elaborate the point he makes. To begin with, I have shown that it is Husserl’s himself who
correlates the noematic foundation of practical-axiological objects on logical objects with
the noetic foundation of volitional-evaluative acts on theoretical acts (see Hua XXVIII, 359).
Furthermore, I have shown that the appearance of values and actions in axiological and
practical intuition is based on an objectification, which requires a foundational relation
between evaluative and volitional acts and the new theoretical acts that are performed
with the shift to the theoretical attitude. Last but not least, Husserl’s analysis of the change
of attitude, discussed above, does not seem to legitimize, in the first place, Drummond’s
concern (i) that there is no real unity between evaluative and theoretical acts. According
to Drummond (2013), the reason for this lack of unity is that on Husserl’s account “I see x;
x affects me in a certain way, and I adopt an emotional attitude toward x that is somehow
distinct from my seeing x” (p. 250). However, Staiti (2020, p. 93) notes that Drummond (2013,
p. 51) himself recognizes in passing the fact that Husserl considers our experience as always
48

3. Criticism
and defense of
Husserl’s account

THE FOUNDATION OF EVALUATION AND VOLITION ON COGNITION

axiologically connotated, and that therefore it would be odd for him to think of evaluative
acts as mere occasional additions that are “piled” on theoretical acts. Husserl’s foundation
thesis, Staiti (2020) remarks, “should not be read in a ‘temporal’ sense, as if a non-objectifying
act would step in in a second moment, after the objectifying act founding it has established
the intentional reference to the object” (p. 89).13 Furthermore, I would also like to add that
from the noetic point of view, the shift from the theoretical to the evaluative attitude is to
be understood as the change of the overall thematic orientation of one and the same complex
intentional experience. In such a complex experience, each single theoretical and evaluative
act either plays a supporting role, thereby contributing to the constitution of an unthematic
strata of sense of the intentional object, or plays the role of the principal act, thereby
determining whether the intentional object, as a whole, is thematically intended as logical or
axiological (see Hua IV, 13). Therefore, the shift from the theoretical to the evaluative attitude
does not actually take place by “piling” a new evaluative act on the top of a theoretical act,
but rather by changing the constitutive role played by the former from “supporting” to
“principal”. In doing so, the ego’s seeing x recedes from the foreground into the background,
while the ego’s feeling x emerges from the background into the foreground.
With respect to (ii), Staiti (2020) takes Drummond’s concerns seriously, claiming that
“[we] can certainly assert, following Drummond, that in experience there is an overall
apprehension of the object, thanks to which we have simultaneous intuition of the value
and the representational dimension” (p. 93, translation mine). In order to prove that
Husserl himself shares this view, I now turn to the task of showing that he actually gives
a thorough phenomenological account of how the thematic explication of practical and
axiological objects can take place without a prior thematic explication of their logical
properties. Although overlooked by scholars so far, this account can be found in Experience and
Judgment. Therein, Husserl observes that the bearers of practical-axiological determinations
are “original substrates,” that is, intentional objectivities that are thematically experienced
from the start as values, actions, cultural objects, animals, persons, etc., without the need
to explicate beforehand their axiological and practical properties qua determinations of
the natural (more generally speaking, logical) objectivities on which they are founded
(Husserl, 1939, p. 158 [138]). Husserl then clarifies the precise sense in which these original
bearers of practical-axiological determinations are “independent” (ibid.). Since they are
founded on logical objectivities, practical and value objects are non-independent parts of
a more encompassing whole, which is made up also of logical objectivities, or, better yet,
logical objective strata. Accordingly, practical and value objects, qua original substrates,
are “independent” not in the formal ontological sense that they can exist without belonging
to a more comprehensive whole characterized also by a logical objective strata, but rather
in the phenomenological sense that they can be thematically experienced as something for and
in itself, and not as something which is only in another, in an existent for itself (Husserl,
1939, p. 155 [136]). Furthermore, these practical-axiological substrates can be explicated in
their own “personal” determinations without the need to explicate thematically the logical
determinations founding them.14

13 In this respect, Staiti (2020, p. 89, footnote n. 3) notes that Benoist (2004) also seems to understand the foundation
between objectifying and non-objectifying acts in temporal terms, for he repeatedly describes the relation between
these two classes of acts by employing the terms “first” and “then.”
14 I emphasize the word “thematically” since the unthematic explication of logical determinations must still take
place for Husserl, who never endorses Scheler’s thesis that a value is ontologically independent of its bearer (see Scheler
1913–16, pp. 17-18). In the lectures on ethics from 1909 Husserl states very clearly that objects must let their being be
explicated according to its logical predicates in order to be valuable at all (Hua XXVIII, 267-268).

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NICOLA SPANO

I venture to say, then, that the Husserlian account of foundation can actually accommodate
both Scheler’s and Heidegger’s insights. On the one hand, Scheler is right that the perception
of value objects can be prior to the perception of logical objects,15 insofar as value objects
are original substrates that can be straightforwardly explicated in their own axiological
determinations. On the other hand, Heidegger is right that theoretical and volitionalevaluative experiences are co-original, insofar as, even when practical-axiological substrates
are explicated in their personal determinations first, the fact remains that the logical
determinations upon which these practical-axiological substrates are founded are still
experienced, although unthematically.
Given that the thematic explication of practical-axiological objectivities can be prior to the
thematic explication of the logical objectivities founding them, one may wonder when and
how the foundation of volitional-evaluative experiences on theoretical experiences and,
correlatively, the foundation of practical-axiological objectivities on logical objectivities,
is phenomenologically discovered. The answer to this question is given by Rinofner-Kreidl
(2013), who duly notes that the foundational relation in question is not discovered at the
level of the direct, naïve experiences of practical-axiological objectivities, but rather at the
“level of reflective analysis of what is given to us in the [direct, naïve; NS] experience” (p. 71,
translation mine). However, Rinofner-Kreidl (2013) argues that Husserl’s foundational account
still needs an amendment; for she claims, contra Husserl, that a theoretical act is independent
when performed on its own as a singular experience, but it becomes a non-independent part
when performed in a more complex act (p. 70). The reason for this change of mereological
status is the “situational fusion [situative Verquickung] of descriptive and evaluative aspects,”
whereby “the selection and interpretation of what happens presupposes already an
evaluation” (p. 69, translation mine). That is to say, the natural (logical) properties of objects
are altered by the axiological properties founded on them (Rinofner-Kreidl, 2015, p. 102). As an
example, Rinofner-Kreidl mentions the case of a handshake between (1) two business partners
who reach an agreement; (2) a politician and a mafia boss, who shakes the hand of the former
to signal to a killer that he is the intended target; (3) a young guy and a policeman who just
convinced him not to throw himself out of a window; (4) two test subjects who perform this
gesture in a laboratory in order to determine the number of bacilli exchanged. According to
Rinofner-Kreidl, the logical properties of this bodily gesture putatively change depending on
the context in which it is performed.
This amendment to Husserl’s account, however, presents some issues. As Staiti (2020, p. 96)
points out, it lacks a solid exegetical basis. More importantly, “the independence or the nonindependence of a unitary experience is a structural mereological characteristic that does not
depend on the factual circumstances of the consciousness in which the unitary experience
in question is located” (ibid., translation mine). Indeed, the formal ontological category of
non-independence, on which the notion of foundation is based, does not regard factual
mereological relations among objects, but rather essential relations. As Husserl states: “a
non-independent object can only be what it is (i.e., what it is in virtue of its essential properties)
in a more comprehensive whole” (Hua XIX, 253; emphasize added). Accordingly, Staiti (2020)
concludes that “the integration of an objectifying act into an evaluative-volitional nonobjectifying act does not affect at all its mereological independence” (p. 97). For example, if we
conceive of one and the same physical handshake as taking place between, on the one hand,
two business partners, and, on the other hand, a politician and a mafia boss, the axiological
property associated to this gesture can change from being “an expression of gratitude” to

15 However, see footnote n. 14 above.

50

THE FOUNDATION OF EVALUATION AND VOLITION ON COGNITION

being “an expression of betrayal.” There seems to be no reason, however, to think that the
change of this axiological property also necessarily involves a change of the mere natural
properties of the handshake, such as its extension, duration, shape, etc. (p. 107).
Notably, Staiti tries to clarify the sense in which Rinofner-Kreidl’s insight holds true. He notes:
“Rinofner-Kreidl calls the attention to a very interesting and too often neglected point: it is
the normative perspectives that we assume contribute to making us see the natural properties
which are relevant for the foundation of axiological properties” (p. 107, translation mine).
For example, if the experiencing subject assumes a moral perspective, it might focus on the
natural properties that are relevant with respect to the potential damage of others, such as
when, in blaming the practice of torture, we pay closer attention to the physical properties
causing pain. Rinofner-Kreidl’s insight is, thus, valid if it is understood as saying that, due to
the “situational fusion” of descriptive and evaluative aspects, the epistemological relevance of
the natural (logical) properties of objects—but not their ontological constitution—is altered
by the alteration of the axiological properties founded on them (see Staiti, 2020, p. 109). If
we consider again the example of torture, it could be the case that the experiencing subject
assumes a sadistic attitude instead of a moral attitude, and therefore focuses on the physical
properties that are expressive of pain rather than on those causing it.
I conclude here my study, which I hope deepened our phenomenological understanding of the
foundation of volition and evaluation on cognition.
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Hua XXVIII. (1988). Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre. 1908-1914, U. Melle (ed.). The Hague:
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Hua IV. (1991). Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Zweites
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Hua XLIII.2. (2020). Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins, Teilband II. Gefühl und Wert Texte aus dem
Nachlass (1896–1925). U. Melle & T. Vongehr (eds.). New York: Springer;
Hua XLIII.3. (2020). Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins, Teilband III. Wille und Handlung. U. Melle
& T. Vongehr (eds.). New York: Springer;
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Peucker (ed.). Dordrecht: Kluwer;
Husserl, E. (1939). Erfahrung und Urteil. L. Landgrebe (ed.). Prague: Academie
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(trans.) (1978). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul;
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Rinofner-Kreidl, S. (2013). Husserls Fundierungsmodell als Grundlage einer intentionalen
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Wertungsanalyse. Metodo. International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy, 1(2), 59-82.
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52

ALEXIS DELAMARE
Université de Rouen-Normandie/Universität Heidelberg
alexis.delamare5@univ-rouen.fr

ARE EMOTIONS VALUECEPTIONS OR
RESPONSES TO VALUES? HUSSERL’S
PHENOMENOLOGY OF AFFECTIVITY
RECONSIDERED
abstract
How are we able to experience values? Two sides are competing in contemporary literature:
‘Meinongians’ (represented notably by Christine Tappolet) claim that axiological properties are
apprehended in emotions, while ‘Hildebrandians’ (represented in particular by Ingrid Vendrell Ferran)
assert that such experiences of value (or valueceptions) are accomplished in special ‘value feelings’, and
that emotions are only responses to these felt values. In this paper, I study the Husserlian viewpoint
on this issue. I reveal that, contrary to what almost all scholars have assumed so far, Husserl’s position
is not reducible to Meinong’s and must on the contrary be regarded as an innovative and stimulating
approach that helps unifying the two standard frameworks. It indeed recognizes (with Hildebrandians)
the existence of non-emotional value feelings, while maintaining (with Meinongians) that originary
axiological experiences are necessarily emotional.

keywords
Husserl; phenomenology; axiology; emotion; feeling.

Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 54-142
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2303
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

ARE EMOTIONS VALUECEPTIONS OR RESPONSES TO VALUES?

Introduction.
Emotion or
feeling: how do we
experience values?

Our life world is from the outset saturated with values. Husserl himself – far from the image of
an ‘intellectualist’ with which he has long been associated – acknowledges this primordiality
of values as soon as Ideas I:
This world is there for me not only as a world of mere things, but also with the same
immediacy as a world of objects with values, a world of goods, a practical world (1983, p. 53).
Hence, values originarily inhabit the world, just like spatiotemporal things or natural facts.
They are not mere ideal entities like Equality (De Monticelli, 2020, p. 43; Jardine, 2020,
p. 56; Vendrell Ferran, 2022, p. 72), but they immediately pertain to the various objects that
we encounter in the world: the landscape itself is sublime, the murder itself is abject. In this
perspective, these values, as axiological predicates, are moments of the things themselves, just like
their mass or their color (Tappolet, 2000, p. 6).
The present work assumes such an axiological ‘naïve realism’. To that extent, it will leave aside
ontological questions and will focus exclusively on the ‘epistemology’ of values.
The latter issue is by no means less daunting than the former. While it is clear that our
perceptions manifest to us the various sensible qualities of the world, and that it is through
our conceptual thought that ideal objects such as numbers or species are revealed to our
mind, the kind of ‘lived experience’ capable of unveiling axiological determinations remains
quite delicate to identify. One could first consider accounting for such experiences of values
(‘valueceptions’) in terms of desire (Oddie, 2005, p. 28; von Ehrenfels, 1897, pp. 2, 51-52) or
judgment (Nussbaum, 2004; Solomon, 1976). Yet, many objections have been raised against
these views (Vendrell Ferran, 2022, pp. 74-78).1 For example, it has been argued that desires,
contrary to valueceptions, have a world-to-mind direction of fit (Engelsen, 2018, p. 238).2 As for
judgments, they are higher-order cognitive states underpinned by propositional structures,
while we are immediately “struck” by values (Mulligan, 2009).3 In what follows, I assume that

1 It must be noted that the classical criticisms raised in this context focus mainly on the idea that emotions are
desires (Deonna & Teroni, 2012, pp. 28-39) or judgment (Deigh, 1994, p. 836). These claims are different from the ones
asserting that experiences of values are conative or judicative acts.
2 See (Husserl, 2020b, p. 229; Meinong, 2020, p. 85; Mulligan, 2009, p. 144, 2010, p. 484) for other objections.
3 A related argument is that young infants can grasp values (for instance the – positive – value of their parents) but
are not endowed with propositional aptitudes.

55

ALExIS DELAMARE

these objections are compelling and I focus on the two remaining options addressed in recent
philosophy.
To begin with, many authors have regarded emotion as the kind of acts responsible for
valueceptions. Three sorts of arguments can be put forward in favor of this claim:
1. The linguistic argument: many axiological concepts are directly linked to our emotional
experiences (amusing/amusement, admirable/admiration) (Tappolet, 2000, p. 16).
2. The phenomenological argument: emotions enable us to gain access to what is meaningful
for us. My concern for my cat is for instance materialized both in my current love for
it and in the sadness that I would feel if it were to die. Conversely, as Thomas Fuchs
aptly points out, without emotions, the world would be deprived of any significance
(Bedeutsamkeit) (2014, p. 18).
3. The psychopathological argument: people suffering from antisocial personality disorder
(psychopaths) show a strong emotional deficit, above all in guilt, remorse, and empathy
(Prinz, 2008, p. 45). At the same time, there is evidence that they lack a proper
comprehension of morality, since they do not understand the distinction between
moral and conventional rules (Blair, 1995, p. 17). Rephrased in axiological terms: an
emotional impairment leads to the incapacity to grasp (at least moral) values.
These three observations culminate in the ‘Meinongian’ (1917)4 view on valueception: values
are presented in emotions (Tappolet, 2000, pp. 8-9).
However, this thesis faces important challenges. In particular, it has been argued that, as
ordinary language shows, emotions are not themselves discoveries of values but are caused by
axiological apprehensions. As Kevin Mulligan puts it:
We can always ask someone why he feels the way he does. We do not ask someone why
he knows that p or perceives something. We ask him how he knows that p. If some
emotion of Sam were a disclosure of value, we ought not to be able to ask him why he
feels the way he does (Mulligan, 2010, p. 485).
This objection, among others (Vendrell Ferran, 2022, pp. 75-76), has led an increasing number
of scholars – such as John J. Drummond, Jean Moritz Müller or Søren Engelsen – to embrace an
alternative, ‘Hildebrandian’5 view on valueception, which has been very recently systematized
by Ingrid Vendrell-Ferran (2022). This conception can be divided into two related claims:
1. There exists a type of lived experiences, called ‘Fühlen’, ‘Wertfühlen’, or ‘value feeling’,
which is in principle independent from emotions, in the sense that it is not reducible
to them, nor even founded on them: a value feeling can be cold, that is, may be
experienced in the total absence of emotions (Drummond, 2009, p. 366; Engelsen, 2018,
p. 240; Mulligan, 2009, p. 144, 2010, p. 486).
2. In this framework, emotions are conceived, not as direct experiences of values, but as
responses to the values apprehended by a ‘value feeling’ (Engelsen, 2018, p. 245; Müller,
2019, p. 63; Mulligan, 2009, p. 151, 2010, p. 485).
Just to cite one of Vendrell Ferran’s examples: “feeling the bravery of an action calls us to
respond with the emotions of admiration and respect” (2022, p. 83).
Yet, in turn, this ‘Hildebrandian’ view on valueception stands open to criticism. First, the
4 Meinong indeed defended that emotions (Gefühle, Emotionen) were genuine “presentations” of what he called
“dignitatives” (Meinong, 2020, pp. 28-29, 121). In recent times, it has been taken up famously by Tappolet (2000, p. 9),
but also in (Milona, 2016; Roeser, 2011, p. 138; Zagzebski, 2003, p. 104).
5 This position was indeed initially defended by Dietrich von Hildebrand (von Hildebrand, 1916, pp. 163, 212), but
also, at the same period, by Scheler (1973, pp. 173, 258) and Reinach (Reinach 1989, p. 296) among others (Salice, 2020).

56

ARE EMOTIONS VALUECEPTIONS OR RESPONSES TO VALUES?

demarcation between emotions and feelings is not made sufficiently clear. John J. Drummond6,
for instance, writes that emotion “intends in a more determinate way the affective aspect” than
does feeling (2009, p. 368, emphasis mine). The obscurity of such formulations casts doubts,
more generally, on the exact nature of this alleged ‘feeling’. In the end, we cannot but have
the impression that it is a category of acts merely invented to satisfy theoretical needs (Deonna &
Teroni, 2012, p. 94; Mitchell, 2019, p. 786; Yaegashi, 2019, p. 76).
As a result, none of these two main viewpoints on valueception can be regarded as fully
convincing. The purpose of the present paper is to shed new light on this puzzle, through the
study of one particular approach to the problem at play, namely Husserl’s. This could seem a
strange choice, for Husserl is usually considered to be a classical advocate of the ‘Meinongian’
standpoint on valueception. Yet, as the manuscripts collected in the recently published Studien
zur Struktur des Bewusstseins reveal (especially their second volume (Husserl, 2020b), thereafter
abridged and cited as ‘Studien II’), this traditional exegesis is partial. The purpose of the present
work is precisely to demonstrate that Husserl, far from being a basic ‘emotionalist’, develops
an original, stimulating account of valueception that unifies the two sides at stake.
The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, I present the reasons that motivated
Husserl to embrace the ‘emotional’ view in his most famous texts. Yet, this emotional stance
faces very serious objections, in particular the phenomenon of axiological coldness – the
possibility of experiencing a value without being moved – of which Husserl himself was well
aware. This issue prompted him to build up, as I show in the second part, a much more
sophisticated conception of valueception which took into account the most fundamental
features of the ‘value feeling’ standpoint. Finally, in the third part, I establish that there is
no contradiction between Husserl’s major publications and the Studien II: even if the existence
of non-emotional value feelings is acknowledged in these manuscripts, emotion remains the
originary axiological experience.
1. Mainstream
Husserl:
valueceptions
are nothing but
emotions

In the last three decades, the stereotype of an ‘intellectualist’ Husserl has been aptly
reassessed. Among other texts (Husserl 2001, pp. 277-283, 2004b, pp. 159-189, 2013,
pp. 187-191), the publication of his lectures on ethics (1988, 2004a) has proven that he was
also deeply concerned with the affective and practical dimensions of human experience.
More importantly, these lectures have revealed that emotional phenomenology was at the core
of his transcendental project. To make a long story short, Husserl understood transcendental
phenomenology as a discipline that must take charge of “all true knowledge” and solve
“all problems of reason” (1962, p. 299). In this framework, reason is no longer equated
with Verstand, that is, with theoretical reason, but integrates its axiological and practical
spheres as well. Yet, to establish the rationality of values, it is not sufficient to show that
they comply with ‘formal axiological’ laws analogous to those of pure logic (Husserl,
1988, p. 48). This ontological approach must be completed by an ‘epistemological’ one, in
which the phenomenologist reveals how values can be experienced – and even known – by the
subject (Husserl, 1988, p. 250). In this transcendental perspective, emotions (Gefühle) play an
indispensable role: only emotions can manifest something as beautiful, noble, or disgusting.
This line of thought is systematized in the ‘mainstream’ interpretation of Husserl. According
to this exegesis, Husserl’s philosophy of feelings is characterized by a significant evolution
(Gyemant, 2018) that occurred approximately around his so-called ‘transcendental turn’.
In the Logical Investigations, Husserl still endorsed a “non-objectifying” conception of Gefühl:
Gefühle are intentional but do not contribute to the constitution of new objectual predicates.

6 For another (problematic) attempt of distinction, see (Engelsen, 2018, p. 240).

57

ALExIS DELAMARE

In Husserlian terms, emotions pertain to the quality of acts, but not to their matter, which is
integrally provided by their cognitive basis. Yet, the constitution of values remained, in this
framework, unintelligible. As a consequence, Husserl amended his theory and acknowledged in
Ideas I “that any acts whatever — even emotional and volitional acts — are “objectifying,” “constituting”
objects originaliter” (1983, p. 282, transl. modified).
In this context, emotion must be understood as a complex act, which is necessarily founded on
an intellectual basis (Husserl, 1913, p. 389).7 Hence, the whole correlate of this act is itself a
complex one: it is underpinned by a ‘simple thing’ (bloße Sache) (e.g., the dog, the proof) which
serves as a substrate for a new, founded layer (Schicht), that is precisely the value (the dangerous
dog, the elegant proof).
As a consequence, axiological predicates cannot be given but as such affective correlates:
“valueception” (Wertnehmung)8 and “actual delight” (aktueller Genuss) are two equivalent
expressions (Husserl, 2004a, p. 75). In other terms: our epistemological access to values
is exclusively provided by our emotional acts. The pervasiveness of this claim throughout
Husserl’s most well-known texts, in particular in his 1908 (1988, pp. 277, 323) or 1920 (2004a,
p. 75) lectures on ethics, as well as in Ideas II (1952, p. 9, 1989, p. 11) or Erste Philosophie
(2019, p. 49), has thus persuaded most Husserl’s scholars – belonging to both sides of the
controversy9 – to classify him, alongside with Meinong, as an ‘emotionalist’ on valueception.
This ‘emotional’ view, however, faces one very substantial objection, depicted by Husserl’s own
students, namely the possibility of being aware of a certain value without experiencing any
emotion. As von Hildebrand mentions as early as 1916, I can “take note” (Kenntnis nehmen) of
the value of a certain state of affairs (e.g., that my friend is coming) without responding to it
emotionally, that is, without rejoicing about it (1916, p. 167). Max Scheler, in his Formalismus,
also suggests similar examples. It is quite possible, for instance, that I say: “True, this work of
art is valuable, but I do not take any delight in looking at it; I do not like it” (1973, p. 250).
The existence of this phenomenon – that I will sum up by the expression of axiological coldness –
seems to ruin the standard ‘emotional’ view10 that Husserl endorses in his most famous texts.
If a valueception (Wertnehmung) can occur in a “cold” (kalt) (Scheler 1916, 257, 1973, 250) state,
then it is plain that emotional acts cannot account for our experience of values11.
Very interestingly, the manuscripts gathered in the Studien II12 reveal that Husserl himself
was actually aware of this phenomenon as early as 1909, hence well before his students’
publications:13 “I can find something enjoyable [erfreulich] without really enjoying it” (Studien
II, p. 183). Another manuscript, from 1911, takes up and deepens this possibility:

7 This thesis, as is well known, originates in Brentano’s Vorstellungsgrundlage (Brentano, 1973, p. 112).
8 Husserl appealed to this terminology as early as 1902 (von Hildebrand, 1916, p. 205).
9 On the ‘emotionalist’ side, see (Tappolet, 2000, p. 7; Yaegashi, 2019, p. 73). On the ‘Hildebrandian’ side, see (Müller,
2019, p. 54, 2020, p. 116; Mulligan, 2010, p. 483).
10 Naturally, contemporary partisans of ‘value feeling’ theories (but also other scholars) have taken up this crucial
issue to criticize the ‘emotional’ standpoint (Deonna & Teroni, 2012, p. 55; Drummond, 2009, p. 369; Engelsen, 2018,
p. 244; Helm, 2001, p. 38; Müller, 2019, p. 99; Mulligan, 2010, p. 487; Vendrell Ferran, 2022, p. 75).
11 James Jardine rightly notes, while commenting the Studien II, that “we sometimes experience an object as
agreeable without finding ourselves passionately moved by it” (Jardine, 2020, p. 61). Yet, I would radicalize such
formulation: we can apprehend a value without finding ourselves moved by it at all.
12 See (Husserl, 2020a, pp. LVI-LXI) for editorial details on these texts.
13 Since von Hildebrand arrived in Göttingen the same year (Salice, 2020), it is natural to raise the question of the
influence he may have exerted on Husserl (and reciprocally) (Andras Varga, 2018; Husserl, 1994, p. 125). On this issue,
see in particular the notes taken by Husserl on his exemplar of (Hildebrand 1916), reported in (Schuhmann 1992).
Besides Scheler, another important character on these questions is Geiger (Geiger, 1911; Vendrell Ferran, 2008, p. 205).

58

2. Underground
Husserl: emotion
as “devotion”
(Hingabe) to the
value

ARE EMOTIONS VALUECEPTIONS OR RESPONSES TO VALUES?

I see a beautiful female figure. Once I am delighted, the other time she leaves me cold,
although I find her equally beautiful. The same good food, depending on whether I am
full or hungry, delights me or leaves me cold. I missed it, and I appreciate it as being
equally ‘valuable’, as equally good. The feeling as a grasping of value [Das Fühlen14 als
Werterfassen] is to be distinguished from the delight [Genießen], from the higher affective
reaction (Studien II, p. 102).
These passages are not isolated: rather, axiological coldness is unceasingly evoked, like
a leitmotiv, throughout the Studien II.15 As a result, both the most important argument
(axiological coldness) and the most important distinction (initial Fühlen vs reactional Gefühl16)
later used by ‘Hildebrandians’ were already known to Husserl. This led him to develop an
enriched conception that contrasts with the ‘mainstream’ interpretation of his thought.17
In this ‘underground’ view, emotions are no longer equated with immediate experiences of
values. Rather, they are conceived as episodes that stem from an initial valueception but are
not reduced to it. This is especially evidenced by what Husserl calls Hingabe.18 Let’s consider
the following text from the same 1911 manuscript:
Do not we find the distinction between devotion [Hingabe] and non-devotion [NichtHingabe] in all affective acts? I value a beautiful woman, I value a good meal, I value
a state of affairs […]. Have we not everywhere the phenomenon [Phänomen] of the
affective act, in which something ‘stands there’ as joyful, regretful (as wishful, as oughtto-be) etc. and, in contrast to this, the devotion, the more or less lively joy, sadness,
wish, etc.? (Studien II, p. 109)
In this passage, Husserl accounts for the discrepancy between the initial valueception and
the subsequent emotion in terms of “Hingabe”, whose best translation is probably the term
“devotion”. Just like employees can be more or less devoted to their company, and just like
the members of a church can be more or less devoted to their god, the subject can be more
or less emotionally ‘devoted’ to the value she is apprehending. In such devotion, this value
is no longer merely grasped in a “theoretical”19 fashion, but it moves us, it troubles us, it
overwhelms us. As Husserl poetically puts it, Hingabe can thus be defined as “Mit-dem-Herzendabei-Sein“, “being there with our heart” (Studien II, p. 116).
The introduction of this new concept allows Husserl to set forth a sophisticated description
of emotional episodes, in which they are articulated as four-stage processes (cf. Figure n°1

14 It is worth noting the use of a ‘Schelerian’ vocabulary here.
15 To name just a few examples: I can see something good without feeling any joy (Studien II, p. 531); I can see
something beautiful without getting excited (Studien II, p. 97); I can eat a Strudel without experiencing delight (Studien
II, p. 171). Such coldness can in particular be provoked by special physical states – such as fatigue (Studien II, p. 169,
227) – or moods – depression (Studien II, p. 211).
16 This ‘reactional’ conception of emotions is expressed via a wide range of notions in the Studien II. The emotion is
for instance said to be “motivated” (motiviert) (Studien II, p. 106), “founded” (fundiert) (Studien II, p. 177), “grounded”
(gegründet) (Studien II, p. 140), or “excited” (erregt) (Studien II, p. 123) by the value, to find its “source” (Quelle) in it
(Studien II, p. 171), to be a “reaction” (Reaktion) (Studien II, pp. 102, 118) or a “response” (Antwort) (Studien II, p. 205) to
it, or to emerge “in virtue of” the axiological object (um der Objektwerte willen) (Studien II, p. 55).
17 In recent works, James Jardine has also aptly called into question the traditional interpretation of Husserl’s theory
of emotions (Jardine, 2020, 2022, p. 49). In many respects, Jardine’s explorations can be seen as complementary to the
position advocated in the present paper.
18 Husserl annotated a 1909 manuscript dedicated to the issue (Studien II, p. 183) with the commentary: “Nota bene!
Sehr wichtig” (Husserl, 2020c, p. 191).
19 Husserl appeals explicitly to this paradoxical expression (Studien II, p. 185).

59

ALExIS DELAMARE

below).
Stage 1. There is first the passive reception (Studien II, p. 50) of a value, that “strikes” (Mulligan,
2009) the subject. The valenced object “stands there” (“steht da”), and the subject becomes
aware of it in a glance that is similar to the perceptual grasp of worldly things:
Value-apperception, value-apprehension, valueception. A painting stands there as a
beautiful painting. A violin stands there as a beautiful, precious [wertvolle] violin, a tone
sounds noble (Studien II, p. 121).
Stage 2. Yet, this initial passive stance does not exhaust the whole emotional process (Jardine,
2022, p. 61) and must be first completed by an active engagement vis-à-vis the appearing value,
in which, so to speak, the subject says ‘yes’ (but may also say ‘no’) to its manifestation.20 This
does not require adopting a highly reflective position in front of the valenced object. Even
‘indulging oneself’ – “sich hingeben” (Studien II, p. 109) – to something irritating and letting
anger emerge is already a kind of agentive behavior, since, as Husserl highlights, I can also
abstain (Enthaltsamkeit) (Studien II, p. 185) from participating in the negative value in virtue of
an active “Gegentendenz” (Studien II, p. 116). Hence, the subject always embraces a minimal
stance (positive – Hingabe – or negative – Nicht-Hingabe) towards the axiological content.
Moreover, such active “affective stance” (Gemütsstellungnahme) (Studien II, p. 121)21 typically
involves two components: an attentional one (Jardine, 2022, p. 63) – the valenced object comes
to the forefront of consciousness22 – and an enactive one – the subject physically engages with
the object, turns around it, comes closer to it, touches it or even hits it (Studien II, p. 100).
Stage 3. However, to experience an actual emotion, such active engagement is still
insufficient: my heart must be touched as well. This is not a metaphor: any genuine Gefühl is
always embodied23 through a variety of affective sensations (Gefühlsempfindungen), like sensible
pains or pleasures but also shivers (Studien II, pp. 102-103, 109, 111-113, 123, 172-173, 176, 404,
522). This is the passive component of Hingabe (Studien II, pp. 168-169, 204, 513), that Husserl
depicts as a “delight” (Genuss) (Studien II, p. 186), “ravishment” (Entzücken) (Studien II, p. 140) or
“enthusiasm” (Begeisterung) (Studien II, p. 121).
Stage 4. The emergence of bodily feelings is at the same time responsible for the enduring
character of emotions. As a consequence, the way an emotion ends heavily relies on the
behavior of the Gefühlsempfindungen.
1. It is first possible that the bodily feelings quickly vanish. In this case, the whole act,
“sinks” (Studien II, pp. 153-154) into secondary passivity but, at the same time, “remains
sedimented” (Husserl, 2001, p. 77). Such sedimentation in turn influences further
valueceptions and emotions: one is prompted to valuate what has been previously
associated with affective episodes (Studien II, p. 140).
2. Yet, the bodily feelings may also remain vivid for quite a long time, even though the
20 In Ideas II, Husserl speaks explicitly of an “active devotion (Hingegebenheit)” (Husserl, 1952, p. 9) to aesthetic values.
As a consequence, the term “abandon” used in the English translation is inadequate (Husserl, 1989, pp. 10-11).
21 On Stellungnahme, see (Jardine, 2020, p. 60, 2022, p. 48). Again, I emphasize that I here use this concept in a
very broad sense: to ‘take a position’ basically means to react spontaneously to an appearing object. In this sense, the
Stellungnahme does not demand, as it is the case in other contexts (Jacobs, 2016, p. 267), to take a critical stance over
one’s beliefs.
22 To depict this attentional dimension of the Stellungnahme, Husserl employs the term Zuwendung (active
‘conversion’ towards the object) rather than Aufmerksamkeit (mere attentiveness) (Studien II, p. 122).
23 In this respect, Husserl sides with William James, but also with contemporary proponents of ‘affective
embodiment’ (Fuchs, 2014, 2022).

60

ARE EMOTIONS VALUECEPTIONS OR RESPONSES TO VALUES?

initial axiological motivation is no longer present. This is the basic condition for the
development of a mood (Stimmung) (Fisette, 2021; Studien II, p. 173; Lee, 1998).
3. A third, active way to end emotional episodes is to perform a higher-order objectification
of the value that appeared, in particular in the form of an explicit axiological judgment.
This requires endorsing a new, theoretical attitude and to convert the value into an
“actual doxic objectivity”, as Husserl puts it in Ideas I (1983, pp. 76-77, 290).24
The four-stage course of an emotional episode can be summarized in the following figure.
In this figure, the passive steps are represented by rectangles, and the active ones by ellipses,
while the ‘cold’ experiences are represented in white, and the ‘hot’ ones in black.

Figure n° 1: Husserl’s depiction of affective episodes as four-stage processes
3. Husserl’s
compromise:
emotions
as originary
experiences of
value

It is now manifest that Husserl’s position on valueception is much more subtle than usually
assumed. But is it not too subtle? Indeed, how is it possible to conciliate the ‘mainstream’
account defended in Husserl’s most famous texts with the ‘underground’ one favored in the
Studien manuscripts? Supposing an evolution of Husserl’s ideas is vain, since the two points
of view are alternatively endorsed at the same period25. In addition, even in the Studien, he
sometimes comes back to the traditional ‘emotional’ perspective (Studien II, pp. 37, 240).
Hence, Husserl did not seem to have deemed these two stances contradictory. In the last part
of this paper, I will show how this apparent conflict can be resolved in his framework.
The basic idea is to consider actual emotions as being originary, that is, intuitive experiences
of values, while cold valueceptions remain mere intentions, that is, mere empty axiological
apprehensions26. Consider the following passage from Ideas II:

24 On this operation, see also the Studien II (Studien II, pp. 8, 20, 29, 91), the lectures on ethics (1988, p. 69), Ideas II
(1952, pp. 14-15, 1989, pp. 16-17), First Philosophy (2019, p. 227) and Formal and Transcendenal Logic (1929, p. 121).
25 As we saw, Husserl is ‘Meinongian’ in 1908 (lectures on ethics) and again in 1913 (Ideas I and II), while he defends a
‘Hildebrandian’ standpoint in 1909 and 1911 manuscripts.
26 In this perspective, Husserl’s stance can be fruitfully compared to that of Thomas Fuchs, who asserts that “the
actual realization of the value consists in its being experienced or felt, and this cannot be replaced by its ‘knowing’”
(2020, p. 33). In other terms, for Fuchs, as for Husserl, a cold grasp of value remains epistemologically deficient.

61

ALExIS DELAMARE

Each consciousness which originally constitutes a value-Object as such, necessarily
has in itself a component belonging to the sphere of feelings. The most originary
[ursprünglichste] constitution of value is performed in feelings as that pre-theoretical
(in a broad sense) delighting devotion [genießende Hingabe] […]. Just as there is,
however, a sort of representing from afar, an empty representational intending
which is not a being in the presence of the object, so there is a feeling which relates
to the object emptily; and as the former is fulfilled in intuitive representing, so is the
empty feeling fulfilled by way of the delight (Genießen) (Husserl, 1952, pp. 9-10, 1989,
p. 11, transl. modified).27
This explains why the ‘emotional’ standpoint remains fundamentally correct: even though
one can experience a value without being moved, it is only in a ‘hot’ delight or devotion that
this value is genuinely intuited, is perceived as being really there in person. In this perspective,
cold valueceptions rely teleologically on emotions: the empty axiological apprehension strives
for its fulfillment in an actual delight or ravishment. As a result, cold value apperceptions
remain non-originary despite their temporal primacy in the unfolding of an affective episode.
This line of thought is pervasive throughout the Studien, where Husserl refers to this
operation of fulfillment (Erfüllung) (Studien II, pp. 101, 450) through a manifold vocabulary.
On the one hand, he characterizes it as an authentic givenness (Gegenbenheit) of the value at
stake (Studien II, p. 24), which induces a shift in the phenomenology of the affective experience:
the Hingabe leads to a “lebendige” (living) joy or sadness (Studien II, p. 109). On the other
hand, this fulfillment enhances the epistemological worth of the feeling. In this perspective, it
is said to constitute a “confirmation” (Bestätigung) (Studien II, pp. 28, 430), a “justification”
(Begründung) (Studien II, p. 278), an “attestation” (Ausweisung) (Studien II, pp. 298, 397), or a
“legitimization” (Berechtigung) (Studien II, p. 404) of the initial Wertnehmung.
The upshot of this conciliation between the ‘mainstream’ and the ‘underground’
interpretations is that Husserl escapes the traditional dichotomy between ‘emotional’ and
‘value feeling’ theories. By contrast with the former, he acknowledges the existence of
non-emotional experiences of value. At the same time, by contrast with the latter, he did
not consider the Fühlen as the originary axiological mode of givenness. To that extent, Husserl
explicitly contradicts Scheler (1973, p. 258) and Geiger (1913, 574), but also contemporary
representatives of the ‘value feeling’ standpoint, in particular Vendrell Ferran (2022, pp. 74,
78, 80) and Mulligan (2009).
As a conclusion, I have tried and reassessed Husserl’s position within the ‘emotional’ vs ‘value
feeling’ debate. I have demonstrated that the mainstream, ‘Meinongian’ interpretation, relying
on his main works, is incomplete, as Husserl acknowledged, in the Studien II manuscripts, the
possibility of non-emotional (‘cold’) valueceptions. Yet, such acknowledgment did not lead him
to embrace a full-fledged ‘Hildebrandian’ view, since he maintained (with Meinongians) that
our originary epistemological access to values is rooted in actual emotions. Hence, Husserl’s
approach, contrary to what has been traditionally assumed, is innovative: it pertinently picks
out the most interesting features of both sides and unifies them into a consistent account.

27 See also, for very close descriptions, the second volume of First philosophy (2019, p. 307).

62

Conclusion

ARE EMOTIONS VALUECEPTIONS OR RESPONSES TO VALUES?

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65

VENIERO VENIER
Ca’Foscari University of Venice
veniero.venier@unive.it

HUSSERL AND NON-FORMAL ETHICS
abstract
From its very beginnings, Husserl’s philosophical life was characterised by the interweaving between
ethical reflection and logical-argumentative rigour. It is not just a matter of the constant efforts that
were put into a theoretical formulation that was always aimed at constant formal coherence, but
also and above all, of the progressive association of a rigorous ethics with the value of the individualpersonal dimension. The phenomenological analysis of the values – intertwined with those of perceptiveintellective experiences, feeling and volition – gradually find a common denominator that progressively
takes shape in the ethical-non-formal theme of personal motivation.

keywords
Ethics, Non-Formal, Perception, Value, Motivation.

Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 66-142
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2304
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

HUSSERL AND NON-FORMAL ETHICS

1. Ethics and logic

From the very start, Husserl’s philosophical life was influenced considerably by the interweaving
of ethical reflection and logical-argumentative rigour. In autobiographical notes dated
September 1906 Husserl emphatically declares that his task is that of a critique of assessing
reason, in the sense of a combination of practical rationality and logic, adding that he could
not really live “without being able to reach a clear understanding, including its general
characteristics, of the meaning, essence, methods and key points of view of a critique of
reason” (Husserl, 1984, p. 445)1. This is therefore a critique of reason that must also be able to
demonstrate the essential tie with one’s own personal being in its deepest roots. In an extract
from a series of lessons on the ethics and philosophy of law held in 1897, Husserl claimed
that the doubts regarding the scepticism and ethical relativism regarded not so much any
questions that were related to academic diatribe but rather to the much more personal
(allerpersönchliste) in “each spiritually noble soul” (Husserl, 1988, p. 383).
As is generally known, in a cycle of lessons held between 1908 and 1914, Husserl drew on
the subjects he had already discussed regarding the ethical sphere and the one connected to
values but more extensively. 2 Here the ethical discussion was mainly based on the attempt
to describe a formal rigour that was analogue to that of logic. Drawing explicitly on one of
the issues that had already been discussed in Prolegomena to pure logic (Husserl, 1913a), one of
the underlying questions dealt with in the lessons on ethics concerned none other than the
relationship between logic and practical reason, in which the former had to “as it were also
take a look at the terrain of the practical, lending it the intellectual eye” (Husserl, 1988, p. 64).
This is not only a case of continuously highlighting the need of ethics for a formal rigour as its
first level, but also of highlighting a material aspect of content as its superior layer, linked to
the essential dimension of subjective practice (cf. Husserl, 1988, pp. 139-141). In a retrospective
look around Logical Investigations, Husserl underlined the crucial importance that reflection
on the interweaving between the cognitive life and the practical-evaluating life had had in
that period, emphasising the need to gain from the interior (in innerer Erfahrung) “a clear
understanding of how ‘truth’ arises as a product of ‘rational’ knowledge, how authentic value

1 From now on the translations of the quotations of the original German texts are by the author.
2 Husserl had already been dealing with ethics since the course he had held in Halle as Privatdozent in the summer
semesters in 1891, 1893, 1984, 1985 and 1987 and in the summer semester of 1902 (cf. SCHUMANN, 1977, pp. 30, 35, 41,
45, 51).

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arises as a product of ‘rational’ assessment, how ethical goods arise in wanting the ethically
correct as a subjective product” (Husserl, 1968, p. 30).
As in the case of cognitive judgement, the practical sphere must also include the essential
component of conviction: understanding means being convinced. The judgemental
proposition that expresses the intention of this content “this C is P” has its parallel in the
conviction expressed by the practical intention in the proposition “this C must be P”. What
is true for an analogy with logic for the content of will and desire must also be true for
assessment “in the same way as the content of judgement are due truth and falseness, and
correlatively to the act of judgement logical rationality and irrationality, in the same way in
the axiological field of contents of value the predicates of being a value or an un-value are
due” (Husserl, 1988, p. 50).
According to Husserl there are three fundamental types of reason: the logical-cognitive, the
axiological and the practical. The fundamental question, one that was to gain increasing
importance in Husserl’s ethical reflections, was not only that of distinguishing any differences
and formal analogies between logic and axiology, but also of understanding the tie with
the practical dimension. As we shall see when looking more closely at the ethical-personal
element, in this context the logical-cognitive aspect is to play a role together with the close
relationship between the axiological field and the practical volitive-decisional sphere, in
which contents and characteristics such as values, assets, behaviour and objectives will
emerge more and more clearly as the correlated objectives of the acts of feeling and wishing.
As can also be seen from fragments of the summer semester lessons in 1902 on Fundamental
Questions of Ethics (Husserl, 1988, pp. 384-419), from the very start in his critical contraposition
to Kant and Hume, Husserl’s approach basically followed that of Brentano (Husserl, 1987,
p. 304, pp. 308-309).3 In other words, whether it was possible to create a foundation of ethics
by analysing feeling, without being entangled in the fields of relativism and scepticism.
Brentano credited Hume with having entrusted feeling with an essential role in the foundation
of ethics, unlike Kant without, however, having understood that feelings are basically “the
pre-condition of ethical principles” (Brentano, 1952, pp. 55-56). In a lesson held in 1902 Husserl
embraced this acceptation fully when he claimed that “it is clear that one cannot talk of good
and evil at all if it is detached from feeling (Gefühl)” (Husserl, 1988, p. 394).
It is therefore impossible that a principle or norm of ethic action is devoted to the essential
role carried out by feeling and desire without any reference. Imagining the absence of such
a relationship would be like imagining “a being that is incapable of perceiving colours at the
same time. In the same way that we might know beings who are colour blind, in the case of a
being without feeling (gefühlsblind), we would be dealing with the loss of any moral content.
Moral concepts would become senseless” (Husserl, 1988, p. 404). The emotional dimension
is therefore of extreme importance when clarifying the sphere of ethic rigour, together
with questions regarding values, their understanding, rational choice and the concrete
determination of will. In his lessons in 1908/1909 on Fundamental Problems of Ethics Husserl
was already trying to discuss the role of feeling as a necessary way to access values on the
one hand, and on the other, the question of their objectivity in the problematic relationship
between intellect and feeling (cf. pp. 249 ff.). “How can one become conscious in the feeling
(Gemütsakt) of a value in itself, Husserl asks, and how can one expect and not just expect it but
also found it on its truth?” (p. 250). If it is therefore recognised that feeling has the privilege

3 In the winter semester of 1884/1885 and 1885/1886, Husserl had followed Brentano’s lessons on Practical
Philosophy (Schumann, 1977, pp. 13-15).

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2. Ethical feeling

HUSSERL AND NON-FORMAL ETHICS

of being able to access values, one must, however, not only ask the question of knowledge
in itself of a value through feeling, but also of how value can effectively be felt and judged as
such and therefore be able to be known permanently as true or not, as a something that is
inevitably destined to disperse itself and dissolve. “This is where the most difficult questions
arise. What is the function of feeling (Gemüt) regarding the objectification of values that is
ultimately carried out by intellect, and what is the latter’s authentic role?” (p. 253)4.
In his famous § 15 of Fifth Logical Investigations (Husserl, 1913b, pp. 397-399), together with
the question of the objectivity of feeling, Husserl also raised that of its relationship with the
structure of the act, of the intentional experience (Erlebnis). Here the relationship with values,
which is decisive in clarifying the intentionality of feeling, as is to be the case in the period
immediately afterwards, is not yet completely clear, even if the need to reveal the rationalintentional aspect for the emotional sphere is already expressed. As is generally known,
when discussing Brentano’s attitude Husserl introduces two fundamental classifications
for experiences of conscience based on the distinction between content and quality of the
act (Materie und Qualität des Aktes): the quality of the objectifying act and that of the nonobjectifying one. According to Husserl, Brentano’s position, which is based exclusively on the
intentional reference of feeling to a represented object, is insufficient because it does not take
this distinction into account, whereas it is indispensable not only to understand the sense
of intentionality, but also its specific relationship with the emotional sphere. Brentano does
not fully grasp the character of the act of feeling precisely because he does not distinguish,
as regards the intentional object, content from its quality; in other words, in intentional
understanding he does not distinguish what is understood from the way it is understood
(cf. pp. 386-387). According to Husserl, objectifying acts are those kinds of intentional
experiences (Erlebnisse) that result in the intuitive manifestation of any objectivity and in
which each object corresponds to a representation of the object, whether real or imaginary.
Objectifying acts are then distinguished in positional and non-positional acts, depending on
whether they attribute the existence of “the value of being” (p. 465) to the object or not. The
non-objectifying acts, the class of which feeling also belongs to, are not directly involved,
only indirectly, in the representation of the objects, even if they require them and are, in
their regard, “debtors of their intentional reference” (p. 390). It is known that Husserl’s first
solution to this qualitative difference lay in connecting the objective sense of the latter to the
need to rest on the objectifying ones and their representative capacity (cf. pp. 493-494).
However, clarifying the intentional relationship of feeling with one’s own object also consists
in the fact that it is impossible to separate this interweaving between the intention and what
it refers to. For example, being able to imagine “a pleasure (ein Gefallen) without something
pleasant (Gefälliges)” would be unthinkable. On the other hand, an associative reference such
as the one between the city of Naples and the Vesuvius does not exclude in the slightest
that both can be thought of alone. Paradoxically, all of this results in the fact that feelings,
precisely because they are constituently in intentional debt towards the own object not only
prove to be like certain kind of acts, experiences of conscience, but also like real “intentions”,
unavoidable requests, “authentic acts in our acceptation”. In other words, feelings reveal the
necessity that indissolubly binds the intentional reference to the own object like, for example,
“the specific essence of pleasure requires the reference to something that pleases” (pp. 389-390). In fact,
there is nothing causal about this relationship instead, as we shall see, it is of a motivational
nature and according to Husserl, in turn, makes it possible to clarify further the actual
meaning of the intentional experience (Erlebnis): “certainly, we say that the object arouses our

4 For more about these questions in the period 1908-1911 (cf. Husserl, 1988, pp. 322-325; 2020, pp. 1-190).

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pleasure (…) but the possible result of this apparent causality (…) contains without a doubt the
intentional reference. This is no extrinsic causal relationship” (pp. 390-391). It is therefore not
an empirical relationship between us and the effect that something exterior causes in us, but
an intentional relationship. For example, the being pleasant, the pleasantness motivated by
the view of a real landscape, is not a mechanical consequence caused by the physical reality
of the landscape, but instead belongs to its specific mode of intentional experience (Erlebnis),
that of enjoyment, that must necessarily be distinguished by other possible modes of action,
such as that of being perceived, remembered, or simply imagined. Furthermore, as in the
case of enjoyment, feeling merges with and becomes one with sensation (Empfindung). In his
reflections in Logical Investigations, the sensation is nothing other than the base, the support
of the act, but it possesses neither directional strength nor that aiming at that is typical of
intention. Instead, it is a simple hyle, a sensitive material that is animated, takes shape, thanks
to intentional experience (Erlebnis).
Joy in the face of a happy event is certainly an act. But this act, one that is not, however,
merely intentional in character but a concrete experience (Erlebnis) and complex eo
ipso, includes in its unity not only the representation of a joyful event and the character
of the act of pleasure it refers to; its representation is connected to a sensation of
feeling that on the one hand is perceived and localised, as a stimulus that arouses
the affectivity of the psycho-physical subject and, on the other, as objective property
(p. 394).
The sensation is therefore presented on the one hand as a sort of stimulus for the feeling to
fulfil itself and, on the other, as a sort of property that is separate in itself. However, from
these two aspects the question of the objectivity of feeling remains unanswered: that, for
example, of the pleasantness that is neither wholly the result of a presumed non-intentional
sensation, nor even of the representation it must refer to. The thematic introduction of value
as an intentional correlate of feeling then alleviates this difficulty and once again questions
that actual character of feeling solely from the perspective of a characteristic of a nonobjectifying act.
Already in his lessons on Fundamental Questions of Ethics in 1902 and therefore immediately after
Logical Investigations, Husserl claimed that “feeling (Gefühl) is established with manifestation
and its object appears as a value” (1988, p. 410). For example, being able to understand,
recognise and establish a pleasant object as a value means it is also possible to indicate that
there is also the possibility of a clear intentional object for emotional experiences as well. This
was a decisive moment for Husserl’s ethical phenomenology because it enabled him to make a
concrete link between feeling (Fühlen) and judgement of value. In fact, being connected to the
display of a value, feeling (Gefühl), appears as a way to access it and an indispensable premise if
it is to be understood and recognised. In this manner the actual sense of the subject’s passivity
is radically transformed and the isolation between feeling, and sensation loses meaning, with
the latter being completely encompassed inside the intentional structure. Once removed from
the isolation into which the non-intentional, in itself blind aspect of sensation (Empfindung)
forces it, the feeling gradually becomes not only the necessary precognition for cognition of
the value, but also the subjective part that is correlated to the value as its own object, as will
become clear in the lessons on ethics in 1920/1924 (Husserl, 2004).
The actual possibility of ethical material connected to axiological and practical rationality
can therefore also be unfolded and expanded in this recognition of the particular character
of affective intentionality, in its being able to relate objectively to values. This expansion is
finally recognised in volume I of Ideen in 1913, when Husserl explicitly states that “the acts
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of pleasure (‘fulfilled’ or not), including the acts of feeling and will of all kinds are ‘acts’,
‘intentional experiences’ and that in any case ‘Intentio’ and ‘taking a position belong to them”
(Husserl, 1976, p. 241). There is therefore a sphere of objectivity not only in the way in which
we understand something pleasant, but also in which we understand something desirable, or
want or evaluate; in other words, someone “takes a position” to something depending not only
on common characteristics, but also on the specific characteristics of every kind of intentional
experience (Erlebnis). Therefore, the different kinds of act, the different experiences of
conscience with their corresponding subjects, can always be interconnected even if it may
often be the case that one of them, within this taking a position, maintains control over the
others. “It belongs to the essence of every intentional experience (Erlebnis), no matter what
can be found in its concrete structure, of having at least one, but usually more than one
‘positional characters’ (…) connected to how it is founded; in this plurality a character is of
necessity a character that is archontic as it were, one that unifies in itself and dominates all the
others” (p. 242). The pleasantness of the colour of a rose, for example, must be distinguished
from the value of beauty I attribute to it, from the belief as regards its existence, and from
the fact that I desire it or decide to possess it. All these positional characters can converge
together and reach a synthesis, depending on the archontic role of dominance that one of them
then assumes over the others, for example, as in the case of the practical-volitive position in
which one decides they want to choose that specific rose because of the beauty of its colour.
What is actually lacking here is a rigid border between the objectifying and non-objectifying
acts of Logical Investigations, through the recognition of their more complex positional
interweaving. However, above all what emerges is the possibility of a better understanding of
the relationship between logic and ethics that involves the role and understanding of values:
Husserl states,
with the essential intercommunity of all positional characters, that of their noematic
positional correlates is eo ipso. […] It is here as a last resort that the analogies converge
that are perceived at every moment between general logic, the general doctrine of
values and ethics that, if followed to their final depths, lead to the constitution of
parallel formal disciplines: formal logic, axiology and formal practice” (Husserl, 1976,
p. 242).
The complexity of the rational-intentional structure is therefore enrichened thanks to the
objectual sphere of ethics in relation to values. Being endowed with value opens up a new
ontological dimension for phenomenological reflection: “the new meaning introduces a
completely new dimension of meaning; with it instead of new partial determinations of simple
‘things’ values of things are constituted, qualities of value, or concrete obiecta of value: beauty
and ugliness, good and evil; the obiectum of use, the work of art, the machine, book, action,
fact, etc.” (pp. 239-240). Through feeling the value is therefore formed into a “new objective
layer” that can blend or superimpose itself on other kinds of experience (Erlebnis) such as
perception, fantasising, judging, etc., so, for example, “the perception as such belongs, as a
sense, specifically to perceiving, but it also includes the sense of concrete evaluation, the sense
of which it establishes” (p. 198).
3. Non-formal
ethics

The intentional distinction between values and feeling values thus also becomes essential to
understand an order and possible hierarchy between diverse spheres of values: for example,
the reality of a burning cigar represents a fleeting value that dies out together with the end
of its enjoyment. On the other hand, the ideal value of a symphony remains after it has been
performed and its temporary fruition. According to Husserl, value is therefore “not a subjective
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undertaking (das Ich-Erleben), feeling (das Gefühl), but rather it is felt in the object (im Objekt
erfühlte)” (2004, p. 74). Furthermore, this essential distinction between value and feeling
involves once again the sphere of personal motivation in its centrality.
If I take a position as regards a specific value, either desiring it or wanting to carry it out,
both the optative and volitive dimension require the presence of motivation. In the question
regarding what drives desire or wanting to act, once again it proves to be the essence of
the value, one that is indissolubly tied to motivation: “inherent […] a priori to the reason of
desiring and wanting, of taking a position in general, is that each act is in some way motivated.
I cannot desire or want anything without being determined by something, or rather determined by a
previous evaluation” (p. 81). However, in turn, this previous evaluation must necessarily refer
to an intentional value that in the end proves to be the true reason behind my action, and
therefore “in the pregnant sense, a reason is called such when it motivates more closely the
will, therefore always the value” (p. 83). According to Husserl, will and value are therefore
fundamentally interwoven, becoming one with the representation of the desired object and
its evaluation, “the act of will is motivated by the intentional value in evaluating” (p. 215).
The non-formal ethical meaning of this convergence will become clearer in our concluding
remarks.
However, the characteristic that bound together the interweaving between logic and ethics
from the very beginning, its true analogon, which was never to disappear during Husserl’s
reflections, was the radical and rigorous contraposition to scepticism. From the very start, the
fundamental principle of Husserl’s phenomenology also applies for ethics: it must correspond
to the systematic nature required by scientific nature that “is anything but a personal
invention and instead lies in the things themselves and it is simply a case of discovering it and
revealing it in its essential traits” (Husserl, 1913a, p. 15). If ethics wants to be able to direct
practical action, it must adopt the argumentative rigour of logic, not only translating its
propositions in theoretical enunciations but also, and above all, in rigorously founded practical
requests (cf. Husserl 1988, p. 25). The discipline of ethics therefore requires a form and a subject;
it also requires the enunciation of a rigorous logical structure for the latter as well as, as we
shall see, highlighting the essential correlation between them that only reflection on the
dimension of personal motivation is able to show.
Naturally a distinction must be made between ethics and logic: ethics refers to action while
logic refers to thought, but they exist together, they live together in rational practice, which they
are subordinate to in a having to act in which each of us is intimately summoned in accordance
with our own abilities and personal disposition. Against scepticism, in the same way logic aims
at rational correctness, ethic also aims at correct and rational actions:
Moral action, no matter how it is defined further, is a sphere that is circumscribed by
action in general. Hence, if we want to outline the concept more extensively, ethics
must be led back to reason in practice in general. Extreme ethical scepticism must
therefore mean the negation of practical reason, the negation of any unconditioned
objective validity in the entire field of practice. Here there is an analogy: sceptical
assertions have the characteristic of denying in their content what they reasonably
presume since they are assertions (Husserl, 1988, p. 33).
The sceptic who denies the validity of rational practice therefore embodies the extreme
contradiction: not only because they are forced to deny in actu exercito what they presume in
actu signato; in other words, they are forced to the evident contradiction of repudiating their
own rational abilities despite exercising them, but also because by doing so they inexorably
renounce their own authentic personal chance, and by auto-contradicting themselves are also
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denying themselves the rational request that conceals the practical value of being able to give
life to one’s own individual fulfilment.
But what belongs by right to the practical sphere and distinguishes it from logic is its
normative need that is dictated by the field of concrete, actual experience. According to
Husserl, the history of ethical principles and laws had always focused on what is pursued
rationally and appropriately in the attempt to establish what the greater good and goods
are, in other words, what the “highest rational objective of human action” is (p. 40). Logic,
however, taken on its own –must limit itself to analytical correctness; in other words, it must
not go beyond the validity of its own formal inferences, even though it can obviously manifest
itself materially, as, for example, in the “arithmetic proposition 3 + 3 = 6, applied to apples
becomes 3 apples and 3 apples equals 6 apples” (p. 41). In itself, the logical sphere therefore
remains closed in its analytical-formal aspect and this, although important, is its only validity,
regardless of its need to be translated into any actual reality. Conversely, the ethical-practical
sphere clearly requires a comparison with experience in order to be able to establish its
own truths and criteria so as to make it possible on the one hand “to understand the ethical
goodness or evil of the individual cases as they occur and, on the other, to come to a positive
decision in the face of a practical decision as to whether it is ethically correct or not” (p. 42).
According to Husserl, critical reflection on the general principles of traditional ethical
doctrines must therefore focus not only on the fundamental problem of the relationship
between logical validity and principles of ethical practice, but also on the relationship
between their formal aspect and in terms of content. What needs to be discussed and resolved
is the problem that one inevitably finds oneself faced with having to choose one of the two
aspects, to the detriment of the other or, as in the case of Kantian critique, having to seek
an unconditioned formal principle that can be used for the universal deduction of ethically
correct behaviour. According to Husserl, the limit of Kant’s categoric imperative lies in
reaching a dualistic result in which the cognitive sphere appears to be radically separated
from the practical one owing to the fact that practical behaviour has to be deduced from a
formal principle. In Husserl’s opinion, limiting oneself to the formal rigour as dictated by the
analytical need of moral law is insufficient, and this can only be known and understood in its
essential material-content through experience. Thus, Kant’s formal ethics poses the actual risk
of keeping one’s own material empty and undifferentiated.5
Husserl therefore believes that the understanding of the choice requested by the practicalactual context remains completely unaffected, which is in itself non-deductible from a purely
formal principle and law, since “in no way does the correctness of formal logic determine nonformal correctness” (1988, p. 43). Both in the practical sphere of will and in that of values, the
ethical discipline must therefore be able to clarify and distinguish its own formal principles
and its own content; in other words, it has to be able to indicate the correlation between the
purely formal aspect and the content circumstances in their fundamental characteristics,
the characteristics by means of which one can constitute practical action as rational action.

5 In a debate with Kant, in his lessons in 1920-1924, Husserl claimed that “only the consideration of the material of
will, of the non-formal contents that have to be desired as it were, can teach how I have to want in a concrete case,
and these same non-formal materials have to provide me with the premises of will, the reasons of will, providing both
me and every other rational being in the same way. The claim of having to prescind from the non-formal content is absurd in
both the sphere of will and in that of thought” (2004, p. 235). Cf. Heffernan, 2022, pp. 94-95 and pp. 102-105.
As regards the question of Kantian formalism, however, Heidegger’s criticism of Max Scheler could also be
addressed in part to Husserl. Heidegger rightly emphasized in Kant the non- formal importance of the content of
the phenomenon of respect (Achtung) as an authentic mode in which the dignity of being personal is revealed. Cf.
Heidegger, 1975, pp. 195-195. Cf. Kant, 1968, pp. 71-89.

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Formal axiology and practice, which are made possible by the analysis of experience in its
essential configuration and created in analogy with the rigour of logic, are therefore necessary
but insufficient:
with all its laws formal logic cannot put us in a position of having to deduce the
tiniest factual truth. […] The same can also be said of axiology and formal practice.
Within the boundaries of what is practically achievable, the best is the enemy of the
good: deferring the best is totally wrong, in the same way that choosing the best is
unconditionally required as the only right thing and, therefore absolutely correct. With
this formal principle before one’s eyes, it can be useful to enunciate it explicitly in the
same way that it can be useful to formulate logical-formal laws, allowing oneself to be
warned by them. And nevertheless, this does not provide us with a definite reply to the
question about what is good, better and the best (Husserl, 1988, p. 140).
A link between the analytical-formal and content principles must therefore be indicated for
practical and axiological reasons. Furthermore, the essential link with the own content also
conditions the quality of practical action: there cannot be a norm, an ethical principle without
it arising from a contextual reference to one’s own action, in the same way that the practicalessential content of action also determines the ethical-rational sense of the action. In addition
to a judgement whose content is a valid or invalid proposition, which qualifies itself as logically
rational or irrational, there will therefore have to be a content of value or disvalue as regards
axiological rationality and a good or bad decision to be taken in conformance with practical
rationality. Husserl underlines that
also here formal laws should be given a priori. […] Not norms of rational judgement but
norms of evaluation, desire and rational will. Furthermore, this analogy would require
that accordingly between judgement and content of judgement (between the thinking
and contents of meaning of the thinking), one can and must be able to distinguish in
the practical sphere between wanting as an act and, as it were, the content of wanting as a
meaning of wanting as it is a practical proposition (Husserl, 1988, p. 49).
Owing to their essential nature, while formal laws can therefore not be confused with
anything that is involved in the choice of goods and materially determined values, their legality
in concrete experience does, however, need to be recognised in their eyes; in other words,
using Husserl’s terminology, they require a material a priori, that is, the possibility to trace and
recognise the essential truth of those principles in the concrete everyday reality:
if there were no material a priori, if the genres and kinds of objects that they were
bringing with them a priori could not be distinguished, on the basis of their essence of
genre, predicates of value, then the very concept of objective value and, as a result, the
very idea of an objectively previously delineated preferability and of a the better good
would find itself without a support (Husserl, 1988, p. 139).
In this sense motivation plays a key role with its tie to values since it supports rational
practice not in a mechanical sense, but as a material and non-formal condition of the creation
of meaning: understanding the meaning of a rational action means understanding its
motivational connection, it means reconstructing its origins and being able to make it completely
understandable. In Ideen II, Husserl defines personal motivation as the norm the subject of
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4. Personal
motivation

HUSSERL AND NON-FORMAL ETHICS

intentionality is subjected to, as the “law of spiritual life” (1942, p. 220)6. Without any personal
motivation in all its radicality as its foundation, there can therefore be no true ethical action.
Furthermore, this is the only way in which the absolute command of the categoric imperative
can be expressed with need. Accordingly, the a priori of motivation is not simply revealed as a
formal condition of the ethical value, but as a condition that should actually be understood as
what essentially determines it, as its true material and non-formal content.
As seen earlier, based on the central role that the motivation sphere plays in ethical action,
these considerations also transform the sense and reasons of the phenomenology of Husserl’s
values completely. Starting in the twenties, the idea progressively established itself that the
values, their recognition, and their normative ness are mainly involved in – and are closely
related to – the subject of the implementation of a practical will in its essentially personal
characterisation. In other words, Husserl was becoming more and more convinced that the
practical-rational meaning of the existence of an unconditional duty must necessarily comply
with one’s own essential order of values and with the pursuable purposes and aims that such
an order refers to. Furthermore, thanks to the central role played by motivation, the question
of the static consideration of the objectivity of values as an intentional fact that conditioned the
first phase of Husserl’s ethics so significantly, at least until 1914, was gradually replaced by the
analysis of the dynamic aspect of the formation of values and their intentional genesis.
During the course Fundamental Questions of Ethics in 1908/09, in response to Brentano’s
formal categorical imperative, “to do the best you can of what is achievable in everything
that is subject to your sphere of rational action,” Husserl claimed that although he thought
that principle seemed “to be a slightly strained formulation,” it basically needed “no
improvement.” (Husserl, 1988, pp. 350-351). Founded on the popular saying that the best is the
enemy of the good, this formal-practical principle states that we do not act at all well, indeed,
we act worse, in a manner that is evidently completely irrational, when in preferring just
any object, we make a better one subordinate (Hinsetzen).7 In reference to an objection from
Moritz Geiger that not all values can be compared with one another – such as, for example,
that of a mother who finds herself having to decide whether to save her child or not – in a
note in 1909 Husserl declared that in his lessons he was convinced when he claimed “that the
highest value is a positional value” and that he had come across it “in the concept of a having
to be positional as something to be achieved unconditionally” (Husserl, 1988, p. 419). These
considerations on the categorical imperative were to be resumed integrally in his course on
ethics in 1914, in which he once again confirmed the formal validity of Brentano’s principle.
However, in this context Husserl also looked at the insufficiency of this principle for the
concrete normative determination of the good, of the optimal and of the best.
As has already emerged from our previous observations, this lack was seen first and foremost
in relation to the need for an improved clarification of the formal principles, in relation to
the non-formal ones that are necessarily and concretely required by an individual and social
ethic8. In the same year Husserl also went back to the example in Geiger’s objection. In fact,
in that case the problem of the best choice does not arise because the unconditional duty of a
mother, her categorical imperative, is that of saving her child’s life even if, as Husserl added,
renunciation would be admissible, for example from the perspective of a supreme sacrifice

6 For more in–depth reference to these issues cf. Ubiali, 2012 and the essays contained in the first part of Ubiali &
Wherle, 2015, pp. 3–140.
7 For more about the revival of the Brentano principle of the absorption of good in the best in the 1914 university
course cf. Husserl, 1988, p. 140; Husserl, 2012, p. 129.
8 Cf. Husserl, 1988, pp. 139-141.

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VENIERO VENIER

such as that towards one’s homeland in the sense of the superior common good.9 Finally, a
self-critical reconsideration of Geiger’s objection to Brentano’s categorical formal imperative
is to be found in a note belonging to the 1919/20 winter semester course Introduction to
Philosophy: Husserl says,
it is clear that an ethic carried out in accordance with the purely categorical imperative
is not in the least ethical, as I postulated in reference to Brentano. Once again, I
reverted to my old way of thinking, but as early as 1907 Geiger had already objected,
and rightly so, that it would be ridiculous to ask a mother to have to think about
whether supporting her child could be the best of her choices in a practical field
(Husserl, 2012, p. 146, footnote 1).
A further fundamental trait for the intentional analysis of the will and of feeling values then
proves to be making a distinction between will and desire. Having to study closer not only
the existence of the motivational nexus therefore remains fundamental, for example that
between aesthetic pleasure and the value of beauty; equally fundamental are the ways in
which values can actually be translated into reality, as in the case of the different intentional
modes of desire, choice and will. As Husserl stated in his lessons of 1914, “no matter how
alive I am, mere desire (das bloße Wünschen) is still not a will” (1988, p. 104). Unlike desire, will
requires the affirmation of a value, its es fiat, its imperative having to be. Will is the next step,
immediately after motivation but, unlike desire, it is not placed indeterminately as regards
the creation of value, but instead requires its concrete implementation: “desire implies a ‘one
wishes it is’, will [implies] an ‘it must be’” (p. 105). It is precisely in its intrinsic bond with the
imperative force of true motivation that rational will basically differs from desire: I want and
ardently desire victory, but longing (Begehren) in itself is not indispensable for will to establish
itself; certainly, will can transform desire into reality but in the case of a much yearned for
victory that is finally achieved, it does not depend on desire (cf. Husserl, 1988, p. 156)10. Will
on the other hand, is completely self-sufficient as its reasons lie in the strength and validity
of the motivation. Furthermore, only the strength and reasonable validity of motivation can
transform desire into actual reality: acting to implement what is considered to be a good
cause, finds its own real reason for existing in the motivated value of the latter and not, as
is clear in many cases of fanaticism, in the possible passion with which one fights for their
implementation.
The relationship between will and subjectivity is therefore never mechanical since the origins
of rational action always lie in the reason behind motivation. Since spiritual motivation is not a
mechanical cause, the actual subject of ethical choice must always carry out a critical task; in
other words, above all it has to question the meaning of its own action and the reasons behind
its own motivation. It is in this form of awareness that the sense lies of a normative will that
does not also simply reflect a personal coherence that would apply for example, also in the
case in which “a criminal pursues an objective that has been prepared over time according
to a plan” (Husserl, 2004, p. 250). A will aimed at one’s best, at “my best possible life […] that
cannot have its truth in isolation” (p. 252) is instead essentially bound to the will of other and
the recognition of their personal motivations since, “the recognition of others, their feelings

9 Cf. Husserl, 1988, pp. 421-422.
10 Around 1910-1911 Husserl was still wondering about problematic nature of the founding bond between desire and
will, (cf. Husserl, 2020, pp. 40-47).

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of love (Liebesgesinnung) spur me on to recognise myself as the one who struggles and fights
against evil and, at the same time, strengthens the reciprocal faith between myself and the
others” (Husserl, 2014, p. 287).
According to Husserl, through empathy (Einfühlung), understanding oneself and one’s own
motivations therefore also allow a better understanding of the motivations of others: “I
understand why the other person made such a decision, I understand why they formulated this
judgement” (1952, p. 230)11. The question of deciding to implement one’s most authentic values,
in the continuous orientation of one’s own personal and social life thus constitutes the real
material content and non-formal sense of ethical rigour. In his introductory remarks of the lesson
on Fundamental questions of ethics and values in 1914, Husserl formulated the necessity for this
ethical need as follows: “the pressing question arises for anyone aiming at higher goals: how
can I escape the distressing disagreement with myself, and the legitimate reproachfulness of my
fellow creatures? How can I arrange my entire life around the good and beautiful and how can I,
in line with traditional expression, acquire pure eudaimonia, true happiness?” (1988, p. 11)12.
REFERENCES
Brentano, F. (1952), Grundlegung und Aufbau der Ethik, Bern: Francke;
Heffernan, G. (2022), The Development of Husserl’s Categorical Imperative: From Universal Ethical;
Legislation to Individual Existential Exhortation, in M. Cavallaro, G. Heffernan (Edts.), The Existential
Husserl. A Collection of Critical Essays, (pp. 87-114), Heidelberg: Springer;
Heidegger, M. (1975), Marburger Vorlesung Sommersemester 1927, Frankfurt am Main:;
Vittorio Klostermann;
Husserl, E. (1913a) Logische Untersuchungen. Prolegomena zur reinen Logik, I (2nd ed.), Tübingen:;
Niemeyer;
Husserl, E. (1913b), Logische Untersuchungen, II/1 (2nd ed.), Tübingen: Niemeyer;
Husserl, E. (1976), Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Philosophie. Erstes
Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie, Husserliana III/, K. Schumann;
(Hrsg.), Den Haag: Nijhoff;
Husserl, E. (1952), Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologische Philosophie;
Zweites Buch, Husserliana IV, M. Biemel (Hrsg.), Den Haag: Nijhoff;
Husserl, E., (1984), Einleitung in die Logik und Erkenntnistheorie. Vorlesungen 1906/07, Husserliana;
XXIV, U. Melle (Hrsg.), Den Haag: Nijhoff;
Husserl, E. (1988), Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre 1908-1914, Husserliana XXVIII, U. Melle;
(Hrsg.), Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer;
Husserl, E. (2012), Einleitung in die Philosophie. Vorlesungen 1916-1920, Husserliana: Materialen;
IX, U. Melle (Hrsg), Dordrecht/Heidelberg/New York/London: Springer;
Husserl, E. (2020), Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins. Gefühl und Wert. Texte aus dem Nachlass;
(1896-1925), Husserliana XLIII/2, U. Melle, T. Vohnger (Hrsg.), Dordrecht: Springer;
Husserl, E. (1987), Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911-1921), Husserliana XXV, T. Nenon, H. R. Sepp;
(Hrsg.), Dordrecht: Nijhoff;
Husserl, E. (2004), Einleitung in die Ethik. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1920/1924, Husserliana;
XXXVII, H. Peucker (Hrsg.), Dordrecht: Kluwer;

11 The transcendental aspect of empathy, which for Husserl means the necessary and essential modality of the
others’ experience (Fremderfahrung), and more generally his fundamental importance as a mode of intentional
modification, is not discussed here. For an in-depth analysis of these issues cf. Venier, 2011.
12 For more about the strong assonance between Husserl’s words and Max Scheler’s introductory comments in Ordo
amoris, cf. Scheler 1986, p. 347, and Venier, 2013 p. 99. For a theoretical comparison between Scheler and Husserl cf.
Melle 1997, pp. 203-219 and Venier, 2015, pp. 249-270.

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Husserl, E. (1968), Phenomenologische Psycologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925, Husserliana;
IX, W. Biemel (Hrsg.), Den Haag: Nijhoff;
Husserl, E. (2014), Grenzprobleme der Phänomenologie. Analysen des Unbewusstseins und der;
Instinkte. Metaphysik. Späte Ethik (Texte aus dem Nachlass 1908–1937), Husserliana XLII, R. Sowa, T.
Vongehr (Hrsg.), New York: Springer;
Kant, I. (1968) Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Kants Werke, Band V, Berlin/New York:;
Walter de Gruyter;
Melle, U. (1997), Schelersche Motive in Husserls Freiburger Ethik. In G. Pfafferott, (Hrsg.), Vom;
Umsturz der Werte in der modernen Gesellschaft, (pp. 203-219), Bonn: Bouvier;
Scheler, M. (1986), Schriften aus dem Nachlass, Gesammelte Werke X, Band I, Bonn: Bouvier;
Schumann, K. (1977), Husserl-Chronik. Denk- und Lebensweg Edmund Husserls, Den Haag: Nijhoff;
Ubiali, M. (2012), Wille – Unbewusstheit – Motivation. Der ethische Horizont des Husserl’schen;
Ich-Begriffs, Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag;
Ubiali M. & Wehrle M. (Edts.) (2015), Feeling and Value, Willing and Action. Essays in the Context;
of a Phenomenological Psychology, Heidelberg/New York/Dordrecht/London: Springer;
Venier, V. (2011), L’esistenza in ostaggio. Husserl e la fenomenologia personale, Milano:;
FrancoAngeli;
Venier, V. (2013), Governing Emotions. Husserl and Personal Vocation. Phenomenology and
Mind, 5, 98-105. doi:10.13128/Phe_Mi-19572;
Venier, V. (2015), The Reasons of Emotions. Thaumazein, 3, 249-270. doi: 1013136/thau.v3i0.

78

EMANUELE CAMINADA
Husserl Archives, KU Leuven
emanuele.caminada@kuleuven.be

THINGS, GOODS, AND VALUES:
THE OPERATIVE FUNCTION OF
HUSSERL’S UNITARY FOUNDATION IN
SCHELER’S AxIOLOGY1
abstract
In this paper, I contend that the core intuition that resides at the basis of Scheler’s metaethics is
expressed through the formal axiological distinction between things, goods, and values. I pursue a
twofold aim: 1) to show that Scheler implicitly operates within Husserl’s concept of ‘unitary foundation’
when describing how values inhere within goods; 2) to compare Scheler’s metaethical argument
concerning the independence of a world of goods with Hare’s ‘indiscernibility argument’. Scheler’s
reversal of Hare’s argument confronts us with the formal-ontological difference between the analytic
account of supervenience and the phenomenological account of unitary foundation. My argument is
based on the formalization of the second type of unitary foundation that Husserl outlines in his Third
Logical Investigation. The second type of unitary foundation is usually conflated with the first type of
unitary foundation, as a result of the gross mistakes found in Findlay’s English translation.

keywords
metaethics, mereology, supervenience, unitary foundation, indiscernibility, Husserl, Scheler, Hare.

1 I want to thank Michela Summa for permission to apply in this article the formalization we developed together
(Caminada & Summa 2015).
Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 80-142
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2305
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

THINGS, GOODS, AND VALUES

Scheler’s ethical personalism of values is far and away his greatest contribution to
phenomenological ethics. He propounds a ‘material’ ethics of values as an alternative to both
a traditional, teleological “ethics of goods and purposes” account (Scheler, 1973, p. 5 ff.) and
a Kantian, universal and formalistic account (ibid., p. 163 ff.). Accordingly, ‘material’ ethics is
not a materialistic or naturalistic theory, but is instead a content-related (i.e., value-based)
account of moral life.
In this paper, I contend that the distinction between things, goods, and values is the key to
understanding Scheler’s phenomenological ethics. I aim to:
•
•

show that Scheler implicitly operates within Husserl’s concept of ‘unitary foundation’
(Husserl, 2001, p. 34) to describe how values inhere within goods;
compare Scheler’s argument concerning the independence of a world of goods with
Hare’s (1952) ‘indiscernibility argument’. I will argue that Scheler’s reversal of Hare’s
argument confronts us with the formal-ontological difference between the analytic
account of supervenience and the phenomenological account of unitary foundation.

In order to achieve these two aims, I will first introduce Scheler’s distinction between goods
and values and its relevance for his ethics (§1). I will then proceed to formalize Scheler’s
ontology of goods in three further steps: in §2, I will present Scheler’s tripartite account
of goods, values, and things; in §3, I will rely on the formalization of two types of unitary
foundation, as outlined in Husserl’s Third Logical Investigation, that I developed with Michela
Summa (Caminada & Summa, 2015). These two types of unitary foundation are usually
conflated, as a result of gross mistakes in Findlay’s English translation. In §4, and on the basis
of the formalization of Scheler’s axiology, I will assess both Scheler’s argument concerning the
independence of a world of goods and Hare’s indiscernibility argument (1952), i.e., the claim
that if two people are indiscernible with respect to natural properties, then they are necessarily
indiscernible with respect to moral goodness. Scheler’s and Hare’s arguments will provide
a concrete basis to highlight the difference between the concepts of unitary foundation and
supervenience. Lastly, I will remark that Scheler’s argument may be amended by making its
formal ontological structure explicit. I believe that the proposed reading may help revisiting
the ‘Platonist’ interpretation of Scheler, according to which values are independent entities
existing by themselves.
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Scheler’s metaethical account can be regarded as cognitivist realism: he claims that there
are moral matters of fact (sittliche Tatsachen), i.e., states of affairs (Sachverhalte) that, leaning
on Scheler’s wording, could be called matters of values or value-laden states of affairs
(Wertverhalte); these are the truth-makers of moral judgements.1 The intentional feeling
of value qualities is the adequate form of knowledge about such qualities: values are the
‘intentional content’ of this particular class of intentional acts. Thus, the adjective ‘material’
in ‘material value ethics’ is not only an antonym of ‘formal’ but also reflects the terminology
of Husserl’s Logical Investigations. This is apparent through the designation of values as the
intentional content of feelings, i.e. as their intentional ‘matter’ (Materie) in Scheler’s ethics.2
Accordingly, a particular class of intentional emotions can be considered to provide viable,
epistemic access to real qualities (i.e., values) that are not reducible to properties that we can
access through other acts (e.g., perception, discussion, hypothetical thought in the form of
‘what would others do in my place?ʼ, etc.). To sum up, Scheler’s metaethics is based on the
ascertainment that the intentional feeling qua cognition of (not as a reaction to) values is
the originary giving experience of values. This epistemic claim correlates to an ontological
assessment of the way in which values inhere in goods and relate to mere things. As we will
see, Scheler’s main thesis with respect to the ontology of goods is as follows:
•

values are given in a good as the unity of the qualities of such a good and are ontologically
bilaterally founded with these qualities.

This also holds true for non-moral values: colors and tones are not perceived independently
from stylistic values, but rather as strongly individuated by the style of their arrangement.
The chromatic value is determined by a composition’s chromatic tension. Nevertheless,
Scheler affirms that aesthetic experience’s grades of evidence may be independent from the
experience of its perceptual basis and that aesthetic patterns usually drive our perceptual
attention. It is often only due to aesthetic experience that an object’s properties are carefully
examined in terms of the perceptual traits that comprise a concrete aesthetic quality’s many
nuances.
It is critical to expound upon Scheler’s often-neglected distinction between goods and values
in order to assess the phenomenological validity of Scheler’s account. Scheler praises Kant’s
rejection of any material ethics of goods in his Formalism in the Ethics and the Material Ethics of
Values. He agrees with Kant that any ethics that is based on concrete goods is a form of ethical
relativism that necessarily commits injustice to moral subjects because it cannot treat them
equally. The moral value of actions and persons would be essentially determined by external
factors if it were to be linked to the realisation of real goods, given the fact that the concrete
conditions that constrain access to, involve the promotion of, and that require the creation
of goods change dramatically depending on empirical circumstances. This fatalist concession
would jeopardize any attempt to found an ethics that aims to transcend moral traditions
and unquestioned cultural presuppositions, i.e., any ethics that ranks individual autonomy
more highly than ethnic and traditional bonds. However, against Kant, Scheler claims that

1 Of course Scheler does not use the term ‘metaethics’, which in those days was used if at all only by people in the
English-speaking world. Nevertheless, his ethics is based on ontological and epistemological insights that today largely
correspond to the domain of metaethics.
2 Frings’ and Funk’s English translation of Scheler’s ethics opted to circumvent this adjective with the paraphrase
‘non-formal’ in order to avoid possible conflation with ‘materialistic’ accounts (Frings & Funk, 1973, p. xv). However,
this choice neglects the ‘noematic’ relevance of Scheler’s account of values and its intrinsic connection to material or
regional ontologies.

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1. The Distinction
between Goods
and Values and its
Role in Scheler’s
Ethics

THINGS, GOODS, AND VALUES

‘good intentions’ are not enough to conduct a good life and that, furthermore, a maxim of
universalization cannot be the sole criterium employed to guarantee an intention’s ‘goodness’.
Scheler propounds the thesis that the content of moral values does not depend upon the
existence of real goods and, thus, a material ethics based on value contents (and not on real
goods) would not humiliate the autonomy of moral subjects; this is because it would regard
values as being independent of historical circumstances. The existence of real goods with
positive values, such as healthy food or just institutions, as well as those with negative values,
such as polluted fields or corrupt organizations, depend both upon the axiological polarity
and upon the organic constitution of the moral subjects; these subjects are embedded in the
historical circumstances of their own lives. Whether or not a particular dish is healthy or
harmful can vary from individual to individual, depending on a number of factors (biological
species, age, general health situation, etc.). A similar societal institution can express positive
or negative value within different juridical situations, such as in honor killings, i.e., the
murder or instigation to suicide of a member of a community who allegedly dishonored the
community and violated its principles. Nevertheless, by distinguishing values from goods,
Scheler highlights that the life-promoting value of healthy food and the noxious effects of
pollution can express a phenomenal content (an intentional ‘matter’ and a correspondent
‘evident meaning’) independently of their real existence, i.e., independently of their concrete
bearer (this or that particular substance) and from the organism who may profit or suffer
as a result of their effects. This amounts to saying that we can grasp the axiological polarity
of goods (i.e., their being necessarily either good or bad) that transcend their concrete
instantiations: we can evidently assess the positive value of nutrition, as facilitating healthpromotion, and the negative value of a poison in its potential to intoxicate us.
The distinction between goods and values does not yet justify the moral character of an action
that may be related to such positive or negative values. Moral values are intrinsically related
to the assumption of a recognizable hierarchy among values. Scheler’s cognitivist position
has namely a twofold meaning: not only values are accessible in emotional life, but also their
hierarchy. Scheler outlines an objective hierarchy of values which is articulated according
to his ontology of the human person. The values of the pleasant and unpleasant express
the localizable bodily sensuality, the vital values the vitality of the entire body; the cultural
values are directed towards objects of spiritual interest. Finally, the value sphere of the sacred
encompasses the totality of the existential depth of the person. Scheler also mentions a fifth
sphere which encompasses the realm of the useful and harmful and serves either physical
well-being or the enhancement of life. Accordingly, he ascribes ascending value to these
axiological spheres, from the states of the bodily parts (sensual values) to the dynamics of
the bodily whole (vital values), from the domains of spiritual interests (cultural-spiritual
values) to the whole of the person (personal-sacred values). Finally, the moral value sphere of
good and evil stands in an eccentric position in respect to the other value spheres. Morality,
according to Scheler, finds expression in the concrete decision between values and in the
value preference persons. Morally good is the person who prefers higher values to lower ones
and acts accordingly.
If we take the institution of honor killing, an act that has been generally condemned by
human rights organizations throughout the 20th Century and which was finally outlawed by
the majority of contemporary legislations, we should note that the violent death of a member
who dishonored the community was never considered to be positive as such. Instead, it
was considered to be less harmful (and therefore relatively preferable) than accepting the
perpetration of the cause of dishonor. This judgement was (and, unfortunately, in some cases
still is) motivated by the fact that the community’s honor was evaluated more highly than the
individuals’ life. This example shows an additional, essential element of the nature of values:
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they are necessarily entangled in a scale of preference. When one speaks of ‘honor cultures’ one
does not simply refer to a culture that evaluates honor positively, and which considers honor
to be one of its core values, but, more radically, to such cultures that identify the value of
honor with a particular set of goods that embody a precise patriarchal hierarchy of values.
Meritocracy, for instance, is a different ‘honor code’ that is based on a different understanding
of honor and shame (see Appiah, 2010). Contemporary condemnations of honor killing rely
on both reversing the order of preference between a community’s honor and individual
freedom (thereby stressing the individual’s inviolable dignity over and against any group
identity) and upon radically criticizing the allegedly dishonorable character of the typical
reasons that motivate honor crimes. These reasons are usually related to contestations of the
patriarchal codes of family, e.g., refusing an arranged marriage, having or becoming the victim
of extramarital sex, manifesting non-heterosexual behavior, hanging out with individuals or
groups that are disapproved of by one’s own family, dressing in an allegedly inappropriate
manner, etc.
By highlighting honor’s positive value, Scheler sharply distinguishes it from those goods
and institutions that have been historically considered to be carriers of honor and ascribes a
middle position in his hierarchy of values thereto. According to Scheler, honor pertains to the
sphere of vital values that should be preferred to economical and hedonistic values but that, in
cases of moral conflict, should be neglected in favor of values such as justice, the knowledge of
truth, the advancement of the arts, and the flourishing of individual personalities. We should
note that, according to Scheler, any ethics based on a fixed catalogue of goods, deeds, or forms
of life, is an ethics that is unable to sense the transcendence of values from their concrete real
bearers and necessarily revolves around a form of particularism and relativism, even if moral
or religious authorities typically preach that their own casuistic catalogue is either eternal or
natural.
Scheler considers Kant’s identification of goods with values to be an erroneous identification,
thereby exposing Kant’s tacit presupposition that we can only abstract values from the
actual effects produced by goods acting on our states of pleasure and displeasure (Scheler,
1973, p. 10). In contrast to Kant, Scheler claims that value inheres in the objects of the
life-world (things, goods, persons, and actions), not just in subjective states of pleasure or
pain. Furthermore, value-concepts are not derived from experience through abstraction or
induction but “can find their fulfilment in autonomous phenomena” (ibid.), that is in experience
itself. Scheler compares values with colours to prove the phenomenological independence
of value-experience (ibid., p. 12). According to this analogy, the content of ‘goodness’, the
aesthetic value of the ‘sublime’, or even the revolting character of ‘injustice’ can be raised to
the level of awareness in the exemplary experience of a ‘good person’, a ‘sublime landscape’,
or an ‘unjust institution’, like the experience of ‘redness’ through the perception of a concrete
red nuance. The thousands of nuances that belong to the chromatic spectrum or the copious
sound timbres that distinguish a given tone all correspond to the different value qualities
through which the value of goodness can be manifested. Just as there is a chromatic space,
a chromatic horizon, and a chromatic tension among colours, so there are similar relations
for tones and values. Based on the similarity between the experience of colours and values,
the expression of ‘value blindness’ can refer to forms of absolute or relative insensibility to
specific spheres of values, thus leaning more towards the meaning of ‘colour blindness’.
In this respect, values are closer to perceptive qualities than they are to ideal objects: pure
ideal objects do not manifest themselves in adumbrations, unlike colors, tones, and values that
are always given in concrete colorations, timbres, or nuances. The number ‘3’ simply remains
the same identical ideal object disregarding the different operations through which we might
obtain it. Equally, anything that is not essentially required by its meaning belongs just as little
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to the sphere of a triangle: these are only material deviations that are to be weeded out by
approaching the limit idea of geometrical exactness (ibid., p .166). Scheler highlights that Plato
(as well as axiological Platonists such as Augustine and Descartes) understands the relation
between empirical values and the idea of ‘the Good’ according to this exact geometrical
model. On the contrary, Scheler shares with the early phenomenological movement the
general conviction that ethical categories, in contrast to mathematical ones, do not pertain
exclusively to the sphere of ideal meaning. ‘Moral facts’ are not constructed by adding ‘moral
ideals’ or ‘deontic operators’ to ‘brute facts’. Values, just like mathematical and geometric
ideal objects, cannot be sensed through meaningless ‘sensations’, but this does not mean that
they are necessarily ideal meanings that can be grasped only through conceptual reason (ibid.,
p. 167). Scheler elucidates the difference between pre-predicative and predicative access to
values through the following examples: like a child who feels their mother’s care without
having a concept thereof, we can similarly feel positive traits about a person that we use to
judge negatively without being ready to change our mind about their conduct on the basis
of this experience that we, therefore, often tend to ignore. Like purely ideal objects, values
cannot be the content of ‘impressions’; however, in contrast to purely ideal objects, values
can be experienced intuitively and adequately. The givenness of values does not presuppose
the concepts of ‘the good’, just as the givenness of colors does not presuppose the concept
of ‘the red’. If values are grasped categorically, much like colors, then the categories of ‘the
good’, ‘the unjust’, etc. are, according to Scheler, ‘ideal objects’. Similarly, concepts like ‘the
red’ or ‘the tone’ are ideal objects, too. Values can be grasped as ideal objects, but are not
purely ideal objects. To conclude, unlike our ability to grasp the idea of a straight line, values
are not ‘ideals’ in the sense of an idea lying in infinity that can only be approximated or
that can neither ever be fulfilled in intuition nor concretely realized. Borrowing Husserl’s
distinction, we might say that Scheler considers values to be morphological eide, not limit
ideas. Accordingly, a value can be idealized and can be grasped conceptually if and only if it is
concretely beheld in intuition (ibid., p. 166 f.).
The Platonic account of the idea of ‘the Good’ is commonly connected with the ontological
thesis that negative values are names for ontological privation, i.e., they should be regarded
exclusively as expressions of their distance from the highest good (and being), not as an evil.
Scheler rejects this thesis, which he labels as ‘Socratic-platonic intellectual idealism’, and
stresses that we should actually admit the existence of positive and negative values, goods,
and evils, at every level or sphere of being. The existence of negative matters of value testifies
to the life-world’s essential axiological polarity which cannot be conflated with its inner
positionality: polarity refers to both positive and negative values, whereas positionality is
related to the different modes of being and judgement thereof. A positive matter of value can
be, for example, judged to be sure, uncertain, or plausible, depending on the corresponding
value experience’s grade of evidence (ibid., p. 167).
One final difference between colours and values consists in the structural possibility of values
to act as logical ‘functors’ in an utterance, e.g., in a proposition like ‘it is good that P’, whilst
it is nonsense to claim something like ‘it is red that P’. This logical function is, according to
Mulligan (2009), the key to a possible formalization of values. Values can be examined both
in terms of their formal structures, in their material contents, and according to the different
value spheres’ specific characteristics. The distinction between formal and material (or
regional) ontology also applies to axiology. Both Scheler (1973, p. 26) and Husserl (Hua XXVIII,
p. 90 f.) integrate Brentano’s formal laws of the relation between existence and positive and
negative values. These laws articulate the possible combinations of axiological positionality
and polarity, i.e., the mode of existence (certain, possible, doubtful, probable, etc.) as well
as the character of positive and negative values. Although Husserl ponders the limit case of
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value neutrality, as a necessary dimension of the formal logic of value judgements, this fails to
invalidate values’ essential binary polarity (see Hua XXVIII, p. 86 f.).
Scheler thus refutes merely conceptual, deontical, and naturalist accounts of metaethics by
contrasting values against ideal meanings and perceptual phenomena, as in the example
of colours. He concludes that value properties do not unilaterally depend upon non-value
properties:
In correctly determining a value, it never suffices to attempt to derive it from
characteristics and properties which do not belong to the sphere of value-phenomena.
The value itself always must be intuitively given or must refer back to that kind of
giveness. Just as it is senseless to ask for the common properties of all blue or red
things, since they have nothing in common except their blueness or redness, so is it
senseless to ask for the common properties of good or evil deeds, moral dispositions
[Gesinnungen], men, etc. (Scheler, 1973, p. 14).
Therefore, Scheler (1973) claims that:
[T]here are authentic and true value-qualities and that they constitute a special domain
of objectivities, have their own distinct relations and correlations, and, as valuequalities, can be, for example, higher or lower. This being the case, there can be, among
these value-qualities an order and an order of ranks, both of which are independent
of the presence of a realm of goods in which they appear, entirely independent of
the movement and changes of these goods throughout history and ‘a priori’ to the
experience of these realms of goods. (p. 15).
However, Scheler (1973) actually recognizes that he has just claimed more than he could
possibly demonstrate and admits as much, writing that “one could object that we have shown
only that values are not, or at least originally are not, properties of things” (p. 15, my emphasis).
We can consider this sentence to express the minimal consensus among (non-naturalistic)
theories of values: values are not (natural) properties of things.
Scheler then summarizes some of European modernity’s leading theories of value, according
to which values are held to be “powers, capacities or dispositions in things capable of causing, in
sentient and desiring subjects, certain feeling-states or desires” (ibid.). Against the background
of these attempts, he stresses that “values are clearly feelable phenomena – not obscure X’s
which have their meaning only through other well-known phenomena.” (Scheler, 1973,
p. 16). We experience the contents and the order of the phenomena of values independently
of “the form of being into which values enter”. Indeed, this ultimate independence of the being
of values with regard to things, goods, and states of affairs appears clearly in the fact that we
can experience goods and things with independent degrees of evidence and adequation and
that an object’s value can be given (and even evidently given) apart from the giveness of the
value’s bearer (ibid., p. 17). We can clearly find someone or something pleasant or repugnant
without our being able to indicate how this originally came about or that a connoisseur can
distinguish the quality of wine without any knowledge of the circumstances of its production,
its nutritional values, or of the ingredients that have been added.
In the sections that follow, I aim to address the contemporary account of ethical
supervenience, which may be considered to be a direct alternatives to Scheler’s account.
This is because it can be held without contradicting the phenomenal giveness of values and
because it tries, as Scheler does, to explain the relation of dependence and the margins of
independence (i.e., the laws of co-variance) that axiological properties have with respect
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THINGS, GOODS, AND VALUES

to physical ones. As I will show, Scheler’s description is based on an alternative formalontological tool; namely, Husserl’s concept of unitary foundation.
2. Things, Goods,
and Values

Let us first return to Scheler’s description of goods as ‘material unities of values’. According
to Scheler, an object’s axiological nuance is given before its other qualities are given, and
the value of the object’s global structure is the medium that guides its perception and
understanding:
Indeed, it is as if the axiological nuance of an object (whether it be remembered,
anticipated, represented or perceived) were the first factor that came upon us, and it is
as if the value of the totality of which this object is a member or part constituted THE
‘medium’, as it were, in which the OBJECT comes to FULLY develop its image-content or
(conceptual) meaning.” (Scheler, 1973, p. 18)3
Accordingly, Scheler presents values as being holistic qualities. In fact, he underlines this
further when he writes that “detailed investigations are necessary in order to find out how
values relate in the foundation of giveness to other qualities, such as simple colours, sounds,
or in their combinations. We are mainly concerned here with the significance of the possible
independence of value-comprehension from value-bearers.” (ibid.).
How do axiological qualities and axiological states of affairs relate to things and goods? As we
shall see, things, and goods are related by a mutual, unitary foundation that is guided by the
value-qualities that belong to the structure of the good as a whole.4 Let us follow Scheler’s
definition in this pursuit:
•
•
•
•

Values are to goods what qualities are to things; that is: values are the specific properties
of goods, insofar as these qualities are defined by their possible phenomenological
fulfilment.
Accordingly, Scheler distinguishes between values as the unity of goods, and values as
simply belonging to things.
If values found the unity of the value-thing, then this thing-like unity can be defined
as a good. If the value simply belongs to a physical thing whose unity is founded on its
material connections, then this thing is not a good.
Goods and things are distinct insofar as, whereas goods are unities of value-qualities
(or value-complexes which are founded in a specific basic value), physical things are
unities that are simply founded on (or aggregated as) material connections.
(Scheler, 1973, pp. 20-21).

Scheler suggests defining Sache as a thing with values, in contrast to Ding which is a valueless
thing.5 Things in the everyday sense of the word always have value. We can, according to
3 Henceforth, I will CAPITALIZE the wording which are my amendments of Frings’ & Funk’s translation of Scheler’s
Formalism or of Findlay’s translation of Husserl’s Logical Investigations.
4 In this respect, every good represents a small ‘hierarchy’ of values, because values are connected to each other
according to a specific order. In the following sections, I will abstract from the problems related to the inner hierarchy
of material values and concentrate on the formal structure of goods alone.
5 Frings and Funk translate Sache as ‘complex’, which is misleading in my opinion, given that they translated
Wertverhalt as ‘value-complex’. Sachverhalt is usually translated as ‘state of affairs’ or ‘matter of fact’. Accordingly,
Wertverhalt should be translated as ‘state of values’, ‘axiological state of affairs’, or perhaps even more preferably
as ‘matter of values’. In my translation, I have maintained ‘thing’ for Sache, which retains Scheler’s interest in
maintaining our everyday, practical encounter with things. In the so-called material turn in cultural studies, things

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Scheler, take a detached stand and observe them as mere phenomena of nature that involve
the “deliberate setting aside of all values” or we can take an opposite stance and view them
as moments of all-encompassing goods, which involves the “deliberate setting aside of all
PHYSICAL thingness” from the intermediate field of our everyday encounters with things.
We must therefore distinguish between 1) physical things, 2) everyday things, and 3) goods:
the first are material unities without values, the second are material unities with some values,
and the third are material unities of values.
Moreover, Scheler underlines a fundamental difference between the unity of things and the
unity of goods. Both unities, both goods and things, have “the same originality of giveness.”
(Scheler, 1973, p. 21), i.e., they can both be justified phenomenologically. In fact, “changes in
goods are not identical with changes in the same real objects as things and vice versa.” We
can experience the destruction of a good quite apart from the destruction of its bearer: one
example is that of a painting as a work of art that can be destroyed when its colours fade,
without the canvas being destroyed as a thing.
A good cannot be divided, only annihilated, whereas a thing can be divided. There are
partitions that do not endanger the existence of the good, so long as they pertain only to
unessential factors, other partitions that might break the artwork into fragments (which still
refer to the work of art as a whole) as well as partitions that would irremediably destroy the
material support of the artwork.
As we have observed, things and goods manifest different bounds of unity, but how can the
unity of the good be described?
• The values of a good do not simply supervene on its support. On the contrary, goods are
thoroughly permeated by its values;
• The unity of a value guides the synthesis of all other qualities of a good: it unifies both
other value qualities and other qualities, such as colours and forms, in the case of
material goods;
• The unity of a good is founded by this guiding value, because the value is responsible
for the unity of the good.
(Scheler, 1973, pp. 21-22)
I claim that Scheler is applying here Husserl’s concept of unitary foundation according to
the second essential type of unitary foundation that Husserl describes in the §21 of the Third
Logical Investigation. Before I provide Husserl’s definition of these two types of essential unity in
the following section, let us first see how Scheler concludes his remarks about the difference
between goods and values:
Therefore, in a world of the same qualities, PHYSICAL things could be quite different from
what they are, and yet, the worlds of goods could remain the same. In any area of goods,
the natural thing-world can never be determining or even restricting in the formation
of goods. (Scheler, 1973, p. 22)
Scheler’s argument seems to be at odds with Richard Mervyn Hare’s canonical argument for
ethical supervenience (1952). The Oxford-based moral philosopher claimed that if two persons
are indiscernible with respect to natural properties, then they are necessarily indiscernible
with respect to moral goodness. This notwithstanding, moral goodness is not entailed by

have been opposed to the physicalist idea of things as the brute facts of the natural sciences by recurring to the Latin
res or to the Greek πράγματα.

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the natural properties through which these persons and their actions can be described: it
supervenes on natural properties. Scheler seems to reverse Hare’s argument.
As I will argue in the final section, this reversal conforms to the formal-ontological difference
between the analytic account of supervenience and the phenomenological account of unitary
foundation.
3. Supervenience
against Unitary
Foundation6

Hare’s argument for ethical supervenience is perhaps the first occurrence of the term
supervenience in analytic philosophy, although he claimed retrospectively (1984) that he
only applied in metaethics a concept that was already en vogue in metaphysical discussions. In
recent decades, the concept of supervenience has gained an increase in attention in several
fields of philosophical inquiry. Generally speaking, a template for supervenience can be found
in:
6

•

A set of properties (B-properties) supervenes upon another set of properties
(A-properties) if no two possible things can differ with respect to their B-properties
without also differing with respect to their A-properties.7

Furthermore, supervenience is usually implicitly considered to be a one-sided dependence
relation, according to which:
•

a set of properties B supervenes upon another set of properties A, if the two systems are
in a relationship such that there cannot be changes in the supervenient set B without
changes in set A, while there can be changes in A – the basis low-level – without
changes in the set B.8

Such a wide definition of the concept of supervenience promises to provide a unifying
framework through which to address and differentiate dependence relations among
elementary and higher-order properties. In this respect, Scheler’s argument that different
worlds of things could instantiate the same world of goods seems to follow this argumentation
scheme. However, it should be noted that theories of supervenience do not usually address
property-relations from the point of view of formal ontology exclusively: they are not
metaphysically neutral, since they are often committed to physicalism.
I now wish to expound upon the similarities and differences between the concept
of supervenience and the phenomenological account of unitary foundation. The
phenomenological concept of foundation is formalized by Husserl as an integral part of
his theory of wholes and parts. Unlike classical mereology, Husserl’s theory expresses the
holistic position that the global properties of a system, as a whole, can modify its constituents’
properties and behavior; it can do so in a way that cannot be explained either ontologically or
epistemologically by remaining confined to the analysis of the constituents’ properties.
The concept of supervenience is comparable to one of the two essential types of wholes (and
correspondent parts) pinned down by Husserl’s definition of unitary foundation in §21 of
the Third Logical Investigation (Husserl, 2001, pp. 34-35). It should be noted that I translate

6 The section’s main argument is based on Caminada & Summa (2015), pp. 7-9.
7 Cf. McLaughlin & Bennett (2014) and Chalmers (1996, p. 32 f.).
8 Cf. Kim (1998) and (1999). According to Johansonn (2002), the concept of supervenience involves the following
three requirements: non-entailment requirement (i.e., no properties of set A can be entailed in set B), indiscernibility
requirement (as expressed by the first definition above), and an existential dependence requirement (as expressed by
the second definition).

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the adjective ‘einheitlich’ of the syntagm ‘einheitliche Fundierung’ as ‘unitary’. Findlay prefers
the term ‘single’ and its cognate ‘singleness’ (for ‘Einheitlichkeit’) in the first branch of the
definition of the foundation, while in the second branch (as well as throughout §22) he
inconsistently opts for ‘unitary’. Findlay’s translation is not only unfaithful to the German
term (single would be einzig or einsam, not einheitlich); it is also conceptually wrong because in
Husserl’s definition of foundation two different forms of bounds of unity among parts rather than
the singleness of the whole is at stake. Husserl considers ‘unity’ (Einheit) to be a “categorial
predicate” (Husserl, 2001, p. 37) and “the relations of ‘foundations’” as “the only true unifying
factors” (ibid., p. 36).
Now that this terminological remark has been made, Husserl’s understanding of ontological
foundation can be regarded as a stronger version of the one-sided dependence relation
mentioned above, according to which:
•

a content of the type B is founded upon a content of the type A, if a B can by its essence
(i.e., legally, in virtue of its specific nature) not exist, unless an A also exists. A unitary
foundation is a specific form of foundation in which “every content is foundationally
connected, whether directly or indirectly, with every content”. (Husserl, 2001, p. 34).

Husserl distinguishes two essential types of unitary foundation and two types of wholes and
founding parts, respectively. The unity may be founded:
1. either on a relation of mutual dependence, reciprocal foundation, and the
interpenetration among all the parts of the set A with each other, or
2. on the unitary foundation of a new content with a new set of global properties B,
founded on the plurality of the independent parts of the set A, and on all of them
together.9
This distinction seems to have gone mostly unnoticed in the English literature. In fact,
Findlay’s translation completely omits the adverb ‘umgekehrt’ (conversely) which stresses the
logical disjunction between these two kinds of foundations. Given the relevance, I will quote
it here at length, following Conni’s layout that graphically underlines the essential distinction
between the two different Definitions of Unitary Foundation (DUF) (Conni, 2005, p. 81):
[DUF1:] By a whole we understand a range of contents which are all covered by a
UNITARY foundation without the help of further contents. The contents of such a
range we call its parts. Talk of the UNITY of the foundation implies that every content is
foundationally connected, whether directly or indirectly, with every content. This can happen
in that all these contents are immediately or mediately founded on each other without
external assistance
[; DUF2:] or CONVERSELY, in that ALL TOGETHER serve to found a new content, again
without external assistance. In the latter case the possibility remains open that this
unitary content is built up out of partial contents, which in their turn are founded on
partial groups from the presupposed range of contents, just as the [w]hole content is
founded on its total range. (Husserl, 2001, p. 34; Hua XIX, p. 282).

9 Accordingly, Conni (2005) defines the first essential type of the whole as ‘pregnant structure’ and the second type as
‘emergent structure’.

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In the following section, I will refer to the second type of unitary foundation exclusively,
something that can be formalized in the following manner:
i. a new set of global properties B emerges (bottom-up); and
ii. the founding individual properties of the set A are themselves disposed in the founded
unity (described by the set B) in such a way that they become individualized (top-down)
through
iii. new individual properties C that are founded on the unifying moments in the founding
parts of the whole. The set of properties C entails new properties of the founding
independent parts, which are in a relation of reciprocal foundation with the properties
of the set B and which were not properties of the set A.
If supervenience can be described as a bottom-up movement in which a new cluster of
higher-level content, with a set of properties B is founded by a group of lower-level contents
with a set of properties A, then the supervenient structure (set B) should have – according
to Husserl – a retroactive effect on the founding contents (set A) that found it as new,
higher-level content: there is a kind of ontological feedback of the supervenient whole (set B)
on the founding contents (set A) that results in new global properties (set C). Accordingly,
the founding properties (set A) are individuated, top-down, by the content (set B) that they
found.10
While the bottom-up movement of this concept of foundation is in line with the concept
of supervenience, the top-down feedback of the founded whole upon the properties of the
founding parts is not.11
4. Scheler’s
Axiological
Mereology
Formalized
vs. Hare’s
Indiscernibility
Requirement

We can now see how Scheler’s description of the unity of the good can be formalized according
to this second type of unitary foundation:
i. a new set of global properties B [= value qualities] emerges (bottom-up); and
ii. the founding individual properties of the set A [= qualities of the thing] are themselves
disposed in the founded unity [= the good, which is unified by the value (set B)] in such
a way that they become individualized (top-down) through
iii. new individual properties C that are founded on the unifying moments [= Grundwert,
or core value] in the founding parts of the whole. The set of properties C entails new

10 Husserl will reformulate this mereological issue in §31 of Experience and Judgement by complementing the subjective
side (with a noetic and genetic analysis) of “what was established from a purely noematic side” in §21 of the Third
Logical Investigation, although he does not distinguish between the two forms of wholes that correspond to the two
forms of unitary foundation. At the end of this paragraph, he stresses that his formal distinctions “refer first of all
only to simple object-substrates, to spatiotemporal objects of external perception, and cannot by a formalization be
transferred without further ado to objectivities of a more elevated kind founded on them, for example, to cultural
objects; nevertheless, in these objectivities, relations like those of whole to part, property relations, etc., must also be
capable of being exhibited, but in a way peculiar to these objectivities.” (Husserl, 1973, p. 145). In this respect I aim to
show in this paper that Scheler’s distinction between goods and values can be formalized as a concrete instantiation
of the mereological law of the second type of unitary foundation in a circumscribed subset of the domain of cultural
objects, i.e., concerning those objects that are unities of values.
11 One possible question that we might ask is the following: Can we consider Husserl’s concept of foundation to be
a formal ontological enrichment of the concept of supervenience or does the latter exclude any top-down effects
of the supervenient properties, as some authors have suggested? In Caminada & Summa (2015) we argued that the
former is, in fact, the case. Staiti has recently (2020) come to a similar conclusion while discussing Rinofner-Kreidl’s
(2015) phenomenological answer to Audi’s concept of supervenience. Rinofner-Kreidl prefers to avoid the term
supervenience because of the implicit naturalistic account that is usually combined with it.

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properties of the founding independent parts, which are in a relation of reciprocal
foundation with the properties of the set B, and which were not properties of the set A.
We can take a well-executed piece of art as an example to understand this, given that art is
a paradigmatic example of a non-moral good. Artworks are often characterized as wholes in
which every part is individuated by an immediately intuitive stylistic pattern and in which
no part is either redundant or missing. The particular tone that each part (set A) assumes in
the composition reverberates the unifying compositional style (set B) in such a way that new
qualities (set C) can either be attributed to the whole or – mediately – to the independent
parts. A formally similar example from the moral domain (although one that is manifestly and
radically at odds with it in respect to its value content) could be that of a concentration camp
that, as a complex device of dehumanization, concretely embodies the ideology which it serves
in each of its parts. Although some of its single parts considered separately and by themselves
(set A) may seem morally neutral upon first inattentive glance, they suddenly reveal their
disturbing moral characteristics (set C) once apprehended as functional to the extermination
intention that governs them (set B).
We should note that Scheler’s concept of good as unity of value applies to every kind of values,
not just to moral ones, whereas Hare seems to acknowledge only two spheres of properties,
i.e., natural and moral ones. It is actually highly complicated to formalize moral goods given
that the moral values of good and evil are necessarily bilaterally founded upon a concrete
preference or a real choice among values. Moreover, properly speaking, moral qualities are
attributes of personhood and not of things. Thus, it is even questionable whether or not it
is plausible to speak of moral goods (i.e., as moral unities of things), even though it is surely
correct to speak of moral facts. This being said, the radical example of a concentration camp
seems to approximate a moral good that has negative polarity (i.e. an evil).
Hare claimed that if two persons are indiscernible with respect to natural properties,
then they are necessarily indiscernible with respect to moral goodness.12 That claim
notwithstanding, moral goodness is not entailed by the natural properties through which
these individuals and their actions can be described: moral goodness supervenes on
natural properties.13 Yet, the parallel indiscernibility of supervenient moral and other nonsupervenient qualities still says nothing about either the reduction of moral properties to
natural properties or about the feedback of the former into the latter. Eventually, we could
consider the founding parts’ to be new properties as they are given in the set C (thanks to their
reciprocal foundational relation with the supervenient global properties B) and do not belong
to the supervenient properties B. This would mean that the set of properties C belongs to a set
of properties ‘non-B’; it also entails the set of properties A. The non-B and the B sets would also
respect the indiscernibility requirement. Indeed, the properties of the set C are properties that
pertain to parts of the whole because they are individuated by the whole as parts of this whole.
Considering sets A and C as equally contained in a set non-B does not account for the fact that
set C adds further compositional qualities that could not be there if the parts of set A were not
composed according to the unifying style of set B.
This means that Hare’s argument only works if we accept that the so-called ‘natural
properties’ are already entangled, or put more succinctly, already configured by the moral
ones and according to the ontological feedback described by Husserl’s concept of unitary

12 This particular aspect of the law of moral supervenience is referred to by term ‘indiscernibility requirement’ by
Johansson (2002).
13 Johansson (2002) calls this additional aspect ‘non-entailment requirement’.

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foundation.14 Husserl’s phenomenological concept of foundation articulates the laws of
dependence among the sets A, B, and C, thereby even allowing us to question the self-evident
character of the claim that all non-B properties are basic, natural, and intrinsically defined.
How can the formalization of the second form of unitary foundation help us to better
understand Scheler’s argument? Let us recall Scheler’s argument and his conclusions:
[I]n a world of the same qualities[,] things could be quite different from what they are,
and yet the world of goods could remain the same. In any area of goods, the natural
thing-world can never be determining or even restricting in the formation of goods.
(Scheler, 1973, p. 22).
In my opinion, Scheler’s argument no longer works if we take the top-down effects of the set
of properties B on the founding set A into account,15 as Scheler does when he states:
The unity of a value guides the synthesis of all other qualities of a good – other valuequalities as well as those which do not represent such qualities, such as colours and
forms in the case of material goods. (Scheler 1973, p. 22).
If we take our formalization as a template to understand Scheler’s argument, it is unclear to
which exact set of qualities Scheler is referring: is it set A, i.e. the qualities of the material
things, as if they were without values, or both set A and set C, which are the result of the
ontological feedback of the unity of values (set B)? If the latter were the case, then the
argument would not work at all.
According to the suggested formalization, the same world of goods would be necessarily
entangled with the properties of the founding independent parts: both with A, given that
they are configurated according to the founded unity and with C, as these are reciprocally
founded with B. Therefore, I argue that Scheler in this argument is not consistent with his
own theory of goods as unities of values. As seen in the first section, Scheler needs to stress
the independence of values (set B) from the existing goods (the wholes) in order to justify
his metaethical project. However, this does not necessarily require the bold statement that
not only values, but even goods can be considered independently from their bearers. In fact,
if the qualities of existing goods (set B and C) are bilaterally founded with each other in such
a way that the properties of their material bearers (set A) are constitutively rearranged,
then the claim that the same world of goods could be instantiated by different worlds of
things is revealed to be false. Therefore, I suggest amending Scheler’s argument, making it
more consistent with his own formal ontology of goods. He claims that goods are the only
concrete material form of the existence of values, just as persons are the only concrete form
of existence of mind and culture (Scheler 1973, p. 21). Accordingly, we cannot have the same
world of goods if we change the world of things. Otherwise, his argument against any ethics
of goods would be jeopardized. Any ethics based on a fixed catalogue of goods, deeds, or forms
of life expresses a form of relativism, because goods are inherently entangled with historical
circumstances. If many worlds of things could actualize the same world of goods, then a moral
or religious authority would be justified in preaching their catalogue of eternal goods, because

14 Actually, once we accept this entanglement, the argument seems to trivially acknowledge that it is impossible that
a moral act would not affect the moral subject’s physical properties.
15 Scheler’s argument for the possibility of many worlds of things that correspond to the same world of goods seems
therefore to be compatible only with DUF1 but not with DUF2.

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EMANUELE CAMINADA

these would possess a kind of (relative) independence from the historical instantiations of the
(altogether different) worlds of things. In order for this argument to work it is necessary to
modify it in the following way:
Therefore, in a world of the same qualities, PHYSICAL things could be quite different from
what they are, and yet, the world of VALUES (not of goods) could remain the same. In any
area of VALUES (not of goods) the natural thing-world CAN never be CO-determining or
even restricting in the formation of goods.
A more sympathetic reading of Scheler’s claim could be the following:
[I]n a world with the same [phenomenal] qualities, the unity of things could be quite
different from what they are, and yet, the world of goods could remain the same. In any
area of goods, the natural thing-world can never be determining or even restricting in
the formation of goods.
This claim could be justified by combining Scheler’s distinction between mere thing (Ding)
as material unities without values, thing (Sache) as material unities with some values, and
good as material unities of values together with his metaphysics of nature. If we consider the
material unity of things without values as the mere unity of aggregates (according to adhesion,
cohesion, and gravity), then it would be possible to claim that differences in the forces
governing such a unity would not affect the unity of values if – but only if – we would accept
that changes in the laws of aggregation would not affect any of the phenomenal qualities that
are composed in unities of values. Scheler’s argument would be closer to Putnam’s ‘Twin Earth’
thought experiment (1984) than to Hare’s indiscernibility requirement in this respect. We
might imagine that whether the ultimate physical reality are waves or atoms, the phenomenal
properties of the resulting things of our experience (Sachen) would remain unaffected. This
sympathetic reading is based on the presupposition that the material unity of valueless
‘natural things’ essentially goes beyond the phenomenal domain and can only be accessed
mediately. However, this metaphysical presupposition seems phenomenologically implausible
to me, since we can reach an adequate phenomenological description of a mere unity of things
by bracketing value qualities.16
I have demonstrated that:
• Scheler’s key distinction between good and value can be formalized and better
understood by subsuming it to the formal-ontological relation described by the second
type of unitary foundation, as pinned down by Husserl.
• Such a formalization can help us to amend some imprecisions in Scheler’s account that
jeopardize his own metaethical account by misleadingly suggesting that a good could
exist independently of its non-axiological properties.
• By comparing Scheler’s argument concerning the independence of a world of goods
with Hare’s (1952) indiscernibility argument, I have shown that a critical assessment
of Scheler’s reversal of Hare’s argument highlights the main difference between the

16 From a Husserlian point of view, ‘mere phenomena of nature’ do not yet mean ‘mere brute facts of nature’. ‘Mere
phenomena of nature’ correspond to the level of experience obtained following the dismantling – Abbau – of every
value-predicate, whereas the realm of ‘brute facts of nature’ refers to the ‘nature’ of physics as the model of reality
that is reached through mathematical idealizations. Scheler’s notion of ‘mere thing’ is ambiguous in this respect.

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Conclusion

THINGS, GOODS, AND VALUES

analytic account of supervenience and the phenomenological account of unitary
foundation: i.e., whereas supervenience describes a bottom-up movement in which
a new cluster of higher-level content is founded by a group of lower-level contents
exclusively, Husserl’s second type of unitary foundation accounts for a description of
a kind of mutual ontological feedback between founding elements (set A) and founded
elements (set B) in such a way that the founding elements get individualized by the
founded ones, thereby constituting new properties (set C). Scheler’s argument about
the alleged independence of a world of goods neglects the relevance of this ontological
feedback, although Scheler implicitly takes such feedback into account in his own
ontology of goods.
REFERENCES
Appiah, K. A. (2010), The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen. New York: Norton &
Company;
Caminada, E., Summa, M. (2015). Supervenience and the theory of experience. Metodo 3 (2), pp.
7-18;
Chalmers, D. (1996), The Conscious Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press;
Clayton, P. & Davies, P. (eds.) (2008), The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis
from Science to Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press;
Conni, C. (2005), Identità e strutture emergenti. Una prospettiva ontologica dalla Terza ricerca logica di
Husserl. Milano: Bompiani;
Frings, S. M., Funk, L. R. (1973), Foreword. In: Scheler, M. (1973);
Hare, R. M. (1952), The Language of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press;
Husserl, E. (1973), Experience and Judgement: Investigations in a Genealogy of Logic, translated by J.
S. Churchill and K. Ameriks. Evanston: Northwestern UP;
Husserl, E. (2001), Logical Investigation Volume II. Translated by J. N. Findlay from the;
Second German edition of Logische Untersuchungen. Ed. D. Moran. London: Routledge;
Johansonn, E. (2002), Hartmann’s nonreductive materialism, superimposition, and
supervenience. Axiomathes, 12, pp. 195-215;
Kim, J. (1998), Mind in a Physical World. An essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation.
Cambridge (MA): Cambridge University Press;
Kim, J. (1999), Making Sense of Emergence. Philosophical Studies, 95, pp. 3-36;
McLaughlin, B. & Bennett, K. (2014). Supervenience. In E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition) URL = (http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/
fall2008/entries/supervenience/);
Nenon, T. (1997). Two Models of Foundation in the Logical Investigations . In: Hopkins, B.C.
(eds) Husserl in Contemporary Context. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 26. Springer,
Dordrecht;
Putnam, H. (1973), Meaning and reference. The Journal of Philosophy, 70(19), 699-711;
Rinofner-Kreidl, S. (2015), Mereological Foundation vs. Supervenience? A Husserlian Proposal
to Re-Think Moral Supervenience in Robert Audi’s Ethical Intuitionism. Metodo. Vol. 3, No. 2
(2015), 81-124;
Scheler, M. (1973). Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values: A New Attempt Toward
the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism, translated by Frings, M. S. and Funk, R. L., Northwest
University Press;
Staiti, A. (2020), Etica naturalistica e fenomenologia. Bologna: Il Mulino;
Vassiliou, Fotini (2010). The Content and Meaning of the Transition from the Theory of
Relations in Philosophy of Arithmetic to the Mereology of the Third Logical Investigation.
Research in Phenomenology 40 (3):408-429.
95

CRISTIANO VIDALI
Università degli Studi di Cagliari-Université de Rouen Normandie
cristiano.vidali@univ-rouen.fr

THE ExPERIENCE OF VALUE.
THE INFLUENCE OF SCHELER
ON SARTRE’S EARLY ETHICS
abstract
Jean-Paul Sartre is often portrayed as a philosopher whose ethics would inevitably have subjectivist or
relativist outcomes. Yet, even in Sartre’s early works there are several stances that blatantly belie this
image, relying rather on an objectivist conception of value that he notably draws from Max Scheler. The
aim of this paper is thus to investigate the influence of Scheler’s moral reflection on Sartre, arguing how
it can represent an original and fruitful starting point to approach Sartrean ethics. To this aim, we will
first report on and discuss some passages from Sartre’s early works where this debt is most noticeable.
Then, we will provide an overview of the Schelerean legacy, arguing how it represents for Sartre the very
opening of the ethical issue addressable in phenomenological terms, avoiding the dead end of Hume’s
and Kant’s more classical positions, while at the same time being consistent with other peculiar themes of
Sartrean philosophy, namely existence and historicity.

keywords
Sartre; Scheler; Ethics; Existence; Phenomenology.

Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 96-142
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2306
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

THE ExPERIENCE OF VALUE

1. Introduction

Most of the interpretations that have questioned the possibility of bringing to light a
consistent ethical theory from Sartre’s work in recent decades have largely concentrated
on the notions of authenticity and bad faith or on that of engagement.1 Such notions, in
fact, would seem to reveal the one-sidedness – if not the uselessness – of reading Sartre as
an author who rejected the theme of values altogether. On the one hand, this perspective
has the undoubted merit of mitigating the stereotypical and sadly widespread reception of
Sartrean existentialism as synonymous with nihilism or ethical relativism tout court.2 On the
other hand, however, such a recurrent emphasis on the aforementioned notions – repeatedly
questioned by Sartre himself3 to the point of almost completely renouncing the use of the
term “authenticity”, especially since the mid-1950s – has, perhaps unintentionally, obscured
the theoretical complexity of the problems underlying his moral reflection. Indeed, Sartre’s
ethics is profoundly informed by his confrontation with various positions in the philosophical
tradition, some more classical, while others contemporary to him. Among these, a prominent
author, who in the 1920s was at first even more present in French philosophical culture than
Husserl himself (Waldenfels 1983, cf. p. 36), is Max Scheler.4
In this article we intend to focus on Scheler’s influence on Sartre and, in particular, on
how some main tenets of his material axiology have been assimilated into Sartrean ethics,
interestingly appearing in works devoted to much different themes. In this sense, we will
try to show how Scheler’s moral reflection translates into Sartre’s question of “value-” or
“moral qualities”, which on the one hand allows him to ground ethics in experience, opening
up a fruitful avenue of inquiry in this field to his eyes flawed by impasses, and on the other
hand reconciles with other distinctive themes of Sartrean philosophy, namely existence
and historicity. Through this reading, whose interest will be more markedly theoretical

1 Some of those who have done so are Bell (1989), Charme (1991), Santoni (1995) and Cooper (1999, Ch. 10). For a more
recent work in this direction, see also Russo (2018).
2 A portrayal that popular aphorisms – such as Sartre’s (1978) statement that “it amounts to the same thing whether
one gets drunk alone or is a leader of nations” (p. 627) – have powerfully contributed to creating.
3 For Sartre’s criticisms of his attempts to come up with an ethics see, among others, his interview with Michel
Contat (Sartre, 1977, pp. 60, 74-75), “An Interview with Jean-Paul Sartre” (Silverman & Elliston, 1980, pp.233-34) or
“Conversations with Jean-Paul Sartre” (De Beauvoir, 1984, p. 182).
4 Concerning Scheler’s influence on French authors of the time, including Sartre, see Waldenfels (1983, Ch. I, Para.
2.b), Leroux (1994) and Agard (2011).

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than philological, we hope to show that there are other ways – alternative to the overused
ones of authenticity and bad faith5 – to approach the body of Sartrean ethics that are both
philologically legitimate and philosophically pregnant.
Forty years ago, an important critic like Spiegelberg could say he was struck by Sartre’s
ignorance of the phenomenology of value undertaken by Scheler, whose name actually
appears in Being and Nothingness6 only six times, labelled by Spiegelberg (1981) as “few
insignificant references” (p. 105). Just two years later, the appearance of Sartre’s unpublished
works on morality completely ruled out this idea, providing evidence not only of his
acquaintance with Scheler,7 but also of a meaningful debt to him. One of the most important
quotes testifying this debt can be found in War Diaries (written in 1939-40), where Sartre (1999)
admits:
reading Scheler made me understand that there existed values. Basically, until then,
quite absorbed by the metaphysical doctrine of salvation, I’d never really understood
the specific problem of morality. The “ought-to-be” seemed to me to be represented
by the categorical imperative; and since I rejected the latter, it seemed to me that I
rejected the former with it. But when I’d understood that there existed specific natures,
equipped with an existence as of right, and called values; when I’d understood that
these values, whether proclaimed or not, regulated each of my acts and judgements,
and that by their nature they “ought to be”: then the problem became enormously
more complex (p. 88).
These few but extremely meaningful lines clearly indicate in what specific sense the encounter
with Scheler represented for Sartre a veritable turning point. In fact, as he himself admits,
Sartre was previously inclined to understand the issue of morality as phenomenologically
pointless. Adhering rather confidently to Hume’s law and, at the same time, identifying
the normative sphere (i.e., what “ought to be”) with the Kantian categorical imperative, he
believed that rooting morality in “being-in-itself” (to use the lexicon of BN) was impossible or,
worse, specious. Starting from these premises, the only remaining room for ethics would be
the rhetorical one, where purely verbal formulations such as “ought”, “must” or “shall” would
be imposed on experiences in themselves autonomous from the morale sphere. In short, the
idea underlying this argument is that there is no such thing as moral experience and, consequently,
it would be neither reasonable nor possible to develop a phenomenology of morality.
To the dead end represented by these two positions, which for Sartre at first constitute (rather
naively) the only alternatives in ethics, it is precisely Scheler’s proposal that allows for an
alternative path to be found. And this path, on closer inspection, represents for Sartre the
very opening of morality as a problem that can be addressed in phenomenological terms,
insofar as, just as “every kind of cognition is rooted in experience”, then “ethics, too, must
have its foundation in ‘experience’” (Scheler 1973, p. 166). The issue with which Sartre is thus
confronted is none other than the central thesis of Scheler’s material axiology, namely that
“there are authentic and true value-qualities [Wertqualitäten] and that they constitute a special
domain of objectivities, have their own distinct relations and correlations” (ibid., p. 15). It is
5 As suggested by Anderson (2002).
6 Henceforth referred to as “BN”.
7 Sartre read Scheler in the early 1930s at the French Institute in Berlin, but – as he explains in What is Literature? – it
was only the advent of the Second World War that compelled him to consider the possibility of an ethics irreducible to
bare individual will (Sartre, 1988, p. 177).

98

2. “Reading
Scheler made me
understand that
there existed
values…”

THE ExPERIENCE OF VALUE

then worth considering some passages from Sartre’s work in which, somewhat unexpectedly,
this perspective is effectively put to the test.
2.1. Moral qualities in
Sartre’s early works

In The Transcendence of the Ego, published in 1936, Sartre (2004a) already gives evidence of this
when he writes:
It is just as if we lived in a world where objects, apart from their qualities of heat, odour,
shape, etc., had those of repulsive, attractive, charming, useful, etc., and as if these
qualities were forces that performed certain actions on us (p. 11).
Not only does Sartre take account here of so-called “secondary qualities”, such as smell or
colour, but he even adds further, equally real and irreducible ones. It is extremely important
to note from the outset how Sartre, in introducing this theme in passing, does not merely
mention the existence of such qualities, but immediately relates them to the practical sphere:
quite obviously, appearing repulsive leads one to move away, whereas looking attractive tends
to bring one closer. Without dwelling too long on this point, which will be further addressed
below, we would like to indicate even now how Sartre recognises in the above-mentioned
qualities the capacity to motivate – and precisely in this resides their being moral qualities.
Only three years later, this same theme would be taken up again in the famous and dense
article on Husserlian intentionality, where Sartre (2002) speaks as follows:
So it is that all at once hatred, love, fear, sympathy – all these famous “subjective”
reactions which were floating in the malodorous brine of the mind – are pulled out.
They are merely ways of discovering the world. It is things which abruptly unveil
themselves to us as hateful, sympathetic, horrible, lovable. Being dreadful is a property
of this Japanese mask, an inexhaustible and irreducible property which constitutes its
very nature – and not the sum of our subjective reactions to a piece of sculptured wood
(p. 383).
This time the focus seems rather to be placed on the passive character of the experience of
moral qualities. The ironic reference to traditional mentalist conceptions of emotions and the
term “subjective” put in quotation marks indicate Sartre’s effort to insist that, where moral
qualities are given, they are encountered as being in themselves. In contrast to the prevailing
interpretation of Sartre as a philosopher of the pure subjectivism of value, passages such as
the one just quoted suggest his attention also to the “discovery” of worldly moral qualities
independent of oneself.
This same aspect would then be reiterated in 1940, when in The Imaginary Sartre (2004b)
emphasised the intentional component of emotional states, in effect suggesting that, if an
emotion is experienced, it must necessarily take place in a worldly correlate, which is not the
emotion itself. In the author’s words,
the feeling of hate is not consciousness of hate. It is consciousness of Paul as hateful;
love is not, primarily, consciousness of itself: it is consciousness of the charms of the
loved person. To become conscious of Paul as hateful, irritable, sympathetic, disturbing,
attractive, repulsive, etc., is to confer on him a new quality, to constitute him along a
new dimension (p. 69).
These considerations are particularly interesting, since they witness a pursuit of the process of
dementalization inaugurated by phenomenology and its transposition by Sartre to the sphere
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of morality. Discovering moral qualities in the world means here insisting on the experiential
and not intellectual nature of this encounter and, at the same time, definitively expelling the
psychologistic prejudice concerning a presumed interiority of consciousness.8 Thus, “hating
another is just a way of bursting forth toward him; it is finding oneself suddenly confronted
by a stranger in whom one lives, in whom one suffers from the very first, the objective quality
‘hateful’” (Sartre, 2002, p. 383, emphasis added) – where “objective” has the double meaning of
being in re, within things,9 and of being non-arbitrary, not deliberately created.
In addition to the occurrences in his early texts, Sartre gives ample evidence of taking the
issue of moral qualities very seriously in his seminal work. Towards the conclusion of part
four of BN, he indeed conducts widespread analyses of what he unequivocally calls “quality as
a revelation of being”. The basic idea is that just as being is structured as a world through the
manifestation of potentiality and equipment,10 so too it comes to phenomenalise itself also and
precisely through qualities (Sartre, 1978, p. 600). Thus, it is only by engaging with a qualitative
world – and not with a jumble of unrelated and meaningless entities – that consciousness
inhabits being. Indeed, it is in these pages that Sartre develops what he calls a “psychoanalysis
of things”, devoting rich investigations to the perception of qualities such as sliminess,
liquidity, stickiness11 and to the emotion-laden reactions they can provoke.
Although only a few parts of BN are explicitly dedicated to the issue of moral qualities,12 it is
difficult not to notice how it in fact repeatedly appears in many other sections of the text and
even in the discussion of some key concepts of Sartre’s whole philosophical system. Consider
for example the very notion of nothingness. As is well known, to introduce this question in BN
Sartre resorts to the idea of “négatités”,13 i.e., what Husserl (2001) might have called unfulfilled
expectations.14 Alongside this, however, Sartre (1978) provides other cases where a “prejudicative comprehension of nothingness as such” (p. 9) is given, namely that of destruction.
Through destruction, he says, the intrinsic fragility of things – i.e., “a certain probability of
non-being for a given being under determined circumstances” (p. 8) – is announced to us.
The decisive point that Sartre intends to convey here is that nothingness is not a merely
conceptual category, but something one has an actual and non-arbitrary experience of. Also,
it is only against the background of such experience that one has an immediate understanding

8 It is no coincidence that the quoted passage appears precisely in a paragraph entitled “affectivity”. A similar
approach can be widely found in the important 1939 text on emotions (see Sartre, 2014, especially from p. 34
onwards). However, we will not discuss here the positions advocated in that work, since the overlapping between
the question of values and moral qualities and that of emotion – albeit to some extent transpiring in the present
article – would risk being misleading in the absence of more detailed analysis.
9 In this regard, one does not experience moral qualities as relations between self and object. As Scheler (1973) points
out: “I directly experience the roughness, not myself, a thing and roughness as a way of relating us” (p. 243).
10 The reference is clearly to the Heideggerian notion of “Zuhandenheit”. It might not be a coincidence that in the
same paragraph (§15) of Being and Time where Heidegger (2001) introduces the topic of things as equipment, he relates
it to that of “things invested with value” and asks: “What does ‘value’ mean ontologically?” (p. 96).
11 Reiterating how they “are as real as the world” and whose experience “has nothing in common with imagination”
(Sartre, 1978, p. 600). It cannot be ruled out that Sartre inherited his sensitivity to this theme from Aurel Kolnai’s
(2003) “On Disgust” of 1929, as suggested by Didi-Huberman (2000, pp. 220-3), if not by Scheler (1973) himself when he
discusses the qualities of “inviting”, “attracting”, “disgusting” and “repelling” referring to “nutritive value” (cf. pp.
245-246).
12 In addition to the one just mentioned, see p. 186 onwards.
13 A term coined by Sartre and retained in its original version in Hazel Barnes’ translation of BN.
14 One of the most famous illustrations of négatité is that of Pierre missing at the café (Sartre, 1978, pp. 9-11). Another
example with the same meaning is given in Sartre’s autobiography “Les mots”, where Mr. Simonnot is described as
“absent in the flesh” at a party where he was expected (Sartre, 1964, p. 91).

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2.2. Moral qualities in
Sartre’s Being and
Nothingness

THE ExPERIENCE OF VALUE

of nothingness, whose idea is but a further abstraction.15 Yet, by virtue of our foregoing
considerations, it is quite easy to notice that Sartre’s description of how we experience
destruction is significantly accompanied precisely by an emphasis on moral qualities. For what
is the “fragility” of being if not a moral quality?16
The same seems to be true and all the more so of BN’s other key notion, i.e., that of being. To
cope with the difficulty in delineating this limit concept, Sartre attempts to make it more
discernible precisely by describing it through moral qualities. Especially in the introduction
(“The Pursuit of Being”), being is attributed an almost incalculable series of properties such
as density, roughness, massivity, plenitude, compression, fullness, opacity, solidity and the
like. As is evident, these characteristics, all of which have a strongly corporeal and touchable
connotation, do not refer directly to something physical. Rather, through them Sartre again
intends to suggest the experiences in which being as “in-itself” seems to become intuitable.
Thus, instead of unsuccessfully attempting to portray an impossible non-subjective experience
of being, he prefers to indicate experiences in which the independence and self-subsistence of
being-in-itself are given by analogy in more tangible phenomena.17
Passages such as those just recalled allow us to underline at least two aspects. The first is
that Sartre’s regard for the problem of moral qualities is not episodic or confined to places
in BN devoted to values or the psychoanalysis of things. Rather, as we have just observed,
this question permeates the author’s thought more transversally, crossing some of the most
decisive reflections of the entire Sartrean philosophy. The second point is that through the
discussion of moral qualities, Sartre seems to reveal his need to attribute a pre-judicative status
to value. As Detmer (1988, pp. 135-6) sharply suggests, there would therefore be an important
parallelism between the theme of nothingness and that of value. In fact, for Sartre the
possibility of encountering nothingness in the world on the level of experience has the capital
function, borrowed from Heidegger, of arguing its irreducibility to logic: it is not banally the
adverb “not” that (surreptitiously) introduces nothingness in a linguistic act, but, on the
contrary, it is only on the basis of the prelogical givenness of non-being that the particle “not”
can in general make sense (Sartre, 1978, p. 6 ff.). Now, something similar seems to be said for
the sphere of value. Experiencing specifically motivating moral qualities would thus not mean
simply ushering in a new class of phenomena ex abrupto, but rather providing moral discourse
with an experiential foundation. If this were not possible, moral judgements could be reduced
to mere language-games, fictitiously introduced through modal verbs like “shall”, “must”,
“should” or “ought”. The very fact that Sartre dealt with the moral problem throughout his
life seems to us a living witness of his refusal to dismiss this issue so roughly.
3. Scheler’s legacy:
the experience of
value

Having discussed the various passages quoted so far, we can finally try to summarize and fix
more precisely Scheler’s theoretical contributions to Sartre.
First of all, Sartre learns from Scheler that, just as there is a phenomenal field of numbers
as ideal and objective entities grasped by a certain kind of intentionality, similarly there is a
phenomenal field of values, as “Value-qualities […] are ‘ideal objects’ as are qualities of colors
and sounds.” (Scheler, 1973, p. 21).18 In addition, in accordance with the phenomenological

15 The debt to Heidegger’s inaugural lecture in 1929, “Was ist Metaphysik?”, is quite evident here.
16 As a further proof of this, Sartre (1978) adds that the fragility of a being makes it “precious” (p. 8).
17 Something very similar happens in the famous passage of the chestnut root from “La nausée”. Here, in order
to provide a literary sketch of contingency, Sartre (2007) – through the words of Roquentin, the novel’s main
character – likewise makes very extensive use of moral qualities, such as gentleness, abundance, tenderness,
moldiness, bloatedness, obscenity, absurdity, gelatinity, softness, weakness (p. 104 ff.).
18 As Scheler himself points out (1973, p. 165), the term “ideal” should not be misunderstood here as synonymous

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“principle of all principles” (Husserl, 1983, §§19, 24), namely that all knowledge must be
traceable back to the presentive intuition [gebende Anschauung] from which it arose, values
are given in intuition. This, however, does not have an intellectual character: “Value […] does
not deliver itself to a contemplative intuition” (Sartre, 1978, p. 38); rather, “Wertnehmung” – or
“Werterfassung”, as Sartre himself calls it (1992, p. 252) – is the grasping of values as tangible
contents of worldly experience.19
A further heritage of the Schelerian lesson is the objective nature of values. This aspect,
extensively argued by Scheler and in several regards, primarily depends on the fact that values
are given as a content being-in-itself: just as it is intrinsic to the experience of any spatial
object its irreducibility to the perception that grasps it, likewise “it is a phenomenological fact
that in feeling a value, the value is given as distinct from its being felt […]. For this reason the
disappearance of this feeling does not cancel the being of this value” (Scheler, 1973, p. 244). In
addition to this, they have an objective status because “value-qualities do not change with the
changes in things” (ibid., p. 18), just as they persist on the occurrence of changes in the feeling
of the subjects who experience them too.20 Moreover, their objectivity also depends on their
intersubjective validity, since “it is of the essence of moral values as autonomous objects that
are independent of the processes of their real comprehension to demand recognition from all”
(ibid., p. 176).21 These elements are all assimilated by Sartre, as evidenced by several passages
in BN, such as where he says that “Value in its original upsurge is not posited by the for-itself
[i.e., by the subject]” (Sartre, 1978, p. 94), thus weakening the claim that it would be the activity
of consciousness that projects them into the world.
Finally, and this is perhaps the most important legacy, Sartre inherits from Scheler the thesis
that “value-facts [exist] as primordial phenomena that do not admit of any further explanation”
(Scheler, 1973, p. 252). This means that morality does not need to be grounded in other levels,
since it is in itself foundational: the phenomenon of value is something irreducible and with
which we are originally acquainted, that is, we are originally “engaged in a world of values”
(Sartre, 1978, p. 38).

with the abstract. Consistent with the Husserlian approach, the phenomenal field of values is constituted by idealities
in the sense that it “represents an objectively fixed set of general objects, sharply delimited by an ideal law, which no
one can either add to or take away from” (Husserl 2008, p. 233).
19 Other than Scheler, Sartre may also have borrowed this idea already from Ideas I, the text from which he probably
drew most on phenomenology, where Husserl (albeit in passing) writes: “this world is there for me not only as a
world of mere things, but also with the same immediacy as a world of objects with values, a world of goods, a practical
world. I simply find the physical things in front of me furnished not only with merely material determinations but also
with value-characteristics, as beautiful and ugly, pleasant and unpleasant, agreeable and disagreeable, and the like.”
(Husserl, 1983, p. 53).
20 “The feeling-state of the ego that is connected with value-experience and the expression of the state may diminish
to a zone of indifference without any diminution of this value or of the degree of the comprehension of this value or our
beginning to dwell in it. Thus we can coolly confirm the value of an ability, even a moral value of an enemy, without
enthusiasm and expression of it. Yet such value is fully given. The value can also remain constant before our eyes while
our feeling-state and its expressions undergo manifold changes” (Scheler, 1973, p. 173).
21 The insistence on the objectivity of values should not, however, be misunderstood as implying their absolute
existence independent of all subjectivity; it does not, indeed, violate the phenomenological principle whereby every
object contains in its very conception the reference to at least a possible experience of it. As Scheler (1973) makes
clear, “we do not accept an absolute ontologism, i.e., the theory that there can be objects which are, according to their
nature, beyond comprehension by any consciousness. Any assertion of the existence of a class of objects requires, on
the basis of this essential interconnection, a description of the kind of experience involved. In other words, according
to their essence, values must be able to appear in a feeling-consciousness” (p. 265). For this reason, we disagree with
Agard (2011, p. 27) when he suggests that Sartre’s critique of the “spirit of seriousness”, which “considers values as
transcendent givens independent of human subjectivity” (Sartre, 1978, p. 626), would be addressed to Scheler.

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THE ExPERIENCE OF VALUE

3.1. Out of the dead
end: Sartre’s rejection
of the positions of
Kant and Hume

That values admit of no further explanation means, then, that any moral theory that does not
start from them can only be derivative and artificial. This is the breaking point that Scheler’s
legacy yields in Sartre with the dead ends of Kantian morality, on the one hand, and that of
Hume, on the other.
Against Kant, it is important that “one renounces this error of reducing the being of values to
oughtness, norms, imperatives” (Scheler, 1973, p. 241), for it is the “ought” that is grounded
in value and not the reverse; indeed: “Whenever we speak of an ought, the comprehension
of a value must have occurred. […] That a deed “ought” to be presupposes that the “ought” is
grasped in the intention of the value of the deed” (ibid., p. 184). This stance allows Sartre to
account for the motivational poverty of Kantianism, namely of why the maxims that succeed
in passing the formal test of the categorical imperative and thus are compatible with the moral
law regularly turn out to be generic, impersonal and, therefore, ultimately unmotivating. From
a Schelerean perspective, this paradox simply ceases to be so: if a duty does not motivate, it
means that it is not a matter of value, hence that we are not really dealing with a moral experience.
Conversely, if a duty motivated, it would be the value it conveys that did so, and not its
uncontradictory nature in terms of universalised practical reason.22
Sartre’s reaction to Hume and to his “no ought from is” is more complex, and this is because
Sartre partially shares this thesis, even after the reading of Scheler. In 1943, for instance, he
still maintains that “ontology itself cannot formulate ethical precepts. It is concerned solely
with what is, and we cannot possibly derive imperatives from ontology’s indicatives” (Sartre,
1978, p. 625). It follows that, if value has to be accounted for, its status is bound to be more
ambiguous: “value has being, but this normative existent not have to be precisely as reality”
(ibid., p. 92), namely, “the being of value qua value is the being of what does not have being”
and thus “Value is beyond being” (ibid., p. 93).23 The whole dispute with Hume lies in the
meaning of the term being, since for Sartre “not having being” does not simply signify not
existing or not taking part in reality. Quite the contrary, it is precisely nothingness, i.e., the
virtuality that exceeds finite existence that is – as Sartre (2004b) says of imagination – “the
implicit sense of the real” (p. 188). Nonetheless, value must come to manifestation, and this
is where Scheler comes to the rescue: “as Scheler has shown – writes Sartre (1978) – I can
achieve an intuition of values in terms of concrete exemplifications; I can grasp nobility in a
noble act.” (p. 93). In short, Scheler arouses in Sartre the need for a sensitive intuition of value,
despite its having “a phantom being” (ibid., p. 203).
Yet, this shift has enormous consequences insofar as, marking a definitive departure from
Hume, value-qualities cannot be equated with secondary qualities, as colours or smells,
since they rather possess the very specific capacity of motivating. For instance, the property
of “being slimy” can induce a reaction of repel and the slimy thing, says Sartre (1978), “in
the disgust which it inspires can be explained only by the combination of this physical
quality with certain moral qualities” (p. 605).24 Values thus not only arouse reactions or open
possibilities in a generic sense, but they motivate, that is, they foster certain behaviours over

22 For a broader examination of Sartre’s critique of Kant, see Linsenbard 2007.
23 Other passages testifying to this can be found when Sartre (1978) says that “Value derives its being from its
exigency and not its exigency from its being” (p. 38) or when, a few years later, he (1962) would ask: “What is a value if
not the call of something which does not yet exist?” (p. 35).
24 To this regard, Sartre will even go so far as to say of the slimy: “We shall call it an Antivalue” (p. 611), at least
apparently hinting at Scheler’s proposal of a hierarchical relationship between values (cf. Scheler 1973, Part I, chap.
2.3). However, as acknowledged by some scholars (Münster, 2007, p. 129), this is one of the aspects with respect to
which Sartre reserves the most skepticism, in fact reflecting a more general French caution toward any enunciation of
a hierarchy of values (cf. Leroux 1994, p. 337).

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others, “as if these qualities – as said in one of the first passages we quoted – were forces that
performed certain actions on us” (Sartre, 2004a, p. 11). This is why Sartre speaks of values as
appeals to action latent in the world, as when he (1978) says that “values are sown on my path
as thousands of little real demands” (p. 38).25
Sartre’s existentialism is characterized by the reference to the unsurpassable particularity of
existence, although this trait is at times overstated. Therefore, in antithesis to the abstractness
of ahistorical universalism, for Sartre (1992) “Ethics is an individual, subjective, and historical
enterprise” (p. 7). Yet, is not Scheler’s material axiology, despite the legacy illustrated so far,
openly at odds with this most fundamental instance of Sartre’s?
While surprising, rather the opposite is true. Several of Scheler’s passages testify, in fact, to his
deep sensitivity to the themes of individual existence and history. As to this second aspect, for
example, Scheler (1973) writes that the “variety of the types of moral ideals of life that we find
in peoples and nations are by no means objections to the objectivity of moral values”; on the
contrary,
it is precisely because it belongs to the essence of extant values to be fully realized
by only a variety of individuals and collective individuals and a variety of levels of
concrete and historical development of these that the existence of these historical
differences in morals is not an objection to the objectivity of moral values, but is on the
contrary required by it (pp. 492-493).
Accordingly, the fact that values are encountered and known only at a given, i.e.,
finite, moment in time does not contradict their objectivity, as “the ‘historicity’ of their
comprehension (and the cognition of their order of ranks and laws of preferring) is as essential
to them as is the historicity of their realization or their realization in a possible ‘history’”
(ibid. pp. 493-494). In this sense, the objectivity of a value does not consist in its necessarily
existing, but in the fact that its validity cannot otherwise be recognized intersubjectively and
intertemporally when it appears and when it does so to a transcendental subject. Whereby, “It
is therefore also possible that certain moral value-qualities will be comprehended for the first
time in history, and that they will appear first, for example, in the feeling insight of a single
individual” (ibid, p. 272).
This calls into question the other aspect of apparent incompatibility between Sartrean
existentialism and Scheler’s axiology, namely, individuality. With respect to this, Sartre
maintains for example that the validity of any value must still be traced back to the
subjectivity for which it is valid, for in the light of different projects or purposes a same valuequality may be either good or bad.26 Here, again, Scheler’s theory turns out to be unexpectedly
consistent, as when he suggests that there can be “also the possibility of an evidential insight
into a good whose objective essence and value-content contain a reference to an individual
person” (ibid., p. 490). To this regard, Scheler speaks of an “individual-personal value-essence”,
where “Essence […] has nothing to do with universality” for it “is the foundation of both
general concepts and intentions directed to particulars”; hence, “there are essences that are
given only in one particular individual” (ibid., p. 489). Indeed, he even introduces the only
25 As Anderson (1979) also holds, for Sartre “Values call for, or even command, action; their very being is in being a
demand for realization” (p. 23).
26 For instance, concerning the sliminess we have already discussed, he says that “it is precisely within the limits
of this appropriative project that the slimy reveals itself and develops its sliminess. From the first appearance of the
slimy, this sliminess is already a response to a demand, already a bestowal of self” (Sartre 1978, p. 606).

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3.2. An ethics between
history and existence

THE ExPERIENCE OF VALUE

seemingly paradoxical notion of a good that is objective but only in relation to the individual,
namely, of a “good-in-itself-for-me”, such that “this content places me in a unique position
in the moral cosmos” (ibid., p. 490). In this manner, the objectivity of value does not dismiss
the particularity of existence and of individual destiny, since values, even when hierarchized,
“do not in themselves incorporate all possible moral values through whose realization the
person attains salvation” (ibid., p. 492). In short, as for Sartre, for Scheler, too, there is an
unrepeatability of existence – to which he refers through expressions with religious tones
such as “call”, “vocation”, “mission” or “election” – that must be accounted for. Thus,
Every moment of life in the development of an individual represents at the same time a
possibility for the individual to know unique values and their interconnections, and, in
accordance with these, the necessitation of moral tasks and actions that can never be
repeated (ibid., p. 493).
In this perspective, shared by both Sartre and Scheler, values thus turn out to be neither
universal to the point of being acontextual, nor particular to the point of being unable to make
any claim to intersubjective validity; neither natural and eternally existing, nor segregated
in a uniquely particular epoch and unattainable outside of it. Scheler’s theory, then, seems to
constitute the promise of a solution to Sartre’s concern for a truly concrete ethics, that is, one
capable of accomplishing a “synthesis of the universal and the historical” (Sartre, 1992, p. 7).
4. Conclusion

Needless to say, the framework we have tried to outline does not even remotely resolve the
question of value in Sartre. Actually, it cannot be said to have exhausted even Scheler’s sole
contribution to him, nor the overtly problematic aspects that emerge from this legacy.
Just to mention one of these, while both authors agree that value is not a psychological but
an ontological issue, it is still rather problematic what its ontological status actually is. Indeed,
on the one hand Scheler (1973) is quite clear in remarking that it is “necessary to reject the
assertion that values ‘are’ not, that they only ‘obtain’ [gälten]. […] Values are facts that belong
to a specific mode of experience” (p. 187); on the other hand, however, Sartre (1978) points
out that “the being of value qua value is the being of what does not have being. […] To take it
as being is to risk totally misunderstanding its unreality and to make of it, as sociologists do, a
requirement of fact among other facts” (p. 93). Sartre is thus reluctant towards the conception
of value as a fact in the full sense, and this is because to understand it as a fact would render
it contingent and deprive it of the unconditionality that, precisely by virtue of its unreality,
makes it compelling; it would then be a mere “coefficient of adversity”, part of the “situation”
like other facts, so that action would be exercised on values and no longer by reason of them.27
In short, for Sartre “the contingency of being destroys value” (ibid.).
Between the two authors, in sum, there are irreducible differences that do persist.
In particular, in order to fully frame the meaning that value takes on in Sartre, it is
inevitable to investigate the specific role it plays in relation to other key concepts in his
philosophy – notably to action, imagination, possibility, lack and, ultimately, to reality
as inhabited by the nothingness that human consciousness is.28 Nevertheless, we think it

27 Though, to be fair, Scheler (1973) himself specifies that material axiology must not be misunderstood as a
perceptual naturalisation of value: “Moral facts, as opposed to the sphere of meanings, are facts of non-formal intuition,
not of sensible intuition, if by ‘intuition’ we mean immediacy of the givenness of an object and not necessarily a
picturelike content.” (p. 166).
28 In this sense, a question that, if not unresolved, remains at least ambiguous is the role that, for Sartre, values play
in the constitution of reality. Sometimes, in fact, Sartre (1999) seems to suggest a founding function of values, as when

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CRISTIANO VIDALI

is evident in the light of the path taken so far that there is “no incompatibility between
existentialism and a non-subjectivist phenomenology of values” (Spiegelberg 1981, p. 105), to
the extent that some scholars have felt legitimized to speak even of an “ethical objectivism”
in Sartre (see Detmer, 1988, p. 178 ff.). Hence, although this neither replaces nor excludes
other more classical Sartrean themes, we believe that the recovery and deepening of Scheler’s
influence on Sartre is an operation of great importance for reasons not so much philological as
theoretical.
In this perspective, indeed, not only is Sartre redeemed from the oversimplified portrait of a
subjectivist philosopher with which too often he has been identified, but more importantly,
are brought to light the complexity and rigor of his ethics, which takes its cue from a close
confrontation with the debate of the time, especially in the phenomenological field. In this
sense, we believe that the phenomenology of value derived from Scheler could be a fruitful
starting point for re-reading Sartre in this direction, reassessing notions such as those of
authenticity and bad faith with which his ethics has too often been considered to begin, but
also to end.
REFERENCES
Agard, O. (2011). Max Scheler entre la France et l’Allemagne. Revue germanique internationale, 13,
15-34;
Anderson, T. C. (1979). The Foundation and Structure of Sartrean Ethics. Lawrence: Regents Press of
Kansas;
Anderson, T. C. (2002). Beyond Sartre’s Ethics of Authenticity. Journal of the British Society for
Phenomenology, 33(2), 138-154;
Bell, L. (1989). Sartre’s Ethics of Authenticity. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press;
Charme, S. (1991). Vulgarity and Authenticity. Dimensions of Otherness in the World of Jean-Paul
Sartre. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press;
Cooper, D. (1999). Existentialism. Oxford: Blackwell;
De Beauvoir, S. (1984). Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre. NY: Pantheon;
Detmer, D. (1988). Freedom as a Value. A Critique of the Ethical Theory of Jean-Paul Sartre. La Salle:
Open Court;
Didi-Huberman, G. (2000). La matière inquiète. (Plasticité, viscosité, étrangeté). Lignes, 1(1),
206-223;
Heidegger, M. (2001). Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell;
Husserl, E. (1983). Ideas pertaining to a pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy.
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Husserl, E. (2001). Analyses Concerning Passive and Active Synthesis. Dordrecht: Kluwer;
Husserl, E. (2008). Logical Investigations. Volume 1. London-NY: Routledge;
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he writes that: “The object’s value […] is truly constitutive of the object” (p. 50). Other times, however, he seems to
consider it as a sort of secondary quality, supervening on an already constituted matter, as when he (2004b) says of
moral qualities that “when they disappear – as in the case of depersonalization – perception remains intact, things are
not touched, and yet the world is singularly impoverished” (p. 69).

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Münster, A. (2007). Sartre et la morale. Paris: L’Harmattan;
Russo, M. (2018). Per un esistenzialismo critico. Il rapporto tra etica e storia nella morale dell’autenticità
di Jean-Paul Sartre. Milano-Udine: Mimesis;
Santoni, R. (1995). Bad Faith, Good Faith, and Authenticity in Sartre’s Early Philosophy. Philadelphia:
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107

PAOLA PREMOLI DE MARCHI
Independent researcher
ppremoli@libero.it

THE AxIOLOGY OF DIETRICH
VON HILDEBRAND. FROM
PHENOMENOLOGY TO METAPHYSICS
abstract
In what follows, I would like to trace Dietrich von Hildebrand’s thinking on the nature of axiological
properties. Hildebrand begins his analysis from the phenomenology of what we experience as important
and distinguishes three categories of importance: the subjectively satisfying, the value and the objective
good of the person. He then moves on to metaphysical analysis to clarify whether the categories
describe properties of objects and concludes that the foundation of all importance is value, the intrinsic
preciousness. He also examines the families of values and the relations between being and value. This
analysis has an important completion in the investigation of the types of oughtness, which allow us
to understand the foundation of norms. Hildebrand’s value theory makes it possible to address some
crucial metaphysical problems, in particular the question of whether good ultimately triumphs. The
epistemological premise of Hildebrand’s perspective, however, is the thesis that man experiences not only
facts, but also values.

keywords
Hildebrand, values, ought, norms, metaphysics, experience

Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 108-142
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2307
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

THE AxIOLOGY OF DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND

1. Introduction

In what follows, I would like to trace Dietrich von Hildebrand’s thinking on the nature of
axiological properties and, from this perspective, to show how Hildebrand moves from
phenomenology to metaphysics to investigate the relationship between being, importance and
ought-to-be.
Let us begin by noting that, in his works, Hildebrand usually does not use the term “axiological
properties”, but rather speaks of “categories of importance” and above all of values. This
depends, as far as I can understand, on the fact that Hildebrand first examines the motivation
relationship, i.e. the possible ways in which an object can motivate the human will or
affectivity, and only then addresses the question of the objective foundation of motivation.
It seems to me that the expression “axiological properties” can nevertheless be useful to
focus on the crucial dilemma of any philosophy of values: are we motivated only by that
which we value for us, in relation to our subjective preferences, or are there also things that
motivate us because they have value in themselves, so values express a property of beings?
However, to apply the expression “axiological properties” to Hildebrand, I think it is necessary
to distinguish between a broad and a strict meaning of it. As far as the broader sense is
concerned, axiological properties are those properties that make a thing good or bad, thus
opposing what is neutral. If by “good” or “bad” we mean whatever is positively or negatively
important, the expression can be applied to all three categories of importance that – as we
shall see – are introduced by Hildebrand, albeit in a different sense for each. In a more specific
sense, on the other hand, axiological properties indicate the objective foundation of the
importance of things, actions, states of affairs. With reference to this meaning, only values are
axiological properties.
I will try to distinguish between the noematic aspect of the question (what is the nature of
axiological properties) and the noetical aspect (how we experience axiological properties) and
I will deal mainly with the first issue. However, for Hildebrand, as in all phenomenologists,
these aspects cannot be separated: the manner of experiencing values depends on their
nature, and their nature can only be truly grasped by experiencing values. This inseparable
relationship between experience of values and the nature of values is based on a solid
epistemological framework, which Hildebrand presents in What is Philosophy? (2021) and in the
first part of his most important works (2020; 2016; 2009). The theory of knowledge described
in them allows us to include Hildebrand among the realist phenomenologists, namely to
the group of Husserl’s early disciples who took up the call to “return to things themselves”
expressed in the Logical Investigations and turned it into their main philosophical vocation.
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The most important feature of their approach to axiological properties is that they are not
constituted by the evaluative activity of the subject but are rather discovered as properties of
objects (Drummond 2002, p. 8).
In order to expound Hildebrand’s conception of ontological properties, I think it is first
necessary to clarify what the categories of importance are, which Hildebrand introduces on
the basis of the types of human motivation (§ 2). Secondly, I will follow Hildebrand to explain
in what sense each of them can be considered a property of things, so as to understand that
values are the foundation of all intrinsic importance (§ 3). To expound the ontological status
of values, I will then examine the question of the relation between value and being (§ 4)
and, to describe their explicitly axiological character, I will introduce Hildebrand’s analysis
of the relation between values and ought-to-be (§ 5). It will then be possible to address the
decisive metaphysical question of whether values, which are the foundation of any good, have
metaphysical primacy over evil (§ 6). Finally, I will briefly address the epistemological premise
of Hildebrand’s philosophy of values, i.e. how we know values and in particular how it is
possible to regard them as properties of objects and not mere subjective feelings (§ 7).
As a consistent phenomenologist, Hildebrand introduces the discussion of values starting
from experience, and more precisely from the experience of what is important. In the first
chapter of Ethics, he writes that before discussing the ontological foundation of importance, it
is necessary to clarify the data we experience in a certain and indisputable way (2020, p. 28).
Importance for Hildebrand coincides with what can motivate our will and affectivity. In the
second chapter of Ethics, Hildebrand explains that motivation can be equated with desire, if a)
desiring is understood as a typically personal act and b) the objects of desire also include what
can affect our feeling and elicit affective responses, such as joy, vengeance, etc. Only under
these conditions, the classic definition “Bonum est quod omnes desiderant” is acceptable (2020,
pp. 30 ff). However, the motivation relation shows that reality itself presents relevant aspects:
if being were completely neutral, nothing would be able to motivate our will and our affective
sphere. In other words, as well expressed by Crosby, «because something is important, therefore
it necessarily has the power to motivate» (1977, p. 255). Spinoza’s thesis that we do not desire
a thing because we judge it to be good, but on the contrary what we desire we call good,
(Spinoza 2018, III, prop. 9 scolio) is therefore completely unacceptable to Hildebrand (2016,
p. 31).
He then distinguishes between neutral being and positively or negatively important being,
and calls the former good and the latter evil (2020, p. 25). This distinction precedes that
between the objective importance of a being and the importance of that being for a subject.
Metaphysics goes beyond phenomenology precisely in seeking what importance is, what its
meaning is.1

2. The difference
between
important and
neutral being

After distinguishing between being endowed with importance and being neutral, Hildebrand
examines the different types of importance, which he calls categories. The distinction of the
categories of importance as basic views of motivation is therefore a prerequisite for asking

3. The categories
of importance
as properties of
being

1 For Hildebrand there is no real “leap” between phenomenology and metaphysics. Rather, phenomenology is that
method which allows us to purify our experience of prejudices, naivety and premature systematization, so as to obtain
a philosophical knowledge of necessary essences and the laws rooted in them. Although it is based on experience,
this rigorous knowledge for Hildebrand transcends empirical knowledge, and is therefore a priori. Metaphysical
investigation makes use of precisely this knowledge of essences. For example, we can start from everyday experience
to distinguish between the essential and accidental aspects of a human person, but when we focus on the essence of
the person as such, on his or her specifically personal perfections and capacities, we enter metaphysical enquiry.

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what kinds of importance a being can possess, independently of the relations of motivation
(2020, p. 34).
The experience of receiving a compliment and that of witnessing the act of forgiving a serious
offence are perceived as two positive events that can motivate our volitional and affective
acts. However, while the former concerns an object that is only subjectively important, the
latter refer to an object that is important in itself: its positive importance does not depend on
the effect it produces in us. Hildebrand calls this intrinsic importance “value”. Even if things
endowed with value, such as a noble moral action or a beautiful starry sky, have a capacity to
influence us, do not leave us indifferent, provide delight, nevertheless they have importance
regardless of the effect they may have on us. Objects that are only satisfactory to the subject
and those endowed with value are both capable of engendering bliss, but whereas the former
kind of bliss is an egocentric and transitory delight, the objects endowed with value engender
a qualitatively much deeper and fuller happiness (2020, p. 38). These two forms of happiness
according to Hildebrand reveals the essential difference between the two kinds of importance.
Every object possessing value «stands before us, a message, as it were, from on high, elevating
us beyond ourselves»: it requires the person experiencing it to give it an adequate response
(2020, pp. 38 f). This call does not arise in the face of goods that are merely subjectively
satisfying, such as a delicious meal or a game of cards. These goods exert an entirely different,
more intrusive attraction on us, they do not make a demand on us, but flatter us (2020, p. 43).
In this context Hildebrand makes an explicit criticism of Scheler, accusing him of not having
grasped that the difference between the importance in itself and the merely subjective
importance of the pleasurable is not a difference of degree (2020, p. 42, reference to Scheler
1921, p. 84 ff). According to Hildebrand, Scheler wrongly considered what is only subjectively
satisfying as a lower value because he failed to distinguish between the level of the motivation
relationship and the level of the objective importance that beings possess in themselves (2020,
p. 45).2
In addition to values and what is only subjectively satisfactory, Hildebrand introduces as
a third category of importance the “objective good for the person”. This includes all those
goods that are objectively in the true interest of the person (of all persons, of a category of
persons or of a specific person). Gratitude, for example, is always motivated by an objective
good that we have received. Joy at a friend’s recovery from a serious illness is motivated by an
objective good for another person. Many human goods, such as a medicine, technology, means
of transport, have no value in themselves and are not only satisfactory for the subject, but
constitute objective goods for the person. To investigate the nature of axiological properties,
however, we must focus our attention on values, because they are the foundation of the
importance in itself of the things, «the true, the valid, the objectively important» (2020, p. 50).
At this point we find the transition from phenomenology to metaphysics. Hildebrand states
that «the question of importance has as much an original and objective meaning as the
question of truth and existence» and is «as fundamental as being» (2020, p. 74). Although this
issue has an existential relevance for man, it refers to the metaphysical dimension of reality:

2 The concept of value has an economic origin, indicating the capacity of a good to satisfy a need or its capacity to
acquire other goods, hence its price. In the light of this usage, one can fully understand why Kant states that the
person has dignity, i.e. a value that is priceless. In the philosophical sphere, value gained a significant role in the first
half of the 20th century, with R. H. Lotze, A. Meinong, C. von Ehrenfels, W. Windelband, and H. Rickert. It also plays
an important role for phenomenology, especially for ethics and aesthetics. Early phenomenology criticizes both
Kantian formalism and the psychologistic reduction of value to an effect of human feelings, and seeks to ground the
objective character of values. This unites Hildebrand and Scheler, but the distinction between the three categories of
importance leads Hildebrand to a more articulate conception of axiological properties than that of Scheler.

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it concerns the meaning and raison d’être of beings (2020, p. 75). Just as only the being in itself
which is autonomous and independent of our intellect can fulfil our search for truth, only
what is important in itself can answer the question of importance. In a completely neutral
world, everything would lose its meaning: praising a man because he is reliable, persuading
someone of the importance of science, appreciating a poem, or following one’s conscience
are just some of the actions that would lose any meaning (2020, p. 77). But human life would
also collapse if only the importance of the subjectively satisfying existed, because we would
be imprisoned in egocentrism, without points of reference, and we would have no objective
reason to motivate our choices. It is not at all a question of introducing value as a postulate,
but rather of pointing out that the concept of value is constantly presupposed. It is such an
evident fact that at every moment, even when we try to deny it, we reintroduce it (2020, p. 78).
At the same time, value is “the heart and soul of being”, “the ultimate word” (2020, p. 80).
Chapter 7 of Hildebrand’s Ethics moves decisively into the ontological question we are
interested in, because it examines the question of whether the three categories of importance
are only points of view of motivation, inseparable from it, or they are properties of being,
independently of any motivation.
As far as the category of what is subjectively satisfying is concerned, its qualitative content is
rooted in the pleasure that things can provoke in us; from the point of view of objects, their
property is to be pleasant. Pleasant things, however, have the character of a gift for the person,
so they are also an objective good for the person, even if on the lowest level of the goods that
belong to this category. This gives them an objective character that cannot be reduced to the
feeling of pleasure they produce in the subject. For Hildebrand to consider things pleasurable
only in the light of the satisfaction they produce in us, is to falsify the universe, because it blinds
us to the objective importance they possess. On the other hand, the category of objective goods
for the person (and not only those goods that are subjectively satisfying) also refers to a property
of beings. Goods such as health and works of art have an importance that implies a relationship
with a person, but at the same time is objective, irrespective of the fact that it is the object of a
motivation. Hildebrand, in other words, attributes an objective, albeit different, ground to all
three categories of importance. This is why in the introduction I clarified that if we consider
the expression in a broad sense, all types of importance can be referred to as “axiological
properties”. The crucial question concerning the nature of axiological properties, however, is
whether values are real properties of being, independently of any motivation.
In the tenth chapter of Ethics, Hildebrand addresses the question examining the different
families of values. In fact, values differ by belonging to groups that are irreducible to each
other. The first distinction to be made is between ontological values, such as the value of the
human person or of a living being, and qualitative values, which are in turn subdivided into
different families, such as moral values and aesthetic ones. The ontological value of a being
is proper to that being as such. Once that being exists, it possesses that ontological value and
cannot lose it. It cannot possess that value to a greater degree than another being. Qualitative
values, on the contrary, may or may not be embodied in a being. For example, a horse may or
may not be beautiful, without ceasing to be a horse. Qualitative values can also be possessed in
different degrees (2020, p. 141).
As far as qualitative values are concerned, Hildebrand mainly mentions four families:
vital values, intellectual values, moral values and aesthetic values. Vital values include
those qualities that pertain to life, such as physical energy, health, a strong temperament
(Hildebrand 2016, p. 80). Intellectual values are specifically personal, i.e., they require a person
as a bearer and include all the capacities pertaining to the sphere of reason and intelligence,
such as intellectual acuteness, but also geniality and sensitivity to artistic values (2020, p. 136
note 3). Moral values have as a common denominator the reference to goodness (just as
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disvalues have moral evilness as a common reference). Furthermore, the human person is
held responsible for them: he or she can be blamed if he or she is stingy or unjust, praised if he
or she is generous or fair. This is because the realization of moral values requires a free will.
Only moral values, then, can awaken the voice of our conscience and imply a link to reward
and punishment (2020, p. 182). Aesthetic values, on the other hand, have the peculiarity of
including, as a principal and supreme value, that of beauty, but this does not embrace all
values in this sphere. There are aesthetic values that are not a subspecies of beauty, such as
the elegant, the poetic, the pleasant (2016, p. 83).
Hildebrand believes that the difference between ontological and qualitative values can
explain the divergent conception of good between Plato and Aristotle: Plato, with the idea
of transcendent and absolute goodness, in which things participate, develops a vision
more suitable for qualitative values; Aristotle, on the other hand, privileging the goodness
immanent to every being, has a vision more suitable to describe ontological values (2020,
p. 140). In other words, ontological values are closely connected to the corresponding being,
they are immanent to that being, whereas for qualitative values one can speak of participation:
they transcend the beings that support them, and these beings participate in them. This
does not mean, however, that qualitative values are accorded a subsistent reality. As we will
see later, they have an ultimate reality in God, but in the created world they are a concrete
reality only when they are embodied in an existing being (2020, p. 144, also note 8). We must
therefore distinguish between values and their bearers, i.e., the objects that can embody
those values. There is an essential relationship between values and their possible bearers:
for example, only personal acts can be bearers of a moral value, whereas nature, people,
animals, things and works of art can all embody aesthetic values. We can call (intrinsically)
“good” those beings that are bearers of one or more values. Therefore, it would be a mistake to
regard value only as «an ideal, rooted in the essence of something» and not as a real, concrete,
individual property. Just as extension essentially belongs to the nature of matter, and
therefore every material being possesses extension among its real, concrete properties, so too
values, as soon as an object that embodies them comes into existence, become real properties
of that being (2020, p. 92). Josef Seifert pointed out that Hildebrand’s concept of value allows
the good to be rooted in being «far more firmly than has ever been done in the history of
philosophy» (Seifert 1989, p. 173). For if value is the intrinsic preciousness of a being, it is a
genuine property of that being and depends on its essence (Seifert 1996 p. 438 ff). Therefore,
only value “makes possible an authentically metaphysical concept of the good” (Seifert 1989,
p. 274): having value is a fundamental dimension of being, because it indicates “being insofar
as it is precious in itself” (1989, p. 275). John Crosby noted that it may seem self-contradictory
to call value as important in itself, for importance seems to include a relation to someone. But
we can resolve the apparent contradiction if we consider that “importance is that in virtue of
which a being can motivate or interest someone”, therefore “value is that kind of importance that
lets a being motivate us just because of its intrinsic excellence or splendor” (2002, p. 478).
One and the same being can be the bearer of several values, ontological and qualitative ones.
A human person, for example, possesses the ontological value of the person, but also various
capacities that also have an ontological value, such as the will, the intelligence, the heart.
In addition, it can possess many kinds of qualitative values, as aesthetic, vital, moral ones.
Hildebrand believes that the higher the status of a being, the more values it can possess
(2020, p. 150). Moral values have a character of indispensability that is absent for aesthetic or
intellectual values; an individual may not possess intellectual values, or may possess only some
of them, whereas moral values “are what is primarily demanded of man as such”, because
“being morally good pertains essentially to the end of human existence and to man’s destiny”
(2020, p. 183).
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Once we have understood the essence of values, as the foundation of all importance in itself, it
is possible to investigate their ontological status, hence their relationship to being. Hildebrand
begins the twelfth chapter of his Ethics by stating that the relation between being and value
is “one of the most fundamental problems of metaphysics” (2020, p. 152). In the chapter he
examines both the value of being and the being of value.
Regarding the question of the value of being, he states that “there is a general value that is
proper to being as such”, since “every being possesses a certain value insofar it is something, it
is a being” (2020, p. 153). We understand this when we compare a real being to a mere fiction,
a product of our imagination. The real being presents itself with an autonomous consistency,
a dignity and majesty that is absent in what is a mere imaginary product. The formal value
of being as such is not a qualitative value, but is also distinguished from ontological values,
because it is based on being as opposed to non-being, and not on the essence and specific
existence of a being. It can be grasped in a radical abstraction (2020, p. 154). In virtue of this
value, any object, even a useless tool or a stone, if it exists, has an importance. Having said
this, when a being has no qualitative value or a very low ontological value, it can be considered
as neutral. Moreover, the other values cannot be deduced from the formal value of being. On
the contrary, ontological and qualitative values override this value, for example because the
general formal value of being is not sufficient to answer the question of whether the world
is good or bad (2020, p. 161). Finally, for Hildebrand all beings possess, in addition to their
qualitative and ontological values and the general value of being, a value that derives from
the fact that they are created by God, the Infinite Good. The link with God “deneutralizes the
entire reality in giving to everything an indirect dignity and preciousness that we have seen
are present to the mind of the saints” (2020, p. 159).
Regarding the second question, that of the being of value, Hildebrand holds that “every value is
itself objectively a being”. Both the value of being as such, the ontological value of individual
beings, and the qualitative values they embody, are also beings. This has a mysterious
character: on the one hand, ontological and qualitative values cannot be reduced to the notion
of being, on the other hand they are themselves being (2020, p. 159 f.).
Hildebrand’s disciples investigate the issue in more detail. John Crosby examines Hildebrand’s
critique of the classical assertion that “bonum et ens convertuntur”, and argues that value
is not coextensive with being, but the notion of intrinsic preciousness provides a better
metaphysical foundation for the good than the definition of the good as appetible (1977). Josef
Seifert deepens the relationship between values and the Absolute Being, starting from the
doctrine of pure perfections of Anselm of Aosta (1989). For the purpose of this paper, which
is to investigate the nature of axiological properties, it seems important to me, however, to
investigate the nature of the relation between being, ought-to-be and value.

4. The relation
between being and
value

Axiological properties are not only characterized by importance, but also by a normative
dimension, a relation to oughtness. To elucidate the metaphysical status of values, it is
therefore necessary to examine not only their relationship with being, but also their
relationship with ought-to-be. In Moralia Hildebrand states that there are three different forms
of ought (1980, pp. 407 ff).
Firstly, there is the ought-to-be which characterizes all that is non-neutral, important. This
is a new metaphysical category with respect to being and non-being that depends essentially
on importance, since we affirm that what is endowed with value not only is, but also ought
to be: this form of due, therefore, indicates a relation of the good to its existence, which we
could express as the convenience of the good existing. John Crosby describes this form of duty
as “being justified in existence”; or even “being worthy of existence” (Crosby 1977, p. 301).
In the twelfth chapter of Ethics, Hildebrand applies this meaning of oughtness to describe

5. The axiological
properties as due
relations

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the axiological relationship between qualitative values and their existence: “qualitative
values – he writes – should be realized; their existence is itself something having a value”,
just as “qualitative disvalues should not be realized, their non-existence is itself a good”
(2020, p. 160). This principle, however, applies to every good, as it is something endowed with
positive importance.
The second form of ought concerns the relationship between values and the response of
the person and can be expressed by the principle that any good that is important in itself is
due a response. This ought manifests itself as a “you should”, as an imperative addressed to
the person. Failure to comply with this ought, however, implies disharmony, but not moral
guilt. (2020, p. 255). For Hildebrand, this second form of due relation is also a metaphysical,
objective relationship, which stems from the nature of values, even if it also implies an
essential reference to the person, since the response is always an act that presupposes the
person; this form of ought also founds the ability to motivate and makes any realization of
values desirable, pleasing, opportune, that is, also endowed with value. Hildebrand also adds
that “the person is aware, nevertheless, that when he fails to give an adequate response, it is
at his own cost and not at the cost of the object”. Indeed, to say that a response is due every
object possessing a value does not mean that the object needs that response (2020, p. 265).
Rather, the claim shows that values are withdrawn from the arbitrariness of the person
(2020, p. 259). The response must be appropriate both to the quality of the value and to its
hierarchical position. There is a proportionality between the duty to give a response and the
highness of the value concerned.
The third type of ought is the duty of moral obligation, which can be expressed as “you
must”. In Ethics, Hildebrand introduces it based on the limits imposed on human will, and
distinguishes two types of norms, factual norms, and moral norms. The former refers to
the immanent laws of nature, e.g., to move from one place to another, we must walk on the
ground, or to construct a machine we need to follow the laws of mechanics. These norms
are required to achieve the corresponding purpose, but they do not impose any moral duty,
they have a factual, neutral basis, and acting in accordance with them simply means acting
rationally and cleverly. Moral norms, on the other hand, are imposed on our consciousness,
they imply guilt or merit, and following or violating them makes our conduct morally good
or bad (2020, p. 192 ff.). Moral obligation has a categorical character and a unique gravity,
expressing the intimate connection with human destiny, moral conscience, and eternity that,
as we have seen, is a specific quality of moral values.
A cornerstone of Hildebrand’s ethics is the thesis that the obligation inherent in moral values
cannot be explained from “acting according to nature”, understood in a factual way. The
objective basis of moral goodness lies in the relationship to moral values, which, as we have
seen, are the opposite of the factual and neutral (2020, pp. 250 ff). This is clearly expressed by
Hildebrand regarding the knowledge of moral obligations, for example he writes that “in order
to understand that man should be just, we have to grasp the intrinsic goodness of justice, that
is, its value” (2020, p. 198). If there were no objective good and evil, there would be no duty, no
moral obligation (1980, p. 171).
One of the objections that has been raised against value ethics is that it fails to adequately
ground normativity. If values are seen in their ideal hierarchy, it is argued, it becomes
problematic to justify practical norms for action, especially in the face of conflicts between
values (Da Re, 1991). We can try to answer this objection in the light of Hildebrand’s
perspective. I think it is necessary to distinguish between two aspects of the question:
the justification of normativity in general and the justification of moral obligation, which
applies to the free action of human beings. Regarding the former, it is precisely the new
dimension of being that is constituted by values that objectively justifies norms, because
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they indicate what is important, what is worthy of existence. As regards the second aspect,
Drummond objected to Hildebrand that, by rooting the moral obligation in values, he
neglects the relation between the obligation and what is important for the agent (2002,
p. 12). This objection, however, forgets that for Hildebrand the person is objectively ordered
to moral values, to the extent that they are the only thing necessary for her realization
as a person. Following moral obligations is not only in her interest but is an essential
objective good for her. The problem of moral choice, therefore, does not consist in justifying
duties, but in grasping values and understanding that only the adequate response to the
moral sphere enables us to reach the fullness of our personal vocation. The problem is
that the moral subject acquires such a profound contact with moral values as to grasp
their seriousness and centrality. It is precisely in this experience that it is also possible to
become aware of the claim inherent in moral obligations. The experience of moral values
and the effort to fulfil moral obligations, moreover, makes the person increasingly skilled at
discerning what his or her duty is in each concrete situation, and thus also at dealing with
cases where a conflict between values arises.
Another relevant metaphysical question regarding values is whether, despite the undeniable
presence of evil in the world, “the good metaphysically and ultimately triumphs” (2020,
p. 165). We could also formulate it as follows: do positive axiological properties have any
primacy over negative ones? Can we say that they have a greater right to be? Hildebrand
poses this question in chapter 13 of Ethics and believes that an answer can be found on a
metaphysical level, without appealing to a revealed religion; more precisely the answer is to
be sought by examining the qualitative values and the message they communicate. Beauty,
moral virtues and good deeds contain, Hildebrand writes, “a promise that all the splendor and
intrinsic light shining forth from the values is not simply a qualitative entity, but a triumphant
metaphysical reality” (2020, p. 165). Even if they do not have the power to overcome all evil,
“they nonetheless imply essentially the promise of a metaphysical power, of a final word also
in the order of actual being” (2020, p. 166).
Plato already grasped the essential link between values and ultimate reality and therefore
placed the idea of the good at the peak in the realm of ideas. Hildebrand believes that we
can overcome Plato, because “once we reach the idea of an absolute, almighty person, we
can grasp that this person must be the infinite wisdom, the infinite beauty and the infinite
goodness”. Only a good and personal Absolute Being can confirm the promise inherent in the
values we experience. If God were neutral or bad (or if God did not exist), the message that
qualitative values address us when we experience them would be a lie. In contrast, in the
Absolute Being “there is a necessary relation between value and being” (2020, p. 166 f), since
“whereas man is good only by participation, God is essentially good” and, as Thomas Aquinas
states, He is “the very goodness itself of every good thing” (Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 40). The
consequence of the relationship between being and goodness in God is that in Him the most
sublime qualitative values have their substantial reality.
Each value, therefore, reflects God in a specific way. As far as ontological values are concerned,
they are an image of God, an exemplar that refers to God as an archetype. This image presents
itself in different degrees, depending on the essence of the individual being. Traditional
philosophy, for example Bonaventure in his Itinerarium mentis in Deum (1, 2) has attributed to
all impersonal substances the character of vestigium (trace), while only to man the character of
imago (image) in the strict sense (Hildebrand 2020, p. 170). The ontological value is the core of
this imago and the message of God present in a being. Hildebrand adds that just as, to know the
existence of contingent beings, it is not necessary to prove the existence of God, to know the
ontological value of a being, it is not necessary to start from the notion of God, but this value
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objectively presupposes God – just as the existence of a contingent being presupposes the
existence of God (2020, p. 171).3
As far as qualitative values are concerned, they contain a much deeper and more explicit
“message” from God. This can be seen, above all, in moral values and aesthetic values, which
speak to us of a higher world, lift our spirits and arouse in us a longing for that higher world.
The moral sphere has such gravity that it not only determines man’s eternal destiny, but also
refers to the existence of an afterlife reality in a much more direct and profound way than do
the other qualitative values. Moreover, the relationship with punishment and reward implies
the notion of God, the only one who can give a valid and definitive answer to the good and evil
done by men (2020, p. 185). The moral sphere consequently has a unique link with the religious
sphere: the essence of moral values and the seriousness of moral good and evil remain closed
to us if we regard them as a merely human reality (2020, p. 189).
We can conclude that Hildebrand’s theory of values, which provides an objective foundation
for the axiological properties we experience, results in a metaphysical conception of reality as
the effect and manifestation of the good, or better still, of the infinite goodness of a personal
God.
7. Experience as
a starting point
for philosophical
knowledge of
axiological
properties

Finally, I think it is necessary to mention at least one point of the noetical question identified
at the beginning, namely the problem of how we know values. As we have seen, Hildebrand
addresses the issue of importance from the phenomenological perspective, i.e., from the point
of view according to which an object presents itself as important in experience. In the second
chapter of Ethics, however, he points out that this is not an analysis of empirical psychology,
but a philosophical investigation, because it has to do with necessary and highly intelligible
data, as the Aristotelian analysis of the categories of predication (2020, p. 33).
Hildebrand is fully aware of the fact that a radical objection to his position on the objectivity
of values has to reckon with the contraposition, to which a significant part of modern thought
has adhered, between facts and values and the consequent thesis according to which we can
know facts, (through sensible experience or deduction), but not values, because the latter
are not “data”, like facts, but are purely subjective “feelings”. According to this view, facts
are what is “objectively” given to us in experience, and this merely presents us with neutral
objects. Values, instead, are the result of the evaluative activity of the subject, they are not
data of experience, but emotional reactions and therefore have no objective basis outside the
subject. According to Hildebrand, this position was inaugurated by Hume and is found, with
different modulations, in George Santayana, William James and Benedetto Croce. Hildebrand
criticizes this subjectivism of values in chapter 9 of his Ethics and in chapter 1 of his Aesthetics.
Hildebrand accepts that there is a distinction between facts and values: “for there is obviously
a great difference between merely noting that something exists and speaking of the value
of this thing” (2016, p. 19). However, he thinks that it is incorrect to rely on this distinction
to reduce all apprehension to facts and to deny that it is possible to apprehend values or
objects endowed with importance in themselves. Even if the act of knowing values and that
of knowing neutral facts are different, the difference “does not disqualify the perception of
values from being a genuine act of knowing” (2016, p. 19). There are indeed many types of
apprehension, depending on the object known. The five senses already show us this, but there
is also a specific apprehension for knowing people, which is different from the perception of
bodily objects, just as there is a specific apprehension for grasping melodies, which is different

3 On this point Hildebrand seems to implicitly refer to Thomas Aquinas’ third way to prove the existence of God
(Summa Theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 3).

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PAOLA PREMOLI DE MARCHI

from the apprehension of the moral value of an act of generosity. In all cases, though, a
knowledge can be given, a “consciousness of” something that is not reducible to the perceiving
subject.
The experience of values is a type of “consciousness of”, in which the object is in front of me. It
is not a feeling, as when one feels happy, which we experience as part of our being, something
that happens in us and of which we are only aware in a “lateral” way, while we experience it.
The apprehension of values is an intuitive awareness that implies the contact with an object,
the value. Crosby observed that the experience of values has an affective component because
they are endowed with a metaphysical beauty that affects the heart and causes delight in the
one who grasps them (2002, p. 478). If, as we have seen, values do not belong to the psychic
sphere, but are properties of objects, then it is a mistake to regard them as the result of a
subject’s act of evaluation or as an effect of delight.
The fact that there are human beings who do not grasp certain ethical values or do not have
a sensitivity to aesthetic values for Hildebrand cannot lead to deny that qualitative values are
objective properties of beings. To draw this conclusion would be to confuse the reality with
our ability to know it. This is the error of all relativism. Hildebrand, on the contrary, believes
that the knowledge of values can be the object of absolutely certain knowledge, because it is
given with evidence. In Ethics we read as follows:
Despite the facts that values are disclosed to us in an authentic act of knowledge,
and that we can speak of a value perception and of an intellectual intuition of
values, the very nature of values is such that in perceiving them a specific objectcommunion already takes place that has no analogy in any other kind of knowledge. In
understanding a value, we surpass the mere ontological and enter into the axiological
rhythm. We cannot understand value if we try to grasp it from without or see it
neutrally as something merely existent. The very nature of value insures that in our
grasp of value, we simultaneously surpass the theme of a mere knowledge of being.
(Hildebrand, 2020, p. 262)
The transcendence required by the knowledge of values, in other words, does not involve
abandoning the contact with reality, but admitting that we can know not only the being
of things, but also their intrinsic importance. Moreover, for Hildebrand values possess an
intelligible essence, such that absolutely certain knowledge is possible, if one is willing to
subject them to a philosophical investigation that purifies our knowledge of prejudices, hasty
conclusions or linguistic confusions. The experience of values, which like all experience
involves an intuitive contact with its object, is therefore in no way incompatible with rational
enquiry, but on the contrary generates it and requires it.
In this paper, I have attempted to trace Hildebrand’s value theory, according to which there
are axiological properties of objects that cannot be reduced to the evaluative capacities of
the subject. Hildebrand begins his analysis from the phenomenology of what we experience
as important and distinguishes three categories of importance: the subjectively satisfying,
the value and the objective good of the person. He then moves on to metaphysical analysis
to clarify whether the categories describe properties of objects and concludes that the
foundation of all importance is value, the intrinsic preciousness. Although the starting point of
Hildebrand’s analysis is the motivation relation, he shows that each of the three categories of
importance has a different objective foundation. Above all, values indicate what is important
in itself and have an ontological status, because they indicate the intrinsic valuable dimension
of being, but also an axiological status, because they ground all ought-to-be. The different
118

Conclusion

THE AxIOLOGY OF DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND

types of ought – the ought-to-be of what is important, the due to respond to goods endowed
with value, and the moral obligation – allow us to understand the foundation of norms.
Hildebrand introduces different important metaphysical questions, e.g. whether we should
affirm that every being has some importance, or there are things that are completely neutral.
However, I have examined the one that seems crucial to me, that is, the question of whether
good can triumph over evil. On the basis of his metaphysics of values, Hildebrand answers this
question positively and shows that only if God exists is it possible to answer the “promise”
that every value contains within itself. Hildebrand’s entire analysis rests on an epistemological
premise, namely that we can experience not only facts, but also values. On the basis of this
experience we can carry out a rational and rigorous philosophical investigation of axiological
properties.
REFERENCES
Bonaventure, Itinerarium mentis in Deum;
Crosby, J. F. (2002). Dietrich von Hildebrand: Master of Phenomenological Value-Ethics. In J. J.
Drummond and L. Embree (Eds.), Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy: A Handbook.
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 475-96;
Crosby, J. F. (1977). The Idea of Value and the Reform of the Traditional Metaphysics of Bonum.
Aletheia 1 (1977), 231-338;
Da Re, A. (1991). Valore e conflitto di valori nell’etica fenomenologica. Etica e fenomenologia xiv,
1 (1991), pp. 41-98;
Drummond, J.J. (2002). Introduction: The Phenomenological Tradition and Moral Philosophy.
In J. J. Drummond and L. Embree (Eds.), Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy: A
Handbook. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic: 1-14;
Hildebrand, D. von (2021). What is Philosophy? Steubenville: Hildebrand Press;
Hildebrand, D. von (2020). Ethics. Steubenville: Hildebrand Press;
Hildebrand, D. von (2016). Aesthetics. Steubenville: Hildebrand Press;
Hildebrand, D. von (2009). Nature of Love. South Bend: St Augustine Press;
Hildebrand, D. von (1980). Moralia. In Gesammelte Werke, Band IX, Regensburg: Josef Habbel;
Husserl, E. (2001). Logical Investigation. London: Routledge;
Scheler, M. (1921). Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, Halle: Niemeyer;
Seifert, J. (1996). Sein und Wesen. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter;
Seifert, J. (1989). Essere e Persona. Milano: Vita e Pensiero;
Spinoza, B. (2018). Ethics Demonstrated in Geometric Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press;
Thomas Aquinas. Summa Contra Gentiles;
Thomad Aquinas. Summa Theologiae.

119

ROBERTA GUCCINELLI
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
roberta.guccinelli@unicatt.it

„SCHATTEN DER IRRESPONSIVITÄT“:
PATHOS OHNE RESPONSE /
RESPONSE OHNE PATHOS.
TRAUMA, WIDERSTAND UND
SCHELERS BEGRIFF DER
SEELISCHEN KAUSALITÄT
abstract
This paper discusses possible forms of loss or weakness of the ability to interact with others and the ways
in which this arises. In particular, in the context of socio-affective knowledge and related failures, it
focuses on certain deficits that primarily involve the body. The article aims to show that the “destiny”
of our inner drives and our lives—the specific solutions to which they are forced in their vicissitudes—
is less “blind” than it appears, leaving (albeit minimal) margins of escape, also because it has a
relational connotation. Starting from Bernhard Waldenfels’s recent work on the relationship between
phenomenology and psychoanalysis, in which this question is addressed from a phenomenologicalresponsive point of view, this article reflects on the problem by establishing a comparison between
Waldenfels’s philosophy and Max Scheler’s phenomenology of values. Beyond the differences that their
approaches to the problem of relational deficits present, Waldenfels and Scheler can be put in fruitful
dialogue with each other, starting from their common interest in Freudian psychoanalysis. Within this
framework, it is possible to evaluate, adopting Scheler’s point of view, both a methodological aspect and
a psychological presupposition of Freud’s ontogenesis of sympathy and love: associationism. From this
perspective, Freud reveals himself in part as an heir to British empiricism. I will argue that, with and
beyond Freud, the human being is not reducible to a mere sum of blind sensations or blind drives and
that for both at least certain forms of inability to interact with others are derivative—deformations
of normal responsivity and aberrations of normal pulsional-(relational) life—rather than originary
phenomena.
keywords
Pathos, Response, Irresponsivity, Relational Weakness, Wert

Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 120-142
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2308
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

„SCHATTEN DER IRRESPONSIVITÄT“

Es ist das dynamische Verhältnis von »Wirken und Leiden«, »Siegen und
Unterliegen«, von »Überwinden und Nachgebenmüssen«, das unserer
praktischen Erfahrung primärer Gehalt ist.
(Scheler, 82009, S. 152, emphasis added)

0. Sozial- und
Gemeinschaftsgefühlserkenntnis: Themen und
Kontext

In diesem Beitrag zu einer wichtigen und relativ neuen Arbeit von Bernhard Waldenfels,
Erfahrung, die zur Sprache drängt – einer Arbeit, in der Phänomenologie und Psychoanalyse „sich
gleichermaßen auf einer Schwelle bewegen, die Eigenes von Fremden trennt und es zugleich an
Fremdes bindet“ (2019, S. 10) –, möchten wir kurz auf eine Frage eingehen, die im Buch aus einer
responsiven Perspektive behandelt wird. Auch für Max Scheler war sie von großem Interesse.
Wir beziehen uns hier auf die Frage der möglichen Formen des Verlustes (oder der Schwäche)
der Fähigkeit, mit anderen interagieren zu können. Insbesondere möchten wir in diesem Kontext
einen methodischen Aspekt und gleichzeitig eine psychologische Voraussetzung von Freuds
Ontogenie der sympathischen Gefühle und der Liebe bei Scheler ans Licht bringen.
Woraus besteht, aus Erlebnissicht, der Verlust oder die (teilweise oder vollständige)
Beeinträchtigung der Beziehungsfähigkeit, zumindest in Fällen eines bestimmten Typs, die ein
mögliches Beispiel dafür darstellen können? Woraus besteht, zumindest in diesen Fällen, die
Entstehung dieses Phänomens?
Wir hatten die Gelegenheit, uns an anderer Stelle mit einer phänomenologischen
Unterscheidung zu befassen, die aus unserer Sicht bei der eventuellen Ausarbeitung einer
einheitlichen Theorie von Beziehungsakten- und Verhaltensweisen nicht vernachlässigt
werden sollte.1 Es handelt sich um die Unterscheidung zwischen First-Order-Akten- und
-Verhaltensweisen und Second-Order-Akten. Eine solche Theorie lässt viel Raum für mögliche
Defizite und ein Scheitern der Sozial- und Gemeinschaftsgefühlserkenntnis.
In diesem Sinn können wir, auch im Bereich der Formen mangelnder Beziehungsfähigkeit,
zwei Ordnungen unterscheiden:
– Defizite oder Verlust des leiblichen Selbst- und Fremdgefühls (der primären Erkenntnis,
oder besser gesagt, des primären Wissens unserer Leiber oder des Leibs anderer bzw.
der Interaktionsfähigkeit mit anderen Leibern: des Gemeinschaftsbewusstseins) (first
order)

1 Vgl. hierzu Guccinelli (2019, S. 84-99; 2016).

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ROBERTA GUCCINELLI

– Defizite oder Verlust der Selbst- und Fremderkenntnis (der sozialen und persönlichen
Erkenntnis oder der sozialen und persönlichen Interaktionsfähigkeit) (second order)
Wir werden einige Aspekte der Sozial- und Gemeinschaftsgefühlserkenntnis, insbesondere
jener der ersten Stufe, in Bezug auf das Thema der mangelnden Interaktionsfähigkeiten,
untersuchen, indem wir von Waldenfels’ Theorie des Fremden und von Schelers Werttheorie
ausgehen. Sie bilden, jede in ihrer Spezifität, wesentliche Theorien im Bereich der sozialen und
gemeinschaftlichen Erkenntnis für jeden, der sich, mit angemessenen phänomenologischen
Instrumenten – auch auf ökologischer und nicht nur auf sozio-persönlicher Ebene – mit den
Selbsttäuschungen und den Pathologien des gemeinsamen und teilgenommenen Lebens
befassen will. Die Psychoanalyse ist für beide Philosophen ein ständiger Vergleichsgrund. In
Bezug auf unser Thema lauten ihre grundlegenden Definitionen, von denen wir ausgehen
müssen, wie folgt: Waldenfels bezeichnet die Schwäche der Interaktionsfähigkeit als eine Form
„mangelnde[r] Responsivität […], die einen Alteritätsverlust nach sich zieht“ (2019, S. 19-20),
oder auch als „Irresponsivität“ (S. 285) (in dem Sinne, dass diese Schwäche ein Symptom dafür
ist). In seiner Wertphänomenologie, die Waldenfels von seiner responsiven Phänomenologie
abgrenzt2, führt Scheler seinerseits eine Untersuchung über die Formen partieller oder
vollständiger axiologischer Blindheit, zu denen die „pathologischen Ausfallserscheinungen
sympathischer Funktionen“ gehören (72005, S. 12). Es handelt sich um eine Untersuchung,
deren Früchte Scheler vorwiegend, aber nicht ausschließlich in Wesen und Formen der Sympathie
sammelt. Dieses Buch erscheint in seiner endgültigen Fassung 1923.3
Unser vergleichender Ansatz zum Verlust bzw. zur Schwäche der Beziehungsfähigkeit,
insbesondere zu bestimmten Arten von Selbsttäuschungen und pathologischen Illusionen
im fraglichen Kontext, erlauben uns, genau in Parallele mit Scheler, einen zentralen
Waldenfels’schen Begriff zu betonen, nämlich den der Responsivität. Von diesem Begriff muss
man in Waldenfels’ Perspektive ausgehen, um die Anomalien und/oder Pathologien der
Responsivität auch in ihrer spezifischen Verformung zu verstehen. Die verschiedenen Formen
mangelnder Responsivität sind aus Waldenfels’ Perspektive Verformungen des Responsiven
(oder Verformungen des Pathischen, mit dem das Responsive einen „Zweitakt“ (2019, S. 58)
darstellt). Diese Annäherung an die Schatten des geteilten und gemeinschaftlichen Lebens
(auch im Schelerianischen Sinne des Mit-Leidens und der Teilhabe am treibenden affektiven
Leben anderer) ermöglicht uns ebenfalls, den Reichtum und das Potenzial des Trieblebens
und allgemein des affektiv-konativen Lebens zu betonen, eines Lebens, das auch in Schelers
Gedanken reichlich Platz findet. Dieser Ansatz erlaubt uns, (auch) über jede mögliche
unbegründete Deutung von Schelers Denken hinauszugehen, wie z. B. jene, die noch heute sein
Denken als trockenen Dualismus zwischen sensorisch-triebhaftem Leben und sogenannter
spiritueller Existenz lesen möchte4.
Es ist kein Zufall, dass wir uns auf diesem Weg der Klärung der Beziehungsdefizite und
-störungen nicht nur von Waldenfels, sondern auch von Scheler leiten lassen. Dies hat
2 Vgl. hierzu Waldenfels (2015, S. 85-93).
3 Wenn 1913 die erste Version des Sympathiebuches unter einem anderen Titel erscheint (Zur Phänomenologie und
Theorie des Mitgefühls und von Liebe und Haß), erscheint gleichzeitig, im Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische
Forschung, der erste Teil von Schelers opus magnum, Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Neuer Versuch
der Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus, wo Hinweise auf die verschiedenen Formen der axiologischen Blindheit
nicht fehlen (82009). Unter Schelers bedeutendsten Werken, die sich mit Selbsttäuschungen und Pathologien der
Selbsterkenntnis und der Erkenntnis anderer befassen, erinnern wir uns noch an zwei Essays, die zum Sympathiebuch
mehr oder weniger zeitgenössisch sind: Die Idole der Selbsterkenntnis (51972a); Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen
(51972b).
4 Vgl. hierzu auch Cusinato (52009, S. 7-11).

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1. Freud zwischen
Waldenfels und
Scheler

„SCHATTEN DER IRRESPONSIVITÄT“

mit einem „Triebschicksal“5 zu tun, das sich, über Scheler, von einem passiv „erduldeten“
Schicksal zu einem „bevorzugten“ Schicksal verwandelt, zumindest zu einem gewissen Grad,
oder, in Waldenfels’ Sinn, zu einem „Poly-Beziehungs“-Schicksal. Anders gesagt, das Schicksal
eines Menschen übersetzt sich weder bei Scheler noch bei Waldenfels notwendigerweise in
einen narzisstischen Solipsismus oder einen Uregoismus oder sogar in eine bloße Summe
einzelner Instinkte und Triebe, wie in einer rein naturalistisch verstandenen Psychoanalyse,
sondern es zeigt uns, dass wir mit dem Fremden verflochten sind. In diesem Sinne möchten
wir zeigen, dass die Phänomenologie von Waldenfels und die von Scheler zweifellos (an der
„Schwelle“) zusammentreffen können: in einem gemeinsamen Versuch, auf eine Provokation
oder einen Anspruch zu antworten. Eine Anfrage, die aus Waldenfels’ Sicht aus einem Ereignis,
aus etwas, das uns berührt und einbezieht, aus dem Fremden kommt; ein Bedürfnis, das aus
Schelers Sicht primär von den Individuen, mit denen wir in derselben Realität leben, und von
den Dingen (Güter), die uns umgeben, gestellt wird. Individuen und Güter (oder Übel) bestehen
aus Werteinheiten. Die axiologische Einheit manifestiert die Einzigartigkeit und Irreduzibilität
dieser Individuen und Güter: Sie manifestiert das Gesicht dieser Individuen und Güter.
Scheler und Waldenfels können sich auch in dem Versuch treffen, die Einschränkungen
des traditionell verstandenen Mechanismus und der Assoziationspsychologie einerseits
sowie des narzisstischen Solipsismus und des bloßen Überlebenskampfes andererseits zu
überwinden, zu denen jedes Individuum, das auf ein Aggregat von Instinkten und Kräften
reduziert wird, verurteilt scheint. Assoziationspsychologie und narzisstischer Solipsismus,
das eindeutige Ausgehen von einer pathologischen oder perversen Sexualität, stellen aus
der Perspektive Schelers eine implizite Voraussetzung von Freuds psychologischer und
anthropologischer Lehre dar. Eine Voraussetzung, die dem klassischen englischen Empirismus
und – allgemein – dem Naturalismus (z.B. Spencer’s) entlehnt ist. Assoziationspsychologie
und universeller narzisstischer Solipsismus stellen eine ebenfalls implizite methodologische
Annahme von Freuds psychologischer und anthropologischer Lehre dar. Sie stellen in Form
einer revolutionären Theorie – nach Schelers Meinung – den Rest einer alten Konzeption
dar, die wir allgemein als Konstruktivismus definieren können. Im Grunde genommen wird
die Realität für Scheler, selbst in der Freud’schen Lehre, tatsächlich auf eine Reihe einzelner
Kräfte- und Instinkts(/Trieb)bewegungen reduziert, die in Konflikt miteinander stehen und
die, um erklärt zu werden – das heißt aus dem Chaos herausgerissen zu werden, in dem sie sich
befinden –, in einer geistigen Repräsentation neu zusammengesetzt werden müssen.
Die Tatsache, dass Scheler auf dem Gebiet der Beziehungsfähigkeit und des Mangels an
Interaktionsfähigkeit einen passenden Gesprächspartner für Waldenfels ist, wird von
Waldenfels selbst bestätigt. In Sozialität und Alterität gibt er zu – obwohl er einige kritische
Punkte in Schelers Theorie der sozialen Erkenntnis feststellt –, dass Scheler in Wesen und
Formen der Sympathie sich „so weit in die soziale Gefühlswelt vorgewagt hat wie kein anderer
Phänomenologe vor ihm und nach ihm.“ (Waldenfels, 2015, S. 90). Aber es gibt noch einen
weiteren Grund, Scheler in unsere mehrstimmige Reflexion über Waldenfels’ „Schatten
der Irresponsivität“ einzubeziehen. Unter den Philosophen sei Scheler, wie Waldenfels
in seinem neuen Buch erinnert (2019, S. 68), einer der ersten gewesen, die sich ernsthaft
mit der Untersuchung psychischer Prozesse und der Therapiepraxis des Begründers der
Psychoanalyse befasst haben. Nicht nur im Sympathiebuch, sondern auch in anderen Werken,

5 Freuds Triebe, oder Triebregungen, sind in ihrem eigenen „Schicksale“ zu spezifischen Lösungen gezwungen,
aber sie sind nicht durch Erbschaft fixiert, wie Instinkte, und können innerhalb bestimmter Grenzen variieren. Der
Trieb ist, aus Sicht der Motivation, ein Triebreiz, der aus dem Inneren, nicht aus der Außenwelt, stammt. Er ist ein
„Grenzbegriff, zwischen Seelischem und Somatischem“ (Freud, 1946, S. 214).

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ROBERTA GUCCINELLI

die er dem affektiven und axiologischen Leben widmete, und im Grunde genommen
direkt oder indirekt während seiner gesamten Existenz, befasste sich Scheler mit Freuds
psychologischer und anthropologischer Theorie.
„Responsivität“ ist ein Schlüsselbegriff in Waldenfels’ Phänomenologie, der dieser eine
besondere ethische Ausprägung verleiht. Genauer gesagt, bei Waldenfels wird Phänomenologie
im Sinne eines Ethos der Sinne dekliniert, das der normativen Ethik vorausgeht, die darauf
abzielt, die Prinzipien des moralischen Handelns zu rechtfertigen, und „sinnliche Impulse
aufgreift“ (2019, S. 261). Aus responsiver Sicht wird die Phänomenologie, im Sinne der
Husserl’schen Tradition verstanden, mit der Frage des Fremden radikal konfrontiert. Mit
anderen Worten, sie wird mit einem Anspruch oder mit einer Provokation konfrontiert, die
anderswo herkommen und sich jeder Kontrolle entziehen. Waldenfels’ Phänomenologie ist
eine Phänomenologie, die sich in jeder möglichen Deklination um die Erfahrung des Fremden
dreht, die/der/das sich in Form eines Pathos in ihrer/seiner irreduziblen, extremen Radikalität
ankündigt. Pathos bezieht sich in diesem Kontext auf jene ursprüngliche Passivität, deren
grundlegende Bedeutung die des Leidens ist. Eine Passivität jedoch, die eine Gegenerfahrung
in Gang setzt und die genau aus diesem Grund von Waldenfels auch als Widerfahrnis definiert
wird. Pathos oder Widerfahrnis sei, was uns geschehe, uns betreffe, uns entgegenkomme oder
uns erschüttere, und indem es sich auf diese Weise manifestiere, appelliere es an uns, spreche
uns an. Die entscheidenden Fragen, die Waldenfels dazu veranlassen, die Phänomenologie
in responsiven Begriffen zu überarbeiten, betreffen nicht in erster Linie den Sinn unseres
Verhaltens oder die Regeln, an die es sich halten muss, sondern im Vergleich dazu etwas
Primäres, das sich auf die Sphäre des Sinnlichen bezieht. Solche Fragen sind: „Wovon sind
wir leibhaftig getroffen und worauf antworten wir, wenn wir uns in bestimmter Weise zur
Welt und zur Mitwelt äußern und verhalten“? (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 18). In seiner primären
Bedeutung, in der „Urszene der Erfahrung“, in der Waldenfels Terminologie, oder wo die
sinnliche Erfahrung beginnt, bezeichnet Antwort daher ein Verhalten eines Lebewesens,
eine Form des leiblichen Ausdrucks. Insbesondere ein Antworten, das nicht als Sprechen
oder als Versuch beginnt, Lücken kognitiver oder praktisch-instrumentaler Art auszufüllen,
sondern das die Dringlichkeit des Anspruchs spürt, den jemand erhebt; ein Antworten, bei
dem derjenige/diejenige, die antwortet, „nicht aus eigener Initiative [antwortet], sondern
einem fremden Impuls folgend oder sich ihm widersetzend“ (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 255).
Ein Antworten, das in einer prä-normativen Erfahrung besteht, die sich in ihrem eigenen
Antworten als kreativ offenbart, ohne das zu erschaffen, was eine Antwort verlangt, was einen
Blick und ein Zuhören auffängt, ist eine Response.
Pathos und Response bestehen in einem „Doppelereignis” (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 75) oder
„Zweitakt”, in dem sich eine „doppelte Figur“ (S. 58) manifestiert: die eines*einer von etwas
getroffenen Patienten*in und die eines*einer Respondent*in, in den*die sich der*die Patient*in
verwandelt, in dem Moment, in dem er*sie auf etwas antwortet. Allerdings können die beiden
Rollen niemals zur Deckung kommen.6 Das Fremde ist auch das, was wir selbst für uns sind;
etwas, das sich auf jeden Fall dadurch manifestiert, dass es sich unserem Zugriff entzieht. Es
wird als ein Grenzphänomen – in der Trennung von ihm und zugleich in der Vereinigung
mit ihm – in seiner Anknüpfung mit dem Eigenen erlebt. Genau der Zweitakt aus Pathos
und Response in seiner zeitlichen Besonderheit ermöglicht uns, die ursprüngliche Spaltung
des Selbst zu verstehen. Was uns geschieht oder uns auffällt, das, wovon wir affiziert und
angesprochen werden, worauf wir eingehen oder woran wir uns beteiligen, ist ein Ereignis,

6 Vgl. hierzu Waldenfels (2019, S. 58).

124

2. Responsivität
und
Irresponsivität

„SCHATTEN DER IRRESPONSIVITÄT“

das noch kein Subjekt als Urheber seiner Erfahrungen voraussetzt. Daher beginne jede
Initiative, die ergriffen werden kann, jede Antwort, niemals bei sich selbst, sondern anderswo.
Sie gehe, wie Waldenfels oft betont, sich selbst voraus.7 Jede mögliche Antwort komme also
immer zu spät, im Vergleich zu einem Ereignis oder Pathos, das stattdessen zu früh komme.
Diese Zeitverschiebung ereignet sich genau in der Antwort, die anderswo beginne und die
aufgeschoben werde –, und die Waldenfels als „Diastase“ definiert: als „ein Auseinandertreten
der Zeit, das sich niemals restlos in einer sinnverbürgenden »Ursynthese« [...] einfangen
lässt“ (2019, S. 57). Freud definiert seinerseits diese Zeitverschiebung als „Nachträglichkeit“,
die er „in seiner Analyse und Behandlung traumatischer Ereignisse durchaus berücksichtigt“
(Waldenfels, 2019, S. 75). Der Fall des Wolfsmannes sei, wie Waldenfels bemerkt, unter diesem
Gesichtspunkt beispielhaft. Nicht nur, weil das traumatische Ereignis erst später als das
Ereignis selbst auftrete und sich in der Analyse als posthume Wirkung manifestiere, die sich
jedoch nicht auf eine rein physisch-kausale Wirkung reduzieren lasse, sondern auch, weil es
dank einer Sprachkur möglich sei, rückwirkend im Hinblick auf die eigene Vergangenheit zu
handeln. Es handle sich nicht um eine solipsistische Rückwirkung. Die spätere Interpretation,
die der*die erwachsenen Patient*in des Ereignisses anbiete, schließe als Objekt anderes*andere
ein, auf welches*welche er*sie irgendwie antworte. Sowohl Jean Laplanche als auch Waldenfels
zeigen dies deutlich – jenseits Freuds, das heißt jenseits der bloßen Alternativen „reale
Wirkung“/„wunschständiges Phantasma“ (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 75).
Die Nichtdeckung, genauer gesagt die Verbindung in der Trennung, der*des Patient*in
(im Sinne von Waldenfels) mit dem*der Respondent*in oder unseres Leibs mit sich selbst,
der sowohl gesehen wird als auch sehend ist, ist Ausdruck einer ursprünglichen Spaltung
des Selbst, die in bestimmten Fällen pathologisch werden kann. Wobei die Pathologie der
normalen Spaltung des Selbst nicht völlig fremd ist, da letztere von Spannungen oder
Anomalien durchdrungen ist. Ganz zu schweigen davon, dass das „Pathische […] überdies
einen Zug zum Pathologischen auf[weist]“ (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 18) und Dissoziationen
unter bestimmten Umständen innerhalb des Doppelereignisses von Pathos und Response
auftreten können, wobei sich ein Mitglied vom anderen trennen kann oder umgekehrt.
So kann sich das Pathos von der Response oder die Response vom Pathos abspalten. In
dem einen Fall manifestiert sich die Dissoziation in Form von Pathos ohne Response, in dem
anderen manifestiert sie sich in Form von Response ohne Pathos. In beiden Fällen stehen
wir vor dem, was Waldenfels als Schatten der Irresponsivität bezeichnet. In der Tat kann
sich die Irresponsivität „[...] in mangelnder Ansprechbarkeit“ (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 285)
niederschlagen.
2.1. Formen der
Irresponsivität

Wenn die Dissoziation in Richtung einer Tendenz zu einem Pathos ohne Response erfolgt,
kann sie sich in Form von Schocks manifestieren: Angesichts von Ereignissen, die ihn wegen
ihrer Gewalt zu überwältigen drohen, erscheint der Leib versteinert oder erstarrt. Er ist daher
nicht in der Lage, eine Antwort zu artikulieren. Er erscheint zum Beispiel als Körper, der in
Panik verstummt. Wenn wir noch einmal an den Fall des Wolfsmannes oder an andere von
Freud untersuchte Fälle denken, wie den eines Mädchens, „das an der erotischen Bindung
an den Vater festhält“ (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 56), dann verstehen wir leicht, wie Pathos ohne
Response in einigen Fällen eine zeitliche Konnotation haben kann. Wenn diese Art von
Dissoziation sich in Form eines Traumas verschlimmert, kann die Überwältigung durch das
Pathos zu einer Fixierung auf die Vergangenheit führen:

7 Vgl. hierzu auch Waldenfels (2006).

125

ROBERTA GUCCINELLI

Traumatisch ist ein Ereignis, das dauerhaft als traumatisch erlebt wird. Das
traumatische Ereignis, auf das der Patient fixiert bleibt, äußert sich in einem
traumatischen Erlebnis, das seinerseits fixiert, eingefroren oder verhärtet ist […] Es
ist, als wären solche Menschen »an ein bestimmtes Stück ihrer Vergangenheit fixiert,
verständen nicht davon freizukommen, und seien deshalb der Gegenwart und der
Zukunft entfremdet«; sie stecken in ihrer Krankheit wie hinter Klostermauern ([Freud],
GW XI, [1940], S. 282) […] Das traumatische Ereignis bleibt kein isolierter Einzelfall, es
bildet den Keim einer Geschichte […] (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 55-56).
Die Tatsache, dass das „traumatische Ereignis kein isolierter Einzelfall“ ist, zeigt – wie
Freud sich zumindest implizit, wenn auch nicht immer explizit auf theoretischer Ebene,
grundsätzlich bewusst war –, dass der Leib, wie Waldenfels schreibt, „sich nicht auf getrennte
Sinneskanäle verteilen“ (2019, S. 57) lasse. Dass jedoch in seiner Lehre implizit einige Aspekte
der mechanistischen Physiologie und Psychologie des 19. Jahrhunderts erhalten bleiben, zeigt
Scheler andererseits, und wir möchten kurz darauf eingehen.
Zu den Erscheinungen des unbeantworteten Pathos zählen auch jene Wahnvorstellungen,
„in denen sich nicht nur die Eigenheit des Selbst, sondern auch die Andersheit des Anderen
verflüchtigt“ (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 79).
Fälle von Schwäche des Pathos hingegen, wenn die Dissoziation in Form von Response ohne
Pathos auftritt, sind beispielsweise die einer „Abwehr des Fremden“, der „Anklammerung an
das Eigene“, der „Allmachtsphantasie“, der „Phobie, als rituelle Klischeeformationen“, oder
der „Hyporeaktivität“. Es handelt sich tatsächlich um eingefrorene, stereotype Antworten,
die keine Bedürfnisse oder Aussagen anderer berücksichtigen. In solchen Fällen verliert der
„Andere […] dabei mehr oder weniger sein Gesicht“ (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 79).
In beiden Fällen geht mit dem Verlust der Eigenheit und/oder der Andersheit einerseits und
mit dem des Gesichts Anderer andererseits die Spezifität und der Reichtum der betreffenden
Lebewesen verloren; es geht nämlich jene Beziehungsdimension verloren, die auch zu offenen
Formen von Konflikten führen kann und die folglich keineswegs von Gefahren befreit ist,
die jedoch Index der Differenz bleibt, die jedes Leben bewohnt. In den Fällen der fraglichen
Irresponsivität stellen wir auf der einen Seite einen Verlust an Differenz fest in dem Sinne,
dass das beteiligte Wesen, das von der mangelnden Responsivität betroffen ist, sich in einem
undifferenzierten Zustand befindet; auf der anderen Seite stellen wir einen Verlust der Differenz
in dem Sinne fest, dass das fragliche Selbst, das seinerseits von der mangelnden Responsivität
betroffen ist, sich in der vollständigsten irresponsiven Indifferenz befindet. In der Anerkennung
der tiefsten Differenz jedes Lebewesens trifft Waldenfels irgendwie (auf) Scheler.
Einer der wichtigsten Vorzüge dieses Buches besteht darin, folgende Frage aus der Perspektive
der Psychoanalyse zu stellen und ihr eine originelle „Antwort“ zu geben, indem es sich
auf die mögliche Wiederherstellung von Antwortfähigkeit konzentriert – und zwar, „ob
psychopathologische Phänomene primär Symptome eines Triebskonflikts sind, der zu einem
Realitätsverlust führt, oder ob sie nicht ebensosehr Symptome einer mangelden Responsivität
sind, die einen Alteritätsverlust nach sich zieht” (Waldenfels, 2019, S. 19-20).
Scheler begrüßt und überarbeitet häufig kritisch – da er die seiner Meinung nach zu
naturalistische allgemeine Struktur des Freud’schen Unternehmens nicht teilt – verschiedene
Ideen Freuds und mehrere Akquisitionen der Psychoanalyse: den Begriff der Libido und den
der Unterdrückung, zum Beispiel, den Einfluss elterlicher Modelle auf die Entstehung und
Orientierung der affektiven Erlebnisse einer Person, die entscheidende Bedeutung einer
bestimmten erotisch-affektiven „Objektwahl“ (Freud, 1942, S. 100), die sich jeweils bereits
in der Kindheit manifestieren und für das gesamte Leben eines Individuums, insbesondere
126

3. Die Wirkung
der Erfahrung aus
der Perspektive
Schelers

„SCHATTEN DER IRRESPONSIVITÄT“

in der Fixierung bestimmter sexueller Orientierungen, bestehen, oder auch die Idee zum
Beispiel, „einer Art von Verschiedenheit der Wirkung des Eindrucks in seinem verschiedenen
Stellenwert innerhalb einer typischen Lebensgeschichte“ (Scheler, 72005, S. 196). Mit anderen
Worten kann man sagen, dass Scheler mit Freud, in diesem speziellen Fall, die Hypothese
einer Erotik frühkindlicher Eindrücke annimmt und sie in die gesamte Lebensgeschichte eines
Individuums einordnet. Er meint daher in einem ontogenetischen Sinn, genau wie Freud,
den Prozess der Entwicklung und Reifung des Menschen. Er lenkt jedoch die Aufmerksamkeit
auf die Besonderheiten und „Vorzüge“ jedes einzelnen Lebewesens, das ebenfalls zu einer
bestimmten Art gehört. Gleichzeitig schätzt Scheler, in diesem speziellen Punkt, die Distanz
Freuds zum traditionellen Empirismus: Aufgrund der Entität und der Art der Wirkung, die sie
auf die Struktur des einheitlichen Lebens eines Individuums haben, besitzen die Eindrücke
einen spezifischen Stellenwert im typischen Bildungsprozess des betreffenden Wesens.
Der Empirist hingegen misst, laut Scheler, dem genauen Entwicklungsstadium des
betreffenden Individuums kein „Wertgewicht“ bei. Es zählt für ihn nicht, wann sich in einem
seelischen Gesamtverlauf ein Eindruck und das entsprechende Erlebnis manifestieren. In der
Tat glaubt er, dass der Ort, an dem eine Erfahrung stattfindet, völlig neutral, „gleichgültig“
(Scheler, 72005, S. 196) ist, und dass die Wirksamkeit des Eindrucks nicht die „Verschiedenheit“
(S. 196) bestimmt, die selbst der „abgelenkte“ Beobachter (derselbe Empirist) in den
verschiedenen Altersstufen der Menschen passiv erkennt. Er erlebt das Phänomen
höchstens als déjà vu, als ob die Unterschiede bei jedem Menschen eine Reihe früherer und
reproduzierbarer Erlebnisse voraussetzen würden, von denen sie abhängen sollen, da „der
Eindruck da und dort verschiedene Spuren andersartiger Erfahrungen vorfindet“ (Scheler,
7
2005, S. 197). Im Scheler’schen Beispiel erkennt der Empirist, wie gesagt, in gewissem
Maße die Verschiedenheit, aber er erlebt sie nicht im Erstaunen oder im angemesseneren
Erlebnis, das sie hervorrufen sollte. Warum, zum Beispiel, könnte man fragen, erschüttert
eine bestimmte Kindheitserfahrung ein Kind tief und für den Rest seines Lebens und lässt
ein anderes völlig gleichgültig? Warum können wir nur bestimmte Arten von Lüsten und
„Unlüsten“ erleben und andere nicht? Warum verspürt jemand Ekel vor bestimmten Arten
von Objekten und vor anderen nicht? Warum kann jemand nur dadurch erregt werden,
dass er sich selbst und/oder andere verletzt? Der Empirist (aber ein analoger Diskurs würde
auch den Nativisten für Scheler einbeziehen) fühlt nicht die emotionale Valenz, die eine
Erlebnisvariation in ihm hervorrufen kann, selbst wenn er tatsächlich einige Unterschiede
zugibtbzw. erkennt. Aber es muss genau in dieser Verschiedenheit, für jede*n von uns etwas
wirklich Entscheidendes verborgen sein, selbst für diejenigen, die nicht einmal in der Lage zu
sein scheinen, die emotionalen Erlebnisse anderer nachzufühlen; etwas, wovon wir, in einer
bestimmten Erfahrung, die wir hatten, in einem unwiederholbaren Moment und in einer
bestimmten Phase unseres Wachstums, tief berührt gewesen sind und das uns verwandelt
hat oder von dem wir kaum berührt wurden, oder etwas, das wir nicht einmal fühlen und
das uns aus diesem Grund nicht verwandelt oder nur wenig verändert. Der Empirist lässt
das, was für seine Augen selbstverständlich (obvious), offensichtlich erscheint, in seiner NichtOffensichtlichkeit (non obvious) verborgen bleiben. Diese „Selbstverständlichkeit“ (Scheler,
7
2005, S. 196) ist im Gegenteil eine originelle „»Form«“ der Verständlichkeit oder „» der
Auffassung« und eine „»Kategorie« – gleichsam – für das ganze spätere Leben und »mögliche«
Leben“ (S. 197) des betreffenden Menschen.
Aber genau die Annahme dessen, was wir als „Prinzip der Offensichtlichkeit (obvious) des
Empiristen“ definieren können, bedeutet aus Schelers Sicht, das Erlebnis auf eine bloße
Kopie und auf Komplexe organischer und kinästhetischer Empfindungen zu reduzieren: auf
eine Erinnerung und auf die Reproduktion der Komplexe von Empfindungen, die, in einer
bestimmten Phase des Entwicklungsprozesses eines Menschen, die Bewegung der Glieder
127

ROBERTA GUCCINELLI

im Ablauf einer bestimmten Handlung in der Umwelt begleitet hätten. Reproduktion und
Assoziation, Prinzipien der Assoziationspsychologie, die ihren angemessenen Nutzen in
ihrem spezifischen Forschungsgebiet haben, haben jedoch das Erlebnis zerschnitten und
dessen Einheitlichkeit (des Erlebnisses) disartikuliert; sie haben es zu Staubkörnern oder
kleinen Blöcken reduziert, die seine Einheitlichkeit pulverisiert haben, um es erklärbar zu
machen (was nicht verständlich bedeutet). Auch auf der Ebene des affektiven Erlebnisses hat
all dies oft dazu geführt, die fragliche Realität auf ein Chaos einzelner Empfindungen, Lustund Unlustzustände sowie einzelner Triebbewegungen zu reduzieren. Aus Schelerianischer
Sicht ist es genau die Sensibilität in ihrer affektiven Modalität, die uns ermöglicht, in jeder
möglichen Ausdruckerscheinung die Wirklichkeit zu fühlen. Das von Scheler kritisierte
„konstruktivistische“ Verfahren führt folglich zum Zerbrechen a parte objecti der axiologischaffektiven Einheiten (der Güter, der Übel, der Gefahren, der Genüsse etc., dessen was uns
glücklich macht oder uns oder andere erschreckt), das heißt der Korrelate des Gefühlslebens,
in denen sich die Wirklichkeit ankündigt, bevor sie klar dargestellt werden kann.
Freud selbst, der, wie wir gesehen haben, das Zentrum (im Stellenwert) erfassen konnte,
aus dem sich zumindest eine Verschiedenheit im Leben einzelner Menschen ergibt, wird
gleichzeitig in diesem Punkt von Scheler kritisiert: In seiner Ontogenie der Sympathie- und
Liebesgefühle würde er der englischen Assoziationspsychologie in gewissem Maße selbst zum
Opfer fallen, da er den „allgemeinen Bestandteil an Prinzipien der Erklärung“ (72005, S. 177)
dieser psychologischen Strömung aufgenommen und vorausgesetzt hat.
Der grundlegende Fehler der Assoziationstheorie und jeder Theorie der Liebe oder der
Sympathiegefühle, die einseitig im naturalistischen (physisch-kausalen) Sinne unausgeglichen
ist, besteht nicht so sehr darin, die Tatsachen in ihrer eigenen Spezifizität und ihrer Einheit zu
sehen und dann eine sehr schlechte Erklärung davon zu geben, sondern er besteht laut Scheler
in ihrer Blindheit gegenüber den Tatsachen. Wenn man in der Erklärung einer Tatsache von
den Bedürfnissen der Erklärung ausgeht, die will, dass die Tatsachen tatsächlich sozusagen
auf eine Vielzahl von Atomen reduziert werden – wie im Atomismus der Empfindung, der
uns, sobald er angenommen wird, zwingt, die Wahrnehmung in Begriffen einer Vorstellung
zu interpretieren, die diese Daten reorganisieren kann –, dann ist es unvermeidlich, von
elementaren Daten auszugehen, um weniger elementare Phänomene zu bilden. So wird die
Geschlechtsliebe bei Freud, obwohl sie nicht ganz blind ist, aus einfacheren Daten konstruiert:
aus „einem ganz allgemeinen undifferenzierten Liebesgefühl (Wohlwollen)“ und aus einem
Geschlechtstrieb, den Freud als „völlig blind“ und „wahllos“ (Scheler, 72005, S. 202) ansieht; aus
einem Geschlechtstrieb, der wiederum einer noch einfacheren Libido folgt, die ihren Ursprung
wiederum in einer noch einfacheren, primitiven Empfindung (der Wollustempfindung) hat,
die von bloßen Lustzuständen (den sinnlichen Gefühlen) begleitet wird. Wenn man, rein
positivistisch und nach den Prinzipien der Assoziationspsychologie, annimmt, dass „[...] solche
Empfindungen zunächst auf mechanische Weise durch eine zufällige Reizung der erogenen
Zonen des Säuglings erzeugt [werden], so könnte man geneigt sein, alles Streben nach einem
Wiederhaben gearteter Empfindungen mit dem Namen »libido« zu bezeichnen“ (Scheler,
7
2005, S. 198).
Eine Konstruktion dieser Art stammt nach Schelers Begriffen aus einem methodischen Fehler,
in dem Sinne, dass sie die Realität systematisch „umkippt“, um ein Ergebnis im Hinblick
auf den Zweck des jeweiligen Autors oder auf die Erklärung, zu der er gelangen will, zu
erzielen. Sie erlaubt Freud, die Normalfälle zu erklären (mehr als zu verstehen), basierend auf
anormalen, krankhaften Tatsachen. Von diesem Standpunkt aus betrachtet, konstruiert Freud,
eben ausgehend von elementaren und unbestimmten Daten – von einer Vielzahl einzelner,
atomistischer Phänomene, und nicht von Phänomenen, die in ihrer Spezifität und ihrer
128

3.1. Schelers
Kritik an Freuds
Konstruktivismus

„SCHATTEN DER IRRESPONSIVITÄT“

genauen Physiognomie erfasst werden –, auch Impulse und Gefühle. Impulse und Gefühle wie
zum Beispiel die Geschlechtsliebe, die ihrer Natur nach raffinierter, artikulierter und zentraler
ist als andere Erlebnisse – raffinierter und zentraler zum Beispiel als ein (von Natur aus)
einfacher und peripherer Sinneszustand. Folglich leugnet Freud, in Schelers Interpretation
seines methodischen Ansatzes, die Originalität und die Fähigkeit nicht nur der Libido,
sondern auch des Geschlechtstriebs und sogar der Geschlechtsliebe, über sich selbst hinaus
zu sehen. Die Triebe im Allgemeinen sehen aus Schelers „Sicht“ schon, obwohl sie nicht sehen
können, wie eine Geschlechtsliebe zum Beispiel sehen kann. Tatsächlich haben sie nach der
Meinung des Philosophen kein Bild und keine Darstellung des Objekts, dennoch sind sie nach
„Objekten“ (als Werteinheiten gemeint) axiologisch ausgerichtet und sie sind individualisiert
(wenngleich auf schwache Weise).8
Wenn auch dieser Wertstandpunkt berücksichtigt werden soll, genügt es, Freuds Begriff der
Perversion mit dem von Scheler zu vergleichen. Betrachten wir eine Perversion zum Beispiel
in ihrer autoerotischen Version, um ein genaues Beispiel aus ihrer jeweiligen Sicht (des
Psychoanalytikers und des Philosophen) dafür zu haben, was es bedeutet, vorübergehend oder
dauerhaft die Beziehungsfähigkeit zu verlieren. In Anbetracht der jeweils unterschiedlichen
Hypothesen zu den Modalitäten der Bildung von Phänomenen im Allgemeinen, einschließlich
anomaler oder pathologischer Phänomene, werden auch die Hypothesen zu den möglichen
Modalitäten der Bildung von Perversionen unterschiedlich sein.
3.2. Ein Beispiel
für mangelnde
Beziehungsfähigkeit:
der pathologische
Autoerotiker

In seinem Assoziationsansatz sieht Freud – nach Schelers Lesart – in Perversionen keine
Abweichungen von einem ursprünglichen Trieb, sondern bloße „Fixierungen kindlicher
Entwicklungsstufen“ (72005, S. 201), die im Normalfall überwunden werden. Aus einem „Rest“
dieser Stufen, aus deren Formen elementarer libidinöser Phänomene, kann Freud etwas als
„»Material«“ (S. 201) ziehen, das er für die Konstruktion der normalen Geschlechstliebes
braucht.
Schelers Material dagegen, um bei der prägnanten Bedeutung eines Begriffs zu bleiben, der
hier nicht zufällig von Scheler verwendet wird, wird von Werten dargeboten, ohne dass
diese jedoch Baumaterial sind. Sie bestehen im Gegenteil aus den qualitativen Aspekten der
Wirklichkeit. Bei unseren Erkundungen der Umwelt und der jeweiligen Werteinheiten oder
praktischen Güter und bei Begegnungen mit anderen können Werte sich unserem Zugriff
widersetzen. Werte gehören zu den jeweiligen Gütern (Wertdingen) und/oder zur jeweiligen
axiologischen Struktur eines Individuums. Von beiden, von Dingen und/oder von Menschen,
zeigen sie die Eigenart oder den Unterschied (bzw. Widerstand). Werte (in ihren jeweiligen
Gegenständen) können, nicht nur unsere emotionalen Erlebnisse, einschließlich der geteilten
Gefühle, sondern auch unser Verhalten motivieren und unsere Beziehungen entscheiden.
Aber gerade in der mehr oder weniger angemessenen Orientierung an bestimmten Werten
kann ein Verhalten eine bestimmte Wendung nehmen (gut oder schlecht, normal oder quasinormal bzw. pervers etc.). In der manchmal pathologischen Blickverschiebung von Werten,
in der Umkehrung (das heißt in der intentionalen Orientierung des Fühlens, wenn das Leben
nicht wächst und nicht bereichert wird, gerade durch die Begegnung mit neuen Werten,
sondern auf eine Vielzahl von einzelnen Empfindungen reduziert wird) macht die axiologische
Wirklichkeit keinen Unterschied mehr bzw. keine „Differenz“ mehr.
Schelers Begriff der „Perversion“ kann vielleicht nach diesen Präzisierungen leichter
verstanden werden, auch im Gegensatz zum Freud’schen. Die Perversion besteht für
Scheler nicht aus einer Konstruktion und sie ist nicht einmal ein normales, sondern

8 Vgl. hierzu Guccinelli (2019).

129

ROBERTA GUCCINELLI

ein modifiziertes Phänomen. Wie gesagt, für Freud sind Perversionen – bemerkt
Scheler – gerade „die ganz allgemein verbreiteten primitiven Formen von libidinösen
Regungen überhaupt, das »Material« gleichsam, aus dem auch der Aufbau des normalen
Geschlechtstriebes stets erfolge“ (72005, S. 201-202). Scheler glaubt im Gegenteil, dass nicht
nur Geschlechtstriebe eine ursprüngliche Tatsache sind, die sich nicht auf eine Summe
blinder Empfindungen reduzieren lässt und die mit einer Wertorientierung ausgestattet
ist, sondern dass auch die Libido „eine ursprüngliche Strebenstatsache“ (72005, S. 200)
ist, die in ihrem Wert-„Objekt“ – das nicht bereits vorgestellt und nicht einmal gewollt
ist – „durch eine Regung der vitalen Liebe“ (S. 200) bestimmt (gegründet) wird. Und letztere
ist wiederum nicht auf eine Strebung reduzierbar. Darüber hinaus richtet sich die vitale
Liebe (als Funktion), wovon jede Regung des gleichen Typs (vital) Ausdruck ist, auf den
ganzen Leib anderer, nicht auf einen Teil dieses Leibs. Es sind die eidetischen, vergangenen
Erlebnisse von Liebe und Hass, die affektiven Vorzüge, auch wo es sich um First-OrderErlebnisse handelt, die jene selektiven Formen (a priori-Wissen, das auf weitere Erlebnisse
anwendbar ist) der Liebe und des Hasses (und der Strebungen, der Triebe usw.) werden,
in denen weitere Objekte des gleichen Typs geliebt und gehasst werden können. Eine
Perversion ist daher, aus Schelers Perspektive, immer „eine Abirrung des normalen Triebes,
die mehr oder weniger Krankhaft ist und in keiner Weise als etwas generell »Angeborenes«
bezeichnet werden kann“ (72005, S. 201). Sie ist eine Abirrung eines normalen Triebes, der
im Falle der Erotik ein Beziehungstrieb ist. Der Trieb unterscheidet sich daher sowohl von
einem völlig irrationalen und blinden Erlebnis als auch von einzigen, peripheren, nichtintentionalen und einfacheren Erlebnissen wie jenen der einzelnen Sinneszustände aus
denen er nicht aufgebaut ist und deren Summe er nicht bildet. Der Trieb kann jedoch einen
negativen Einfluss auf das Leben eines Menschen haben, nicht nur einen positiven, und
zwar in dem Sinne, dass er andere Erlebnisse, zum Beispiel die der emotionalen Sphäre, zur
Perversion veranlassen kann. Das Bild des pathologischen Autoerotikers erscheint an sich
beredt:
Das Abgleiten des Blickes von dem an den Dingen und in den Dingen gefühlten Wert
auf unser Gefühl während des Habens des Wertes, ja schon auf das Fühlen des Wertes
als besondere Funktion der Wertaufnahme, ist der Anfang einer Erscheinung, die, nur
quantitativ gesteigert, zum Abnormen und Krankhaften führt. [...] So gleitet auch der
Blick des krankhaften Autoerotikers von dem geliebten Gegenstand und seinem Werte
immer auf die eigene Empfindung ab, bis sich diese und die ihr anhaftenden sinnlichen
Gefühle ganz vor die Wertgegenstände drängen und ihm diese immer mehr verdunkeln;
so weit, daß er schließlich ganz im Eigenzustand und in dessen Analyse wie in einem
Gefängnis eingeschlossen ist. Es scheint mir in Fällen solcher Art nicht an erster Stelle
das pure Gefühlsmaterial, die Qualität der Gefühle, ihre Stärke, ihre Verknüpfung
mit bestimmten Inhalten, was eine Variation gegen das normale Leben gefunden
hat, sondern die Funktion des Fühlens, die ihre primäre Richtung auf Werte, und
zwar zunächst auf Außen- und Fremdwerte, verloren hat. Sie hat an Stelle dessen die
Vorzugsrichtung »auf sich« und die eigenen Zustände angenommen (Scheler, 51972a, S.
263-264).
Alles beginnt mit einem Blick, der sich von den Dingen, dem geliebten Objekt und seinen
Werten entfernt, die ihm seinen eigenen Stil verleihen. Alles beginnt mit einer Hinwendung
zu den eigenen sinnlichen Zuständen und den eigenen, einzigen Empfindungen. Und die
Welt der Werte, an der unsere Beziehungsfähigkeit und Aufgeschlossenheit oder unser SichVerschließen gegenüber anderen gemessen wird, die unser Leben bei jedem Schritt motiviert,
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erlischt im Schweigen eines Körpers, und sie wird durch sinnliche, einzige Gefühle verdunkelt:
ein Körper, der buchstäblich konsumiert wird. Und er hat dennoch, vielleicht indirekt, eine
Vorzugsrichtung eingeschlagen.
3.3. Seelische
Kausalität oder
Schicksal nach
Scheler

Es ist notwendig, beide Punkte zu berücksichtigen, die wir unterstrichen haben, das heißt
Freuds Hypothese des Stellenwerts von Eindrücken in der Entwicklung und Reifung des
Organismus, des Individuums der menschlichen Spezies. sowie die Einheit des Lebens oder die
globale Entwicklung und Reifung.
Das „Gesamtleben“ (Scheler, 72005, S. 196), worauf etwas eine „Wirkung“ (einen Eindruck mit
einem Stellenwert) haben kann, schließt (aus einer streng Scheler’schen Perspektive) bereits
aus, dass der biologische/psychologische „Reiz“ auf den kausalen reduziert wird, da letzterer
nur eine punktförmige, lokalisierte Wirkung haben kann; das heißt, dass er eine Wirkung nur
an einem bestimmten Punkt des Leibes haben kann. Der Leib wiederum wäre auf einen bloßen
(physischen) Körper, auf einen einfachen Körper-Gegenstand reduziert. Er wäre genau in die
einzelnen betroffenen Teile pulverisiert, wenn er einfach mit physikalisch-kausalen Reizen
bombardiert würde – wenn wir seine doppelte Natur nicht berücksichtigen (Körper-Leib).
An der Grenze ist es möglich, einem kausalen Reiz zu widerstehen, oder es ist möglich, dass
einige physische Reize völlig unberührt bleiben („– z.B. elektrische und magnetische Ströme,
Strahlen aller Art, die ich nicht empfinde usw.“) (Scheler, 82009, S. 153).
Die „Wirkung“ hingegen, die ein biologisch/psychologisch beabsichtigter „Reiz“ haben kann,
ist keine Wirkung in ihrer physikalisch-kausalen Bedeutung, sondern eine „Wirksamkeit“, die
eine Variation des einheitlichen Leibs und des jeweiligen Lebens bestimmt. Die Werte müssen
natürlich, im Guten, zu dem sie gehören, buchstäblich hervorstechen, um eine „Differenz“
wirklich erzeugen zu können.
Beide Punkte – Stellenwert und Gesamtleben – stehen in engem Zusammenhang mit einer
„seelischen Kausalität überhaupt“ (Scheler, 72005, S. 196), für die Scheler zugibt, dass er
Vorschläge von Freuds Kausalität einbezogen hat. Freuds Idee, dass bestimmte Orientierungen,
in der Zeitphase vor der Pubertät, auf bestimmte erotisch gefärbte Objekte werden sein,
die die Gesamtstruktur des zukünftigen Lebens eines Menschen bestimmen können, ist
die Schwelle auf der Schelers Phänomenologie und Freuds Psychoanalyse sich treffen.
Scheler betont die Besonderheit dieser psychischen Kausalität – für ihn eine ganz andere
als die physisch-natürliche –, nach der jeder Moment einen unwiederholbaren, originalen,
individuellen Moment in der Entwicklung eines „Individuums“ darstellt und jedes Erlebnis „nur
einmal seine eigentümliche Wirkung abgibt“ (72005, S. 197), und untersucht das große Thema
eines individuellen Schicksals. Das Schicksal ist nicht die individuelle Bestimmung9, sondern
es ist die Verschiedenheit jener „Wirkung“ (Wirksamkeit), die eine Variation des Leibs (als
Einheit verstanden) erzeugt – eine Variation, die auf die Entdeckung weiterer Werte, in den
entsprechenden Gütern oder in anderen Lebewesen, und Aufgaben, zurückzuführen ist. Indem
Menschen weitere Werte entdecken, erleben sie einen Augenblick lang ihr volles Potenzial,
aber gleichzeitig auch, wieviel Mühe es kostet, genau das Individuum, und nur das Individuum,
zu sein, dem genau all das passieren kann, was ihm passiert. Schelers Begriff der „seelischen
Kausalität“ stimmt daher mit dem des „Schicksals“ überein:
»Schicksal« ist ja nicht mit all dem gleich, was von außen her uns an Reizursachen und
Bewegungen trifft [...] Das »Schicksal« ist die Reihe, die Schar der »Begebenheiten«,
die wir, obgleich wir sie in keiner Weise »gesucht«, »vorausgeahnt«, »erwartet«

9 Vgl. hierzu Guccinelli (2013, S. XVII-XCVIII).

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ROBERTA GUCCINELLI

oder »erwählt«, doch in einer ganz einzigen Weise als »zu unserem Sosein gehörig«
empfinden – wenn sie dagewesen sind, und die in ihrer Gesamtheit eine Einsinnigkeit
des Lebensverlaufes darstellen, die als Gesamtgestaltung die Marke der Individualität
dessen trägt, zu dem der Verlauf gehört (72005, S. 195-196).
In unserem Beitrag haben wir uns im Rahmen der Sozial- und Gemeinschaftsgefühlserkenntnis
(und des Scheiterns der Sozial- und Gemeinschaftsgefühlserkenntnis) mit einigen möglichen
Formen des Verlustes der Interaktionsfähigkeit bzw. der mangelnden Interaktionsfähigkeit
befasst. Insbesondere haben wir zwei mögliche Ansätze zu dem Scheitern der Sozial- und
Gemeinschaftsgefühlserkenntnis untersucht und verglichen: den von Waldenfels und den
von Scheler. Waldenfels’ responsive Phänomenologie und Schelers Wertphänomenologie
unterscheiden sich sicherlich in Bezug auf einige Annahmen und Absichten, obwohl beide
Philosophen zum phänomenologischen „Kontinent“ gehören. Phänomenologie „wird auf viele
Arten gesagt“. Jedenfalls ist es möglich, bestimmte Momente zu identifizieren, in denen sich
beide Philosophen an der „Schwelle“ treffen. Ihr gemeinsames Interesse für die Psychoanalyse
ist zweifellos ein Vorzugsinteresse. Wir sind daher dem Faden dieses gemeinsamen Interesses
(und der Ratlosigkeit beider Philosophen gegenüber einigen Freud’schen Annahmen) gefolgt
und wir haben uns Fragen über den Status und die Modalität des Bildungsprozesses einiger
Schwächen der Interaktionsfähigkeit gestellt. Wir haben unter anderem gezeigt, dass für beide
Philosophen zumindest bestimmte Formen der Beziehungsunfähigkeit keine ursprünglichen
Phänomene darstellen. Sie sind eher Verformungen (bei Waldenfels) des normalen oder quasinormalen Phänomens der Responsivitätbzw. Abirrungen der normalen Triebe, in dem mit
Scheler untersuchten Fall von Perversionen.
Hauptabsicht dieser Arbeit war es, mit Freud und über Freud hinaus zu zeigen, dass das
Schicksal unserer Triebe und unseres Lebens, obwohl es nicht gewollt ist, auch in unseren
Händen liegt, wenn auch nur minimal, und dass es eine Beziehungskonnotation hat. Und dass
es nicht sicher ist, dass dies nicht auch für diejenigen gelten kann, die an Pathologien leiden,
da ein*e Patient*in in erster Linie ein Mensch ist und nicht seine*ihre Pathologie, und jeder
Mensch auch ein „Patient“ (im Sinne Waldenfels’) ist. „Das Pathologische“ – wie Waldenfels
schreibt – “ist dann nicht mehr nur ein Gemenge aus Triebschicksalen“ (2019, S. 164). Wie wir
gesehen haben, kann Scheler diese Aussage nur teilen. Es ist genau die ständige Suche nach
dem Anderen, die den Menschen zu etwas anderem als zu einem bloßen Egozentriker macht,
und es ist immer noch die unartikulierte oder verzerrte Suche nach dem Anderen in Wesen,
die an Interaktionsschwäche leiden, die die „Ketten der Isolation“, die ihre Leben binden,
lockern kann, wenn nicht gar definitiv zerbrechen.
LITERATUR
Cusinato, G. (20095). Guida alla lettura. In G. Cusinato (Hg.), M. Scheler, La posizione dell’uomo nel
cosmo (S. 7-81), Traduzione dell’edizione originale del 1928. Milano: FrancoAngeli;
Freud, S. (1946). Triebe und Triebschicksale (1915). In: A. Freud, E. Bibring, W. Hoffer, E. Kris, O.
Isakower (Hg.), Unter Mitwirkung von M. Bonaparte, Werke aus den Jahren 1913-1917 (GW X) (S.
209-232). London: Imago Publishing Co., Ltd.;
Freud, S. (1942). Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (1905). In: A. Freud, E. Bibring, W.
Hoffer, E. Kris, O. Isakower (Hg.), Unter Mitwirkung von M. Bonaparte, Werke aus den Jahren
1904-1905 (GW V) (S. 28-145). London: Imago Publishing Co., Ltd.;
Freud, S. (1940). Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse (1916-1917). In: A. Freud, E.
Bibring, W. Hoffer, E. Kris, O. Isakower (Hg.), Unter Mitwirkung von M. Bonaparte, Vorlesungen
zur Einführung in die Psychoanalyse (GW XI) (S. 3-497). London: Imago Publishing Co., Ltd.;
Guccinelli, R. (2019). On the Ecological Self. Possibilities and Failures of Self-Knowledge and
132

4. Abschließende
Bemerkungen

„SCHATTEN DER IRRESPONSIVITÄT“

Knowledge of Others. In: L. Aguiar de Sousa & A. Falcato (Eds.), Phenomenological Approaches to
Intersubjectivity and Values (S. 84-99). Cambridge; Cambridge Scholars Publishing;
Guccinelli, R. (2016). Fenomenologia del vivente. Corpi, ambienti, mondi: una prospettiva scheleriana.
Roma: Aracne Editrice;
Guccinelli, R. (2013). Dal destino alla destinazione. L’etica vocazionale di Max Scheler. In: R.
Guccinelli (Saggio introduttivo, traduzione, note e apparati di R. Guccinelli, Presentazione di
R. De Monticelli), Max Scheler, Il formalismo nell’etica e l’etica materiale dei valori (S. XVII-XCVIII).
Milano: Bompiani;
Scheler, M. (82009). Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Neuer Versuch
der Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus (31927). In: M. S. Frings (Hg.), Mit einem
Anhang von Maria Scheler, Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Neuer Versuch
der Grundlegung eines ethischen Personalismus, GW II (S. 3-584). Bonn: Bouvier Verlag;
Scheler, M. (72005). Wesen und Formen der Sympathie (1923). In: M. S. Frings (Hg.), Wesen und
Formen der Sympathie. Die deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart, GW VII (S. 7–258). Bonn: Bouvier
Verlag;
Scheler, M. (51972b). Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen (1912). In: Maria Scheler (Hg.),
Vom Umsturz der Werte Abhandlung und Aufsätze, GW III (S. 33-147). Bern/München: Francke
Verlag;
Scheler, M. (51972a). Die Idole der Selbsterkenntnis (1912). In: Maria Scheler (Hg.), Vom Umsturz
der Werte. Abhandlung und Aufsätze, GW III (S. 213-292). Bern/München: Francke Verlag;
Waldenfels, B. (2019). Erfahrung, die zur Sprache drängt. Studien zur Psychoanalyse und
Psychotherapie aus phänomenologischer Sicht. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag;
Waldenfels, B. (2015). Sozialität und Alterität. Modi sozialer Erfahrung. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag;
Waldenfels, B. (2008). Fenomenologia dell’estraneo (2006). In F. G. Menga (Ed.), Fenomenologia
dell’estraneo (S. 7-155). Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore;
Waldenfels, B. (2006). Grundmotive einer Phänomenologie des Fremden, Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp.

133

REVIEW

REVIEW

Eugene Kelly
Review of Roberta de Monticelli’s Towards a Phenomenological Axiology

EUGENE KELLY
New York Institute of Technology
ekelly@nyit.edu

REVIEW OF
ROBERTA DE MONTICELLI’S
TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGICAL
AXIOLOGY

Phenomenology and Mind, n. 23 - 2022, pp. 136-142
DOI: 10.17454/pam-2309
https://www.rosenbergesellier.it/eng/journals/phenomenology-and-mind

© The Author(s) 2022
CC BY 4.0 Rosenberg & Sellier
ISSN 2280-7853 (print) - ISSN 2239-4028 (on line)

REVIEW OF ROBERTA DE MONTICELLI’S TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGICAL AxIOLOGY

Isaiah Berlin’s familiar metaphor of the hedgehog, who knows “one big thing” and the fox who
knows “many things,” puts in frequent appearances in Professor de Monticelli’s new work.
She places herself solidly on the side of the hedgehog, whose “big thing” is the reality and
coherence of the realm of values, yet one suspects the author is thinking more like the fox.
For she examines the “many things” that characterize our times with verve and insight and
proceeds with a moral fixity that still does not lack a bit of foxlike slyness.
The first of the many things that de Monticelli knows is that the 20th century purchased
the notion that value judgements are void of cognitive content. This conviction may have
begun with G.E. Moore, who argued that the terms “good” and “bad” are indefinable; they are
vaguely intuitable but generally ineffable. Speakers may predicate them of natural objects
given in perception, yet if they are indefinable, such predications are unverifiable. One
may say, “Saving the drowning child was good.” That the child was saved is a putative fact,
reducible to the various perceptions in which the action was given, but that it was good to
save her is not reducible to matters of perception. It is a hence judgment without a criterion
of truth or falsity. One can give reasons for one’s likes or dislikes in terms of the effects of a
thing’s natural qualities (the speaker loved the child that was saved, for example) but such
reasons could not function as a justification of the rescue’s goodness.
A similar conclusion was drawn by A.J. Ayer in Language, Truth, and Logic (1936): Talk about
values is simply nonsense. Others drew the conclusion that to call something good or bad is
simply to express one’s dislike of it and to encourage others to share that sentiment. In his
Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977), J. L. Mackie put the matter succinctly: “Semantically, it
[moral discourse] is representational thought, true or not true according to whether certain
real properties apply or fail to apply in the world. But the truth is that there are no such
properties; reality is simply empty of all states of affairs whose representation would require
thought of distinctively moral content.” This is about as good a foundation for moral nihilism
as one can get. To say that Mackie’s position regarding moral content is patently absurd would
be disqualified by his theory itself, for “absurd” denotes a non-natural quality and hence
affirms nothing except the speaker’s scorn.
Some of this moral skepticism or nihilism on the part of many English-speaking philosophers
in the twentieth century can be traced to its underlying and generally unspoken metaphysics:
unspoken because metaphysical assertions were similarly conceived to be void of content. A
bit of linguistic analysis could demonstrate that a purported metaphysical problem stemmed
from a careless use of language and could be “dissolved” by unravelling the carelessness of the
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EUGENE KELLY

metaphysician’s speech – usually she has passed from speaking metaphorically to speaking
literally without noticing the transition that led to the confusion. But the default metaphysics
functioning in the reasoning of these moral skeptics was always a form of naturalism, not
in the sense of a denial of supernaturalism, but as the epistemological affirmation that we
can know only what the mind is given through the senses and what we can logically derive
from those sensibly given “natural” qualities. Hume famously pointed out that such terms
as “causal necessity,” the “ego,” “God,” and, of course the “goodness” we think we see in the
act of saving the child are not given to the senses and are hence philosophically illegitimate.
This illegitimacy is unquestionable, given the claims of the unspoken metaphysics that hovers
behind it: The world is a construct out of sensible data, and the unspoken epistemology:
Synthetic assertions that cannot be traced to and justified by sense-data are illegitimate.
Hence, we cannot know whether a weighty object about to be dropped from above the earth
will fall downward unless stopped, for we have no sense-data prior to the event that would
justify the claim.
The second of many things that de Monticelli knows is that this kind of thinking (and its
counterparts in 20th century Continental philosophy) has had a chilling effect on those who
would use the Socratic concept of practical reason in face-to-face discourse about political,
social, and economic matters. If “good” and “bad” are ineffable, if moral predicates are void
of natural and hence arguable content, if in general moral discourse is a sham that conceals
the will to power of those leading the discourse, then only a fool will trouble herself with
them. Even Hume’s denial of the ego or personhood as real and continuous stifles a person’s
ambition to adhere to truth and to put her unique talents for doing good to use in the world.
But that attitude gives the victory to the persons conducting the public discourse in their own
interest, that is, to the manipulators, demagogues and advertising types, who assert opinions
and directives without any effort to justify them. A tension is needed between ideality and
reality for the Socratic debate to begin. Where philosophical sophistry denies any reality to
values and encourages indifference to any serious study of values and their implications for
public policy, a kind of decadence infects democracy. Democracy requires at least three things:
knowledge and lucidity about the political realities and conditions of power, a bright sense of
values that provide the ideals worth striving for, and the moral integrity and hopeful spirit to
strive after them.
In graduate school in the 20th Century, I and all of my professors who were linguistic analysts
had read their Moore, their Ayer, their Mackie. What I found amazing was the disconnect
between my professors’ philosophy and their political beliefs. One professor who, as I knew
from personal conversations, was a radical leftist, never tried to justify any of those beliefs in
class. He would show how a person may be logically consistent or inconsistent in his or her
moral beliefs, but not whether those beliefs were true. A consistent German, I learned, who
was convinced of the moral rectitude of the Nazi policies of driving out, arresting, and finally
exterminating her Jewish fellow countrymen would, upon discovering that both her parents
were Jews, turn herself immediately over to the Gestapo. Here we have an application not
of morals but of logic. Even more remarkable was a late interview with A.J. Ayer that I recall
but am unable to retrieve. He was discussing Martin Heidegger as a man and a philosopher,
and the number of disvalue terms that Ayer applied to him was so large and their meaning
so cutting that I gasped in amazement: here is the man who taught me that value-judgments
are vacuous now spouting insulting value-judgments like any man in the street, including
myself! Ayer might have said that he was just venting his feelings or asking for sympathy
and not asserting claims that may be true. Yet why read a philosopher for what is admittedly
nonsense?
The third small thing de Monticelli knows – or is willing and capable of arguing for – is the
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REVIEW OF ROBERTA DE MONTICELLI’S TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGICAL AxIOLOGY

hypothesis of the unity of values, its epistemological source, and the means we have for
unpacking the content of values from the cognitive experience of them. The means to this
end is a material value-ethics. Some ten years ago the present writer developed a platform
for moral discourse similar to that which de Monticelli envisages by synthesizing the work of
four early 20th century phenomenologists, E. Husserl, M. Scheler, D. von Hildebrand, and N.
Hartmann (Eugene Kelly, Material Ethics of Value, 2011). On this platform values are seen not
as “queer” predicates, empty of content but functioning illegitimately to describe real things,
such as “useful” (a tool), “noble” (an action), or “generous” (a person). The qualities denoted
by the terms in quotation marks, whatever their ontology (are they like Platonic essences,
as Hartmann observed, or are they like numbers, real but without natural qualities?), are
given to us not in acts of perception, but in acts of feeling. They are, as de Monticelli wisely
observes, “entangled with” real things and our feelings of them. Usually, the content of
values is not immediately given in our experience of them, but they can be thematized in
phenomenological reflection. Their content, when so extracted from the intentional feelings
in which they are given, can constrain what can be rationally said about some good or some act
or some person regarding its usefulness, its nobility, or her generosity. A point may be reached
in a person’s behavior at which it becomes incorrect to evaluate him as generous.
Moreover, values are given on both a horizontal and a vertical scale. On the horizontal scale
there are many values of a kind similar, say, to nobility, all of which are given in emotional
acts on the level of human vitality. They include the values of good health, physical grace
and moral generosity. On the vertical table, values range from those of pleasure and pain,
intended by visceral feelings, to those of goodness, truth, and beauty, and further to the values
of the holy or sacred. Such values are phenomena that appear on different levels of human
sensibility, just as colors, sounds, odors, and roughness appear to the different senses of the
body. Only if a philosopher cannot feel the difference in the value height of a nice warm bath
and the goodness of self-sacrifice for a noble cause will it occur to him that the assertion of
that distinction is a vacuous sophism. Yet again the openness to values and a willingness to
seek out their content founds the very possibility of earnest person-to-person discourse about
things that matter: democratic process, criminal justice, individual rights, and justice among
nations.
It is impossible to live in a world where values are considered to be chimeras and civil
discourse vain, a world that celebrates the freedom of individuals from all social sanctions
and yet degenerates the obligation to justify one’s opinions and actions by reference to the
felt values on which they are based. Values are everywhere in the world of a human being;
our philosophy may question their ontology, but they are always present to us. I look up from
my notebook and wonder if what I am writing is clear and worthy, and immediately I am
confronted with a value and an obligation. I may choose to be obscurantist and trivial, but I
cannot turn these disvalues into values, just as I may choose to lie to someone but I cannot
make lying morally good. Values are not so tractable.
The “one big thing” is not, however, simply the reality of values; it is their coherence, that
is, their constituting an ordered realm of values. The alternative is a set of incommensurate
“ethe” founded on sets of incommensurable values, sets known to the fox as he surveys,
disinterestedly, the communities and persons he encounters along the way. De Monticelli
cites Ronald Dworkin to make this crucial point – crucial, because Socratic questioning and
its political point and force depends upon an appeal to universally known and shared values:
“The truth about living well and being good and what is wonderful is not only coherent but
mutually supporting. What we think about any one of them must stand up, eventually, to any
argument we find compelling about the rest.”
But is the realm of values internally coherent? In Formalism in Ethics (G, 1916; E 1973), Scheler
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EUGENE KELLY

believed that such coherence could be found. His development of the ancient concept of
an Ordo amoris bears witness to his belief, though it hardly forms an argument for it. Each
person, he taught, has a unique internal order of her loves and hates that refract, as it were,
the values that appear in her emotional acts that intend the values in things present to her.
The Ordo of each person may overlap those of others and found a shared ethos, but for Scheler
it is possible for the values functioning in the Ordo of each person or community to overlap
those of all of humanity. Phenomenology can describe the values functioning in every ethos,
given knowledge of the life-situation of its members. Scheler further postulates a universal
Ordo amoris that is known by the mind of God, who intends all possible values and disvalues in
their proper horizontal and vertical order; no value would elude Him.
Of course, this is only an hypothesis; God’s mind is not a phenomenological given. Hartmann,
for his part, was skeptical of the unity of values. We have not explored the entire realm of
values that function in or have functioned in human history, he thought. Moreover, new
values are discovered as we live. Then too, some positive values seem incompatible with
others, especially when they function in the character of a person’s life, not just in the ends
that the person chooses autonomously and that make meaningful her daily activities, but
even in the way those ends are pursued. Hartmann distinguishes several clear but incompatible
“ways of living” that embody opposed values of human character. For example, there is the
life of innocence versus that of sophistication, or that of the morality of struggle, of competition, of expression of energy versus the morality of peace, of compromise, of charitableness.
There is no Golden Mean in such oppositions; both sides represent valuable ways of living, and
it is hard to see how one attempt to justify any one of those ways of living wonderfully must
stand up to any argument for the others, if indeed they are arguable at all. They are perhaps
arguable only by analyzing the process of living out one side or the other.
If we cannot overcome the conflict between the hedgehog and the fox or establish the justice
of one or the other, perhaps we can come to understand the origins of their value-conflict
not only in the diverse values they make functional, but in other factors that are at the root
of those values’ functionality in history. When Scheler was established in a chair for social
philosophy in Cologne, he began to write works (some published posthumously) on what was
then called the sociology of knowledge. His initial insight was simple enough, though it had
tremendous implications for moral discourse. The Ordo amoris of various individuals and
communities is shaped in greater part by two factors, the “ideal” and the “real”. Some segment
of the postulated universal order of values becomes functional in persons and cultures in part
by their own spiritual capacity and energy for grasping values and internalizing them, and in
part by the real circumstances that surround them. The conditions shaping the values that
are functional in persons are different, say, in a seafaring community than in a mountaindwelling one. Understanding the ethos of a foreign community or one remote in time and
space, no matter how different it may be from one’s own, requires a twofold inquiry: one into
that culture’s ideals and the root values that found them, and another into the real conditions
of its life. The first is a phenomenology of its moral, aesthetic, and practical values, where
one attempts to re-experience empathetically the emotional acts in which they were given
to them. The second requires a grasp of the languages in which values are expressed and a
study of the culture’s history and environment. Such understanding may allow a practical
“balancing out” of the apparent conflicts between that culture and others. Scheler compared
the capacity for mutual understanding among citizens of diverse cultures to the capacity
for mutual understanding of space-time by persons inhabiting different spatio-temporal
systems. They can understand why they each measure time and space in ways different from
themselves, but they cannot justify the claim that the measurements one of them is the
only correct one. For values become functional in ways that depend upon the real factors
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REVIEW OF ROBERTA DE MONTICELLI’S TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGICAL AxIOLOGY

imposed by the life-praxis of each discussant. Thus, my conception of the value of honor and
the constraints it imposes upon behavior may be quite different from that of an 18th century
gentleman, whom it may constrain to fight a duel with another gentleman who has offended
his honor. I may understand that gentleman’s values and virtues perfectly. I may know how
honor has become functional in his behavior and have studied the real cultural factors that
have shaped his behavior. Yet the value of honor has not become functional in that way in my
life and times. This effort at mutual understanding does not guarantee, of course, a settling of
cultural conflicts, some of which are founded on existential concerns: two peoples each with
strong social identities will find it impossible to share the same geographical space, however
much they may comprehend each other’s ethos.
Does this conclusion make us look more like foxes than hedgehogs? Or is this idea of the
sources of the structure and diversity of humankind’s orders of loves and hates the “one big
thing” that the hedgehog grasps? There would then be no “right” ethos that would give an
Archimedean starting-point to individuals wishing to argue with each other in a Socratic
manner in the hope of arriving at practical wisdom, that is, not just knowledge of the material
content of values but also of their applications to concrete situations and to the constraints
on behavior they legitimately impose on all rational men and women. Yet the outlook for
de Monticelli’s hope for the re-engagement of morally committed Socratic philosophers in
disputes as to what makes a life wonderful or just may not be so dim, even given the necessary
limitations of that debate. We may be able to accept her invitation not only to become valuephenomenologists again but Socratic questioners operating in the public sphere: in politics,
education, foreign policy, and even in philosophy. Such a practice rides ideally upon the
honest and lucid moral commitments to truth of agents. The human race is not as diverse
as it may seem when one scans the range and diversity of human cultures. The hedgehog
must become a fox if he wishes the one big thing he knows to become effective in history; he
must first understand his neighbors. Almost everyone, everywhere, desires or would desire
education for one’s children, everyone wishes to be treated with some sort of dignity even
before a well-earned flogging, everyone wishes to see justice done to himself and others, even
when one suffers from it. But what does a good education comprise? What is dignity, and
what does it demand? What is justice in a person, in a state, in a system of laws? How does
knowledge of these thing constrain the behavior of persons and institutions? Such debates do
in fact take place among us all today, perhaps in the arena of journalism if not in philosophy.
De Monticelli’s book provides a means to restore the axiological underpinnings of careful
moral debate that have been neglected or undermined by a century of indifferent sophistic
foxes.

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