Axiological ethics is concerned with the values by which we uphold our ethical standards and theories. It questions what, if any, basis exists for such values. Through doing so, it explores the justification for our values, and examines if there is any beyond arbitrary preference. While axiological ethics can be considered a subfield within the branch of

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...

, it also draws in thought from other fields of

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

, such as

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...

and

value theory In ethics and the social sciences, value theory involves various approaches that examine how, why, and to what degree humans value things and whether the object or subject of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. Within philosophy, ...

Ethics and axiology

To understand axiological ethics, an understanding of axiology and ethics is necessary. ''Axiology'' is understood as the philosophical study of 'goodness' or value. It is concerned with two main areas of question. The first is in regards to defining and exploring understandings of 'the good' or value. This includes, for example, the distinction between

intrinsic In science and engineering, an intrinsic property is a property of a specified subject that exists itself or within the subject. An extrinsic property is not essential or inherent to the subject that is being characterized. For example, mass ...

and

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to inst ...

values. The second area is the application of such understandings of value to a variety of fields within the social sciences and humanities. ''Ethics'' is a philosophical field which is concerned with morality, and in particular, the conduction of the right action. The defining of what the 'right' action is influenced by axiological thought in itself, much like the defining of 'beauty' within the philosophical branch of

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

Objectives

Axiological ethics can be understood as the application of axiology onto the study of ethics. It is concerned with questioning the moral grounds which we base ethical judgements on. This is done through questioning the values in which ethical principles are grounded on. Once there is recognition and understanding of the underlying values hidden within ethical claims, they can be assessed and critiqued. Through breaking ethics down to an examination of values, rather than the good, morality can be reconstructed based on redefined values or confirmed on already set values.

History

Franz Brentano Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Josef Brentano (; ; 16 January 1838 – 17 March 1917) was an influential German philosopher, psychologist, and former Catholic priest (withdrawn in 1873 due to the definition of papal infallibility in matters o ...

's descriptive psychology constitutes an important precursor of axiological ethics. He classifies all mental phenomena into three groups: representations, judgments and phenomena of love. Of particular interest for axiological ethics are phenomena of love since they constitute the basis for our knowledge of values: an object has value if it is fitting to love this object. This insight into what is good then informs the discipline of ethics: "the right end consists in the best of what is attainable".

Max Scheler Max Ferdinand Scheler (; 22 August 1874 – 19 May 1928) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Considered in his lifetime one of the most prominent German philosophers,Davis, Za ...

, one of the main founder of axiological ethics, agrees with Brentano that experience is a reliable source for the knowledge of values. Scheler, following the phenomenological method, holds that this knowledge is not just restricted to particular cases but that we can gain insight

a priori ("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ex ...

into the

essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...

of values. This insight reveals that there are different types of values, which form a hierarchy from lower to higher values: pleasure, useful, noble, good and true and beautiful, sacred. This order is essential to ethics: we ought to promote the higher values rather than the lower ones in our actions. The order of values is objective but our perception of this order is subjective and may therefore be distorted. Such distortions may lead us to prefer the lower values to the higher ones.

Nicolai Hartmann Paul Nicolai Hartmann (; 20 February 1882 – 9 October 1950) was a Baltic German philosopher. He is regarded as a key representative of critical realism and as one of the most important twentieth-century metaphysicians. Biography Hartmann w ...

builds in many important aspects on Scheler's axiological ethics. He also provides a platonist metaphysics of values, complementing the intuitive insight a priori into values. John Niemeyer Findlay, a moral philosophy and metaphysics professor at Yale University, wrote ''Axiological Ethics'' in 1970. Findlay's book is a modern historical account of academic discussion around axiological ethics. As such, it contains discussion of other philosophers' and his own concluding remarks regarding the topic. Findlay advocates for inquiry into values behind ethical theories and what justifications exist for them. Through assessing the thoughts of his academic peers, Findlay's final thoughts on the topic is that an objective justification for values would be unlikely. Rather, since validation is recognized as coming from the subject, values would have to be assessed internally.

Opposed views

Proponents of axiological ethics often contrast their view with both Kantian ethics and

eudaimonism Eudaimonia ( Greek: εὐδαιμονία ; sometimes anglicized as eudaemonia or eudemonia, ) is a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of 'good spirit', and which is commonly translated as ' happiness' or ' welfare'. In ...

. Kantian ethics is rejected mainly on grounds of its

formalism Formalism may refer to: * Form (disambiguation) * Formal (disambiguation) * Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary * Formalism (linguistics) * Scien ...

, which is exemplified e.g. in Kant's formulation of the

categorical imperative The categorical imperative (german: kategorischer Imperativ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Introduced in Kant's 1785 '' Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals'', it is a way of eva ...

: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law".It is standard to also reference the '' Akademie Ausgabe'' of Kant's works. The ''Groundwork'' occurs in the fourth volume. Citations throughout this article follow the format 4:x. For example, the above citation is taken from 4:421. The main criticism of ethical formalism is that it tries to define right action in purely formal terms without reference to whether the resulting action is valuable in any sense. It ignores that our actions are guided by various values which we try to realize. The critique of eudaimonism is not that it ignores values altogether but that its view of what is valuable is too narrow. Our actions should be guided by a wide variety of values, including promoting pleasure and avoiding pain, but also other values like health, beauty, etc. This can be seen in Scheler's hierarchy of values, in which only one level of values, the lowest, is reserved for pleasure and pain.

Criticism

Axiological ethics has been criticized for its epistemology and metaphysics. Most of its proponents rely on the idea that we can gain an insight a priori into the essence of values. While this thesis is itself controversial, it becomes even more problematic when combined with the idea of value-blindness, the thesis that some people may be (for various reasons) unable to properly intuit the essences of values. This can easily lead to a dogmatic position where the proponent of axiological ethics justifies her own view through intuition and dismisses opposing views as misguided due to value-blindness. The metaphysical critique of axiological ethics concerns the tendency to reify values and treat them as proper entities of their own. This tendency is present in many proponents of axiological ethics but it is most explicit in Hartmann's position.

References