The Nature and Uniqueness of Material Value-Ethics Clarified

Vlastimil Vohánka Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic

Abstract. Although material value-ethics was introduced into philosophy at least a century ago, confusion still persists as to what it implies. This article offers some clarification. It states how material value-ethics stands opposed to formalistic ethics, commonly – though perhaps wrongly – attributed to Kant. The resulting analysis allows us to establish a combination of features that give material value-ethics an advantage over deontological, consequentialist and other perspectives, regardless of the hermeneutics issue.

Keywords. Material value-ethics, formalistic ethics, consequentialism, Kant, Dietrich von Hildebrand

I. Introduction

ax Scheler published the first part of his Formalism in Ethics and MNon-Formal Ethics of Value in 1913. The second part followed in 1916. Though particularly seminal for the tradition of non-formal or material value-ethics (die materiale Wertethik), this work did not propose any clear or sufficiently broad clarification of material value-ethics as such. I contend here that the main representatives of material value-ethics are the same in this regard. Hence one of the goals of the present con- tribution is to provide a broad clarification. My second aim is to determine what is unique about the ethics thus conceived. Before I pursue this plan, however, a few words about the representatives in question and the genuine lack of proper clarification seem appropriate. Material value-ethics emerged as a substantial part of the German- Austrian school of ethical intuitionism, a school founded by Franz Brentano and Alexius Meinong. It was developed more fully by Edmund

Husserl, Adolf Reinach, Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Nicolai Hartmann and Aurel Kolnai, and continued by Hans Reiner, Manfred Frings and Peter Spader. Josef Seifert, John Crosby, Fritz Wenisch, Eugene Kelly, Philip Blosser and Graham McAleer have continued to develop it. Yet neither the main authors themselves nor the obvious reference works settle on a common denominator, i.e. a tenet or meth- odology shared by all material value-ethicists and nobody else. I will devote the remainder of this introduction to a series of examples. First, distinguished sources such as The Phenomenological Movement (Spiegelberg 1994), Encyclopedia of Phenomenology (Embree 1997), Phenomenol- ogy of Values and Valuing (Hart and Embree 1997) and the Routledge Com- panion to Phenomenology (Luft and Overgaard 2012) never pause to sum- marize on the nature of material value-ethics. Secondly, the accounts provided by Scheler and Spader are too narrow for material value-ethics in general. Scheler taught that material value- ethics is one in which the morally good is the will to realize what one recognizes as a value – or as a higher or the highest value –, where the value itself is ‘material’ or ‘non-formal’. The morally bad is the will to realize what one feels to be a disvalue – or a lower or the lowest value –, where again the value or disvalue are material (1913-16/1973, 25-26; 53-54). Here a material value is a value of something relatively specific or determinate as compared to something general or abstract, such as the value of saving a drowning child as opposed to the value of doing whatever is obligatory. A higher value is one that is more noble: more noble in the intuitive sense in which, for example, many people regard intellectual brilliance as more noble than good health. But Scheler’s outline does not fit a significant number of other material value-ethicists who regularly deny that all will to realize what one recognizes as a higher value is good. Often one should distribute medication rather than books, they would say, even if the value of intellect is higher than the value of health (Hartmann 1926/2002b, 51-53; 155-156; Reiner 1951/1983, 255; Kolnai 1977, 179-184; Blosser 1995, 143; Kelly 2011, 77-78).

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Turning to Spader we read that Scheler’s ethics is “[...] an ethics of nonformal values, values ‘seen’ through special acts of ‘feeling,’ not reason [...] a fundamental rejection of formal, rational ethics” (2002, 23). Again, this is too narrow for material value-ethics as such. Authors like von Hildebrand (1953, 10-13; 191-196) regard values as seen by the intellect rather than feeling, and as responded to by feeling only afterwards.1 Hartmann, Frings and Kelly, to conclude, appear to move in the right direction but are in need of further clarification. To Hartmann, material value-ethics says that “moral laws” and even “everything which ought to be” is “conditioned by [...] and refers to” consciousness of “concrete” values in which “the values themselves originally do not have the character of laws and commandments” (1926/2002a, 166-167; 179-180). But in what sense should we understand ‘conditioned’ and ‘refers’ here? This, at least, is hard to determine. To Frings, material value-ethics “[...] reveals intuitive cognition of values” – values in a way “independent in their being and of their realization by man” – and maintains that “[...] if such values are realized by any one person, correct moral acting is the result.” On the other hand, in “[...] formalistic ethics (Kant) the source of morally correct acting is placed into reason, and ‘Sittlichkeit’ exists in a moral categorical principle” (1996, 75-76). Independence does not mean that values hang somewhere in the void, but rather that true value judgements like “pleasure is intrin- sically a value, or more valuable than pain” are true independently of the realization of the valued things or anyone’s pursuit thereof.2 However, widely diverse actions realize some value or other, but not all of them are correct. Frings also does not say what standard should be acceptable for all material value-ethicists. For Kelly, material value-ethics is “(1) non-formal [...] and involves a profound criticism of Kantian ethical formalism” and “(2) founded in a phenomenology of the values themselves, that is, the content, available in intuition, of such values as trust, utility, friendship, or even the Aristo- telian virtues” (2008, 1). This ethics claims that “[...] moral consciousness

— 227 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 is directed upon an objective realm of ideal values in which norms and virtues are ‘founded’” (2011, 7). The supposed objective ideality is nothing other than the alleged independence to which Frings alludes. But as before, how are we to understand ‘founding’? The clearest hint Kelly provides is made in connection with Scheler and von Hildebrand. These two, he notes, “ [...] attempted to found obligation in the values themselves and human moral goodness in the hearing and responding to the call of values” (2011, 116). Kelly illustrates this point:

[W]hen I experience [...] the kindness of some action of a person towards some other person or other sentient creature, the [...] value of kindness is given to me, and I respond to it in a specific act of affirmation. Similarly, once I grasp the validity of a demonstration of a theorem in mathematics, I naturally respond not only with intellectual assent, but also with a determination to use the theorem with confidence as a premise in further demonstrations (2011, 116).

The talk of response to values, I will argue, is fitting, but it still needs clarification. And in doing so, I will draw especially on remarks of von Hildebrand, since he is more explicit than others about responses to values. Thus I will elaborate on Kelly’s suggestion – certainly one worth exploring, given his credentials as a leading scholar in material value- ethics – about what exactly this ethics is. I opt here for Kelly’s proposal not only because it is accessible to explanation, in contrast with others, but also because I find it confirmed in other authors than just Scheler and von Hildebrand. I submit the result as a refined hypothesis about a common denominator for all writers in material-value ethics. This result will enable me to say why this ethics is noteworthy.

II. what Makes an Ethics Material?

Ethics is any attempt to clarify or typologize moral phenomena, to defend which things should be ascribed which moral labels, or to describe the noetic structure of our moral awareness and reasoning. What is ‘material’

— 228 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 vlastimil vohánka – material value-ethics clarified about such an attempt? The short answer: opposition to formalistic ethics. Material value-ethicists (whatever their common denominator) define themselves against Kant, whom they regard, rightly or wrongly, as a for- malist. So let us return to Kant himself. In the first section of his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785/2011, 15; 17), Kant says that morally good acts of will are good ‘without limitation’, ‘without any limiting condition’, ‘in themselves’, or ‘unconditionally’. This means they are good in every instance and in a way neither enhanced nor diminished by their combination with anything else. In contrast, desiderata such as knowledge, wit, confidence, persistency, health, riches, power, and honour are enhanced in their goodness if pursued with a good will, or diminished or even bad if pursued with a bad will. So what is it about any morally good act of will that suffices to make it morally good? Many will be familiar with Kant’s dismissal of actual effects. As he insists, some morally good acts of will have poor actual effects.

A good will is good not because of what it effects, or accomplishes, not because of its fitness to attain some intended end, but good just by its willing, i.e. in itself [...] Even if by some particular disfavour of fate, or by the scanty endowment of a stepmotherly nature, this will should entirely lack the capacity to carry through its purpose; if despite its greatest striving it should still accomplish nothing, and only the good will were to remain (not, of course, as a mere wish, but as a sum- moning of all means that are within our control); then, like a jewel, it would still shine by itself, as something that has its full worth in itself (1785/2011, 17).

Kant’s alleged dismissal of the relevance of all attitudes to expected effects is less evident though commonly assumed. According to this frequent reading of Kant, morally good acts of will are not morally good, not even in part, in virtue of willing certain effects. Here, the effects are meant to be relatively specific, contentful, or ‘material’: effects like saving someone’s life, maximizing someone’s happiness, or pleasing God; not more abstract or formal effects like doing whatever is obligatory, or doing whatever one

— 229 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 has best reason to do. This means that morally good acts of will are morally good solely in virtue of something not including the agent’s attitude to expected effects. In other words, they are good solely in virtue of something stripped of all reference of the agent to expected effects. Rather, the source of moral goodness is simply the agent’s formal willing to respect the moral law, to do one’s duty – the agent’s willing, in the abstract, to do whatever is morally right in the given situation. I call this the formalistic reading of Kant.3 It is often conjoined with the claim that, for Kant, the moral law is correctly specified in the categorical imperative, equated with the abstract demand for consistency. This demand requires from the agent internal consistency of the rule of conduct applied by him or her in the given situation, and consistency of this rule with what he or she cannot help willing (see, for example, Melchert 2011, 451-458). This formalistic reading of Kant is common also among material value-ethicists (cf. Brentano 1952/2009, 57; Reinach 1989, 501-506; Reiner 1951/1983, 16-23; 71-74; Spader 2002, 26-32; Kelly 2011, 8; 14-15; 97; Blosser 2013, 72). Why is it common? Probably because Kant says that “[...] duty is the necessity of an action from respect for the law” (1785/2011, 29), and that “it is not until then that [... one’s] conduct has its actual moral worth” (1785/2011, 27). This apparently suggests that all morally good acts are done from duty, from respect for the moral law. Moreover, the following passage may be seen as suggesting that their goodness does not stem at all from attitudes to expected effects:

[S]ince, in the idea of a will absolutely good without any limiting condition (of attaining this or that end) one must abstract altogether from every end to be effected (which would make every will only relatively good), the end must here be thought not as an end to be effected but as an independently existing end, and hence only negatively [...] (1785/2011, 103)

Nevertheless, there are rival, non-formalistic readings. A case in point is Allen Wood (2007, 24-42; 66-84), which may be less popular but more

— 230 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 vlastimil vohánka – material value-ethics clarified accurate than the formalistic reading. Wood thinks that Kant leaves the nature of good will implicit. In the Groundwork Kant simply says that will is a capacity to choose rules of conduct and actions derived from them (1785/2011, 53). This may indicate that any morally good act of will is morally good in virtue of (i) choosing morally right rules of conduct or (ii) choosing actions prescribed by morally right rules of conduct. If so, then some acts of will are morally good yet not done from respect for the moral law. Some decisions – e.g. to act beneficently – are, objectively, morally right even if done from self-interest or hedonic inclination. Then contrary to the formalistic reading, their source of moral goodness is not the formal willing to respect the moral law. Moreover, this law demands more than the consistency of one’s rules of conduct. It insists that we do not disregard any rational being, and strive to obey rules one would choose to ideally govern any ideal community of rational beings (cf. 1785/2011, 71; 87; 101-102; 107). As to the quotation from Kant, which states that all acts of actual moral worth are done from duty or respect for the moral law, Wood argues that this does not imply that all morally good acts are done that way. And as for the saying that absolutely morally good acts abstract from all ends to be effected, Wood contends this in no way implies that all morally good acts abstract from all effects. According to Wood, Kant understands acts of absolute moral goodness or of actual moral worth to be a special sort of morally good acts, and ends to be effected are a special sort of effects. So, first, all morally good decisions are good ‘without limitation’, ‘without any limiting condition’, ‘in themselves’, ‘unconditionally’. But only some are deemed by Kant as ‘absolutely good’, ‘highly esteemed’, or as having ‘actual’, ‘inner’, ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ moral worth. Such, he believes, are only those done from duty, from respect for the moral law: that is, only those done against self-interest or hedonic inclination. Indeed, Kant writes that “[...] the concept of duty [...] contains that of a good will, though under certain subjective limitations and hindrances, which [...] bring it out and make it shine all the more brightly” (1785/2011, 23). So

— 231 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 it seems he only wants to say that all acts of especially high moral goodness are acts against self-interest or hedonic inclination. Secondly, it is true that all intended effects are, in some sense, ends to be effected. But in Kant’s technical sense, only some are: only those intended by the agent mainly because they have worth or value for him or her, as opposed to worth independent thereof (cf. 1785/2011, 85; Schönecker and Wood 2015, 143). So now it seems that Kant only wants to say that no acts of especially high moral goodness are acts in which the agent intends effects mainly because they have worth or value for him or her (say, mainly because they favour his or her self-interest or hedonic inclination.) I will not try to decide whether this non-formalistic reading is correct. Perhaps it really is and the formalistic reading is not. At any rate, it is Wood and not Kant who makes explicit these distinctions that undermine the formalistic reading. In fact, in view of how popular the formalistic reading is, Wood himself considers the passages that motivate it a “rhe- torical” failure on Kant’s side, even a failure of “pretty spectacular” pro- portions (2007, 25, 42). No wonder, then, that material value-ethicists ethicists see Kant as endorsing formalism about moral goodness (FG).

(FG) All morally good acts of will are morally good solely in virtue of something not including the agent’s attitude to expected effects.

In other words again, all morally good acts of will are morally good solely in virtue of something stripped of all reference of the agent to any effects. So imagine an agent named John. John wills to cure Peter, who is ill. According to FG, John’s will – exactly insofar as it displays something in virtue of which it is morally good – is not directed to any effect. It is not directed to curing Peter, or to Peter becoming healthy again. It is only directed in the abstract, so to speak; say, to doing whatever is morally right to do. Now, FG might be modified for other bearers of moral goodness than acts of will. For instance, a modification for agents might say: all morally

— 232 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 vlastimil vohánka – material value-ethics clarified good agents are morally good solely in virtue of something not including their attitude to expected effects. So to generalize, a formalistic ethicist is one who endorses – with or without Kant – FG and its modifications, while a material ethicist is one who denies FG and its modifications.4 Before I close this section I should ask why anyone would endorse FG. I do not know of any plausible argument, but advocates of the formalistic reading of Kant might see him as making a proposal in this passage:

[A]n action from duty has its moral worth not in the purpose that is to be attained by it, but in the maxim according to which it is resolved upon, and thus it does not depend on the actuality of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of willing according to which – regardless of any object of the desiderative faculty – the action is done. That the pur- poses that we may have when we act, and their effects, as ends and incentives of the will, can bestow on actions no unconditional and moral worth, is clear from what was previously said (1785/2011, 27-29).

Here, advocates of the formalistic reading could see Kant claiming that FG is true or else all morally good actions – and all morally good acts of will guiding such actions – would be morally good solely in virtue of actual effects. But if this is his argument, then it simply ignores the option that morally good actions are such neither just in virtue of actual effects, nor just in virtue of the abstract willing to respect the moral law, but at least in part in virtue of the attitude to expected effects (see Hartmann 1926/2002b, 182-183; Seifert 2004, 314; Kelly 2011, 86). Of course, advocates of non-formalistic readings might say that Kant never means to make this argument in the first place. Rather, in the passage he only reaf- firms that actions from duty are morally good even when their intended effects fail to become actual, and that they are willed regardless of what one desires in terms of self-interest or hedonic inclination. To conclude this section, material ethicists deny FG and its modifications. Formalistic ethicists affirm them. According to a reading common even among material value-ethicists, Kant endorses FG. While this reading is quite credible, it remains dubious nonetheless. It is even hard

— 233 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 to see how anyone could be led plausibly to embrace FG. This is also why the claim to be expounded in the next two sections is remarkable not so much for its denial of FG, but rather for other reasons which I state below.

III. what Turns a Material Ethics into Material Value-Ethics?

Material ethicists deny FG and its modifications. In affinity with the quotation I gave above from Kelly (2011, 116), I propose they become material value-ethicists when they deny FG and its modifications because of something like value-responsivism about moral goodness (VRG).

(VRG) All morally good acts of will are morally good in virtue of their being free and adequate responses of the agent to the morally relevant values of practicable effects.

VRG obviously contradicts FG. For instance, according to VRG, what makes John’s will to cure Peter morally good does include – against FG – John’s attitude to expected effects, such as the preservation of Peter’s life and the restoration of Peter’s health.5 I am aware that VRG is only about morally good acts of will – or more accurately, acts of will whose objects are effects not yet existing. It is not, for example, about morally good agents, emotions, or acts of will in which one affirms already existing things. But for the sake of brevity I will stick to the given sort of acts of will as my model for other bearers of moral goodness. I do not claim that all material-value ethicists proclaim VRG explicitly. Still I surmise they all hold to VRG. This hypothesis fits well with textual data. Which data? In Scheler, we find a hint of a modification of VRG for emotions: “[...] value qualities [...] demand certain qualities in emotional ‘reactions of response’” (1913-16/1973, 258). In Hartmann, we find assent to von Hildebrand that for “[...] each value there is one [...] attitude cor- responding to its nature”, one “response suited to it” (1926/2002b, 57).

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In Kolnai, we find the requirement of “pro response to value and con response to disvalue” (1977, 216). Von Hildebrand, Reiner and Seifert are more explicit in endorsing a position implying VRG. According to von Hildebrand, moral goodness – of acts of will and other bearers of this quality – “[...] is realized in a value- response to a morally relevant good”, where the response must “correspond” to the value of the good. Moral badness, on the other hand, “lies primarily in the absence of the value-responding attitude” (1971/2009, 349-350).6 For Reiner, the “[...] moral good consists in our complying with demands that we experience as made by an objectively important value, whether compliance requires us to forego a subjectively important value or not” (1951/1983, 231). Value of what? Of something relatively specific, says Reiner: like someone’s health, or someone’s work of art (1951/1983, 175). To be morally good, our complying must also be free (1951/1983, 81-83). In the case of morally good acts of will, the values complied with pertain to effects ‘practicable’ by those acts (1951/1983, 232). So Reiner endorses the principle that moral goodness of acts of will consists in our free and adequate response to the demand of objectively important values of something practicable. It is true that Reiner omits to qualify the values to which one responds as morally relevant. Perhaps he does so inadvertently; perhaps he deems all objectively important values morally relevant. Either way, he would agree that the said principle holds even if thus qualified; or at worst he would reckon the qualification redundant. It is also true that Reiner qual- ifies the values to which one responds as objectively important, not merely satisfying or pleasant. Yet he also thinks that all values to which an adequate response can be given are objectively important (1951/1983, 142). The upshot is that despite the differences in wording, Reiner agrees that the source of an act’s moral goodness is the fact that it is a free and adequate response to morally relevant values – in the case of the moral goodness of acts of will, a free and adequate response to the morally relevant values of practicable effects. This is an endorsement VRG.

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Finally, Seifert upholds “[...] the principle of ‘due response’ to morally relevant goods,” to which “all spheres of the moral life of the person obey.” It is the principle “of giving to all goods the response due to them” (2004, 353). It says “the moral character of a human act is due [...] to the inner justice, rightness, and goodness of the free response of a person” (2004, 344). Response to what? To the morally relevant value of saving the life of someone we see or hear crying for help; or to the morally relevant value of something not yet occurring, like the conception of someone who has not yet been conceived (2004, 329; 338; 341-342). In other words, the source of an act’s moral goodness is the fact that it is a free and adequate response to morally relevant values of objects. This again implies VRG, given the natural assumption that in the case of acts of will the objects are practicable effects. I claim these textual data support VRG as a common denominator of material value-ethicists. Some will object that the support is strong only if I cite passages implying VRG from all the main material value-ethicists. I disagree. The support may be more roundabout, but it is strong nonetheless because it is cumulative. Scheler and Hartmann, the two paradigm thinkers in the tradition, proclaim VRG or something like VRG. Kolnai, von Hil- debrand, Reiner and Seifert – in their development of the doctrine – likewise positively imply VRG. Moreover, even if others do neither, they still write in ways fitting with VRG. Individually these do not suffice to imply the endorsement of VRG, but jointly they build strong support since each is to be more expected given the endorsement than without it. So Brentano highlights a notion of adequacy. He also takes as morally good or adequate a decision regarded by the agent as probably maximizing the realized value (1889/2009, 8-11). Husserl (1988, 221; 357) does the same. Reinach (1989, 501-505) rejects the idea he attributes to Kant, that a good will is good by way of willing what-ought-to-be-in-general (not by way of any specific purpose), and demands instead that we measure goodness against intended values. The same can be said for Frings (1996, 75-76), Spader (2002, 31-37; 277-280), and Blosser (2013, 72). Finally, Crosby (1977, 285; 1983, 473;

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1996, 176), Wenisch (2002, 104-105), Kelly (2011, 116) and McAleer (2013, 189) are sympathetic to the principle that to any value an adequate response is due. All this taken together makes VRG as a common denominator of material value-ethicists probable. I propose this at least as a hypothesis worthy of further discussion. Anyone is welcome to propose a rival con- jecture, better in terms of clarity and credibility. VRG, like FG, could be modified for other bearers of moral goodness than acts of will, as well as for moral badness and moral neutrality. So value-responsivism about moral goodness of emotions would say that the source of their moral goodness is their being free and adequate responses to morally relevant values of their objects; value-responsivism about moral goodness of agents, that the source is their being persons whose free responses to morally relevant values are fundamentally adequate; value-responsivism about moral badness, that the source is being a free and inadequate response to morally relevant values; value- responsivism about moral neutrality, that the source is being a free response that is neither adequate nor inadequate (or that is not free at all). Hence to generalize again, a material value-ethicist is one who denies FG and its modifications because of VRG and its modifications.

IV. the Meaning of VRG

To clarify VRG, which serves in this article as a model claim of material value-ethics, I need to clarify its salient concepts. These are the concepts of freedom, value, morally relevant value, practicable effect, response to value, and adequate response. Intuitively, morally good acts must be in some sense free. The agent must have an immediate or at least indirect voluntary control over them. There is disagreement even among material value-ethicists about whether the agent must have been able to use this power otherwise than he or she did. In other words, they discuss whether the freedom presupposed in moral goodness rules out determinism (cf. Reiner 1951/1983, 81-89;

— 237 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 von Hildebrand 1953, 295-296). But let me side-track this issue since my claims do not hinge upon it. As for value, I only know of one explanation that is both clear and broad enough and it comes from von Hildebrand (1953, 34-63).7 Other material value-ethicists give mere examples of values, but otherwise they either leave the notion undefined (Scheler 1913-16/1973, 16), or they limit it to a quality in virtue of which something is an object of a positive, affirming emotion (Reiner 1951/1983, 133-137; 265-266), or they define value circularly, as a quality in virtue of which something is valuable (Hartmann 1926/2002a, 185). Let us say instead, therefore, that a value is a certain quality that makes something able to be willed or enjoyed, or it would enable something this way if this something had it. In short, a value is a certain motivating quality. But what sort of a motivating quality? The answer is disjunctive. A value is a quality of being subjectively important for a subject, or of being objectively good for a subject, or of being important in itself. Subjectively important for a subject is a quality of being pleasant or satisfying for him or her, as when a compliment received is pleasant or satisfying for me. Objectively good for a subject is a quality of being good (for the subject) that does not consist in a quality that is subjectively important (for the subject). An example might be forgiving my enemies, when it is good for me, though what its being good for me is does not involve, as its constitutive part, pleasantness for me or a satisfaction of my desire.8 Finally, important in itself is a quality of being something that ought to be. This quality consists neither in a quality that is subjectively important for a subject, nor in a quality that is objectively good for a subject. Thus my forgiving ought to happen, but what its oughtness – its being such that it ought to happen – is involves as its constitutive part neither pleasantness for me or someone else, nor satisfaction of my or someone else’s desire, nor objective goodness for me or someone else. Although the three types of value differ, one and the same thing can display all of them. So my forgiving my enemies can be both subjectively

— 238 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 vlastimil vohánka – material value-ethics clarified alleviating and objectively good for me and at the same time something that ought to happen. You may doubt this is ever the case. You may even doubt all the three types of values exist separately. But even then you can still appreciate at least the broad scope of the stated concept of value. And, presumably, you still believe in the existence of at least one type of value thus conceived.9 As for morally relevant values, these may be understood as those values, responses to which are in some possible situations morally good (Wenisch 2002, 106-107; cf. von Hildebrand 1953, 265; 280). In which sense are effects practicable? At least in the subjective sense that the agent regards him or herself as able to achieve them. That is, he or she regards achieving the effects as not so improbable as not to merit serious con- sideration. In this way John believes he is able to cure Peter. As Scheler would say, John has a sense of being able to do so. In contrast, if John was paralytic and Peter was drowning in a nearby pond, John would not have any sense of being able to save Peter (1913-16/1973, 119-121; cf. Reiner 1951/1983, 175). The explicit talk of a response comes from von Hildebrand (1916/1969, 29-39; 1953, 38; 191-209). He counts beliefs, disbeliefs, doubts, emotions, and acts of will as responses. From a broader perspective, exterior actions could also be subsumed under responses. Either way, all responses are intentional, in the sense of having an object. None are identical with mere acts of cognition or representation. All, rather, are reactions to one’s cognition or representation. Von Hildebrand highlights responses to values important in themselves, but we may generalize and consider in VRG also responses to other types of values. A response to morally relevant values means, in VRG, a response to discerned morally relevant values. Discerned in what sense? The agent may know – intellectually, emotionally, from testimony, or perhaps otherwise – the values would be realized by certain effects. In any case he or she at least regards them to be something that would be realized by the effects. The other requirement is that the values are morally

— 239 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 relevant. Thus John not only believes Peter’s recovery would have value, but that this value is also morally relevant. Of course the employed sense of discernment is not universally veridical: what one believes to be there may not be there. Von Hildebrand gives the example of Oronté, a character in Moliere’s play Tartuffe, who wrongly believes that Tartuffe is a saint and so reveres him in response to the wrongly assumed value of sainthood (1971/2009, 63-64). The final concept to be explicated in VRG is that of an adequate response. Here I do not know of any general clarification. I can only point to examples and hope the reader gets the idea. Brentano employs a notion of adequacy that he applies to emotions. For him, emotions are intentional acts of ‘love’ or ‘hate’, i.e. acts of being pleased or displeased with something. He distinguishes adequate or correct emotions from inadequate or incorrect emotions. While he originally thought that each emotion was either correct or incorrect, like each proposition was either true or false, he later admitted some emotions are neither, like some colours are neither light nor dark (1889/2009, 10-11). Here are some examples of which Brentano might approve: at least in normal circumstances, love towards one’s own child, fear of dangerous dogs, and joyful expectation of someone’s recovery are adequate; hate towards one’s own child, fear of harm- less dogs, and joyful expectation of someone’s death are inadequate; and a greater delight from chocolate than from ice cream is neither. After Brentano the notion of adequate response was spread and gen- eralized mainly by von Hildebrand (1916/1969, 39-40; 1953, 239-240; 244-256; 1980, 407-408). He also applied the notion to beliefs and acts of will. Notably, he proclaimed it to capture something sui generis: a rela- tion indefinable via other concepts, or at least not conveyable to anybody who has never recognized it as such. “To anything valuable an adequate response is due.” That, he wrote, “is an archphenomenon [ein Urphän- omen]” (1980, 407). But von Hildebrand, in fact, had two notions of adequacy in mind, rather than just one. One he called objective, the other subjective.

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VRG employs the latter. A response to an actual or expected object is objectively adequate when adequate to the way the object objectively is or would be, regardless of the agent’s attitudes. The already familiar example: a reverent emotion towards somebody who really is a saint, or the will to revere somebody who really is a saint. On the other hand, a response to an actual or expected object is subjectively adequate when adequate to the agent’s views about the object. The example: a reverent emotion towards, or the will to revere, somebody one deems a saint (1971/2009, 63-64). Yet despite its label, not even subjective adequacy is up for grabs. It is still in a way objective. If Oronté believes Tartuffe is a saint, then Oronté’s reverence is – vis-à-vis that belief – adequate. This holds regardless of Oronté’s moods, decisions and other attitudes; it holds also regardless of whether Tartuffe really is a saint. True, Oronté’s reverence might be inadequate vis-à-vis his other and more tenuous beliefs. He might be slightly inclined to believe, due perhaps to the eloquence of his cynical friends, that nobody really is a saint. Even then, however, Oronté’s reverence would still be adequate with regard to his genuine (predominant, stronger, or more intuitive) beliefs.10 So let us recap on the meaning of VRG. VRG means that for any agent A and any time t, A’s act of will at t is morally good in virtue of the fact that A, in his or her will, responds freely and adequately at t to the morally relevant values of practicable effects. That is, A wills freely at t to realize, accomplish or preserve the qualities he or she (genu- inely) believes at t to be subjectively satisfying or objectively good for some subject or important in themselves. Plus, these qualities can be, in some possible situations, wanted, unwanted, loved, hated, believed, dis- believed, or doubted in a morally good way. Plus, A believes at t they would be accomplished by effects he or she is able to cause at t or later. Plus, the free will of A is in the suggested sense adequate to beliefs of A. Mutatis mutandis for other bearers of moral goodness than acts of will, and also for moral badness and moral neutrality.

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I believe this clarifies those characterizations of material value-ethics – quoted above from Hartmann, Frings and Kelly – that were appreciated by me as going in the right direction.

V. what Makes Material Value-Ethics Unique?

My suggestion is that VRG and its modifications display a unique combination of two features. First, they are value-focused, as they explicitly found moral goodness, badness and neutrality on responses to values. This favours them over deontological, virtue-based, and love or compassion-based views. Secondly, VRG and its modifications allow for being non-committal about another value-focused view: consequentialism. This favours those who do not know whether consequentialism is true. So first let us appreciate the former point. In ethics we argue, for instance, about whether and when abortion is morally good, bad, or neutral. As analytic intuitionist Michael Huemer observes, it “would strike us as superficial” to never appeal in that context to values. It would seem misguided to us to ever appeal instead to, say, the Kantian consistency and try “[...] to determine exactly what the maxim behind abortion is, to see whether or not it would possible to will it to be a universal law.” Indeed, Huemer says, “[w]hat we actually do” is that we “consider mul- tiple, different values and try to weigh them against each other” (1994). Analogously, it should strike us as misguided never to employ a concept of value when discussing what it is about morally marked acts of will, persons, or emotions that makes them morally good, bad, or even neutral. As Kelly notes, such unconcern would not be true “to the common experience of values” (2008, 2). Values are “[...] the ultimate stuff of our moral consciousness [...] the material to which moral consciousness is directed” (2011, 7-8). Deontological, virtue-focused, and love or compassion-focused views about the sources of moral qualities do not explicitly employ, as VRG does, any concept of value. According to the deontological view, the

— 242 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 vlastimil vohánka – material value-ethics clarified source of moral goodness, for example, is just acting deliberately in a way that is obligatory or supererogatory; of moral badness, in a way that is impermissible; of moral neutrality, in neither way (cf. Wood 2007, 32-34). According to the virtue-focused view, the source of moral goodness is just acting deliberately in a way a virtuous person would act; of moral badness, in a way a vicious person would act; of moral neutrality, in neither way (cf. Athanassoulis 2017). According to love and compassion-focused views, the source of moral goodness is just acting deliberately with love and compassion; of moral badness, acting deliberately in a hateful or cal- lous way; and of moral neutrality, acting deliberately in neither way (cf. Pruss 2013, 19-22; Janaway 2002, 96-99). No concept of value is explicit here. One might object it is implicit. From the deontologist position, a concept of the value (important in itself) of acting deliberately in a way that is obligatory or supererogatory. From the virtue-based position, a concept of acting that is valuable (objectively for a subject or important in itself) because virtuous. From the love or compassion-based perspectives, a concept of the value (important in itself or objectively good for a subject) of acting lovingly or compassionately. Even then, however, the VRG and its modifications would still have the advantage of being clearer in the sense of explicitly tracking moral goodness and other moral qualities down to values. Take deontology as an example. Suppose John is obligated, or supererogatorily invited, to cure Peter. Given deontology, John’s doing so is morally good precisely in virtue of deliberately doing something obligatory or supererogatory. But whence the obligation or supererogation? Why is fulfilling them morally right? And why is deliberately fulfilling them morally good? Apparently, the answer should mention values. “It makes no sense,” writes Scheler, “to speak of a duty [...] that is floating in the air [... O]ne can speak of an ought only when a value is given [...]; so, according to its nature, an imperative pertains to a posited value” (1913-16/1973, 211). “The moral norms,” von Hildebrand seconds in the same context, “are rooted in

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values” (1953, 183). Thus an obligation such as the one to cure Peter “[...] necessarily presupposes the value of the object to which it refers.” The same holds for the invitation to cure Peter supererogatorily. Even if John was commanded or invited by a moral authority (say, by God or by John’s father) to cure Peter, the authority would only be real if based on the value of obeying it (1953, 127-128; cf. 188). Kelly similarly notes that an appeal to values is needed to back up obligations: “For all the importance of obligation to a moral community that wishes to remain sane, we cannot derive a system of ethics from it alone. Obligation derives from value, and cannot answer the question of how to live valuably simply by uttering the categorical order, ‘Do your duty!’ Indeed, any person who asserts a moral obligation is forced to face the question, ‘What value will be realized from an agent’s adherence to this duty?’” (2011, 108). An equally legitimate question might read: what value will be realized from adherence to this supererogation; to this virtue; to this call of love or compassion? Again, an advantage of VRG and its variations is that they refer to values explicitly, thus directing to them our attention: morally good acts consist in subjectively adequate responses to discerned morally relevant values, morally bad acts in subjectively inadequate ones, and morally neutral acts in those neither adequate nor inadequate (or in those that are not free). In addition, one can take certain other moral qualities as stemming from objective rather than subjective adequacy or inadequacy to values: acts that are morally right regardless of the agent’s attitudes consist in objectively adequate responses to morally relevant values, while acts that are morally wrong regardless of his or her attitudes consist in objectively inadequate responses.11 Those who endorse VRG and its modifications are not obliged to talk only about values. Any plausible ethics must also say something about obligations, supererogations, virtues, love, or compassion. So an endorser of VRG is free to say, for example, that those right acts whose omission is wrong are obligatory; those right acts whose omission is not wrong are supererogatory; those acts that would be performed by an

— 244 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 vlastimil vohánka – material value-ethics clarified agent with a well-entrenched disposition to act in a way that is both right and good are virtuous; those acts in which one appreciates thoroughly someone’s value, wills what one believes is valuable for him or her, and wills to be united with him or her are loving; and those acts in which one appreciates and wills what one believes is valuable for him or her, especially the alleviation of his or her suffering, are compassionate.12 But an endorser of VRG and its variants is distinguished from other ethicists by the centrality of values in his or her analyses of moral qualities. Likewise, even a virtue ethicist can – indeed, must – say something about values, obligations, supererogations, love, and compassion. But his theory is specific due to his emphasis on virtues. Also, based on a plausible – though probably not empirically tested – hypothesis, the more clearly it is stated that (or how) moral qualities, obligations, supererogations, virtues, love and compassion are not ‘floating in the air’ but are rather ‘rooted in values’, the less likely they will invite cynicism or outright immorality. Taking negative obligations (pro- hibitions) as his example, Scheler says they may paradoxically “suggest [...] the evil which they forbid” and “bring an evil as a possible project closer to will” (1913-16/1973, 214). Kelly subsequently generalizes this for all obligations and virtues: [O]bligation itself cannot tell us what positive values are aimed at by it: how, for example, could we take the true measure of the value of human life, truth, or personal property, if we are told only that a person must not be murdered, lied to, or robbed? How can we measure what human goodness or virtue consists in, if we are told only that we must not be murderers, lairs, or thieves [...]? Ethics must therefore begin with values, not seek to derive them from obligations, and an education in virtue must begin with the study of the myriad positive values [...] that the learner could make functional in his own life. Then pessimism about the value of life will evaporate (2011, 110).

This way advocates of VRG and of its variants are led to reawaken morally relevant values. So they try to make vivid, for example, the value of

— 245 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 pleasure, agreeableness, health, sparkle, charm, vitality, exuberance, wit, depth, acuteness, brilliance, nicety, loveliness, gloriousness, sublimity, beauty, courage, generosity, honesty, humility, wisdom, charity, or holi- ness (cf. Gooch 1993; Hartmann 1926/2002b, 192ff.). Still, aware of the difficulties of reductive definitions, they press not so much for air-tight, general formulas as for evocative examples, pointing to often unspoken distinctions in common ethical intuitions. Some even rank the values by their nobility, roughly in the aforemention ascending order (see Gooch 1993). Some others doubt this order, at least in part (Hartmann 1926/2002b, 56-64; 404; Kelly 2011, 34-38). But however debatable in some of its results, the struggle to spot the axiological roots of ethics is distinctive and laudable. Next let us appreciate that VRG and its modifications leave open whether consequentialism is true. This is fine if you agree the issue is tough. Besides material-value ethics, consequentialism is another value- focused view about the source of moral qualities, though for reasons escaping my explanation it seems less interested in a comparably detailed scan of the value-landscape. It claims that positive moral qualities stem solely from valuable enough actual consequences, or solely from probable enough and valuable enough consequences. It says the contrary about negative moral qualities (with ‘disvaluable’ in place of ‘valuable’) and that neutral moral qualities occur when neither of the two opposites holds. We may easily concede to Kant that actualist consequentialism is false. Some morally good acts have poor actual consequences. Some morally bad acts have great actual consequences. Even morally neutral (say, involuntary) acts score variously when measured by actual outcomes. Let me consider moral goodness. Suppose John wants to give a certain chemical to Peter, who appears to be ill again. John is tempted not to. He fears he will be punished since Peter is a war enemy. Also, John’s fundamental motive is altruistic, to cure Peter, not, for example, to gain applause from comrades. John, of course, believes the chemical is life-saving, but he is

— 246 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 vlastimil vohánka – material value-ethics clarified completely wrong. It hides a strange virus that, unbottled, will tempt everyone in the town to commit grave cruelties, to which temptation they will freely succumb. Under these circumstances, is John’s will to give the chemical to Peter good? It is. But it is less obvious that probabilist consequentialism is false. Sup- pose John is aware of some clue, however feeble yet by his own lights still somewhat probable, that the chemical is the virus. Is his will to administer the chemical then good? It does not seem so. Indeed, it seems bad since it is reckless. Even for many competent scholars the issue of consequentialism remains open. The ensuing debate has not resolved the issue to their satisfaction, not by a long shot. Suppose John believes he probably could – with a clear conscience, and unbeknownst to everyone else – save five patients by harvesting Peter’s organs (see Foot 1967/2013, 538-539). Or suppose John believes that by breaking a promise he made to Peter he could probably prevent five other people from breaking their own, equally serious promises (see Smart and Williams 1973, 87-89). Some insist that John’s will to do either of these two things would not be bad (Singer 1974). Some claim it would, even according to consequentialism: perhaps values of consequences are agent-relative so that John should deem killing by him as worse than five deaths not involving killing by him, as well as he should deem breaking a promise by him as worse than breaking a promise by others (Sen 1982). In reply to this, anti-consequentialists may want to focus on the former scenario, while altering it slightly: John believes that by harvesting the organs he would probably save five people he himself wounded previously and so his not harvesting would amount to his killing them. His will to harvest would still be bad. Again, some consequentialists keep insisting it would not. Others see it as bad because it stems from a motive, character or rule that would lead to overall disvaluable consequences (Adams 1976). Anti-consequentialists keep insisting the will to harvest is bad even if stemming from a motive, character or rule with overall valuable consequences. The result? For many, a dialectical

— 247 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 stalemate: “We might have no reason either to deny consequentialism or to assert it” (Sinnott-Armstrong 2015, §7). At this moment, and despite the bleak picture, one option is to come up with a convincing resolution. I myself know of none, though I concede some may exist already or be found in the future. But another option is to set the issue aside, regardless of one’s stand on it – to do ethics without denying or committing to consequentialism. This option should appeal not only to those who take no stand, but to those who prefer not to make their ethics hinge upon it. In fact, in applied ethics we have seen arguments assuming neither consequentialism nor its denial. A famous example even comes from Peter Singer, the present-day archconsequen- tialist, who originally devised it for the obligation to donate to causes fighting extreme poverty (1972) and later for the less specific obligation to donate to comparably important causes, including subversion of factory farms (2015, 3-11; 107ff.). So to paraphrase the later version, suppose John believes that extreme poverty and factory farms are disvaluable. It seems to him that even a partial prevention – getting a number of people out of extreme poverty, stopping a new factory farm from being established – would have value. It also seems to him that he could accomplish this by, and only by, donating a substantial amount of money to charities; and that he could accomplish that without sacrificing, in total, anything of comparable value, such as the well-being of his family. Then, the argument goes, John’s will to donate is morally good, and his will not to donate is morally bad. Although debated, this argument of applied ethics is convincing even for many non-consequentialists (see Cullity 2004) because it nowhere assumes consequentialism. This is clear from Singer’s note that by ‘without sacrificing anything of comparable value’ he means “without causing anything else comparably bad to happen, or doing something that is wrong in itself, or failing to promote some moral good, comparable in significance to the bad thing that we can prevent” (1972, 231; italics mine; cf. 2015, 53; 79). Put more generally, one can run the argument whether or not

— 248 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 vlastimil vohánka – material value-ethics clarified some acts are morally bad or good solely on account of actual or probable consequences. In theoretical ethics, we can follow up with VRG and its modifications. They neither entail nor contradict consequentialism about the sources of moral goodness and badness.13 Suppose the argument just given is sound. John’s will to donate is good, while his will not to donate is bad. The work VRG and its modifications do for us is that they say in virtue of what John’s will is good or bad, without committing us to consequentialism or its denial. John’s will to donate is good in virtue of being his free adequate response to the morally relevant values of practicable effects. One of these values is the value of a partial prevention of extreme poverty and factory farms, compared to the value of things John would sacrifice by donating. John’s will not to donate is bad in virtue of being his free and inadequate answer to the same morally relevant values. All this is silent about whether the adequacy of John’s will consists in willing probable and valuable enough effects, and whether the inadequacy consists in willing (to permit) probable and disvaluable enough effects. Now some might object that VRG and its variants do commit us to a denial of consequentialism. Moral goodness or adequacy, writes Kelly, “[...] is not to be found [...] in the disinterested pursuit of concrete goods that outbalance any disutility provoked by one’s actions” (2008, 11-12). This view, I would conceded, may be predominant among material value- ethicists, who mostly seem to oppose consequentialism.14 But it is not inbuilt into VRG and its modifications as such. If it was, then Brentano, a predecessor of material value-ethics and of its concept of adequate response, would hardly be a consequentialist about moral goodness. To him, a morally good or adequate decision is a decision believed by the agent to probably maximize the value of the present and future of the world as a whole (1952/2009, 57; 84; 139; 199). If, on the other hand, some insist that VRG and its variants some- how imply consequentialism, they are invited to show how. They are also invited to consider the six following constraints for adequacy proposed

— 249 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 by material value-ethicists: rough and ready rules intended as applying to many – though not to all – responses. Consequentialism appears in none of them. The first is adapted from Scheler (1913-16/1973, 26) and von Hildebrand (1953, 237-239). (i) In general, adequate responses to values correspond in their degree of affirmation to the discerned height of the values at stake. Suppose John believes humility is more noble than intellectual brilliance. His responses are then adequate overall only if, ceteris paribus, he admires people he deems humble more than people he deems brilliant, and wants more to be humble than to be brilliant. The second constraint is inspired by Hartmann (1926/2002b, 51-53; 155-156). (ii) In general, adequate responses to values correspond in their degree of affirmation to the discerned strength of the values at stake. Here, stronger values are meant to be those more basic or elementary – like the value of health, in comparison to the value of intellectual brilliance. Though Hart- mann admits preferring higher values is adequate in general, he notes it sometimes is not. Think once again of distributing books rather than medications among the seriously ill. At any rate, in neither constraint is there a hint that all adequate responses are adequate solely in virtue of a valuable aggregate of actual or probable outcomes. The remaining four constraints come from Reiner (1951/1983, 176- 177). In general, adequate responses to values correspond in their degree of affirmation to the discerned (iii) urgency, (iv) quantity, (v) probability, and (vi) special obligations. So compare a person about whom John believes she is about to die from malaria in the next week with another he believes will die in the next month; compare two persons John believes to be in mortal danger with one such a person; compare a dose of medicine regarded by John as surely able to cure one person from malaria with a dose of another medicine only theoretically suspected by him as sufficient for two; compare John’s own child believed by him to be in mortal danger with two of his neighbour’s children. In line with (iii) to (v), preference of the following is ceteris paribus adequate on John’s part: curing the person he believes will die sooner; curing two rather than one;

— 250 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 vlastimil vohánka – material value-ethics clarified administering the sure medicine to just one. But this does not rule out the idea that some acts are adequate even if not faring well by consequentialist standards. Note that according to (vi), John’s decision to cure his own child rather than two of his neighbour’s children is adequate. True, Wenisch (2002, 193) notes, and Reiner might agree, that special obligations have limits. There may well be such numbers of people believed to be in danger that it would be adequate to save these people rather than whoever one is specially obligated to (one’s child, wife, fiancée, sister, or friend). Still, below such numbers adequacy does not follow typical consequentialist standards, which have no room for special obligations. And why it should follow untypical ones remains again to be shown.

VI. further Objections, with Replies

The present article argues mainly for three theses. One, material ethics is ethics that denies that all acts are morally good, bad, or neutral solely in virtue of something stripped of all reference of the agent to (specific, ‘material’) objects. Two, material value-ethics is ethics that denies this as it sees the source of these moral qualities, respectively, in the agent’s response to morally relevant values that is free and adequate, free and inadequate, or neither. Three, this position is unique because of its explicit reference to values combined with bypassing the issue of consequentialism. In what remains I hope to anticipate several objections I have not considered so far. First, besides values there are disvalues – demotivating qualities of being unpleasant, dissatisfying or objectively bad for a subject, or of something that ought not to be. Responses to disvalues are no less typi- cally morally good or bad than responses to values. So why have disvalues been left unaddressed? Mainly for the sake of brevity. But in fact discussion of disvalues can be turned into discussion values. A disvalue can be represented as the absent value of the disvalue’s absence (Scheler 1913- 16/1973, 26; 82). The disvalue of an unpleasant mishap, for example, can

— 251 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 ethical perspectives – june 2017 be represented as the absent value of the mishap’s absence. But if you find this awkward, you can easily amend value-responsivism, saying that a morally good or bad response is both to values and disvalues. Those who follow Kant (1785/2011, 21-27) or Rousseau (1755/1992, 80-81) in grading moral goodness might have another worry. If value- responsivism about moral goodness was true and goodness arose from a free and adequate response to values, then all acts would be of the same degree of moral goodness. Each would either be free and adequate, or not; with no gradation in moral goodness. I reply that value-responsivism has room for this gradation. The difference between good obligatory and good supererogatory acts, for example, could be due to gradation in adequacy itself: the latter could be more adequate than the former. The difference between good acts done against self-interest or inclination and good acts done in accord with self-interest or inclination could be due to gradation in freedom: the former could be more free or voluntary than the latter. Some people will consider value-responsivism too permissive. Aren’t there free and adequate yet not morally good responses to morally relevant values? Suppose John freely and adequately prefers Mozart over second-rate music. Is he morally good in doing so? While I might be inclined to admit it, von Hildebrand would disagree: John’s preference is not morally good, for the aesthetic values John responds to are not morally relevant (1953, 245-250; 280-281; 1971/2009, 86). I doubt this. Those values are morally relevant where responses to them are in some possible situation morally good. John could prefer Mozart after a long period of listening to bad music. In doing so he might respond, in an act of morally good self-love, to the value of his own psychic well-being or artistic flourishing. I see no absurdity in saying that, in the same situation, John responds also to the aesthetic value of Mozart’s piece in a morally good act of aesthetic appreciation. But whoever disagrees is free to limit the range of morally relevant values together with von Hil- debrand.15

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Another objection against the alleged permissiveness of value- responsivism might appeal to the existence of culpably incorrect value- discernments. John wants to be like Hitler since he incorrectly and culpably believes that Hitler was admirable. Perhaps John arrived at that belief by reasoning that he himself had suspected to be careless. Perhaps he had formed it subconsciously as an excuse for his own habitual mis- treatment of Jewish citizens. Whatever the cause, does John’s will to be like Hitler not fail to be morally good? Well, perhaps it does even on value-responsivism. Perhaps John’s culpably incorrect belief is not genuine: deep down John knows Hitler was far from admirable. In the rare event that John at that moment is altogether sincere, his will is, at that moment, morally good, even if morally wrong objectively speaking. Another plausible reply is to amend value-responsivism: a response counts as morally good only if the agent’s discernment is not culpably incorrect (cf. Brentano 1952/2009, 199). That is to say, only if the discernment is not incorrect due to his or her previous free and inadequate response to morally relevant values. Some will object that value-responsivism fails to clarify the source of moral properties as long as the concept of adequacy is left without a rigorous definition. I reply that some concepts are intelligible even if undefined. This, Brentano writes when defending the idea of an adequate emotion, holds for concepts of redness and joy (1952/2009, 137-138), for example. So why not for the concept of adequacy? Some might answer, because these are philosophers’ technical concepts, unlike those coming from ordinary language. But Michael Huemer counters this convincingly as he discusses the limits of conceptual analyses. One may fix the meaning of a technical term without defining it. It “[...] may suffice to offer some examples [...] to make a series of statements and arguments using the technical term” (2015, 67), and to “[...] distinguish the category in question from other categories that are related but distinct to it” (2015, 72). Huemer points to Kant, who introduced the concept of analytic judg- ment in this way though he failed to give its (correct) definition.16

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Brentano and von Hildebrand introduce the notion of adequacy in a similar way, without even attempting to define it. If one replies that the concepts of moral goodness, badness etc. could also be fixed in the same way in the first place, I would agree. But I would argue that it is philo- sophically deeper to fix them, if possible, also in general terms. Even Huemer admits “[...] it might have been preferable had Kant given a correct definition of analytic (assuming a correct and comprehensible definition exists)” (2015, 67). Finally, I admit that value-responsivism is no easy-to-follow formula for the specific issues of applied ethics. I do not, however, see this as alarming. Even utilitarians, who often aspire to such moral algorithms, sometimes suffer from dilemmas about what to do (Singer 2015, 129- 136). On the other hand, even value-responsivists offer some guiding constraints. The justification and integration of those dealing with adequacy may be difficult, but this does not render them idle. To take an analogy from the philosophy of science, criteria such as simplicity, scope, explanatory power, and fit with background knowledge constrain the acceptability of hypotheses and theories, but no philosopher of science thinks he or she can justify them in a heartbeat or determine easily whatever is acceptable. In conclusion, I do not expect agreement on all the claims I have made in this article. I hope, however, that even in the event of adamant disagreement they will stimulate the discussion about how ethics should be done.17

Works Cited

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Notes

1. See Cajthaml (forthcoming). 2. In the broadest sense here, and also elsewhere in this article, ‘things’ denotes just anything, including persons, substances, attributes, events, processes, states of affairs, and combina- tions therefrom. 3. There are other senses, which I set aside here, in which Kant has been called ‘formalistic’: e.g. because in his categorical imperative he makes no reference to any desires (cf. Rohlf 2016, §5.4). 4. Scheler is a prominent example. He agrees with Kant that moral goodness does not track actual effects: “Kant is certainly correct in stating that the realization of a certain non-formal value is itself never [morally] good.” But he insists “there exists a definite non-formal ethics” (1913- 16/1973, 25-26). 5. I am using ‘refer’ in a broad sense; not in the technical sense common in the analytic philosophy of language on which one can only refer to something actual. 6. See also von Hildebrand (1953, 38; 240-241; 244; 248; 1969, 39; 1980, 407). 7. What I call ‘value’ von Hildebrand calls ‘importance’ as he reserves the label ‘value’ for importance in itself. 8. Michael Huemer clarifies (i) being a part of what something is as he distinguishes it from (ii) being causally connected to something. Suppose there is a disease from which everybody recovers if they believe that they will, and nobody does if they believe that they will not. Then “[...] there happens to be a causal connection between positive thinking and recovery”. But it still isn’t true that “part of what constitutes one’s recovery from the disease is one’s positive attitude.” Rather, “[...] what would con- stitute recovery is cessation of whatever the symptoms of the disease are” (2005, 3). 9. I set aside further issues in the metaphysics of values. I simply note that in material value- ethics, values are considered indefinable by natural, purely descriptive properties but supervening on or consequential upon them. Also, a given value may be a monadic or relational quality; repeatable or non-repeatable; and necessary or non-necessary for the thing displaying it. There is disagreement about whether all values are internal to the mind like colours and other secondary qualities are commonly supposed to be (Scheler 1913-16/1973, xxix-xxx; 17-18; 261); whether they are abstract objects like Platonic ideas (Hartmann 1926/2002a, 219-226); and whether some entail the existence of God (von Hildebrand 1953, 6; 138; 152; 159-160; von Hildebrand 1971/2009, 16; 79-82).

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10. For the contrast, derived from von Hildebrand, between genuine and tenuous beliefs, see Wenisch (2002, 135-139; 147-148). 11. See Wenisch (2002, 139-143). 12. On obligation and supererogation, see von Hildebrand (1953, 265; 379-392). On virtue, see Hartmann (1926/2002b, 192ff), von Hildebrand (1953, 357-378), and Kelly (2011, 133ff). On love, see Scheler (1916/1973, 98-135; 1913-16/1973, 260-261; 1973/2009, 147ff.), von Hildeb- rand (1971/2009), Spader (2002, 87-97), and Seifert (2015). On compassion, see Scheler (1973/2009, 135-144). 13. This is an advantage, for example, over Singer’s (2015, 198, note 10) preference or hedonic utilitarianism. 14. Cf. Hartmann (1926/2002a, 140-143; 155), von Hildebrand (1953, 69; 385; 388), Spader (2002, 133-134), Wenisch (2002, 114-119; 150), Seifert (2004, 181; 301ff.). 15. Another strategy I also find in von Hildebrand (1953, 260-263; 269-271) is to amend the statement of value-responsivism about moral goodness. So one might add that a response is morally good only if the agent discerns the responded to values as morally relevant – or only if he or she has an implicit will to be a morally good person. 16. Kant defines analytic judgement as one in which the predicate is covertly contained in the subject (1781/1998, 130). This is incorrect as it stands. For then the incoherent judgement ‘No bachelors are unmarried’ counts as analytic, but not the analytic judgement ‘No bachelors are married’ (Huemer 2015, 66). 17. My thanks for commentaries on different versions of this article go to Martin Cajthaml, Mariano Crespo, James Franklin, Peter McCormick, Czesław Porębski, Daniel von Wachter, and the anonymous reviewers of this journal. The research underlying this article was supported by The Czech Science Foundation GAČR, project Nr. 15-10061S (The Phenomenological Ethics of Dietrich von Hildebrand).

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