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The Nature and Uniqueness of Material Value-Ethics Clarified 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 arti- cle 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 deter- mine 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 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES 24, no. 2(2017): 225-258. © 2017 by Centre for Ethics, KU Leuven. All rights reserved. doi: 10.2143/EP.24.2.3218003 ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES – JUNE 2017 ­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 nar- row 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 what- ever is obligatory. A higher value is one that is more noble: more noble in the intuitive sense in which, for example, many people regard intel- lectual 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). — 226 — Ethical Perspectives 24 (2017) 2 VLASTIMIL VOHÁNKA – MATERIAL VALUE-ETHICS CLARIFIED Turning to Spader we read that Scheler’s ethics is “[...] an ethics of nonformal values, values ‘seen’ through special acts of ‘feeling,’ not rea- son [...] 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 intel- lect 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 charac- ter 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 realiza- tion 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 noth- ing 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 them- selves 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 affirma- tion. Similarly, once I grasp the validity of a demonstration of a theo- rem in mathematics, I naturally respond not only with intellectual assent, but also with a determination to use the theorem with confi- dence 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 com- mon 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 eth- ics. 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.
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