From: R. Fabian (ed.), Christian von Ehrenfels: Leben und Werk. 151 Amsterdam: Rodopi, (l986), l50-l71l material, in vol. I of Reinhard Fabian's edition of Ehrenfels' Philosophische Schriften. I shall refer principally to the System der Werttheorie, citing page numbers according to the Fabian edition. What follows is intended as no more than an outline of Ehrenfels' THE THEORY OF VALUE OF CHRISTIAN VON EHRENFELS views, with some reference to the relations between his work and the subjectivist approach to economic values initiated by Carl Menger in Barry SMITH • his Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre in 1871. All criticism will be spared, as also will detailed considerations of influence. 1 1 shall concentrate exclusively on value theory in the strict sense as Ehrenfels § 1. lntroduction conceived it, avoiding conjecturcs as to the ways in which this theory §2. Foundations of a General Theory of Values rnight be supplemented by ideas from the theory of Gestalten to §3. The Relation between Desire and Feeling produce an account which would be more adequate to the dimension §4. The Objects of Desire of aesthetic value.2 §5. On the Nature of Values §6. Types of Value §2. Foundations of a General Theory of Values §7. What Doth Charity Avail Me? §8. Interpersonal Value-Comparisons Menger founded what has since corne to be known as the "first" §9. The Struggle for Existencc among Values Austrian school of valuc theory. The first-generation members of this § 10. Value and Habit school included also Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Friedrich von 3 § 11. Conclusion Wieser, with both of whom Ehrenfels had significant exchanges. The school is today represented by. arnong others, F.A. von Hayek, Ludwig Lachmann and I.M. Kirzner, and passing mention will be § 1. lntroduction rnade in§ 10 below of possible lines of comparison between Ehrenfels' thought and that of Hayek, in particular. Ehrenfels' principal writings on value theory belong to the early Ehrenfels, on the other hand, together with Meinong and other period of his creative life. their publication following immediately pupils of Brentano. belonged to the "second" Austrian school of upon that of his classic paper "Über 'Gestaltqualitäten"'. They are:1 value theory: In contradistinction to the economists, the members of - "Werttheorie und Ethik", a series of five articles published in this school were concerned to develop a genera/ theory of values. 1893-94; They regarded economic value as only one special sort of human - "Von der Wertdefinition zum Motivationsgesetze", published value. and urged that economic values could be properly undetstood in the Archiv für systematische Philosophie in 1896; only when their connection with the entire range of value-phenomena - "The Ethical Theory of Value", a revi!!W of Meinong's Psycho­ had been made clear. logisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werttheorie, published in the 1. For discussions of influences on Ehrenfels' value theory see Eaton, International Journal of Ethics in 1896; Grassl, 1982a, and Fabian-Simons. and: 2. The reader is however invited to cornpare the conception of value as - System der Werttheorie, vol. I: Al/gemeine Werttheorie, Psycho­ organic unity set forth by Nozick in ch.5 of his 1981 with ideas sketched by logie des Begehrens (1897) and vol. II: Grundzüge einer Ethik Ehrenfels, e.g. in the fragment "Höhe und Reinheit der Gestalt" (1916). (1898). 3. Grass!, op.cit. is now the definitive survey of these exchanges. All of these writings are now collected, with othcr, supplementary 4. See Eaton and, 011 the wider membership and influence of the schooi, Grassl, 1981 and (forthcoming). 152 153 The rnembers of this second school did however look up to the we do not desire things because we grnsp in them some mysticaL economists as having achieved a theoretical depth and rigour in their incomprehensible essence "vaiue"; rather, we ascribe "value" to things analyses which was at that time lacking in work on values on the part because we desire them (p.219). of their fe llow philosophers. Ethics, in particular, Ehrenfels Of course the immediate suspicion awakened by a view of this kind conceived as having hardly advanced beyond its beginnings with the is that, in spite of the detour through desire. it must amount to some Greeks: form of hedonism, i.e. to the view that the value of an object is it sets as its goal. ..an extraneous and often arbitrary hsting :md ranking of • ultimately a matter of the pleasure (fee iing) it will bring. But ethical and other value-objccts, from whichone might at best glean thost: Ehrenfels is not a hedonist: he does not hold that one's own fee!ings fe..,..,ons inherited from past ages which we ,·all "worldly wisdom" •·­ constitme the u!timate goal of all desiring. To see why not, it is something which we normally learn to understand 10 appreciate only when necessary to mention briefly his account of the relationship between we have acquired it for oursclves and at our own cost (p.214f. ). desire and presentation. Desire is dirccted towards some desired But how is the desired 1heore1ical understanding of values to be objec;t (the word 'object', hcre, beinp: understood in the widest achieved? Here Ehrcnfels turned on the one hand to the task of possible sense, to includr also prnperties, relations, prncesscs, etc.). generalising laws of valuat1on wh1ch had been discovered by the And this desired object, according ro Ehrenfe!s, rnust be presented in economistc;. above all thc iaw of marginal utihty. And on the other some way by he who desires it. Seme 1dea of it must be present as a band hc turned to psyd1ology. This he conceived. with some constituent of the act of desire. The question ol hedonism amounts, diffe rcnces, in ihe way Brentano conceived it in the Psychologie vom therefore. to the question whether, when we desir-:,we also necessari­ empiriJchcn 5itandpunkt. Li!. as a descriprive psychology of diffe rent ly present to ourselves our own pkasure or our own pain, or the kinds of acts and of interrelations betwel:"nac ts. These two strands in removal of the same. And the answer to this quest1on is that in many Ehrenfrls' work and indecd in the work of �'h:inong, whe>musr be cases we do. but not in a/J. creditcd with having taken the first steps m this din:-ctiotL support This is the case fi rst of all beca use: eac:h other mutually: the same laws hold for moral vaiues as for in the most common circumstances of our everyday life our dcsiring goes econormc values because thc two sor!.S of values have the same directly ro certain routine externaltasks such as eating. drinking, waiting, p.syrhological fo undations. sitting, sieeping. etc., w1thout therc bcing presented thereby the state of feeling which corresponds to these tasks (p.236) §3. The Relation between Desire and Feeling - a poi nt which anticipates the important role played by habit in Ehrenfels' theory, to be discussed in §10 below. Ehienfels' psychological foundation of vaiue-theory conceives the And it is the case , secondly, because some desires relate to periods value of things as dependent upon human valuing acts, which are in of time of which the subject will not or could not have experience, or turn wnceived as being dcpendent upon acts of desire. Thus, at least to the feeli ngs of individuals with whom he cou!d have no con• in fi rst approximation, ceivable contact. I might, for example, desire that my remote descendants should have the opportunity to acquire a taste for 5. The most important diffe rence, from our present point of view, is the oysters: or I might wish that the Spanish Inquisition had never taken sharp distinction drawn by Ehrenfels between the two categories offeeling place; and a range of other cases can be brought forward to and desire. These were run together by Brentano into the single category of demonstrate that the concept of an act which is directed towards 'phenomena of love and hate'. Brentano is criticised on this point also by goals other than one's own feelings does not contain any sort of Anscombe in her 1978. lt is the common indebtedness to a Brentanian act­ contradiction.6 psychology which, more than anything eise. makes it appropriate to regard Ehrenfels. Meinong, Kraus, Kreibig and others as members of a single 6. Complement.ary arguments to the same effect are to be found in school. Duncker, 1941. 154 155 Whilst the desiring subject does not in every case desire his own asserts that there is a tendency forthe utility derived frnm a good to happiness, there is of course some relation between desire and decrease with an increase in its supply, expresses one aspect of a happmess or. more generally, between desire and feeling. But this complex relation of dependence involving the <lispositional proper� relation is a complex one, involving both the dispositions of the given ties of a good to yield utility. individual and the relative promotion of happiness which he expe­ Note, too, that it would be unreasonable to assert any law of riences as being associated with given acts. absolute increase in happiness. One might, for exampie, do con­ We can say, very roughly, that the disposition to desire on the part tinuous battle against an evil (for exampie ill-health), which is of a given individual is dependent upon the d1sposit10ns of that nevertheiess continuaily worsening, and still be always relatively individual to have certain feelings. To say more than this. we have to happier than one would otherwise have been. It is necessary, for recognise that acts of desire, according to Ehrenfets,ar e divided into given acts of striving and willing to take place, only that, should one three categories of wishing, striving, and willing.