THE ESSENCE & NATURE

OF VALUES

FLORENCE ROY P. SALVAÑA

Presenter
Topic Outline
• The Essence of Values
• Phenomenology of Moral Values
• Characteristics of Moral Values
• The Metaphysics of Moral Values
• Knowledge of Values
• The World of Values
• Max Scheler’s Non-Formal Ethics
• Phenomenological Givenness in Intentional Feeling
• Emotional Axiology: The Graded Realm of Values
• Law of Preference
• Order: Characteristics
• Relative, Absolute and Moral Values
• Moral Values
• The Moral Ought & The Ideal Models of a Person
• Personal Values
• The Value of the Holy
The Essence of Values
• -“valere” (Latin)
meaning to measure the worth of
something.
•There are the elements of life
prevailing in any society.
•Values are the guiding principles of
our behavior.
True Values
• Positive and negative values
• Values create an atmosphere, a sense
of values.
• Values are of diverse types.
• Values transcend facts.
• Values cannot clamor for existence
and realization.
• Man experiences a certain order of
values
 Subjective & Objective Values

Based on evidence
and can be proven Personal and a
or demonstrated, matter of opinion
not so easily or experience.
debated or refuted
 Relative, Absolute & Moral Values
• Relative Values
• Those that vary depending on the
situation and variables of the person such
as social class, nationality, age or
personal experiences.

iep.utm.edu.
 Relative, Absolute & Moral Values
• Absolute Values
• can also be termed noumenal values
• An absolute value can be described
as philosophically absolute and
independent of individual and cultural
views, as well as independent of whether
it is known or apprehended or not.

iep.utm.edu.
 Phenomenology of Moral Values
Moral Values
- These are the behavioral practices, goals, and habits
which are validated by the society we are part of.
- This set of values typically becomes embedded in our
behavior through a long process of observation,
education, conditioning, and social guidelines.

https://harappa.education/
 Phenomenology of Moral Values
1. A description of Moral insights into moral
experience:
a. Awareness of the difference between right or wrong
b. Moral experience cannot be reduced to other human
experiences
c. There is a “must” quality
d. We experience an “ought” in doing good and avoiding
evil
………thus, we are free to do good or evil.
 Phenomenology of Moral Values
2. Phenomenon of Dialogue
a. When we speak of and judge other, we distinguish
between hero and villain in myths, history in everyday
experience
 Characteristics of Moral Values
1. A value becomes moral because it is recognized as
reasonable and freely chosen by an individual.
2. Moral values are pre-eminent over other human
values.
3. Moral values are absolute.
4. Moral values are universal and necessary for
everyone.
5. Moral values are obligatory.
 Metaphysics of Moral Values
1. In our experience, the good appears as an
analogous concept to the various grades of being.
2. The good as perfective of a subject is object of
desire (thing-to-person relationship).
3. Dynamism of Good
METAPHYSICS branch of
philosophy that deals with
the first principles of things,
including abstract concepts
such as being, knowing,
substance, cause, identity,
time, and space
 Metaphysics of Moral Values
Man has two-fold tendency:
1. Natural tendency to the good (will as object); and
2. The moral choice of what is reasonable (will as
reason). Human nature is to do good
based upon the right
surroundings in the exosphere.
Having bad circumstances tend to
degrade the human will.
However, this is not confirmation
of natural evil because a pure
thinking person would escape
causing harm to other people.
Fuller & Priest (2012)
 Knowledge of Values
1. A value is immediately felt or experienced before it
is known and explained.
- pre-philosophical knowledge precedes
philosophical, reflective knowledge.

For phenomenologists, the

immediate and first-personal
givenness of experience is
accounted for in terms of a pre-
philosophical knowledge.
 Knowledge of Values

Two ways of knowing values:

1. By real or experiential knowledge
2. By notional or conceptual knowledge
 Knowledge of Values
2. What is the source of our moral ideal. i.e., what we
should do become to be fully human?
 Knowledge of Values
2. What is the source of our moral ideal. i.e., what we
should do become to be fully human?
- Moral ideal is both present (we are humans) and
absent (the fullness of human life is still to be realized).
- Hence, moral ideal is a task of a lifetime; a
vocation to exist as fully human persons
 The World of Values
A. Relationship of Natural Values and Moral Values
1. Mediation of Reason
2. Subjective and Objective Relationship
3. Sanction and Merit

Natural values refers to values

that are based on human
nature, rather than acquired
from societal norms or religious
teachings.
 The World of Values
B. Mixed or Intermediate Values
1. Morally relevant natural values which are
a potential for moral values
2. Relevant moral education is required to
acquire proper sense of values

Natural Moral
Values Values
 The World of Values
B. Mixed or Intermediate Values
3. Mixed values are ambiguous:
- help or hinder moral values
-intermediate between infra-moral and religious values
- loss of proper sense values

Natural Moral
Values Values
 The World of Values
C. Hierarchy of Values
1. Religious Values
2. Moral Values
3. Infra-Moral Values
• Economic values and values of well-being
• Social and aesthetic value
• Intellectual value
• Personality values
4. Infra-Human Values
• Biological or vital values
• Sensible Values
1.Tong-Keun Min. A Study on the Hierarchy of Values. Source: bu.edu
 The World of Values

Value is not simply the good but it is an

added aspect of good. Moral value makes
a man, through his human actions, good
simply as a human person.
 Max Scheler’s Non-Formal Ethics of
Values
Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values
-Scheler argued that values, like the colors of the
spectrum, are independent of the things to which they
belong.

The experience of value through different acts of

feeling is independent of any other act of
consciousness and accordingly is prior to any rational
or willing activity.
Frings, 2021
 Max Scheler’s Non-Formal Ethics of
Values
Moral goodness is not primarily an object to be
pursued but a by-product of inclinations, or leanings,
toward values higher than those felt in the present
moment.

”When a child playing with toys in a garden suddenly

picks a flower and presents it to his mother, his
spontaneous feeling that the value of his mother is
greater than the value of the toys results in a moral
good”
Frings, 2021
 Max Scheler’s Non-Formal Ethics of
Values
Scheler Kant
The whole of man (emotional, Formal ethics established a
voluntative, rational, social, formal priori universal moral
historical, cultural, law- the categorical
evolutionary) is the object of imperative-independent of
investigation man’s natural being

Frings, 2021
 Phenomenological Givenness in
Intentional Feeling
1. A value is immediately felt in experience before its
object is known.
- Values are given to the intentional feeling
immediately (e.g., colors are to sight; sounds are to
listening)
- Value feelings must be strictly distinguished fro
feelings which are not intentional
- Since values like lovely, charming, noble, courageous
are felt, we can speak of them as first messengers of
the special nature of all objects.
 Phenomenological Givenness in
Intentional Feeling
-The prior givennes of values pertains both
to the psychic and the physical.

-Values are not qualities of things nor do

all good and noble things have common
properties, for one single act or one
individual can comprehend a real value.
 Phenomenological Givenness in
Intentional Feeling
2. Values always exhibit a specific content.
- their content and ordered ranks
among them posses a priority of
givenness in the order of experience
because value-feeling is prior to a given
thing.
 Phenomenological Givenness in
Intentional Feeling
- In the order of reality, values and things
form an insoluble interconnection.
- In the order of essence, values are
independent of being.
- All kinds of values form an absolute
order and they are immutable.
 Emotional Axiology: The Graded
Realm of Values
Axiology- “Axos”- meaning value
- philosophical science of values

Max Scheler is the foremost exponent of

Axiology.
 Emotional Axiology: The Graded
Realm of Values

Four (4) Different Modals of Value

1. Sensible Value
2. Values of Life or Vital Value
3. Spiritual Value
4. Value of Holiness
 Four (4) Different Modals of Value
1. Sensible Value
- The lowest modality of value that ranges
from the agreeable and disagreeable.
- Corresponds to sensible feeling with its
function of enjoyment and suffering.
- Agreeable and disagreeable appear in
different manifestations in that something
can be agreeable to one organism and not
for another.
 Four (4) Different Modals of Value
2. Values of Life/ Vital Value
- The modality of this value ranges from noble
to vulgar.
- Pertains to the general well-being of an
individual or community.
- This value is essential on how you
communicate and interrelate with other
individuals. Important to human civilization.
- Corresponds to the feeling that states health
and sickness.
 Four (4) Different Modals of Value
3. Spiritual Value
- The value that pertains to the inner quality of
the person.
- Independent to the whole sphere of the body
and of the environment.
- Kinds:
- Aesthetic Value- beauty & ugly
- Values of Right & Wrong- conforms the law; basis
of all legislation
- Values of Pure Cognition of Truth- seeks the truth
 Four (4) Different Modals of Value
4. Value of Holiness
- The modality of this value ranges from holy to
unholy.
- Appears only to the objects intentionally given
as “Absolute”.
- Corresponds to the feeling that states
blissfulness and despair
 Four (4) Different Modals of Value
• A priori order of value modalities says that the
Values of the Holy are higher than the Spiritual
Value; the Vital Values are higher than the Sensible
Values
Value of Holiness
Value of the
Person Spiritual Value

Vital Values
Values Relative to
Life Sensible Values
 Law of Preference
- Values vs Preference

If something is claimed to be good or desirable, one

makes a statement about the thing that is claimed to
be good, rather than about the person who likes it.

Whitbeck 1995
 Law of Preference
- Values vs Preference

Given the differences between value judgments and

statements of preferences, you may expect that others
expect you to back up your judgments and preferences
in different ways.

Whitbeck 1995
 Law of Preference
- Values vs Preference

If you make a value judgment, others are likely to ask

you for the reasons you judge it rational to want (or
not to want) whatever is the object of your judgment.
If, on the other hand, you merely state your
preference, you need give no further reasons for your
liking or disliking.
Whitbeck 1995
 Law of Preference
- Values vs Preference

If you make a value judgment, others are likely to ask

you for the reasons you judge it rational to want (or
not to want) whatever is the object of your judgment.
If, on the other hand, you merely state your
preference, you need give no further reasons for your
liking or disliking.
Whitbeck 1995
 The Moral Ought & The Ideal Models
of the Person

The Moral Ought

- a system of duties and obligations that
was held by moral psychology
contemporaries of self-discrepancy
theory.
Cornwell JFM, Higgins ET. The “Ought” Premise of Moral
Psychology and the Importance of the Ethical
“Ideal.” Review of General Psychology. 2015;19(3):311-
328.
 The Moral Ought & The Ideal Models
of the Person

Personal Values
- Personal Values are “broad desirable goals
that motivate people’s actions and serve as
guiding principles in their lives"
 10 Motivationally Distinct Types of
Personal Values

1. Self-Direction- freedom, creativity

2. Stimulation- exciting life
3. Hedonism- pleasure, self-indulgent
4. Achievement- successful
5. Power- authority
Sagiv L, Roccas S, Cieciuch J, Schwartz SH. Personal Values in
Human Life. Nature Human Behaviour. 2017 Sep;1(9):630
 10 Motivationally Distinct Types of
Personal Values
6. Security- social order
7. Conformity- respect, politeness
8. Tradition- modest, humble
9. Benevolence- loyal, responsible,
helpful
10. Universalism- equality, wisdom social
justice
Sagiv L, Roccas S, Cieciuch J, Schwartz SH. Personal Values in
Human Life. Nature Human Behaviour. 2017 Sep;1(9):630
 The Value of the Holy
-Refers to the sacred and hallowed
beliefs, some things which are the
subject of worship or veneration
- Holy meant the divine or that which
has sanctity directly from the absolute
sphere
Evans MT. 2003. The Sacred: Differentiating, Clarifying and Extending
Concepts. Review of Religious Research.
Prepared by:Lady Sittie honey S.
Muday