CHAPTER 1

THE ESSENCE AND NATURE OF VALUES

In this chapter, we shall present the essence and nature of values. It is important that a
working knowledge of values be presented in as much as this treatise attempts to do a Herculean
task of presenting the essentials of values education.
The Essence of Values
Etymologically, the word values comes from the Latin word “valere” which means to
measure the worth of something. Values are the elements of life prevailing in any society. They
lie at the core of man’s life. They color his choice. They shape and determine an individual’s or
group’s decision to like or dislike, favor or disfavor, change or not to change. Thus, knowledge
of people’s values, including their orientation and preferences, will guide planners, policy-
makers, and change agents in the planning and implementation of responsive development
programs. Equipped with such knowhow, they can evoke maximum affirmative public response.
Max Scheler (1874-1928) is the foremost exponent of axiology. Axiology is defined as
the philosophical science of values. Says Scheler, “Acts reveal the person’s value references.
Like a prism that reflects the invisible spectrum of colors, a person’s acts manifest his invisible
order of values.” (Philosophy Today, 1989).
But even if the person’s order of values is revealed only in and through participating with
his acts, the order of values revealed by this participation must be distinguished from the acts
themselves. For Scheler, the order of values is objective and independent. But the peculiar ways
wherein the values are manifested by acts are relative to and dependent in historical
circumstances.
We also say that value is anything that appeals to us in any way. They are priori
intentional objects of feelings. The following are true of values: 1) there are positive and
negative values; 2) values create an atmosphere, hence, we say a sense of values; 3) values are of
diverse types; 4) values transcend facts; 5) values clamor for existence or realization; and, 6)
man experience a certain order of values.
There are also such things as subjective and objective values. Truly it can be said that
value experience involves a subject valuing and the object valued. We can see this in certain
things. For instance, the sentimental value of a ring to someone is a subjective value. Life as
opposed death to death is an objective value. And this thing brings us to moral values.
Phenomenology of Moral Values
1. A description of moral insights into a moral experience shows the following: 1) there is
awareness of the difference between right and wrong; 2) moral experience cannot be
reduced to order human experiences; 3) there is a “must” quality, i.e., it is expected and
demanded that everyone be moral; 4) we experience an “ought” in doing good and
avoiding evil; 5) yet we are free to do good or evil.
2. From the phenomenon f dialogue, when we speak of and judge others, we distinguish
between the hero and the villain in myths, history, in everyday experience; we praise
 some and blame others. We contrast the hero and the rascal; the faithful and the
unfaithful husband.
Characteristics of Moral Values
1. A value becomes moral because it is recognized as reasonable and freely chosen by a
human person.
2. Moral values are pre-eminent over other human values.
3. Moral values are absolute; i.e., independent for other values and preferred for their own
sake.
4. Moral values are universal and necessary for everyone; i.e., friendship remains a value to
all even if the friend is a rascal.
5. Moral values are obligatory; i.e., they ought to be realized and cannot be postponed.
The Metaphysics of Moral Values
1. In our experience the good as an analogous concept according to the various grades of
beings; e.g., sunlight is good for the grass; the grass is good for the cow; the cow’s milk
is good for the baby; that person is good to me.
2. The good as perfective of a subject is object of desire (thing-to-person relation). The good
as perfect in itself is object of love (person-to-person relation). A good becomes a value to
a person if it is freely chosen. Hence value is not identical with the good but is an added
aspect of the good.
3. Dynamism of the Good. Dynamism of the subject valuing is shown by a cigarette being of
value to the smoker because he has already a tendency to smoke. Dynamism of the object
valued is shown if the cigarette has a quality that can fulfill a need in the smoker. The
human experience of value involves a dynamic relationship between subject valuing and
object valued.
Man has two-fold tendency; a) natural tendency to the good (will as object) and b) the moral
choice of what is responsible (will as reason). The former good is an object of natural desire.
The latter good is an object of reasonable love. The first tendency is to possess things. This is
human. The second tendency is to know and love another person. This is moral. Thus, we
say; the wisdom of the intellect creates a sage; the wisdom of the will makes a saint.
Knowledge of Values
1. A value is immediately felt or experienced before it is known and explained. Pre-
philosophical knowledge precedes philosophical, reflective knowledge.
Two ways of knowing value:
1. By real or experiential knowledge; e.g., one who is in love knows love. This is
connatural knowledge; e.g., “moral sense.”
2. By notional or conceptual knowledge; e.g., one who has never been in love
gives a definition of love. This is objective rational knowledge; e.g., ethics.
2. What is the source of our moral ideal, i.e., what we should become to be fully
human? From the experience of what we are, we form the ideal of what we should
become. The more fully human we become, the more fully we exist. This is the real
meaning of “living the fullest human life possible.”
 The moral ideal in us is both present (we are human) and absent (the fullness of human
life is still to be realized).
Hence, the moral ideal is a task of a lifetime. It is our vocation to exist as fully possible as
human persons. The ideal-ought-to-be (e.g., justice) rests on the moral-ought-to-do (I ought to be
just).
The World of Values
A. Relation of natural values to moral values.
1. Mediation of Reason. To choose moral values, like honesty or justice, is to act according
to right reason, is to be faithful to one’s nature as a reasonable human person. Hence, a
natural value becomes moral through the mediation of reason.
2. Subjective and Objective Relationship. On the part of the subject, the good can be known
by connatural knowledge (natural inclination) or by rational knowledge. What is natural
is also seen as reasonable and therefore moral. On the part of the object, the good valued
can appeal to man’s natural inclination (will as nature) or the good present itself as
reasonable and becomes a matter of moral choice (will as reason).
3. Sanction and Merit. Nature itself rewards moral virtue and punishes immortality.

B. Mixed or Intermediate Values

1. These are values which are morally relevant natural values which are a potential for
moral values; e.g., human love can lead to love of God.
2. Moral education is required to habitually subordinate lower to higher values and thus
to acquire a proper sense of values.
3. Mixed values are ambiguous in the sense that;
a.They can be a help or a hindrance to moral values.
b. They are intermediate between infra-moral values and religious values.
c.They can lead to a loss of proper sense 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 values
– Intellectual values
– Personality values
4. Infra-human values
– Biological and vital values
– Sensible values
Thus, value is not simply the good but is an added aspect of the good. There is in our
experience an order of moral values which cannot be reduced to other human values of our
experience. Moral value makes a man, through his human actions, good simply as a human
person. There is an objective order of values in which moral and religious values claim the
highest place.
Max Scheler’s Non-Formal Ethics of Values
 Throughout history there have existed many different moralities in different peoples,
races, nations, cultures, and religious. This has led to the assumption that moral values and
norms are relative. A clear distinction must be made between ethics (philosophy of morals) and
morality. Yet it is the task of ethics to gain an indisputable a priori insight into that which is
universally obliging. Above all moralities in history, then, there is a unity of ethics, whose task is
to gain insight into universal moral norms. What appears different in different ethical systems
turns out to be a difference in method or point of departure rather than the ultimate objective of
ethics.
Max Scheler’s ethics of values presuppose Kant’s refutation of an ethics of goods and
purpose (such as Aristotle’s) or an ethics of happiness (such as utilitarianism). Kant criticized all
non-formal ethics which placed the basis of morality on man’s egoism as a natural drive; i.e., if I
want happiness, or if I want to attain the ultimate goal of man, I must be normal. Kant’s formal
ethics established a formal a priori universal moral law—the categorical imperative—
independently of man’s natural being. Scheler holds that Kant’s formal ethics as a refutation of
an ethics of good and purpose is overcome by the possibility of a non-formal, nevertheless
absolute ethics of values.
In Max Scheler’s non-formal ethics of values, the whole of man, emotional, voluntative,
rational, social, historical, cultural, evolutionary, is the object of investigation. Questions of
philosophy ultimately reduce themselves to the questions of “what is man?”
Phenomenological Givenness in Intentional Feeling
1) A value is immediately felt in experience before its object is known. The a priori of the
emotional are intentional objects of feelings: values. Values are given to the intentional
feeling immediately, as colors are to sight or sounds are to hearing.
Value feelings must be strictly distinguished from feelings which are not intentional.
Since values like lovely, charming, noble, courageous, are felt, we can speak of them as the
first messengers of the special nature of all objects.
A value can be very clear to us while the object to which a value refers is still obscure.
Value feeling is prior to a given thing. For example, a person we meet at first sight may be
simpatico (sympathetic), mayabang (boastful) malakas (influential), repulsive, friendly, or
unsympathetic, without any possibility to know the reasons for this relational feeling. And
again we may enter a room for the first time and have the emotional experience for its being
inviting, agreeable, comfortable, or unfriendly, without being aware of that which makes
such values present to us or which are the carriers of such values qualities.
The prior Givenness of value pertains both to the psychic and the physical as the
preceding examples show. Even in the acts of remembering, expecting, imagining, or
perceiving something, feeling nostalgia, anxiety, joy or sadness antecede as if they always
silently walk ahead of objects to which they refer.
This a priori of value-feeling of feeling is independent of the things to which they refer.
Before things can be called nice, lovely, charming, etc., such values are, as it were, at hand in
our feeling. 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. Nor are values
derived from so called common properties, for it is as non-sensical to ask for the common
property of all blue things (since it consist in their being blue) as to ask for the common
property of all good men.
2) Values always exhibit a specific content. Their content and the ordered ranks (higher or
lower values) among them possess a priority of givenness in order of experience because
value-feeling is prior to a given thing.
But in the order of reality, values and things form an insoluble interconnection. And,
finally, in the order of essence, values are independent of being; i.e., they are not reducible to
being, although they belong to given things. Values like “agreeable,” “lovely,” “charming,”
are accessible to us without their being attached to or associated with things, in the same
sense that colors can be present to us without being perceived as a layer of a surface (e.g.,
blue sky or black eyes).
Moreover, ordered ranks of different colors do not change with changing objects which
represent themselves in them. Likewise, values do not change with changing objects. Poison
remains poison, no matter if it is fatal or nutritious to different organisms. The value of
friendship remains a value, no matter if the friend turns out to be a rascal.
All kinds of values from an absolute order and they are immutable. A recognized
relativity of values comes about only through a false human knowledge. Values cannot be
reduced to changing life conditions in history. It is in this context that we can speak of
variations of ethos, of value judgments, of feeling, or traditional customs through history.
Such variations only take place on the background of the ordered relations and ranks of
values given a priori in intentional feeling.
3) In this order of values, there arise also a priori formal laws. Values are either positive or
negative (e.g., good—evil). The existence of a positive value is itself a positive value. The
non-existence of a positive value is itself a positive value.

One value cannot be at the same time both positive and negative (e.g., friendship cannot
be hostility). Finally every non-negative value is positive and vice-versa. The most important
a priori relations of values consists on their ordered ranks which prevail throughout all
qualities of values. They are called “value-modalities.” These ranks from the a priori of
value insights, and the insight into laws of preference. The order of ranks of values (higher or
lower) is absolute; i.e., it is independent of the historical change of goods and norms. Thus,
this order is an absolute ethic reference system on the background of which all moral
judgments, norms, variations of ethos, and moralities in history takes place.

Therefore, it is possible to relate all historical moralities and forms of ethos to a universal
system of reference; however, only one of the order of value-modalities and qualities, not of
goods and norms. It also gives a negative domain in which each positive historical age and each
specific group has to find its own, always only relative system of goods and norms.

Emotional Axiology: The Graded Realm of Values

The a priori order of values-modalities is as follows; the values of the holy are higher
than spiritual values; the vital values are higher than sensible values:

1. The values of holiness

Values of the Person
 2. Spiritual values
3. Vital values
4. Sensible values Values relative to life

1.
The series of values of this lowest modality ranges from the agreeable to the
disagreeable. This modality corresponds to sensible feeling with its function of enjoyment
and suffering, and to the feeling-states of sensible pleasure and pain, in every modality there
are value of things, values of function and values of states.
Although among different people and organism, the values of the agreeable and
disagreeable appear in the different manifestations in that something can be agreeable to the
organism and not for another, the order as such of the agreeable (as a higher value), and
disagreeable (as a lower value), is absolute and evident before such knowledge about
different organisms.
The fact that the agreeable is preferred to the disagreeable is not given by any of
induction or observation; rather, this order lies in the essence of these values, as well as in the
essence of sensible feeling. If someone would tell us that he has met living things which
prefer the disagreeable to the agreeable, we would not be forced to believe this. Rather, we
would think it impossible, for these things would either feel different things as agreeable than
we do, or they would not prefer the disagreeable but only take it as a sacrifice for the sake of
another value modality (unknown to us), or there may be a case of perversion of appetite so
that things destructive to life are felt to be agreeable (pathological cases).
The preference of the agreeable to the disagreeable lies in the essence of these values and
is a priori relation between the disagreeable and agreeable cannot be explained in terms of an
evolutionary theory, which holds that the agreeable “developed” to be preferred to the
disagreeable, because this preference proved to be purposeful and useful to life.
Whatever can be explained in evolutionary terms pertains only to states of feeling in
relation to impulses directed to things, but never to values themselves and laws of preference,
which are independent in both their evidence and givenness or organisms.
The first morality of value has, as is the case of all four modalities, consecutive values,
which are technical and symbolic values, which are technical values are those pertaining to
production of agreeable things or values of civilization, for example the values of utility,
enjoyment and luxury. A symbolic value is, for instance, a flag, representing the dignity and
honor of a nation. The value has nothing to do with the value of the cloth of the flag.
Symbolic values must not be confused, therefore, with symbols of values (e.g., paper-money)
which serves only as an artificial quantifications of values.
2. Values of Life or Vital Values
The values of this modality range from the noble to the vulgar, also from the good
(excellent, able) to the bad (Innot “evil”). Consecutive values of this modality are those
pertaining to the general well-being. Corresponding states of this modality are those
pertaining to the general well-being such as those of health, disease, states of aging, feeling o
f forthcoming death, weakness, and strenght.
The vital value of modality (noble-vulgar) is completely independent of other modalities.
It cannot be reduced to the former modality nor to the nest higher modality of spiritual
values. The reason for this is that life is phenomenologically an essence and not an empirical
generic conception.
 Failing to realize that vital vlaues are autonomuous is what Scheler calls the fundamental
error of all ethical thoeries of the past. Formalisitc, hedonistic and utilitarian ethics reduce
vital values to the agreeable and useful, and others reduce them erroneously to spiritual
values.
3. Spiritual Values
Spiritual values reveal their peculiar place as a modality by the evidence that vital values
ought to be sacrificed for them. They are given in spiritual feeling and spiritual acts of
preferring, love and hatred of the human person. They are phenomenologically different from
vital functions and acts by their own lawfulness and are, therefore, irreducible to biological
lawfulness. The main kinds of spiritual values are:
a) The values of the beautiful and ugly or the whole realm of aesthetic values.
b) The values right and wrong as the basis for all legislation. Law is noly a consecutive
value of the value of legislation. The values of right and wrong must not be understood in
English in the sense of “correct,” “incorrect,” but they apply to that which confronts to a
law.
c) The values of pure cognition of truth, as it is sought for in philosophy.
Truth itself is not a value. scientific values are consecutive values to all of these. All
values of culture are also consecutive to spiritual values as, for instance, the cultural
value of a piece of art, of a sciinstitution, or of a positive legislation, etc., which a lready
belong to the values of goods. Corresponding feeling-states of spiritual values are
spiritual joy and sorrow, in contrast to the vitals states of being gald and not-being-glad.
Spiritual joy and sorrow exist independently of any vital states. They vary only in
dependence of the values of respective objects themselves, and this according to their
own lawfulness.
4. The Values of Holiness
The value-modality of the holy and unholy appear only with objects pertaining to the
Absolute. All objects of the sphere of the Absolute belong to these values. This value-
modality is as such independent of what at different times was held to be holy.
Corresponding states of feeling are those of blissfulness and despair consecutive values are
those of things in cults, sacraments, forms of worship, etc.

Law of Preference

The order of these modes of values is given in value-feeling and here in acts of preferring
and pacing-after. Preferring the value is by no means a secondary act taking place after the
emotional comprehension of a value. A value is felt in the act of preferring or placing-after. It is
emotional acts themselves which reveal the ranks of values and, therefore, these ranks cannot be
logically deduced. There exists in these acts the intuitive evidence of preference.

Order

Beside this intuitive evidence given in acts of preference there exists a priori
interconnections of essence between such ranks which show why values are constituted by a
specific order. They are the following: (1) Values are “higher” the more they are enduring in
time and (2) the less they partake in extension and divisibility. (3) They are higher the less they
are founded in other values, and (4) the more they yield inner satisfaction. Lastly, they are higher
the less their feeling them is relative to the positing of certain carriers of feeling and preferring.
These points deserve clarification for the understanding of value-ranks and for the determination
of the place of the place of moral values which are, at this state of the discussion strangely
enough, not contained in the four modalities.

Characteristics

(1) A value is enduring when “ability”-to-exist-through-time belongs to its essence. To its

essence, it must be emphasized, to distinguish endurance from a good to which this value
may refer. Also good persists in time (i.e., in objective time). Endurance with respect to
values, however, is qualitative phenomenon of time, for duration is filled here with a content.
The endurance of values is independent of objective time in which their carriers exist.
This is the case in love, which always implies a qualitative duration (not a succession). It
does not make sense when we say to someone: “I love you now,” or “for a certain time.” The
value of the act of love as well as the value towards which we are directed implies a
qualitative duration. The sub-specie quadam aeterni is the essence of genuine love. If love
turns out to be false and ceases one can say, “I did not love this person” or “I am deceived”
or “It was only a communion of interest.” The qualitative duration of genuine love is
different from objective time, in which things occur.
Thus, any community of interest also “lasts” in time and its values intended rest on utility
which is only transitory. Something, agreeable to the senses, any good which is enjoyed, also
“endures” in objective time, along with it the feeling of this value. but it lies in the essence of
the value of health, since this value persist throughout feelings of “agreeable” or
“disagreeable.”
And again, blissfulness endures throughout all changes of happiness and unhappiness.
Happiness and unhappiness again persist throughout changes of pleasure and suffering, and
they, in turn, persist throughout agreeableness and its opposite. Finally, the agreeable endures
throughout sensory states of well-being and pain.
(2) Secondly, values are higher the less they are divisible (i.e., the less they are divided up in the
participation by any number of people). The participation of a number of people in a material
good (e.g., a loaf of bread) is only possible by the divisibility of this good.
Sensory agreeable goods are, therefore, essentially extensive, which does not only mean
measurable, for pain in an organ and as a sensory feeling is, although extensive, not “spatial.”
Values of material goods are determinable by the extensive proportions of a good. Thus, half
a bread is about half the value of a whole one. Its value is determinable by the extensity its
carrier has. But in strict contrast to this, a work of art (masterpiece) is not extensive. The
value of the beautiful is not divided up by the number of onlookers and can be shared to a
much larger degree than values of extensive goods. All values of the sensibly agreeable can
only be felt with respect to the divisibility of their carriers.
Striving after such divisible values of agreeable is essentially determined by such a
divisibility; individuals who feel them are always divided by them, not united, an interesting
point of Scheler’s with respect to the social function of values of material goods.
An extreme contrasts to divisible values form these holiness and the above mentioned
value of the beautiful. There is no possible divisibility in such values. The value of a work of
culture can be comprehended without being divided up by any number of persons, because
the essence of such a value is unconditionally immediate. Such non-extensive values unite,
and nothing unites persons more, Scheler points out, than worshipping the holy, which
excludes a material carrier.
(3) The value of divine is the most immediate, however, it may present itself to man in history,
and however religious wars may have divided men. It is the intention towards the holy itself
which unites. All differences of religious view-points and religious attitudes, and all spiritual
warfare in religion, pertain only to symbols and techniques (consecutive values) but not to
the absolute holy Thirdly, a value is higher the less it is dependent on another value. A value
“A” is founded on another value “B” if “A” cannot be without “B,” the underlying value
being always the axiological condition of value “B,” value “B” is preferable. Thus, the value
of utility has its foundation in values of the agreeable, because the useful is a means (e.g., a
tool) to achieve the agreeable. Without the presence of the agreeable, there would be no
possibility, then, for values of utility.
Again, the value of the agreeable is based in vital values, for instance that of health,
which is felt by the living beings in its vital, not sensory sphere. The feeling of the agreeable
takes place on the basis of the feeling of a living being as a whole (freshness, strength,
illness, etc.) and cannot be without the vital value modality.
Spiritual values are not conditioned by vital values, since the comprehension of these is
independent of any vital constitution. Spiritual values are not relative to life. If they were so,
Scheler argues, life itself would be without a value.
(4) Fourthly, value higher of deeper it yields satisfaction or inner fulfillment as in the peaceful
possession of a thing of value, i.e., when all striving is silent, or has not occurred at all.
The mere comprehension of a value yields deeper satisfaction the higher the value is.
Such contentment is reached when the feeling of a value is not related to another value.
Sensory pleasures yields the more satisfaction the more they are felt in a central sphere, i.e.,
where they become serious.
Non-contentment of sensory feelings is always accompanied by a search for other values
of enjoyment: all forms of hedonism are only tokens of inner contentment with respect to
higher values, for the degree of searching pleasure is reciprocal to the depth of inner
discontentment and hence, the height of a value.

Relative, Absolute and Moral Values

Order of Relations

All these criteria for the higher and lower levels of values, however, do not give us a
convincing evidence for the graded order among values. That which gives this evidence is
beyond reasoning, judging, even their a priority and a posteriority. The ranks of values are
ultimately determined by the relativity of values or their relation to absolute values. This relation
is given in (not after or before) preference-feeling and not in any sort of reflection or rational
consideration. Independently from any judgment, the relativity of a value is felt in immediate
feeling.

What does “relativity of values” means? What does “absolute value” mean? These two
questions are important for the understanding of non-formal ethics of values, because the
absoluteness of values can be easily understood to be of a platonic implication, and the relativity
of values can be easily taken in the sense of an ethical relativism.
 There is certainly some criticism against non-formal ethics concerning absolute values,
but it seems that such criticisms results, not infrequently, from a misunderstanding of Scheler’s
notion of “absolute”, on which in part non-formal ethics of value rests.

First, Scheler does not equate “relative” with “subjective”. A hallucinated thing-body, he
informs us, is relative to an individual, but it is not subjective as is a feeling. A hallucinated
feeling is both subjective and relative to the individual. A real feeling is subjective but not
relative to the individual.

On the other hand, if someone mirrors himself, the picture in the mirror is not relative to
this person, although it is relative (as physical event) to the mirror and the mirrored object.
Relative values must not be equated, then, with subjectivity.

Values exist whenever they relate to this corresponding acts and functions. For instance,
a being without the capacity of sensible feeling would not have the value “agreeable.” This value
only exists in the presence of sensible feeling and it is, therefore, relative to a living being of
sensible capacity. The same pertains to vital values (noble-vulgar), because they are only extant
in so far as there are living beings.

Absolute values are such values which are not dependent on the essence of sensibility and
the essence of life. They exist only in independent, i.e., pure, acts of preferring and love. Moral
values and those of the 3 and 4 modalities are of such a nature. They are comprehended
emotionally without sensible functions of feeling, through which we experience, for instance, the
agreeable and disagreeable.

Such values themselves are not felt in the ordinary sense of the word, nor are they felt as
values of the sensory and vital modalities. However, one can say at this point that such absolute
values are still known to us and that, not matter if we are partially sensible creatures or not, they
at least remain relative to our comprehension.

For Nietzshce and Kant, value are posted by man, whereas phenomenal detachment of
simultaneous feelings of life and sensible states are experienced by him.

The value of a person genuinely loved is detached from all feeling of our value-world
belonging to sensory and vital modes, because this value is immediate in its kind of givenness,
guaranteeing absoluteness. For even a thought of denying, rejecting, or preferring another value
to this value of the beloved, brings about feelings of a possible guilt and defection from the
height of this value-rank.

The essential criterion for the height of the value, is then, the degree of the relatively a
value has with regard to an absolute value (i.e., a value which is not relative to life). The less
relative a values is to an absolute value, the higher this value. This intervalue relativity is one of
first order since it has nothing to do whatsoever with the relativity of values and goods, which
Scheler calls “relativity of second order.”

The second relativity obtaining between values and goods casts some more light on
absolute values. The relativity of first order, obtaining only among values themselves, is by no
means determined by, or in ways dependent on the relativity of the second order. There are many
goods (goods of enjoyment and utility), vital goods (e.g., all economic goods), spiritual goods
(cultural goods, as science, art). Values pertaining to such goods are “values of things.” They
represent things of value, in contrast to value of things.

The second relativity of values and goods differs from the first because it is known
through acts of thinking, judging, induction, or comparing. Since the first relativity of values and
goods is only known through acts of reasoning, it follows for Scheler that the relation among
contents of values themselves are the axiological condition for the existence of the second
relativity of values and goods, although both relations are independent of each other.

Scheler also recognizes the relations between goods and things which form a third
relativity. Also these relations holding between goods and things have their own lawfulness.

Scheler then distinguishes between the following relations, and it should be noticed that
such relations appear to be of a horizontal nature, in contrast to any ethics which rests on vertical
relations, be they upward relations (ethics of purpose as in Aristotle) or downward relations
(Nietzshce). The horizontality of Scheler’s ethics is also in marked contrast to Kant, whose
practical reasons exhaust itself in a non-relational universal form of obligation (categorical
imperative):

Relation of first order:

Values Values

Relations of second order:

Values Goods (representing themselves in values)

Relations of third order:

Goods Things (representing themselves in goods)

In the first order or relations the ranks of values are not variable, nor are a preferred value
higher because it is just preferred. The height of a value within the ordered ranks lies in its
essence. Rules of preference, however, change throughout history. The ranks of values in these
relations are only comprehensible in acts of preference and rejection. This intuitive evidence of
preference ids not reducible by the a priori intuiting feeling of them). Nevertheless, the ranks of
values, as ordered value-contents of inner intuition, are given in concrete ethical experience,
although insight into the ranks of values is obtainable in immediate intuition, no matter whatever
experience in fact may tell us in different situations.

These value relations are independent and autonomous, and form their own graded realm.
They are not subject to rational construction, induction, or deduction. Neither are they results of
subjective deliberation, in the sense of Kant and Nietzshce. Scheler’s theory of values is,
therefore, objectivistic, in contrast to Kant’s and Nietzshce’s subjectivistic understanding of
values. By objectivistic, we mean that the emotional a priori givenness of values and their ranks
does not follow subjective, social, or historical factors, but the givenness of values contains its
owns transcendental lawfulness within its realm.

Moral Values

Moral values (good-evil) cannot belong to the above mentioned value-qualities, because
they are of a different level in that they realize all non-moral values of the four modalities by
way of moral acts.

Moral values are directed towards non-moral values, and ride, as Scheler puts it, “on the
back” of acts realizing non-moral values. Thus, a moral act consists, for example, in the act of
preferring vital values to those pleasure, or spiritual values of those of the vital value modality.
The value “good” is the value which appears in the act of realizing a higher (or highest) value,
and the value “evil” is a value which appears in the act of realizing a lower (or lowest) value.

A morally good act corresponds to the intended preffered value cotent, and rejects a value
lower in rank. A morally evil acts rejects a preferred value, and corresponds to a value placed-
after it. The value “good” is attached, so to speak, to an act f realizing a negative value.

The criterion of “good” (or evil) consists in the correspondence (the contradiction) with
the value intended in the realization and the preferred value, or in the contradiction (in the
agreement) with the value placed-after. It cannot be stressed strongly enough that “good” and
“evil” are not as contents to be intended in the act is truly a Pharisee; for he who takes he
opportunity to be good for the sake of a mere end (e.g., helping someone) is not good, nor does
he do good, but he only wants to appear good to himself.

The value “good” is only present in the realization of a value (given) in preferring) if the
value “good” is not intended in an act of willing, but if it is on (“an”) the act, for which reason
“good” can never be a content of an act of will. This is meaning of Scheler’s well-known
expression that the value “good” only rides on the back of an act.

“Good” and “evil” are, it follows, essentially different from all other non-formal values,
since they exist only on realizing acts which follow rules of preference.

This is why Scheler calls moral values also values of person, in contrast to value of
things. And since the sphere of “person,” consists of a variety of acts (e.g., forgiving, obeying,
promising, etc.) it is not the act of wiling alone on which the value of “good” and “evil” may
appear. “Person” is a movement of concrete unity of all possible acts, and hence, a person is not
a thing. Therefore, personal (moral) acts must be differentiated from all psychic and physical
“objects,” because the sphere of the person only exists in the pursuance of acts.

The Moral Ought and the Ideal Models of the Person

The problem of “oughtness” resolves itself by the foregoing discussion. For it is clear
now that the moral ought can only be posited after the comprehension of values which ought to
be realized. The comprehension of values antecedes always a moral ought, and this is why
oughtness is grounded in values. For oughtness is always of something which is earlier
comprehended.
 He distinguishes two kinds of oughtness; the ideal ought-to-be and the moral ought-to-do.
Ideal ought-to-be is that of possible real being. The moral ought-to-do consists in realizing and
willing. Thus, when we say: “Injustice ought not to be,” injustice is an idealization of practical
experience of injustice. This proposition is one of the ideal ought-to-do rests on the ideal ought-
to-be, which forms the foundation of ethics.

But no matter how differently the ought-to-be and ought-to-do have been conceived in
moral history of man, in one point there is universal agreement; namely, that the ought is always
a function of something setting the rules, norms, imperatives, etc., for that which ought-to-be or
ought-to-be-done. I is this point which exhibits non-formal ethics of values as ethics of person,
for the realization of an ought is only possible in acts, which constitute the ontic sphere of a
person.

It is easy to see that non-formal ethics of values denies that moral acts (good, evil) can be
based in any moral authority, because the genuine good (and evil) can only appears on the back
of a personal act. Therefore, neither command, order, obedience, norms of moral laws, nor moral
education can, in fact, bring about genuine moral acts.

The ought can only be acted out, if it comes from the sphere of the person itself. By this
is not only meant an individual- or a group-person, but also the ideal model of a person and its
negative counterpart.

Personal Values

Scheler’s position that personal values are the highest values is not only of ethic, but also
of ontic implication, because the effectiveness of ideal models of person belongs essentially to
the human spirit and history, and because ideal models of persons are, as history forming factors,
genetically original to all moralities influencing historical changes. There are no norms of
obligation, then, without a person who posits them. Ideal personal models exercise their
effectiveness in both the individual- and the group-soul most hiddenly and with great intensity at
the same time.

Parents, for instance, serve as personal models for a child in that they are the source for all
personal values before parents are recognized as “father” or “mother”. Again the model of a
family or tribe is the head or chief in such groups. In a community again there is always someone
exemplary for the good, honorable, or the just. Such personal models are the measure against
which respective activities and values are measured.

Again in a people the sovereign, king, tsar, president, preacher, datu or sultan, etc., may
serve as models of the person. Similarly, the teacher can become a personal model for a young
pupil, and for a whole nation there may be models like national hero, or a poet, for a whole
nation there may be a statesman, for a businessman a leader in economic life, for a member of a
church for respective founder, a reformer or a saint.

All this shows that there exist whole sets of ideal types of exemplary model persons,
which always exercise influence on moral acting. Such models can also have their negative
counterparts, which not infrequently are raised in their value in historical or social resentment.
Let it added that models have their different shaded in different nations and cultures when one
speaks, for example, of the Filipino, the Frenchman, the Muslim, the American, the Russian. For
in such expressions, too, there is no empirical concrete example for what one refers to, but only a
picture-like type.

The ontic significance of the model-efficacy lies in the fact that such models originate in
acts of value cognition, and not in willful imitation or striving. The latter follows only after an
ontic draw of a model has taken place, giving direction, as it were, to personal acts because
models always exercise a demand of ought-to-be. There is, in other words, an experienced
relation between an individual or a group-person to the personal content of a prototype or model
person.

The love for such a personal model shows itself in free following. There is
nothing on earth which makes a person good but the evident intuition of a good person as a pure
example. This relation to a model person is far superior in its effectiveness to all obedience of
commands and orders. The models of person are, therefore, the primary vehicle of all changes in
the moral world. Of course such models vary in their “high” and “low” and even their
counterparts may be models, as is the case, for instance, in value-reactive movements
(protestantism, counter-reformation, romanticism, etc.)

The question arises if there exists throughout the large variety and multitude of models of
person and mixtures of them ranging from the individual, family, tribe, people, nation, to
cultures in their social and historical changes, universal types of model persons, which
mysteriously draw mankind throughout history continuously towards their ideal value structure
and content.

Scheler answers this question in the affirmative, but he does not come to this affirmative
conclusion because of the fact that there have always been great heroes (in a wide sense)
exercising influence on the course of history, from which some common ideal characteristics
could be abstracted. Rather, the greatness of a man, or abstractions from ideas of great men, are
already guided by the ideas of universal models of person, which are a priori ideas of values, in
the sense that they are independent of fortuitous historical manifestation and experience.

Every human soul is governed at every moment by a personal fundamental direction of

love and hatred, which is its basic directional sentiment. A model person is a personal “value-
Gestalt” silently hovering over an individual or a group.

The fundamental ideal model person constitutes basic values, which are constant
throughout all historical development. They and their ranks are the polar star of man. For the
change of historical goods never pertains to such values themselves, but only to things of goods,
in which they represent themselves but only things of goods, in which they represent themselves,
i.e., that which passes at any time as agreeable, useful, noble, and base, as true or false cognition,
as holy and unholy, as just or unjust (as theft, murder).

The fate of peoples from itself by virtue of forms of thinking, looking at, and evaluating
the world in their myths—however, in the first place, in the myth contained in their model
persons.
 What is the meaning of Achilles, Orestes, and Ulysses for the Greek and what are the
personal models of sagas to the Teutons? And what are the personal models of myths and
legends to be Filipinos? The fundamental ideal models of the person correspond to the value
ranks of the modalities, and an individual person is good if it is freely ready in its directional
personal sentiment to prefer a value higher in the respective order of the modalities.

Scheler distinguishes in this order five models of person: the saint (the original saints,
apostles, martyrs, reformers, etc.), the genius (artist, philosopher, legislator), the hero (statesman,
commander-in-chief, colonizer), the leading spirit of civilization (scientist, economics), and the
artist of enjoyment (he who makes all values object of mere enjoyment). They are not abstracted
empirical conceptions, but the personal essence of the modalities, which as models exercise a
draw or pull on individuals, groups, peoples, nations, etc., towards their own value content.

The Value of Holy

The value of the holy is the highest of all values. This follows both from the ranks of
value-modalities and the sequence of ideal model persons. It is also clear that the highest good
for Scheler must be a personal good, and again that love is the purest act of the person. Love, the
value of holiness, and the sphere of the person are intrinsically connected in Scheler’s
philosophy, and in always new formulations he tried to demonstrate their inseparability.

We said at the beginning of this work that Scheler’s non-formal ethics must be
understood on the background of his philosophical anthropology. It is equally connected with his
philosophy of religion; God, the person of persons, is love. The phenomenological investigation
of values led to the envisagement of values of the person as the highest values (values of the 3,
and 4, modalities and moral values) and the investigation into the sphere of the human person
and, as we will see, to the person of persons, God.

Conclusions

The fundamental message of non-formal ethics is given in a passage from Scheler:

“Every kind of intellectual comprehension of whatness of an object presupposes an emotional
experience of value, related to this object.” This proposition holds true for the simplest
perception as well as for remembering, expecting, and finally, also for all types of thinking; it
holds true for the intuition for primordial phenomena (i.e., the basic structure of things freed
from sensation and hic-nunc-existence) and for immediate idea-thinking, which both lead to a
priori knowledge.

It holds true for all cognition of fortuitous facts, which rest on observations, induction
and immediate thought: perception is always presupposed byvalue-ception. The first words of a
child contain wish and feeling-expression. Psychic expression, however, is also that which is
perceived first. That sugar is “agreeable” is comprehended by the child before he comprehends
the sensational quality “sweet.” And love songs become real only if one has experienced loving.”
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