Voegelin
and Heidegger as Critics of Modernity
Copyright
2000 Michael D. Henry
Unlike the word "modem," which in common usage usually connotes
progress and improvement over the past, "modernity" is a more
abstract, less commonly used word that has largely negative connotations,
suggesting the negative cultural underside of "progress" and
"improvement over the past." The so-called "culture war" in
which the Western world is currently engaged is a contest between those who
regard the modem age of secularism, scientism, and moral relativism as a great
advance beyond the metaphysical darkness of the past and those who see modernity
as a period of decline in which something essential has been lost. Socrates and
Plato were the major critics of their own modernity, and of the past four
centuries that we call modernity, there have been quite a few critics, two of
the most prominent in the twentieth century being Eric Voegelin and Martin
Heidegger. Although Voegelin and Heidegger were roughly contemporaries and
shared some insights into the disorders of the modem world, their analyses are
nonetheless substantially different because they had fundamentally different
understandings of the nature of reality and the importance of understanding the
order of the soul.
Both grasped quite clearly the problems posed by the modem positivistic,
scientistic, anti-metaphysical worldview and both sought to reawaken human
awareness of a reality beyond the limitations of our senses. But, although early
in their careers both were strongly influenced by Husserl, they later moved away
from Husserl and developed philosophies quite different from each other.
Voegelin was a political or social scientist, with some training in law, whose
constant questioning led him gradually to a theory of consciousness and the
soul's participation in the divine. Heidegger, who eventually decided to call
himself a thinker, rather than a philosopher or scientist, began his career as a
Catholic theologian but ended up as an atheist (or at least agnostic) vates of
"Being", with the purpose of overcoming not only modem positivism and
scientism but also metaphysics itself because it questioned only the beings in
the world. He wanted to replace it with a kind of poetic meditation on Being,
the ultimate ground of all beings.
Although Voegelin and Heidegger were concerned with essentially the same
questions and problems, the considerable differences between their philosophies
became quite obvious in their different reactions to National Socialism in
Germany. Consider two starkly different events: In 1933 Heidegger joined the Nazi
Party and became the Rector of Freiburg University. In 1938, just after the Anschluss,
Voegelin was fired from his position at the University of Vienna and fled
the country almost literally one step ahead of the Gestapo because he had
written books of which the Nazis did not approve. There is a common attitude,
attested to by the extent of Heidegger's influence, that, although his Nazi
affiliation was certainly deplorable, this really does not reflect on the
significance of his thought, which many even consider quite compatible with
Christianity. But is it possible for a thinker whose thinking is truly sound and
possesses intellectual honesty to be seduced by such a primitive, violent, and
anti-intellectual ideology? This is a question that will have to be addressed in
order to evaluate Heidegger as acritic of modernity.
In comparing Voegelin's and Heidegger's analyses of the modem world there are
three questions that I want to explore:
1) In what sense is
each a critic of modernity and what are the anti- or counter-modem positions
in their thinking?
2) What made
Heidegger susceptible to Nazism and Voegelin totally immune?
3) The third
question arises from a remark made by Karl L6with in his trenchant analysis
of Heidegger, Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism, originally
published in 1953. L6with states that "genuine opponents, those who are
not simply against Heidegger but rather could treat him as an adversary, can
scarcely be found in the philosophical efforts of the most recent
decades."1
To begin with the first question: Both Voegelin and Heidegger believed that
modernity was a loss in the understanding of reality and both believed that
comprehending the problems of modernity required a return to philosophy's origins
among the ancient Greeks. There, however, the resemblance ceases, because
Voegelin considered Plato the most important ancient philosopher and returned to him again and again as the source of inspiration, but Heidegger came to
regard Plato's philosophy as already a falling away from the primordial truth
of Parmenides and Heraclitus into mere metaphysics. Also, unlike Voegelin,
Heidegger shared the peculiar belief of many Germans, going back at least to
Fichte, that the Germans had a particular affinity with the ancient Greeks and
that the German and Greek languages were the only tongues truly suitable for
philosophy.2 Fichte, Heidegger, and others believed "that the Germans had a
language with metaphysical origins and that this language made them uniquely
capable of original thinking."3
To these thinkers the
Germans, like the early Greeks, were gifted with primordiality because of their
rootedness-they still lived in their ancient home and still spoke their
original language (although even Heidegger had to acknowledge changes in the
language while expounding on his etymological interpretations of non-German
texts). The German thinkers believed that their language and culture made them
the world's foremost metaphysical thinkers and that anti-metaphysical ways of
thinking, such as empiricism, positivism, and scientism. were entirely
un-German. It was as though the Germans were bom to be the world's
philosophers.' Voegelin, of course, rejected this linguistic chauvinism and
found English quite capable of expressing his mature thought.
The loss of reality that both Voegelin and Heidegger found in modernity was
interpreted by the latter as "homelessness." Near the beginning of his
almost one- hundred-page analysis of boredom (Langeweile-long while) in
his 1929-30 lectures The Fundamental
1 Karl
Lowith, Martin Heidegger and European Nihilism, tr, by Gary Steiner, ed.
by Richard Wolin.
Columbia University Press. 1995, p.
2 Hans
Sluga, Heidegger's Crisis: Philosophy and Politics in Nazi Germany. Harvard
University Press.
1993, p. 37
23 Sluga, p. 120
34 See Sluga, p. 198. As Marx once observed, what other nations have done, the
Germans
have thought.
4
Concepts of Metaphysics-World, Finitude, Solitude he says
This profound boredom is the fundamental attunement. We pass the time, in order to
master it, because time becomes long in boredom....Is it supposed to be short,
then? Does not each of us truly wish for a truly long time for ourselves? And
whenever it does become long for us, we pass the time and ward off its becoming
long! We do not want to have a long time, but we have it nevertheless. Boredom,
long time: especially in Alemannic usage, it is no accident that 'to have long
time' means the same as 'to be homesick'. In this German usage, if someone has
long-time for ... this means he is homesick for....Profound boredom-a
homesickness. Homesickness-philosophizing, we heard somewhere, is supposed to be
a homesickness.5
He goes on to analyze boredom, or homesickness, as a feeling of emptiness and he
diagnoses the prevailing mood in Germany as one of deep metaphysical boredom, a
sense of uprootedness and homelessness.6 In his excellent study, Heidegger's
Confrontation with Modernity: Technology, Politics, Art, Michael Zimmerman
comments that "Heidegger experienced this homelessness profoundly, so much
so that his sanity seems to have been threatened by the loss of familiarity and
meaning in a world devoid of God. In 1929-30, he commented approvingly on
Novalis's statement that 'philosophy is authentic homesickness [Heimweh], a
drive at all times to be at home....A remarkable definition, naturally romantic.
Homesickness-is there still something like this in general today? Has it not
become an incomprehensible word, even in everyday life? For us has not the
contemporary urban man and ape of civilization long since abolished
homesickness? And [to think of] homesickness as the absolute determination of
philosophy!"'7
For Heidegger this homelessness is not a lost
relationship with Transcendence (in fact, Heidegger applies the term
transcendence to human existence), but an alienation from the essence of Being's
history.' The search is for a return to "German Being" or "German
culture", a return to the Fatherland. But there is more here than a desire
for rootedness in one's native soil. Philosophically, as well as Germanically,
Heidegger's thinking expresses a homesickness for a lost Eden, a primordial time
when Being unconcealed itself to man, when man lived in a complete,
pre-rational, pre-conscious wholeness, before man fell away from Being into
reasoning and metaphysics with its concentration on entities, their nature and
their production.
5 Martin Heidegger, The
Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World Finitude, Solitude. Tr. By William
McNeill and Nickolas Walker. Indiana University Press. 1995, p. 80.
6 Voegelin,
not mincing words, diagnosed this situation as one of "ethical and
intellectual rottenness." Hitler and the Germans. Vol. 31 of The
Collected Works of Eric Voegelin. Tr. And ed. By Detlev Clemens and Brendan
Purcell. University of Missouri Press. 1999, p. 57
7
Michael Zimmerman, Heidegger's
Confrontation with Modernity: Technology, Politics, Art. Indiana University
Press. 1990, p. 23
8
Martin Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism" in Basic
Writings, Revised & Expanded Edition, ed. By David Farrell Krell, Harper
San Francisco. 1993, p. 241.
He came to believe that
the only salvation from the alienation of modernity is in releasement, Gelassenheit,
a somewhat mystical concept that for him meant a apatient waiting for the
next epiphany of Being. The way to evoke this attitude of expectation is
through poetry, not poetry in general but the sort mystical poetry written
by Holderlin, Rilke, and Trakl. Heidegger's lifelong concern was to restore a
home for man in an awareness of Being (das Sein), the mysterious
something that manifested itself in the world of entities or beings (Seiendes).
Human beings as Da-sein are the "clearing" where Being can emerge
from concealment into presence, presence, apparently to itself, since Da-sein is
part of Sein. This fundamental ontology, which Heidegger began to develop in his
early works, is a stark challenge to the positivism of modernity, for Heidegger
sought that ultimate Being behind and beyond the appearances, yet yielding
itself as the beings that appear. In the Letter on Humanism of 1947 he
says that " homelessness ... consists in the abandonment of Being by
beings. Homelessness is the symptom of oblivion of Being. Because of it the
truth of being remains unthought. The oblivion of Being makes itself known
indirectly through the fact that man always observes and handles only
beings."9 Although in Being and Time Heidegger focused on human
existence as the "there" where Being is able to achieve presence, that
is to be conscious of itself, in his later works he abandoned what some
considered an anthropocentric view for a focus on Being and the overcoming of
metaphysics with its more limited understanding of reality. By this time man has
become "the shepherd of being" and language "the house of
Being."
Although Heidegger frequently spoke of the gods or God as part of the whole and
was fond of quoting Holderlin's line that "only a god can save us," he
did not identify Being, or even divinity, with God10 and, unlike Voegelin,
showed no interest in the soul and its relation with the divine. These matters
he removed from philosophy and left to theology, which he considered a positive
science.11 In general Heidegger regarded Christianity, along with
metaphysics, as responsible for the decline in the West from Parmenides to modem
positivism.12 In one of his clearest statements he bluntly says in his 1924
lecture The Concept Of Time, "Der
Philosoph glaubt nicht," that is, "The philosopher does not
believe," or, more freely translated, the philosopher is not concerned with
God or eternity or the transcendent. The philosopher, he says, is resolved "to
understand time in terms of time, " and not time in relation to eternity, and time itself is Da-sein, which must
individually "maintain itself by its "running
9 Heidegger, Basic
Writings, pp. 242-43.
10 Zimmerman, p. 17 1.
11 Martin Heidegger, "Phenomenology and Theology," in
Martin
Heidegger: Pathmarks, ed.
By William McNeill. Cambridge University Press. 1998,
pp. 40-54.
second logic is a pattern human consciousness imposes upon
the empirical world. Husserl argues that, notwithstanding the fundamental
differences between these two traditions, they are in one important respect very
similar: both consider logic as structured by human consciousness Le the human
psyche. Hence, 'Psychologismus'.
Husserl rejects both views. He asserts, contra the Kantians,
that the laws of logic are 'out there', a pattern in or of the world, not
merely one we impose upon it, and contra the empiricists, that the laws of logic
constitute an ideal and aprioristic order of being, not
1
E.Husserl,
Logische
Untersuchungen, vol.I, Hamburg:
Pelix Meiner Verlag 1992, § 28
merely a shorthand-way
of summarizing in abstracto concrete experiences. Psychologism is'in allen seinen Abarten und individuellen
Ausgestaltungen nichts anders als Relativismus (..). Es ist dabei ganz
gleich, ob er sich auf "Transzendentalpsychologie" stiitzt und als
formaler Idealismus die Objektivitat der Erkenntnis zu retten glaubt, oder ob er
sich auf empirische Psychologie stiitzt und den Relativismus als unvermeidliches
Fatum auf sich nimmt. jede Lehre, welche die rein logischen Gesetze entweder
nach der Art der Empiristen als empirisch-psychologische Gesetze faPt oder sie
nach Art der Aprioristen mehr oder minder mythisch zurackfahrt auf gewisse
arsprangliche Formen" oder "Funktionsweisenif des (menschlichen)
Verstandes, auf das "Bewuptsein aberhaupt" als (menschliche)
"Gattungsvernunft", auf die "pschychophysische Konstitution"
des Menschen, auf den "intellectus ipse", der als angeborene
(allgemein menschliche) Anlage dem factischen Denken und aller Erfahrung
vorhergeht u.dgl. - ist eo ipso +relativist isch, und zwar von der Art des
spezifischen Relativismus, .2
What
is this 'specific, relativism? 'Der spezifische Relativismus stellt die
Behauptung auf: Wahr ist far jede Spezies urteilender Wesen, was nach ihrer
Konstitution, nach ihren Denkgesetzen als wahr zu gelten habe. '3
Husserl's opinion on
this view is unequivocal: 'Diese
2
Husserl,
Logische Untersuchungen, vol. I, § 38
3Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, vol. I, § 36
Lehre
ist widersinnig. Denn es liegt in ihrem Sinne, dap derselbe Urteilseinhalt
(Satz) far den Einen, n&mlich far ein Subjekt der Spezies homo, wahr, far
einen Anderen, n&mlich far ein Subjekt einer anders konstituierten Spezies,
falsch sein kann. Aber derselbe Urteilsinhalt kann nicht beides, wahr und
falsch, sein. Dies liegt in dem blopen Sinne der Worte wahr und falsch. (..) Was
wahr ist, ist absolut, ist "an sich" wahr; die Wahrheit ist identisch
Eine, ob sie Menschen oder Unmenschen, Engel oder G6tter urteilend erfassen. Von
der Wahrheit in dieser idealen Einheit gegenaber der realen Mannigfaltigkeit von
Rassen, Individuen und Erlebnissen sprechen die logischen Gesetze und spechen
wir alle, wenn wir nicht etwa relativistisch verwirrt sind'.4
How
do we acquire knowledge of these objective truths? By phenomenological analysis.5 But what does that mean? J.S. Mill, one of the 'psychologists'
Husserl's criticisms were aimed at, had argued, in his System of Logic, that
1(t)ruths are known to us in two ways: some are known directly, and of
themselves; some through the medium of other truths. The former are the subject
of Intuition, or Consciousness; the latter, of Inference. The truths known by
intuition are the
4 Husserl,
Logische Untersuchungen, vol. I, § 36
5 Husserl,
Logische Untersuchungen, vol. II, Einleitung, § 2
original premises from which all others are inferred.
(.
.) Whatever is known to
us by consciousness is known beyond possibility of question. What one sees or
feels, whether bodily or mentally, one can not but be sure that one sees or
feels 6 This
dichotomy is of course of ancient pedigree, going back to Aristotle, and Husserl
has no quarrel with it. It is only on the question what one can see or feel,
i.e. what truths are known by intuition, that Husserl differs with the views
expressed by empiricists like Mill, as well as with those expressed by the
Kantians.
In the view of Mill and the other empiricists, the laws of
logic are inferred from concrete sense -experience. The principle of
contradiction, for instance, he considers 'to be, like other axioms, one of our
first and most familiar
generalizations
from experience I .
They are the product of inductive inference, and are not known directly by
intuition. For the Kantians too the laws of logic are inferences, although
deductive rather than inductive in nature. Since they are implicit in our
conceptions, they can be inferred from these conceptions by arguing I backwards I
towards the necessary
presuppositions. Hence, notwithstanding the fundamental
6 J.S. Mill, System of
Logic,
8 th ed.
1874, New
York: Harper & Brothers, Introduction, § 4
7 Mill, Logic, II, vii,
§ 5
differences between them, both the empiricists and the
Kantians regard logic as something not known directly, by intuition.
In the Logische Untersuchungen Husserl argues that
both views are mistaken. The laws of logic do indeed belong to the things that
are directly apperceived. They are hence, in Mill's words, 'known beyond
possibility of question', or, as Husserls likes to put it, I
apodictically true They
belong to the sphere of the synthetic apriori. But they are experientially
given, and not, pace Kant, transcendental.
What kind of apperception, of experience, is this? In the Logische
Untersuchungen Husserl called it 'Kategoriale Anschauung', as opposed to 'Sinnliche
Anschauung'.8
In later works he
usually spoke of 'Wesensschau, or eidetic intuition. This refers to an
apperception of the essential structure Pdas Wesen') of objects. It is not from
our sense -experience that we know of -infer- the laws of logic, but from the
eidetically perceived eidos of these laws.
The ideas expounded in the Logische Untersuchungen quickly
attracted the attention of some talented students and fellow-
8Husberl,
Logische
Untersuchungen, vol. II, vi, § 40 ff.
academics, and in the course of the following decade
something like a phenomenological 'movement, developed, chiefly in G6ttingen,
where Husserl taught at the university, and in Munich. At the core of this
movement were Max Scheler (18741928),9 Adolf Reinach (1883-1917), Alexander
Pfander (18701941), Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977), Edith Stein
(18911942), Hedwig Conrad-Martius (1888-1966), and Roman Ingarden (1893-1970) .
In addition to these, Nicolai Hartmann (18821950) should be mentioned. Though he
remained at some distance, both spatially and intellectually, his thought was
deeply influenced by these phenomenologists.10
Later, of course, after Husserl had moved to Freiburg im
Breisgau, others came to the fore, most prominently Martin
in der sich das Seiende in seiner Eigenart
entschlieBt,eine transzendierende Beruhrung des Seienden, die weder eine
reale Teilnahme an dem Erkenntnisgegenstand noch ein irgenwie
16 Dietrich von
Hildebrand, Was ist Philosophie?,
Stuttgart etc. : W.
Kohlhammer 1976, p.21
geartetes Produzieren, Schaff en desselben darstellt'.17 ' D iese
transzendierende geistige Berfihrung stellt eine intentionale
Teilhabe am Seienden dar (..)'.18
For
Husserl, after he changed his mind, the apriori world of the eide`, was a
necessity of thinking', for his followers it remained a necessity of being'. As
Reinach formulated it in his programmatic Was ist Phanomenologie?:
the apriori is
Ikeine Notwendigkeit des Denkens, sondern eine Notwendigkeit des Seins. (.
.) Das apriori hat an
und fur sich mit dem Denken und Erkennen auch nicht das mindesteste zu tun'.19
It is obvious that this view implied a return to a
fundamental notion of ancient an medieval philosophy. Thus it is not surprising
that the phenomenologists returned to a study of ancient and medieval philosophy
with great eagerness, stemming from their sense of its utmost pertinence. As
Scheler expressed it once, from a historical point of view phenomenology can be
seen as a 'Erneuerung eines intuitiven Platonismus (..), freilich mit
vollstandiger Beseitigung der platonischen Ideenverdinglichung und aller
mythischen Beisatze. Und es ist wohl verstandlich, daB von dieser ihrer
17 Hildebrand, Was ist
Philosophie?,
p.27
18 Hildebrand,
Was ist Philosophie?,
p.29
19 Adolf
Reinach, Was ist Phanomenologie?,
Mfinchen:
Kbsel-Verlag 1951, pp.56-57
Eigenart her die
Ph&nomenologie (. .) auch mit der gesamten
platonisch- august inischen Philosophie der patristischen und
frahmittelalterlichen Philosophie, zum Teil aber auch mit dem
Aristotelismus st&rkere Fahlung genommen hat, .20
If Husserl and his followers went separate ways with regard
to the question of the ontological status of the apriori, they never disagreed
as to the method of discovering the apriori. For all the phenomenologists
mentioned, 'Wesensschaul , eidetic intuition, is the doorway to the apriori.
What exactly is this eidetic intuition?
To begin with, the concept of intuition, as used by the
phenomenologists (and J.S. Mill) is not an irrational or mystical form of
cognizance, but simply a rendering of the Latin intuitus, the participium
perfectum of the verb intueri,
20
Max
Scheler, Die deutsche Philosophie der Gegenwart, pp. 201 ff. Of course, it is
rather unclear what Scheler means with Imit vollstAndiger Beseitigung der
platonischen Ideenverdinglichung und aller mythischen BeisAtze I .
If this was meant
as a critique of Plato along Aristotelean lines -that Plato had posited the eid6
para ta polla, i.e. ante rem, i.e. outside of things, whereas they were
merely h6n kata polloon, i.e. in re, i.e. the unity within the multiplicity- it
is obviously based on a flawed reading of Plato, who throughout his oeuvre
insisted that the eidd do not exist in space and time, but in the participation
-parousia, methexis, koinoonia- of the things in the eide`, or, what amounts
to the same, the eid6 in the things. The ontological priority of the eide`
claimed by Plato, which in his view were ontoos on, really existant, whereas the
things were merely in between being and not-being, also returns in the works of
the early phenomenologists.
which means to consider, to look
at, to gaze upon, to behold. Hence, intuition is more or less synonymous to
perception or observation.21
Observation, however,
is insufficiently understood, at least in modern philosophy. It is more than
just the observation of empirical facts, more than just 'Sinnliche Anschauung',
to which it is generally limited. Man is also capable of perceiving the world of
essences, of eid6, behind or within the the world of empirical fact. Perception
i.e. observation is here identical to grasping, to comprehending the nature of
something, seeing it with the mind's eye, as it were.
In the Ideen, Husserl
explains the matter as follows. 'Ein individueller Gegenstand ist nicht blop
aberhaupt ein individueller, ein Dies da!, ein einmaliger, er hat als "in
sich selbst" so und so beschaffener Eigenart, seinen Bestand an
wesentlichen Pradikabilien, die ihm zukommen massen (als "Seiendem, wie er
in sich selbst ist"), damit ihm andere, sekundare, relative Bestimmungen
zukommen konnen. So hat z.B. jeder Ton an und fur sich ein Wesen und zuoberst
das allgemeine Wesen Ton Qberhaupt oder vielmehr Akustisches
21
Hildebrand, Was ist Philosophie?,
p.197
Values are at the
center of our consciousness. With cognition and volition, valuation is at the
core of conscious life. In fact, valuation precedes volition, volition
presupposes valuation. Moreover, valuation also precedes cognition. 'Alles
primAre Verhalten zur Welt aberhaupt, nicht nur zur Aupenwelt, sondern auch zur
Innenwelt, nicht nur zu anderen, sondern auch zu unserem eigenen Ich, ist (. .)
nicht ein I'vorstelliges", ein Verhalten des Wahrnehmens, sondern immer
gleichzeitig (. .) primAr ein (. .) wertnehmendes Verhalten', writes Scheler. 28Indeed,
value-free (1vorstellige') perception paradoxically presupposes that the
observer has incorporated certain values, such as love of thruth -the Platonic
eroos-, humility, and self-control. 29
'Wertnehmen' is the
term used by Scheler. Translated literally it would have to be rendered as 'valuetaking'.
The term suggests that, in valuing, values are not posited by us,
28
Scheler, Formalismus, p.206
29 Scheler, Vom Wesen der Philosophie und der moralischen
Bedingung des
philosophischen Erkennens, in: Vom Ewigen im Menschen, Bern: Francke
Verlag 1954, p.89
but given. 30 Values are objective, not subjective and relative.
However, there are some exceptions. Some values are posited, in some cases man
is indeed chre`matoon metron, the measure of things. To understand in which
cases, we need to have a typology of values.
Values are not all of the same type. Scheler identifies several different
value-modalities'. 3 1 First of all, the kosmos noe`tos of values
comprises the value of the pleasant. Also belonging to this modality is the
value of the useful, which is never an ultimate value but is derived from the
pleasant. A second modality comprises the values of life, such as vitality,
vigour, energy, health, strength, ability, etc. In short, lalle jene Qualitaten,
die von dem Gegensatz des "Edlen" und "Gemeinen" (oder auch
des "Guten" in der besonderen Pragnanz des Ausdrucks, in der es dem
"Tuchtigen" gleichsteht, und nicht dem "Bosen", sondern dem
"Schlechten" entgegengesetzt ist) umspannt ist'.32 A third
modality comprises all the spiritual values ('geistigen Werte'), subdivided by
Scheler into four different categories:
30 Scheler, Formalismus, p.91: 'Einen I'Verstand, der der Natur seine
Gesetze vorschriebell (gesetze die nicht in ihr selbst gelegen waren) , oder
eine "praktische Vernunft", die dem Triebbundel erst ihre
"Form" aufzupressen hatte, gibt es nicht!l
31
Scheler, Formalismus, pp.122 ff
32 Scheler, Formalismus, p.123
aesthetic values, intellectual values -those pertaining to the finding of
truth-, ethical values, and religious values.33
The values of the first
of these modalities, those regarding the pleasant and the useful, are wholly
subjective and relative. Valuable is here what appears valuable to the
individual. Therefore, according to Hildebrand, they should not be called values
at all. The other modalities, however, contain absolute and objective values,
that are truly given and demand to be recognized. These values do not follow us;
we are obliged to follow them.
Of course, this evokes
the question how one is to do that. How are we to serve several masters at the
same time? Which of the masters ranks highest? or have we reached a point here,
from whereon no clear guidance can be given and we are fated, like Buridan's
mule, to stand at a loss between various competing demands? Scheler, Hartmann,
and Hildebrand all insist that this is not the case, because there is an
objective ranking between and within the various value-modalities, determined by
the elevation ('Hohe') and the force ('Starkel') of a value.
33 The typologies of values given by Hartmann and Hildebrand are somewhat
different. D. von Hildebrand, Ethik, Stuttgart etc.: W. Kohlhammer 1973,
pp.39 ff, distinguishes between Idas subjektiv Befriedigendel, Idas objektive
Gute fur die Person', and 'Wertel, approximately covering respectively Scheler
Is first, second, and third modality. Hartmann, Ethik, pp.335, includes
Scheler's second modality, the 'Nietzschean, life-values in the ethical values,
and excludes values of religion, although he incorporates the values such as 'Fulle,
and 'Reinheit', which are often regarded as religious, in the ethical sphere.
In terms of elevation,
the values of life rank lower than the spiritual values, in the nature of
things. within the modality of spiritual values the ethical values presumably
rank lowest, the intellectual values higher, the aesthetic higher still, and the
religious rank highest, at least in Scheler's view.34 Within each of
these categories a further ranking is possible.
In terms of force, on
the other hand, the ranking between the various value-modalities and values is
exactly the opposite. The values of life are more forceful than the spiritual
values. Within the modality of the spiritual values the ethical values are the
most forceful, etc.
The implication of this
'Wesensstruktur' is as important as it is evident: the higher the level of a
value, the more valuable it is, but the less force it has. The more forceful,
i.e. the lower values are in a sense primary, but the higher values reach out
further into the transcendent en grant a fuller participation in being. What
precisely does this mean?
34 'Presumably', because this is an inference. Scheler never explicitly
states that the hierarchy of spiritual values is structured in that way. I
believe Hildebrand has a similar view. Hartmann would obviously deny the place
of honor to the religious values, and would probably include them in the ethical
values. Cf. the previous note.
Within the
modality of ethical value, for instance, this means that '(d)ie Versundigung am
nieder Wert ist im allgemeinen schwerer als die am hoheren; die Erfullung des
hoheren aber ist moralisch wertvoller als die des niederen. Der Mord gilt als
schwerstes Vergehen, aber die Respektierung fremden Lebens ist deswegen nicht
der hochste moralische Habitus -nicht zu vergleichen mit Freundschaft. Liebe,
Vert rauensw-ardigke it. (..) Vers-andigung gegen niedere Werte ist schimpflich,
ehrenruhrig, empbrend, aber ihre Erfullung erreicht nur eben das Niveau des
Anstandigen, ohne sich darfiber zu erheben. Die Verletzung hoherer Werte dagegen
hat wohl den Charakter moralischer Verfehlung, aber nichts direkt Entwurdigendes,
wahrend die Realisation dieser Werte etwas Erhebendes, Befreiendes, ja
Begeisterndes haben kann'.35
We will leave
aside now the life-values, the aesthetic values, the intellectual values, and
the religious values, and focus on 'das Reich der ethischen Wertel',as Hartmann
calls it .36 In doing so, we are merely going along with the
phenomenologists, whose efforts are principally directed at the investigation of
ethical values. 37 Hartmann justifies this
35 Hartmann, Ethik, p.277. As this analysis makes clear, the concept of
'duty' is pertinent only to the less elevated and more forceful values. It makes
no sense to speak of duty with regard to the highest values.
36 Hartmann, Ethik, p.251
37 However, both Hartmann and Hildebrand wrote a treatise on
aesthetics.
limitation with the argument that I (u)nser Wissen um. Struktur und Ordnung des
Wertreiches ist (..) ein noch ganz im Stadium des Suchens und Tastens steckendes.
Wir konnen nur vom Besondern aus, von einzelnen uns gerade zuganglich gewordenen
Wertgruppen aus, in das Wertreich hineinblicken, aber nicht von der Uberschau
des Ganzen aus das Einzelne deduktiv bestimmen. (. .) (D) as Gebiet der
sittlichen Werte, als das unter den hoheren Wertregionen noch am ehesten
zugangliche, mup (..) die Anhaltspunkte zur allgemeinen Werttheorie hergeben'.38
The differentia
specifica of ethical values is their pertaining to what the phenomenologists
call 'persons'. Only persons can be I carriers I of ethical values Werttrager .
At the core of this notion of the person are ideas like responsibility, free
will, and intentionality. Only a subject which possesses personhood can be
meaningfully judged on the basis of an ethical standard. Hence, not all human
beings are persons: children for instance are not persons in the full sense of
the word, until they have come of age. They cannot be
38 Hartmann, Ethik, pp.250-251
held (fully) responsible for their conduct, and are thus not, or only in part,
'carriers, of ethical values.39
Persons 'carry' or fail to 'carry' ethical values in three different ways: in
their actions, in their affections, and in their dispositions. 40 These
are the three realms, in which ethical value can manifest itself.
There is no need to elaborate
on action as a realm of ethical value. Acts are the most visible area of
value-manifestation. Not surprisingly therefore, -modern- moral philosophy, the
Kantian no less than in the empiricist tradition, to say nothing of moral
reflection in general, is predominantly concerned with actions. There is nothing
against that, in the view of the phenomenologists, as long as it is recognized
that ethical value is pertinent to other spheres as well, more particularly to
affections and to dispositions. But that is often not the case. Hence, a moral
short-sightedness results, which fails to notice a substantial and significant
segment of the moral order.
Most neglected
perhaps ' is the realm of affections, emotions, or feelings.41 And
yet, '(g)erade hier enthullt sich
39 Scheler, Formalismus, pp.469 ff; Hildebrand, Ethik, pp.201 ff;
Hartmann, Ethik, p.145
40
Cf. esp. Hildebrand, Ethik, pp.355 ff
41
Obviously, the fact that there is a school of thought, sometimes called
emotivism, which derives ethical values from affections, does not
contradict this statement. What we are concerned with here is the manifestation
of ethical values in affections, not the manifestation of affections in ethical
values. It is clear that emotivism is eo ipso incapable of considering the
former question in any other way than considering it absurd.
der unerhbrte
Reichtum und die Vielfalt sittlicher Wertel'.42
The complexity and depth of the cosmos of affections is immeasurable. For
example, joy, love, trust, compassion, pride, satisfaction, disgust, hate, envy,
contempt, anger, irritation, dislike, lust, admiration, respect, doubt, shame,
guilt, vindictiveness, fear, and repentence are specimens of affections, each in
itself multifarious, and intricately related to many other affections. And there
are numerous others.
All of these are
essentially 'responses'. (Affection is derived from the Latin affectuus:
influenced by, caused by, attached to) Consider the following examples of such
responses. Being delighted, because one Is parents have died in an accident.
Feeling satisfied that one has passed an examination by cheating. Feeling
compassion with the hungry and the sick, feeling contempt for those who are less
well-educated. Incontestably, in all of these cases the affection in question
has an ethical quality.
Apparently, an
affective respons in cases such as the
