Major Philosophical Theories of Value and Morality

Empiricism and the Role of Sense Experience

Empiricism is characterized by the value placed on sense experience, minimizing the role of reason regarding reality. The consequence of this approach was that it was not possible to speak of ultimate reality or establish any general principle unless it was feasible for experimental testing. Demonstrating moral truth could only be a feeling or a guide to support value judgments that serve as a criterion in making moral decisions.

Hume: Reason, Sentiment, and Morality

As famously stated, reason is the slave of the passions. Sentiment has to do with pleasure and taste. Virtue is defined as any action that produces a pleasant feeling, and vice is the contrary.

Nietzsche: The Death of God and New Values

Nietzsche's philosophy involves two clear elements:

1. Rejection of European Culture: Declaring that God had died, releasing humanity from the values that made it weak (such as neighborly love, kindness, or humility).
2. Explanation of Life and New Values: Offering new concepts like the Übermensch (Superman) and the Will to Power.

Nihilism and the Will to Power

Nihilism is the absence of answers to the fundamental questions previously addressed by God, philosophy, and morality. The creation of the Superman is understood as the goal of humanity. The Will to Power is what moves humans toward the Superman. When God dies, humanity has no meaning other than its own advancement and the creation of its own destiny.

Max Scheler's Material Ethics of Value

Max Scheler's theories attempt to overcome previous material ethics and correct the formalism and rigor of Kant's ethics. Scheler stated that the values of ideal objects are independent of human assessments; they are objective values and are a priori.

Characteristics of Schelerian Values

• Values are not things, but there are always things needed to realize them, and they are man-made.
• Values are intemporal (not subject to change).
• Values are polarized (they exist in opposites, e.g., good/bad) and are ranked in a hierarchy.

The knowledge of values is captured through what Scheler called value feelings, which are distinct from the subjective feelings of pleasure or pain.

Karl Marx and Ethics as Ideology

Karl Marx did not develop a formal ethic but manifested an intent to oppose social and economic injustices. According to Marxism, ethics exists merely as a set of rules designed by the powerful to defend and maintain their privileged position. Marxists argue that workers must become aware of their unfair situation to promote other values and establish norms that lead to a more cohesive and egalitarian society.

Key Ethical Concepts

• Autonomous Morality: Moral standards that emerge from the reason of the subject.
• Heteronomous Morality: Moral norms that originate from an external source.
• Empiricism: A philosophical theory that overestimates the role of experience when attempting to know reality.