A phenomenological critique of attitude-dependent accounts of value inspired by Max Scheler

This article presents a phenomenological critique of attitude-dependent accounts of value in contemporary axiology and argues that the notion of objective value is unproblematical if understood correctly. Through a phenomenological critique of ideal-typical versions of dispositionalist and fitting attitude accounts of value, the article argues that a careful phenomenology of evaluation can clarify some fundamental issues about the nature and existence of objective value. The critique draws inspiration from classic phenomenological analyses of evaluation found in Max Scheler’s Formalismus in der Ethik und Materiale Wertethik (Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values). Through a phenomenological critique of ideal-typical versions of dispositionalist and fitting attitude accounts of value, the article argues that a careful phenomenology of evaluation can clarify some fundamental issues about the nature and existence of objective value. The critique draws inspiration from classic phenomenological analyses of evaluation found in Max Scheler’s Formalism and Edmund Husserl’s genetic phenomenology. Considering how values phenomenally present themselves in lived-experience, the article investigates the relation between evaluative attitudes, such as propositional judgments, beliefs, preferences, and intentional emotions, and the objects of such attitudes. The article argues that any attitude-dependent account of value faces the problem that at least some experienced value properties are objective in the sense of being precisely independent of evaluative attitudes.