Spór o społeczne znaczenie wartości. Polityczna asymilacja zdobyczy hermeneutyki

Abstract

Question about values asked in a community life context (which is a common experience though), is therefore a kind of a political question. It is especially noticeable in interpretations and relations made by institutions of European Union (European Parliament, European Commission) towards legal and moral regulations of member countries. At present, in the European Union, the principle of legalissation and legislation based on a idea of value syncretism is proposed. Because in the EU, which is a specific national-state conglomeration of infl uences and traditions, different systems and moral judgments possessing equal rights exist and compete, the principle of discourse and agreement based on alignment of common positions is promoted. As a result, there is a political, social and public debate on values. And the axis of this dialogue and dispute is, in Author’s opinion, question of specific social status of values – are they universal (permanent) or relative (contractual, variable). It seems that, in the age of hermeneutics as a language of contemporary culture, axiology is finally transformed into a personal matter, relating only to individual opinions. Postmodern man is becoming an object responsible no more to God or to his own rational nature, but just to himself and others, therefore to the project of democracy as an ideal interpretation. Contemporary understanding of the democratic system demands not the objective truth, but public discourse, in which it is moral, how people really act, not how they should act.