Non-Formal Ethics Research Articles

Karol Wojtyła reads and interprets Max Scheler

The present article addresses Karol Wojtyła’s “encounter” with Max Scheler’s thought, expressed mainly in his work Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die Materiale Wertethik (Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values). Three stages can be clearly distinguished: (1) first inspirations, which came about in particular as a result of contact with Rev. Ignacy Różycki, Jacek Woroniecki OP, and Roman Ingarden; (2) the duration of work on the habilitation thesis, which was based on Scheler’s above-mentioned work; and (3) further application of the philosophical findings. Wojtyła concluded that Scheler’s ethical system was unfit for scientific interpretation of Christian ethics. The reason was that the German philosopher focused almost exclusively on the emotional sphere and did not discern the person’s causal sphere. In a case like this a person is incapable of realizing values, and can only feel them, as a passive subject. However, inasmuch as Christian ethics is based on the thesis whereby man is the agent of the ethical good and evil of his own acts, perfecting himself through ethically positive values, and devaluing himself through negative ones, Scheler’s concept is absolutely unacceptable to Wojtyła. Still, Wojtyła discerned an eminently positive aspect in Scheler’s approach, namely, the very method of the phenomenological analysis of ethical facts on the phenomenal and experiential levels. Moreover, by attempting a certain integration of classical metaphysics with phenomenological analysis, Wojtyła – in a peculiar and creative way – developed his own philosophical position.

Husserl and Non-Formal Ethics

From its very beginnings, Husserl’s philosophical life was characterised by the interweaving between ethical reflection and logical-argumentative rigour. It is not just a matter of the constant efforts that were put into a theoretical formulation that was always aimed at constant formal coherence, but also and above all, of the progressive association of a rigorous ethics with the value of the individual-personal dimension. The phenomenological analysis of the values – intertwined with those of perceptive-intellective experiences, feeling and volition – gradually find a common denominator that progressively takes shape in the ethical-non-formal theme of personal motivation.

Scheler’s Reflections on “What is Good?”

In Max Scheler’s non-formal ethics of value, “good” is a value but by no means a “non-moral value”; rather, it is a second-order “moral value,” always appearing in the realization of first-order non-moral values. According to the relevant notion of the a priori of phenomenology, whilst all the non-moral values are given in “value cognition,” the moral value of good is self-given in “moral cognition”. The reflections and answers offered by Scheler’s non-formal ethics of value on “What is good?” constitute the foundation of a phenomenological “meta-ethics”.

Formalismus: Max Scheler’s Non-Formal Value Ethics

Max Scheler analyses the dominant Kantian formalism in ethics by describing non-formal ethics through ordo amoris. He brought attention to the impoverished conception of ethics by emphasizing rationality at all times and neglecting the emotive part of ethics. Before man becomes ens cogitans, he is an ens amans. There are four values in Scheler, namely the religious, spiritual, vital and sensory values which stratify man’s emotional life. In ordo amoris, Scheler meant to counter the reductionistic tendencies in various ethical theories.

Disrobing and Redressing Sex

This research is a precursor to further studies on socio-cultural issues such as reproductive health, homosexual marriages, infidelity and teen- age sexuality. With the goal of creating a framework for a resolution to these issues, the author focuses on sex as the central question. Prog- ress in debates on these issues and the general ethos depend on peo- ple’s attitude towards sex. In the Philippines, sex unfortunately remains in the cloister of morality and marital obligations, despite changes in time and social needs. Though the virtues of chastity and fidelity remain important, this author suggests a frame outside morality and Christian duty through which sex can be appreciated. The author uses the lenses of philosophy, particularly Max Scheler’s non-formal ethics of values, with supporting insights from the development psychologist, Evelyn Eaton Whitehead and her husband, James, a pastoral theologian, to reframe how sex is viewed. The author’s thesis is that sex is good and, when done properly, can be a vehicle for human persons to touch the fundamentals of their finitude and the glory of their existence.

Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values. A New Attempt Toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism. The New Italian Translation by Roberta Guccinelli

Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values. A New Attempt Toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism. The New Italian Translation by Roberta Guccinelli

Persons and Power: Max Scheler and Michel Foucault on the Spiritualization of Power

max scheler, in his Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Value, and Michel Foucault, in volumes 2 and 3 of his History of Sexuality, The Use of Pleasure and Care of the Self, offer ethical projects that seem very different but which are nonetheless complementary in several significant ways. Both thinkers, inspired by Nietzsche, attempt to rethink the genesis of the moral ought without appeal to any rule of reason?whether it be in the form of an utilitarian calculus, a Kantian categorical imperative, or a social contract? conceived as external to and constraining of desire. Both Scheler and Foucault challenge Western philosophy s deep, long-standing distrust of eros (often cast in the feminine) and belief that it stands in need of control by logos (often cast in the masculine). Their methods are radically different, though: Scheler derives an emotive a priori from a phenomenological analysis of concrete acts of preferencing while Foucault is explicitly antiphenomenological as he carries out specific historical, genealogical studies of ethical norms governing the sexuality of aristocratic males in Greek and Roman antiquity. Furthermore, both Scheler, now in his later Problems of a Sociology of Knowledge, and Foucault, in volume 1 of The History of Sexuality, invite us, although Foucault more explicitly, to think the relationship between subjects and power differently than the manner in which we are accustomed to doing. Power is not to be thought as something that subjects, assumed as already constituted entities, possess or lack. Rather, they invite us to consider how we, as subjects, are constituted by historical relationships of power. For Scheler, power is one of several drives {Triebe) beneath the real factors of personal and social life, which, in conjunction with various ideal (or spiritual) fac tors, constitute individual and social subjects. In a similar vein, subjects, for Foucault, are proximities within ever-shifting matrices of power, or, alterna tively, conduits of power.

The foundation of phenomenological ethics: Intentional feelings

E. Husserl’s reflections in Logical Investigations on “intentional feelings” and “non-intentional feelings” are significant in both his later ethical explorations and M. Scheler’s thought on ethics. Through the incorporation of the views of Husserl and Scheler, we find that the phenomenology of the intentional feeling-acts is not only the foundation of the non-formal ethics of values in Scheler’s phenomenology, but also at least the constitutive foundation of the ethics of Husserl’s first orientation.

Scheler versus Scheler

Scheler's theory of the person is at the center of his philosophy and one of the most celebrated of his achievements. It is somewhat surprising, then, that a straightforward and sufficient account of the person is missingfrom his works, an omission felt most keenly in that work which is in large measure dedicated to forging a new personalism: The Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values. In his explicit accounts of what a person is, Scheler stresses its spirituality and claims that it lives and has its being wholly in the execution of its acts. But in forging his personalism, Scheler makes a number of claims which require an account of the person that reaches deeper than its executed acts. In this essay, 1 focus on the accounts of the person given in the Formalism and use Scheler to improve Scheler's theory of the person.

Revisiting Max Scheler's formalism in ethics: Virtue-based ethics and moral rules in the non-formal ethics of value

Etude de la conception de l'ethique developpee par M. Scheler a partir d'un contenu materiel non-formel et dans le sens d'un personnalisme ethique, dans son ouvrage intitule «Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik» (1916). Soulevant la question d'une ethique fondee sur la vertu ou d'une ethique fondee sur la valeur, l'A. examine le fondement epistemique et le caractere noematique des structures de la perception et du jugement qui entrent dans la definition d'une science phenomenologique de la valeur chez Scheler

Formalism in Ethics and the Non-Formal Ethics of Values: A New Attempt Toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism. Max SchelerSelected Philosophical Essays. Max Scheler

<i>Formalism in Ethics and the Non-Formal Ethics of Values: A New Attempt Toward the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism</i>. Max Scheler<i>Selected Philosophical Essays</i>. Max Scheler

Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Value.

Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Value.

Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values, by Max Scheler, translated by Manfred S.

(1976). Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values, by Max Scheler, translated by Manfred S. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 139-143.

The Non-formal Ethics of Value of Max Scheler and the Shift in his Thought

The Non-formal Ethics of Value of Max Scheler and the Shift in his Thought