Values (values and disvalues) denote, in personalist ontology, the qualitative determinations that personhood can take on in the course of its unfolding. The person is not merely a bearer of values but is herself the highest finite value. Her dignity is not one value among others but the ground on which all moral values rest.
In the third dimension of personhood, the person realizes virtues as enduring value-dispositions and can thereby draw closer to the perfection proper to her. Likewise, through vices she can realize disvalues and fall short of what she is in truth. The ontological value of the person as person nevertheless always remains intact. It is inalienable and is to be distinguished from the moral values realized or missed (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 185—200).
Objective Value
An objective value is a value that subsists in itself, independently of subjective acknowledgment, sentiment, or considerations of utility. The ontological dignity of the person is such an objective value: it belongs to the person regardless of whether anyone acknowledges it or not (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 143-160).
Hildebrand developed the doctrine of objective value systematically. He distinguishes value (the important-in-itself) from the merely subjectively satisfying and from the objectively good-for-someone. The value demands a fitting value-response: whoever sees the beautiful ought to admire it; whoever recognizes the holy ought to revere it. Scheler complements this with the material order of values: there is an objective hierarchy of values — from the sensory values through the spiritual values to the moral and religious values (holiness).
Among the objective values are, inter alia, truth, beauty, holiness, the intrinsic value of the person, and the common good. The denial of objective values leads to value-relativism and undermines the grounding of the moral relevance of personhood (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 148-157).
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: archphenomenon; subordinate concepts: common good, holiness, intrinsic value, moral relevance, beauty, meaning, animal welfare, truth
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Hildebrand, Dietrich von (1973): Ethik. In: Gesammelte Werke, vol. II. Regensburg: Habbel. (German) (Objective value and its distinction from the merely subjectively satisfying)
- Scheler, Max (1913/1916): Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Halle: Niemeyer. (German) (Objective hierarchy of values)