On Emotion and Value in David Hume and Max Scheler Essay -- David Hume

On Emotion and Value in David Hume and Max Scheler purloin While some philosophers tend to exclude any significance of perception for the incorrupt breeding, others place them in the center of both the moral life and the theory of value judgment. This paper presents a confrontation of two pure positions of the second type, namely the position of Hume and Scheler. The ultimate goal of this confrontation is metatheoretical especially as it concerns the analysis of the relations between the idea of perception and the idea of value in this kind of theory of value judgment. In conclusion, I point to some important theoretical assumptions which underlie the positions of both thinkers despite all the other differences between them. In at least intravenous feeding types of respectable theories emotions and feelings are regarded as a vital factor in explaining the nature of both value judgement and value itself. Such types of ethical theories, however, offer not only different theor ies of value and valuation besides they as well assume or imply quite different theories of emotions and feelings. A look at the history of philosophical psychology can win over us that there has been no generally accepted theory of emotion but the idea of emotion has been changing together with the idea of thought or soul. (1) One could expect that there is a correlation coefficient between the idea of emotion and the idea of value or the good in each type of the above mentioned theories. In what follows, I shall discuss this correlation for two ethical theories in greater detail. I shall consider the moral philosophy of David Hume which I construe as psychological naturalism of non-relativistic type. (2) I shall also consider the case of emotional intuitionism exemplified by Max Scheler. two H... ...the objects of emotion adjoin Sousa, de R. - The Rationality of Emotion, The MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1990.(9) For excellent discussion of this point see Hudson, S. D. - Humean Pleasure Reconsidered, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5 (1975), no 4, pp. 545-62 Fieser, J. - Humes mixed bag of the Passions and Its Precursors, Hume Studies 18 (1992), no 1, pp. 1-17.(10) See note 8 above.(11) Scheler, Max - Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik, Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 2, Francke Verlag, Bern - Mnchen 1954, pp. 256-278 hereafter cited as F.(12) F, pp. 341-356. See also Smith, Q. - Schelers Stratification of Emotional Life and Strawsons Person, Philosophical Studies (Irleand), 25 (1977), pp. 103-127. (13) F, pp. 125 -130.(14) cf Calhoun, Ch., Solomon, R. C. - What is an Emotion, Oxford University Press, New York 1984.