The Constitution of the Human Community: Value Experience in the Thought of Edmund Husserl; an Axiological Approach to Ethics

Abstract

The axiological approach to ethics has few followers in recent times because of fundamental disagreements concerning the characterization of the basic value terms needed to delineate the field, and the lack of a suitable method for resolving these value conflicts. Given these shortcomings, it is hard to see how one could move on to specialized studies of ethical values and to work out a comprehensive theory of the ethical life. It is no wonder that some philosophers have not only turned away from value inquiry, but have condemned or discredited the entire project.¹ Frequently, such critics have recommended metaphysical or ontological alternatives to value inquiry, but so far substantial contributions to ethics have been singularly absent.