Steven Nemes' Review of Dietrich von Hildebrand's Ethics: Some Questions

The review is a well written and very fair summary of von Hildebrand's book. (I read portions of the latter in graduate school days but I do not currently have it in my library.)  Here is the review's main critical passage together with my remarks.

[Von] Hildebrand’s arguments for the objectivity of value therefore seem unsuccessful. It is true that one experiences an object as possessing some value which motivates a particular form of response to it. But it is another matter whether one has grasped a value in the object on its own or in the object as it is related to oneself in experience. Food is experienced as delicious, but there is no property of gustatory value inhering objectively in chicken tikka masala. It can be appetizing to one but not to another. Or consider that human beings love fruit, but dogs and cats generally do not.

BV: Nemes invokes the fact that for beings capable of gustatory experience, what is appetizing/delicious/tasty can vary across individuals in a species, and across species.  This is because the property of being appetizing is not an intrinsic property of the edible or potable item, but involves a relation to the consumer.  I have been called 'Old Asbestos Tongue' on account of the pleasure I derive from fiery comestibles.  The positive or negative gustatory value resides not in the comestible itself, but in the relation between consumer and comestible between, say, 'Old Asbestos Tongue' and the jalapeno pepper.  My constitution is such as to allow for the enjoyment of what others will find highly disagreeable. Hence, de gustibus non est disputandum. There is nothing to dispute since there is no fact of the matter.  It is 'subjective' in one sense of this polysemous term.

But how negotiate the inferential move from

1) That which has the value of tasting good often varies from individual to individual and from species to species

to

2) The value of tasting good is subjective, not objective.

This looks to be an illicit slide. (1), which is plainly true, is consistent with the negation of (2).  For it could be that the value of tasting good is objectively the same for all despite different edibles being tasty to different people or animals.

That is to say: tasting good could be an objective value despite the fact that different edible items have this value for different people.  The perceiver-relativity of taste, which makes taste subjective, is consistent with the objectivity of gustatory values.

If values are essences and essences are ideal objects that subsist independently of our value responses (Wertantworten), as von Hildebrand maintains, then, while different perceivers find different things appetizing/delicious/tasty, this needn't affect the value itself.  The tasting of an incendiary comestible involves a physical transaction; the intellectual intuition of the value does not. One does not taste the value, one tastes the jalapeno-laden enchilada; and one does not intellectually intuit  the enchilada, one tastes it.

SN: Similarly, a purported moral value can be “noble” in the eyes of the “virtuous” but repellent to the “profligate.” It could well be that the difference in perception is accounted for merely in terms of the different structures of the persons involved.

BV:  It is not the value as ideal object that is noble, but a person who has the value.  The person is noble in virtue of instantiating the value. The base are value-blind (wertblind):  they cannot 'see' or appreciate the value that noble people instantiate.  But that fact is consistent with the value's objective existence in itself apart both from anyone's appreciating it and anything's instantiating it.

My point is that von Hildebrand has the resources to turn aside Nemes' objections. The latter are not rationally compelling. Give von Hildebrand's Platonism about values, Nemes' arguments are non sequiturs.  This is not to say that von Hildebrand's axiology is true; it is to say that Nemes hasn't refuted it.

His review raises for me a fascinating question: does phenomenology by its very nature, and given that intentionality is its central motif, support realism or idealism?  For von Hildebrand and J-P Sartre the former; for Husserl the latter.  I should take this up in a separate entry.

For now I recommend that Nemes study chapter V, "Objectivity and Independence," in von Hildebrand's What is Philosophy? 

Comments

[Steven Nemes]

Bill,

Thanks for reading and interacting with the review!

Hildebrand distinguishes between value and mere subjective satisfaction. For him, a value possesses importance-in-itself, independently of its relation to any person. "Tasting good" is sooner a mere subjective satisfaction.

The point in my argument was that, given the mediated and hermeneutical nature of intentional world-experience, one cannot simply take for granted that intentional consciousness grants us contact with a world that subsists independently of us. What we have access to is an interpretation of that world, i.e. to that world in relation to us, and not simply the world itself. Whether the-world-to-us is also the world-itself is another matter that has to be argued. Hildebrand must do more than simply point to affective value responses to prove their objectivity, because mere subjective satisfaction is also an affective value response and does not put us into contact with something important-in-itself.

In other words, my point was that more phenomenological work must be done to show that affective value responses put us in contact with something important-in-itself. And remember that Hildebrand thinks that he can establish a realist moral system in lived experience! I don't think he can simply help himself to a realist metaphysic when the "Erlebnisbrunnen" runs dry.

I will consult the chapter you mention!

[Vlastimil Vohánka]

Thanks for this. Take a look at sources in endnote 9 of my paper https://www.academia.edu/34399673/The_Nature_and_Uniqueness_of_Material_Value_Ethics_Clarified

I think esp. Fritz Wenisch develops von Hildebrand in a solid way. E.g. in "To Do or Not to Do", http://ophen.org/pub-124699

[BV]

You didn't engage my argument.

[Steven Nemes]

Bill,

I think that I did! For Hildebrand, a value is supposed to be something important-in-itself, something whose importance makes no reference to a person’s interests but rather itself should be motivating. But that something tastes good implies a relation to a person with a sense of taste. That something tastes good means nothing if you do not have a sense of taste, neither could you see its value in that case.

Hildebrand thinks that certain affective responses imply the existence of objective values, i.e. things that are important-in-themselves. He thinks that our sense of things as being noble or admirable is precisely the experience in which the importance-in-themselves of certain things is seen. But my point is that, because world-experience is mediated hermeneutically through the lived body and thought-life of the living ego, one does not simply see something morally impressive and thus come into contact with an objective value. Rather, one sees something morally impressive as seen from one’s perspective. Whether one’s perspective is revelatory of the in-itself is another matter.

Consider also the equivalent of what you are saying in the moral sphere. Suppose I grant that tasting good is an objective value, even if tastes differ among people. Importing that line of reasoning into the discussion about moral affective responses, what would the conclusion be? That “moral feelings” are valuable, even if people feel them about different things? That is precisely not what Hildebrand wishes to say. He wishes to say that there is a right way to respond to certain things, e.g. to respond with admiration to an act of charity and to respond with contempt or disapproval to an act of selfishness. But until he can experientially justify the objective admirability of charity or the objective contemptibility of selfishness, that is like saying that there are foods you are “supposed” to like.

As for your point that “the value's objective existence in itself” is possible “apart both from anyone's appreciating it and anything's instantiating it,” I agree that this is true as a matter of definition. Obviously if something exists in itself, then it can do so apart from its existing for anyone in particular. But my point is: What justifies the assertion of the existence of an in-itself? Why think any such thing?