Abstract

This study is devoted to an examination of Scheler's critique of Kant's formalist ethics and to his proposal of a non-formalist alternative. Scheler rejects as groundless Kant's constructivistic hypothesis that the only lawfulness in moral experience is that conferred by the rational subject upon an otherwise unordered chaos of affectivity. Rather, Scheler finds an ordering principle given within moral experience itself and recommends a phenomenological ethics grounded in the a priori interconnections of values. Kantian distinctions between "formal" and "material," "rational" and "sensible," and "a priori" and "a posteriori" clearly acquire an altogether non-Kantian significance within Scheler's phenomenological ethics. ;The importance of the study is threefold. First, it poses an interesting challenge to Kantian formalism--one largely unfamiliar to Anglo-American philosophers. Second, it represents an historical "test case" in applied phenomenology. Third, it generates significant implications for ethical intuitionism bearing on developments from N. Hartmann to Hans Reiner on the Continent and from G. E. Moore to J. N. Findlay in the English-speaking world. ;The study consists of eight chapters-- Introduction Apriority, Values, Valuation, Obligation, Action, Man, Conclusion. Each of the chapters constituting the body of the work contains an exposition of Kant's position on the issue in question, an examination of Scheler's critique of it, and a comparative summary and tentative evaluation. ;The Introduction includes an historical survey of the chief influences on Scheler's understanding of the issue: the Vitalism of Dilthey, Simmel and Eucken, the Neo-Kantianism of Liebmann, Windelband and others, the Value Theory of Brentano, Meinong and Ehrenfels, and the Phenomenology of Husserl. The Conclusion offers a critical assessment of the accomplishments of Scheler's critique as well as of the unresolved difficulties of his alternative, and tenders a number of constructive suggestions on ways in which particular problems might be resolved. ;The chief contribution of Scheler's work consists in its cogent expose of the phenomenological groundlessness of Kant's constructivistic hypothesis and in its restoration to moral lawfulness of its evident quality of phenomenological "givenness" without foreclosing the question as to its source