Abstract

The clarification of the relation between norm and value was historically one of the main philosophical concerns of the phenomenological current of the movement known as Philosophy of Values. One of its major characters, Nicolai Hartrnann, in his bookEthik, argues in favor of almost identifying one with the other. For him, the “ideal ought-to-be” (the one indifferent to the way reality is) already belongs to the nature of values, since they have an inherent tendency towards reality. In this communication, I’ll criticize this thesis based on the meaning of the concepts involved.