the concept of good into the practical way of perspective: All people strive for happiness (eudaimonia), but everyone understands something different. In order to determine the greatest possible happiness for man, he has to acknowledge himself as a human species, which distinguishes him from animal in having reason. Consequently, the highest good, which is possible for human beings, must lie in practicing reason. Accordingly, human happiness is best achieved through a life of contemplation, which is the ultimate goal of human action and desire. The key question lies in how human beings can reach this objective. To this end, Aristotle developed a theory on virtues, which is called “virtue ethics” (Aristotle, trans. 1984). As part of his reasoning, Aristotle stated that virtuous behavior is a social practice exercised by a citizen of an ideal city. He had the understanding that virtue is an acquired skill learned through trial and error. Therefore, virtue is not inherent, but must be acquired in a theoretical and practical learning process. Whatever way virtue is learned, most important is the knowledge on the right amount and mean of a virtue. Related to this understanding Aristotle characterized virtues developing a doctrine of means: If a person encounters a situation and, basing the decision on reason, experience, and content, he or she chooses a course of action from between two extremes of dispositions, those of deficiency and excess. The mean between these two is virtue. Consequently, Aristotle conceived virtues as the desirable mean states between vices of deficiency and vices of excess. For instance, courage is the mean between cowardliness (vice of deficiency) and recklessness (vice of excess). Similarly, humility would be a virtue between the deficiency of shyness and the excess of shamelessness (Aristotle, trans. 2000, book II, chapter VIII). Central to this conceptual understanding is that individuals make a deliberate, rational choice to act in a manner that lies between these two extremes and is thus considered virtuous (Mintz, 1996). In fact, Aristotle assumed that good judgment held the greatest importance in ethics. Accordingly, the ability to carefully consider how a virtuous person would act when facing an ethical dilemma is key to developing a virtuous character (Cameron, 2011; Nybert, 2007; Solomon, 1992). As mentioned above, Aristotle’s list of virtues includes the original four cardinal virtues. However, he added a number of other virtues, such as generosity, wit, friendliness, truthfulness, magnificence, and greatness of soul (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).
The philosopher Epicur (341–270 BCE) has declared joy to be the highest value for men and is considered the inventor of hedonism. Blessed is a life when it is free from physical pain (aponia) and free from confusion of the soul (that state he called ataraxia). Epicur did not enumerate a list of virtues, but he ←51 | 52→recommended staying out of many areas that required virtue (e.g., politics or marriage). Specifically, friendship between individuals was of great value to him (Krobath, 2009).
The Stoics further reinforced the value of ataraxia to apathy (apatheia): The path to happiness for the human being is found by not allowing ourselves to be controlled by our desire for pleasure or our fear of pain (Krobath, 2009). From Aristotle, the Stoics accepted that happiness was the highest value for human beings. This happiness, they taught, could be achieved through virtue, self-education, and self-control.
As a Christian theologian of the middle age, Aquinas (1224–1274) rejected Aristotle’s additions to Plato and added three theological virtues proposed by Saint Paul: faith, hope, and love (Aquinas, trans. 1989, as cited in Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Aquinas argued for a hierarchical organization of virtues and defined the seven heavenly virtues: wisdom, courage, self-restraint, justice, faith, hope, and love. Within these seven heavenly virtues, Aquinas specified what Peterson and Seligman (2004) later defined as the six core virtues, describing transcendence with the virtues faith and hope, and humanity with the virtue of love.
In response to the stifled values and norms of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, with its retrospectual revival of the classical thinking of ancient times and its ideal of the human personality, brought about a cultural crisis and the shattering of moral orders. Reformation and counterreformation stabilized values. With Luther (1483–1546) and Calvin (1509–1564), a canon of virtues and values was developed, that, until recently, was predominately accepted as a standard: orderliness, cleanliness, thriftiness, punctuality, industriousness, and diligence (cf. Bollnow, 1958).
A radical change towards modern value thinking then brought the Enlightenment with its appeal to reason. For Kant (1724–1804), the center of virtue is morality and the human end purpose of creation, and thus its supreme value. As a being endowed with reason, a person has the duty to strive after the good, according to what is accepted as morally correct. When all human beings fulfill their ethical duties, they generate values that benefit everyone. The main values that emerged in the course of the Enlightenment period are still valid in the broader sense, specifically humanity and human dignity, tolerance, individual freedom, and equality (Kant, 1785, as cited in Krobath, 2009).
Around the turn of the 19th century, the concept of value by Lotze (1817–1881) became a fundamental category of philosophy. Value theory is concerned with two fundamental questions: 1) What is value in itself? and 2) What are the different forms of values? Accordingly, two main groups can be distinguished: objectivists and subjectivists. The objectivists claim that things and ←52 | 53→actions can be evaluated because they have an absolute value (as cited in Krobath, 2009). Value judgments are therefore to be designated as true or false in the same way as descriptive judgments. The subjectivists claim that values are nothing other than projections of subjective feelings and attitudes. When you evaluate a thing or action, you do not say anything about it in itself, but instead express a subjective feeling or personal attitude. Moral values can therefore be neither true nor false (Hügli & Lübcke, 2003).
In the area of the debate about the objectivist view, axiology is described as a strict theory of values. Here certain axioms had been set up. Brentano (1838–1917) was the first to develop a classical theory of intrinsic value, which he attempted to base upon the philosophical psychology. In his essay “The origin of the knowledge of right and wrong” (1889), he presented fundamental considerations on ethical values. He thus founded the idea of “descriptive psychology” and shaped psychology as an exact science (Baumgartner & Reimherr, 2006). Specifically, he researched the criteria that relate to the question of law, custom, and order. Brentano was inspired by Aristotle’s method to decipher and decode the essence of things by analyzing their simplest components and their structural contexts. His reasoning is based on the assumption that even for ethical problems, rational criteria of assessment and a justifiable ranking of values can be found (Brentano, 1889, as cited in Chisholm, 1986). By carrying out the possibility of such gradation, he presents a concept of value ethics. In doing so, he distinguished three fundamental categories of consciousness: imagining, judging (whether right or wrong), and emotional states (emotions that are good or bad, in the form of loving or hating). He thus presented a theory of values of the inner world and sought a way to place judgments of subjective feeling on a rational basis. Brentano recognized the origin of the concepts of truth or falsity, or of the good and the bad. “True” is something when the recognition referenced to it is appropriate, and “good” is something when the related love is correct. He also presupposed that universal and immutable moral laws exist for all humans. In addition, the following axioms were defined: the existence of a positive value is itself a positive value; the existence of a negative value is itself a negative value; the nonexistence of a negative value is a positive value, the nonexistence of a positive value is a negative value; the same value cannot be positive and negative at the same time; and it is impossible to maintain the same value for positive and negative (Brentano, 1889, as cited in Chisholm, 1986). According to the theory of Brentano, judgments based on reasoned criteria can be verified or falsified. Brentano was thus the first to create a foundation for the assessment of intrinsic values to relate to the subjective individual view, and at the same time to maintain an objective mindset.
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The primary lessons learned from this historical excursion into the field of philosophy are the following:
– Values and virtues had been understood early in history as separate concepts;
– The concern of
