Max Scheler’s Ethical Personalism

Abstract

As the title suggest, the present article elaborates Max scheler'´s concept of Ethical personalism. the first section describes the relevance of phenomenology in scheler´s philosophical inquiry. It illustrates how he uses phenomenological approach by means of which he exemplifies a new understanding of the emotive a priori. Scheler agrees on the idea that intentionality serves as insight into essences, however, he contends that intentionality cannot be purely rational (Husserl). Phenomenology, for Scheler, is a psychic technique toward emotive intuition.
The second part deals primarily on scheler´s application of phenomenology to his concept of material or non-formal ethics. He carries out a shattering critique on the one hand on axiological nominalism, for which values are simply empirical facts, and on the other hand on ethical formalism (Kant). According to scheler, values are the a priori grounds of emotion, the intentional objects of feeling. “inclinations” (emotions, feelings, sentiments) are then important in the evaluation of moral experience.
From the objective theory of values, Scheler passes now to the analysis of his distinctive phenomenology on the person (the only carrier of values). Against positivistic, naturalistic and biological interpretation imposed on the person, Scheler defines the person as “the concrete unity of acts,” which is not in itself objective; the person is revealed in his actions. He maintains that a person is not only given rationality and will but also a heart. Lastly, he concludes that a person is essentially spiritual, that is, a person has the ability to separate essence and existence (ideation) and as a spiritual being a person has an access to spiritual reality and, therefore, can posit the idea of God.