Scheler Hierarchy of Values

Head Teacher 2, Edukasyon sa Pagpapahalaga, Victorias National High School

Values defined in Ethics Unwrapped as individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another. They serve as a guide for human behavior.

According to Ethics Sage, values are basic and fundamental beliefs that guide or motivate attitudes or actions. Values describe the personal qualities we choose to embody to guide our actions; the sort of person we want to be; the manner in which we treat ourselves and others, and our interaction with the world around us.

What is the hierarchy of values? The hierarchy of values is an explicit elaboration of a priori states and concepts where we find Scheler, like Kant, carefully guarding against the introduction of any empirical or a posteriori considerations in order to preserve the universal and necessary character of the value hierarchy.

Max Ferdinand Scheler was a German social and ethical philosopher who developed the hierarchy of values. He is the foremost exponent of Axiology. Axiology is defined as the philosophical science of values.

According to Britannica, Scheler argued that values, like the colors of the spectrum, are independent of the things to which they belong. He posited an order of five “ranks” of values, ranging from those of physical comfort to those of usefulness, life, the mind, and the “holy.”

In accordance with the above principles, Scheler classified the values into the following four categories (from the bottom to the top): (1) the value of pleasure and displeasure (the emotional value), (2) the value of the sense of life (and welfare as a subsidiary value to it), (3) the mental value (perception, beauty, justice), (4) the value of holiness.

Pleasure values are the physiological needs of an individual such as food, water, sex, breathing, sleep, excretion, etc. These are the utility and sensual values.

Vital values are values pertaining to the well-being of either of the individual or of the community such as employment, health, property, family, friendship, morality, etc. This is virtue values.

Spiritual values are values independent of the whole sphere of the body and of the environment. Grasped in spiritual acts preferring to loving and hating, self-esteem, confidence, respect for others, etc. This is wisdom values.

Lastly, the Values of the Holy refer to the sacred and hallowed beliefs, some things which are the objects of worship or veneration. This is the transcendent values.

According to Sociology Dictionary, transcendent value is a value that surpasses all differences and unifies a group.