Values and Being: Critical Analysis of Manfred Frings’ Idea of Functional Existence of Values

The article contains a critical analysis of Manfred Frings’ interpretation of Max Scheler’s conception of value-being. The core task of the article is to reveal ontological implications of Frings’ interpretation, explicate its inner contradictions and problematical conceptual results. It is shown that Frings’ interpretation rests upon the disregard of the distinction between the ideal and real axiological realms, which is essential for Scheler; Frings’ omitting of the ideal value-realm with its aprioristic laws and relations determines two main theses of his interpretation, i.e. the thesis of the value-being as mere experiential givenness as well as the thesis of functional existence of values. It is further demonstrated that both theses inescapably lead to contradictions. Specifically, the reduction of the value-being to mere experiential givenness makes impossible any attempt to determine the autonomous criterion for moral oughtness and, thereby ruining the idea of ethical absolutism, which defines the core aspiration for Scheler’s value-ethics. Similarly, the ontological immanentisation of values seriously challenges the ontological status of essences and, thus, makes impossible the idea of phenomenology as a rigorous eidetic science. Frings’ other thesis, i.e. the thesis of functional existence of values, implies the pre-experiential being of values, and, henceforth, comes into conflict with the thesis of purely representational being of values. Still, the assumption of functional existence leads to the material, viz. contential, identifying of pre-experiential and experiential values, ultimately questioning the possibility of contrast between actual and normative state of affairs and, therefore, demolishes the very idea of an autonomous criterion for moral conduct.