Gutsein und Streben. Jenseits von Wertobjektivismus und Wertsubjektivismus?

Abstract

Desiring the good. Beyond value-objectivism and value-subjectivism?

Is something good because we desire it? Or should we desire something because it is good independently of our desires? This article explores the difficulties and attractions of affirmative answers to both questions. Taking up important clues from Aristotle’s notion of orexis the paper argues that a better understanding of the evaluative character of desires and their embeddedness in intersubjective value discourses may open a third way between subjectivism and objectivism with respect to values. Conceiving of desires and other orectic states as attitudes that are both motivational and evaluative helps to see in which way desires are conditions of the good and in which way the good functions as an independent standard for our desires. The article concludes with speculative ontological considerations that are inspired by Heidegger’s idea of Being-in-the-World.