Abstract

"What is value, moral or otherwise? What has positive value and what negative? Axiological ethics or moral value theory is concerned with such questions. In this monograph the author considers the writings of some of the most important exponents of axiological ethics, namely Brentano, Meinong, G. E. Moore, Hastings Rashdall, W. D. Ross, Scheler and Hartmann. He expounds their views clearly and sympathetically but not uncritically, and adds his own opinions about value theory. The reader will find this study full of interest. It contributes to scholarship; is it widely known, for instance, how Scheler anticipated and criticised emotivists? Again, this study makes unpopular claims and argues for them cogently; it is the case, for example, that pp much attention has been lavished on the early chapters of Moore's Principia Ethica, which discuss the naturalistic fallacy, and too little on later chapters, which make Moore 'one of the prime founders of axiology'? In the last chapter Professor Findlay makes his own suggestions toward a theory of value and the reader has to consider the question: Is there a gap in modern moral philosophy which these suggestions help to fill?"-Publisher.