Volition and Valuation: A Phenomenology of Sensational, Emotional and Conceptual Values

Volition and Valuation is a typology of valuations, and conflicts between values, using a phenomenological approach that treats the difference between cognitive-thinking and value-thinking as a difference in the mode of intentionality towards the objects. It also suggests a method for axiology to bracket the validity of the values described, acknowledge that the observation of phenomena of consciousness goes beyond empirical observation, and has a character of pure intuition or an intuition of essences which are a source of metavaluative knowledge. Michael Strauss explores the origins and nature of values, focusing on the norms and rules of valuations, called valuative values. He argues that valuative values cannot be reduced to a single value-type, nor do they always arise from a sensation or feeling, but can be created, chosen, and established. Strauss also refutes the method for measuring values devised by Plato in his Protagoras dialogue, and suggests middle ground between relativism and absolutism and between subjectivism and objectivism.