The Analysis of Wonder by Cicovacki Predrag

Author:Cicovacki, Predrag.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781623569747
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2013-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

1See Max Scheler, Person and Self-Value, trans. M. S. Frings (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), 127–98.

2Hartmann, Ethik, ch. 84 [III, 256].

3Hartmann, Ethik, ch. 42c [II, 214].

4Hartmann, Ethik, ch. 42c [II, 215].

5Hartmann, Ethik, ch. 42g [II, 221].

6Hartmann, Ethik, ch. 41c [II, 209]. See Ethik, ch. 50b [II, 285].

7Hartmann, Ethik, ch. 41c [II, 210].

II.4

Four Forms of Love

Hartmann isolates four fundamental moral values and presents them in a systematic order. They are the backbone of his moral philosophy, the foundation on which to build the comprehension of other moral values. These four values are not the highest. Hartmann hints that the value of love elevates above all other moral values. Presented at different places in Ethics are four forms of love: brotherly love, love of the remote, radiant virtue, and personal love. Hartmann does not compare them with the four fundamental moral values, but a correlation does exist. Brotherly love is most closely associated with the good, love of the remote with the noble, radiant virtue with the pure and personal love with the richness of experience. We should be careful not to read too much into this correlation. Nevertheless, some important insights into Hartmann’s thinking and the ranking of values can be drawn from it.

In any of its forms, Hartmann understands love in terms of personal dispositions, as a disposition of affirmation. Many of his remarks about love remind us of Kant’s concept of good will, as the only thing in the world that is unconditionally good. Not only does love belong to the highest level of values, it also leads to the development of personality and contributes to the meaning of life.

The term “brotherly love” is our rendering of the Greek word αγ άπη. Christianity promotes this form of love (in contrast to the ancient ἔρ ως and ϕι λία), which is a form of spontaneous love, directed toward those who stand to us the nearest. Without discriminating who they are, we intuitively recognize when they need our compassion and help. This Christian value does not refer primarily to the emotional side, but rather to one’s disposition and intention, followed by one’s conduct. Brotherly love is a loving sense of another person’s worth.

In modern times, we think of brotherly love in contrast to justice. Justice is one of the lowest and most elementary values. Both justice and brotherly love deal with humanity at a general level. Brotherly love concerns another person regardless of his rights or worthiness, while justice puts all human beings on the same level. Yet there is a significant difference between them: “justice may be unloving, brotherly love quite unjust.”1 While justice is directed outward, while it unites merely the surface of one person with the surface of another, brotherly love is directed inward. Brotherly love has its deep roots in the spirit and, like the good, has a potential to become the unifying principle of all values. Nevertheless, brotherly love does not involve a fusion of two persons, but only a participation of one person in the life of another.

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