The Structure of Value: Foundations of Scientific Axiology

Hartman's revolutionary book introduces formal orderly thinking into value theory. It identifies three basic kinds of value, intrinsic goods (e.g. people as ends in themselves), extrinsic goods (e.g. things and actions as means to ends), and systemic goods (conceptual values). All good things share a common formal or structural pattern: they fulfill the ideal standards or "concepts" that we apply to them. Thus, this theory is called "formal axiology" Some values are richer in good-making property-fulfillment than others, so some desirable things are better than others and form patterned hierarchies of value. How we value is just as important as what we value, and evaluations, like values, share structures or formal patterns, as this book demonstrates. Hartman locates all of this solidly within the framework of historical value theory, but he moves successfully and creatively beyond philosophical tradition and toward the creation of a new value science.

Robert S. Hartman (d. 1973) was Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee and the National University of Mexico. His lifelong quest was to answer the question, "What is good?"--and to answer the question in such a way that good could be organized to help preserve and enhance the value of human life. He believed that he had found this answer in the axiom upon which he based his science of axiology: "A thing is good when it fulfills its concept."