I contend that tolerance is not the expression of a simple attitude, but constitutes a moral value which penetrates all spheres of social life. My argument assumes that globalization is a fundamental tendency of the contemporary world and that the ideal of such a world cannot be enacted without tolerance. After identifying the constituent elements of this value and its conditions of functioning, we conclude that any reconstruction of human society from the globalization point of view presumes tolerance as a fundamental factor. Functional tolerance assumes that everyone enjoys similar education in the spirit of tolerance at any age and any level. The future of humanity depends upon such a solution in the face of current woes.

La teoría democrática de Michael Walzer ocupa un lugar ambiguo en las corrientes actuales de filosofía política. Walzer ha sido precipitadamente clasificado dentro del grupo de los "comunitaristas" en virtud de su empleo abundante del lenguaje integracionista de los "significados compartidos." Asimismo, su énfais en la participación política de los ciudadanos le ha proporcionado la etiqueta de "republicano." En cambio, para otros-los más marxistas-Walzer sigue siendo demasidado "liberal." Este trabajo deja a un lado esos calificativos y pretende acercarse a su teoría para sacar a la luz los aspectos que puedan proporcionar un buen material para el análisis de las sociedades contemporáneas. Para ello, he tomado como guía la distinción que hace Walzer en Thick and Thin entre minimalismo y maximalismo moral, aunque la he aplicado con un significado algo distinto. En el presente trabajo se plantean tanto cuestiones filosóficas acerca de su metodología, cuanto dimensiones estructurales de cómo articular empíricamente la teoría. También se explorarán las relaciones entre la interpretación y la reconstrucción de normas de justicia, con el propósito, no ya de ofrecer soluciones a los citados problemas, sino de clarificar los puntos de convergencia de uno y otro método filosófico para vislumbrar las posibilidades de su combinación.

En esta comunicación abordamos un aspecto de la filosofía de los valores: el valor moral. Este participa de la naturaleza y de las características del valor en general, pero también presenta notas específicas. Dos cuestiones se plantean aquí: cómo llegamos al conocimiento del valores moral, y la distinción entre valors y normas éticas. Se concluye haciendo referencia a la educación moral o adquisición de los hábitos morales. Se analiza el concepto de ley. Entre el romanticismo o primacía del amor, y el rigorismo o primacía de la ley existe un término medio, la ley como expresión del bien general querido por el hombre.

This paper functions as a brief introduction to virtue epistemology, a topic that has enjoyed a recent gain in popularity among analytic philosophers. Here I maintain that the defining feature of virtue epistemology is its focus on the intellectual virtues and vices rather than the evaluation of belief. What constitutes such a focus? And, what are the intellectual virtues? In the first section, I enumerate five different ways in which virtue epistemologists might focus on the virtues. In the second, I discuss four topics pertaining to the nature of the intellectual virtues themselves: (1) are the virtues natural or acquired?; (2) are they skills?; (3) are they instrumentally, constitutively, or intrinsically valuable?; and (4) what relation do they bear to truth? Throughout the paper, I identify which virtue epistemologists are partial to which views, and in this manner, catalog much of the recent debate. In conclusion, I suggest some topics for future study.

The conflict between values is the source of many conflicts and problems today. In contrast to the traditional conflict of values, the contemporary conflict is distinguished by these features: (1) extensiveness; (2) complicatedness; (3) profoundness; and (4) continuousness. The plurality and relativity of values is the primary cause of contemporary conflicts. The origin of pluralism lies in an interrelated trio of aspects: commodity economy, democratic politics, and individualism. The contemporary conflict of values is a historical process. Such conflict does not necessarily result in confusion; on the contrary, it can possibly lead to new and higher levels of harmony and vitality. In adjudicating value conflicts, we must (1) permit different values to coexist and respect different choices and the pursuits of values by different individuals; (2) consider the whole and the individual, the entire and the part, the long-term and the short-term, and attempt to have regard for both sides of the conflict; and (3) pursue the best and most suitable.

At the dawn of global civil society, the test for humanity is to achieve unity while preserving cultural differences as well as the distinctiveness of nations and peoples. Such unity can be reached only by recognizing human values, especially human rights. However, these rights must be strictly determined and more than mere obligations. Hence, the most important task for philosophy is to develop foundations and principles for a world society and to formulate a global consciousness and a humanistic worldview that adequately reflects the realities of our epoch. Our action must increasingly be based on an acknowledgment of global values.

El problema de los valores es un problema moderno que ha sido abordado por filósofos como Scheler, Nietzsche, Windelband, Rickert, Wojtila, Weber, etc., pero que por la evanenscencia de su específica naturaleza, resulta campo abierto y prácticamente inédito, para el discurso radical. El ángulo de análisis que presento es desde la metafísica del ser, en donde encuentro una relación de fundamentación vinculatoria entre ser, bien y valor, teniendo los valores como fundamento próximo al bien trascendental y como fundamento último al ser, con lo cual todo lo que existe es bueno y valioso, enfoque que difiere de los planteamientos que circunscriben el tratamiento de lo valioso, al ámbito de la moral, asunto que considero un error porque la filosofía de los valores trasciende el universo ético, ya que lo valoral puede ser dicho en variados sentidos, de aquí que los valores en su versatilidad pueden presentarse como paradigmas o bien como virtudes a vivir. Si son paradigmas, serán principios regulativos de caracter perfectivo sin imperio sobre la voluntad pero sí, con un cierto imperio político sobre la inteligencia que los presenta como modelos, que no significa como esencias separadas ni construidas a priori, sino destellos de la perfección del ser que-por serlo-se manifiestan en su valía universales por lo que resultan atractivos, apectecibles. Valor es entonces, el brillo, el resplandor del ente, bajo la razón de bien. Si son virtudes, se tornan cualidades adquiridas con esfuerzo que hacen a quien las conquista un hombre mejor.

Several years ago, I outlined a project to delineate ideological and scientific elements of our knowledge about values. I began by studying the typical configurations of values, their typical collisions, and some typical world-view-related standpoints as theoretical background. I now present the theoretical premises of my inquiry, the applied methods, and some of the results. I have tried to support the choice of variables used, make sensible the reliable limits of the findings, and underline some interconnections as well as some collisions between moral and/or ideological standpoints.

Values provide evidence of spirit in human life. Spirit is a creative mental force for realizing values, a force which shows signs of a superindividual growth and decline, a life of its own. This paper documents the historic rise and decline of several waves of human creativity. I also consider possible factors that would account for the rise and fall: the presence of new material, social encouragement and/or patronage, temperamental egotism on the part of creators, the attraction of pioneering talent, or a collective or superindividual spirit.

The purpose of this address is to argue for the following theses: (1) the concept of transcendentality can be associated not only with idealism but also with materialism; (2) such a connection was made possible by Karl Marx's theory; and (3) in the development of Marxism up to now, theory has been tied to a political movement, which is an error of principle, for what survives of it is a kind of social ethics which should more appropriately be called Marxism. Transcendence and immanence are notions of relationship. Values exist sensually above the senses: e.g., the aesthetic value of a painting is not identical with the material of the canvas and the oils on it, although it cannot exist without them. Persons who do not recognize values that are transcendent compared to the merely natural immanence or, to put it in another way, those for whom nothing is sacred are in fact not truly human.

I attempt to look into the issue of the ranks of values comprehensively and progressively. Anti-values can be classified into the following six categories by ascending order: (1) the act of destroying the earth-of annihilating humankind and all other living organisms; (2) the act of mass killing of people by initiating a war or committing treason; (3) the act of murdering or causing death to a human being; (4) the act of damaging the body of a human being; (5) the act of greatly harming society; (6) all other crimes not covered by the above. Higher values can be classified into the following five categories in descending rank: (1) absolute values such as absolute truth, absolute goodness, absolute beauty and absolute holiness; (2) the act of contributing to the development and happiness of humankind; (3) the act of contributing to the nation or the state; (4) the act of contributing to the regional society; (5) the act of cultivating oneself and managing one's family well. Generally, people tend to pursue happiness more eagerly than goodness, but because goodness is the higher value than happiness, we ought to pursue goodness more eagerly. In helping people to get the right sense of values and to internalize it, education and enlightenment of citizens based on the guidance of conscience rather than compulsion will be highly effective.

If Paideia means education in the classical sense, that is, education of the whole person, then authentically justifying such education in the modern world is extremely problematic. We are first drawn to practical defenses of a liberal education, that it is in itself of service and useful, both to society and to the individual. However, a practical defense of Paideia in the classical sense simply comes across as feeble and even a bit desperate (that is, if it escapes sounding pompous) and every savvy student knows it. Far better, it seems, to take courses aimed at general problem solving, or at honing critical thinking skills, or at developing socio-political sophistication, than to read Shakespeare or Plato.

While some philosophers tend to exclude any significance of emotion for the moral life, others place them in the center of both the moral life and the theory of value judgment. This paper presents a confrontation of two classic positions of the second type, namely the position of Hume and Scheler. The ultimate goal of this confrontation is metatheoretical — particularly as it concerns the analysis of the relations between the idea of emotion and the idea of value in this kind of theory of value judgment. In conclusion, I point to some important theoretical assumptions which underlie the positions of both thinkers despite all the other differences between them.

Global Peace is the summum bonum, so we must know its negative as well as positive meanings. Simultaneously peace must be understood in all its interrelated but theoretically differentiated dimensions as personal, social, national, international and global. Today, humankind is suffering from multidimensional crises such as terrorism, population-explosion, denial of human rights, economic inequality, racial discrimination, ideological extremism, religious intolerance, social injustice, ecological imbalance, consumerism, oppression of weak, etc. These peace-related issues compel us to lay down the fundamental principles of a radical global ethics that expects us to realize our roles and duties regarding global peace. It includes the role and ideals of educationalists, the duties of scientists, philosophers, and thinkers, the inculcation of human values such as nonviolence, love, etc.

The distinction between inherent and instrumental values in ethics could, in my view, be said to represent a contemporary version of both the eudaimonistic distinction between virtues as instruments and forms of happiness as the goals or ends to be achieved through these instruments, and of the deontological distinction between duties and the summum bonum to be, at least ultimately or in an afterlife, achieved through them. The paper identifies and explores what appears to be a threefold relationship between inherent and instrumental values. First, their mutual inseparability is found to be based in the very concept of instrumentality. Second, their parallelism in the relevant respects is seen also to be rooted in their instrumental relation. Third, and very significant, the inherent and instrumental values are discovered to be reversible so that what were inherent values can often become instrumental and vice-versa. Finally, and most importantly, the value and richness of human life is perceived to be nothing else than the function of the richness in values in ethics as well as in other spheres of human life.

Nozick's well-known Experience Machine argument can be considered a typically successful argument: as far as I know, it has not been discussed much and has been widely seen as conclusive, or at least convincing enough to refute the mental-state versions of utilitarianism. I believe that if his argument were conclusive, its destructive effect would be even stronger. It would not only refute mental-state utilitarianism, but all theories (whether utilitarian or not) considering a certain subjective mental state (happiness, pleasure, desire, satisfaction) as the only valuable state. I shall call these theories "mental state welfarist theories." I do not know whether utilitarianism or, in general, mental-state welfarism is plausible, but I doubt that Nozick's argument is strong enough to prove that it is not.

A well-known problem for preference-utilitarianism is to what extent it should exclude from consideration certain preferences. In this paper I focus on past preferences. I outline three general and some particular positions that a preference-utilitarian reasonably would want to take with regard to past preferences and why I think that endorsing each of these positions create new problems for the preference-utilitarian. At the end I sketch on a possible solution to the axiological problems here presented. However, although the pluralistic approach that I outline shares with preference-utilitarianism the idea that what is valuable is the satisfaction of preferences, it is not a viable option for a utilitarian. My conclusion is therefore that preference-utilitarianism faces a serious axilogical problem.

This paper discusses the nature of liberty from the point of view of value. Liberty is the highest value for liberals. The root of this liberal view is their particular conception of self. Rawls says 'the self is prior to the ends which are affirmed by it.' This is also the Kantian view of the self: the self is prior to its socially given roles and relationships. Therefore, no end is exempt from possible revision by the self. There is nothing wrong with this basic idea. In fact, all theories agree on free choice of life plan or self-determination. But they disagree about what package of rights and resources best enables people to pursue their own conceptions of the good. However, the liberal view of liberty is based on a metaphysically reasoned idealism. This results in a conception of liberty that is absolute, supreme, and has infinite value compared with other things. Communitarians have several arguments against the liberal view. I consider the following two points to be of utmost import: (1) The liberal view of the self is empty; (2) The liberal view ignores our embeddedness in communal practices. My reasoning is not exactly that of the communitarians. I view 'emptiness' as freedom associated with the substance of an action, which has a value that does not lie in itself.

Il est certain que, de plus en plus, on se rend compte du besoin de délimiter, de préciser l'idée de culture afin de rendre possible la différence entre le bon et le mauvais. En conséquence, l'humanité pourra surpasser la perplexité où elle se trouve à présent. Il est inadmissible d'accepter le nuisible et l'erreur comme manifestations de culture. S'agit-il d'un simple problème de sémantique? Ou bien, par ignorance ou confort, l'homme est-il en train d'assister passivement à l'essor des contre-valeurs en devenant complice de ce processus? Malgré la grande difficulté de la matière, nous pensons que l'idée de culture considérée comme instauration de la valeur mérite, en tant qu'un nouveau paradigme, en tant qu'idée directrice, l'attention et la réflexion de tous ceux qui souhaitent un monde meilleur.