现代价值理论的开端

The Beginnings of Modern Value Theory

对边沁、尼采和洛采在价值理论方面的成就进行讨论是对价值理论现代方法进行介绍前的必要工作,从这些观点里可以看到一些涉及价值理论的问题。边沁在寻找一个包含一切人类活动的价值理论,他利用"功利原则"和"快乐运算"将最大多数人的最大的幸福作为道德和法律的基础。面对传统价值和传统价值标准崩溃的尼采则努力提供一个评价的新基础,要求"新的哲学家们"发起对价值的重新评估。尼采的"超人"设想和关于价值的评估引起了同时代人的注意,并为此后的哲学家提出了新任务。洛采在承认某些价值主要属于经验主体的需要和特性的同时又尝试去寻找一个能要求客观的、普遍有效性的价值标准,从而开启了后来的哲学家们在这一问题上的讨论。

Discussions of the works of Bentham,Nietzsche,and Lotze are necessary for an introduction to the modern approaches to value theory,and the discussion will provide some perspectives from which to view the problems with which value theory is concerned.Bentham is seeking ageneral value theory encompassing the whole range of human activities.He uses the'principle of utility'and a 'calculus of pleasures'to confirm the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the foundation of morals and legislation.Nietzsche,confronted with the collapse of his traditional values and value standards,tries to provide a new basis for our valuations and asks'the new philosophers'to initiate the transvaluation of values.Nietzsche's conception of Superman and the transvaluation of values bring the attention of Nietzsche's contemporaries,and raise a new job for later philosophers.Lotze accepts certain values pertain primarily to the needs and particularities of empirical subjects.At the same time,he makes various attempts to find a value standard that could still claim objective,universal validity,and opens the discussion of this question for later philosophers.