Progress and Justice: Four Crises in the History of Values

Abstract

INTEREST in theory of value as a separate study in philosophy has been a distinguished intellectual movement of recent years. Much has been done toward establishing an independent point of view, a method, and a survey of the data of values. Much more remains untouched. Too many of the pioneers in the new work have dissipated their energies in clearing the ground, in defending the value of their work, in wandering in "thickets abounding in monstrous doubts and difficulties." Few of the explorers have arrived at the heart of the problem, and the reason may be that no one apparently has fully called upon the services of the two competent guides in the realm of values, namely, art and history. The purpose of this paper is to set forth briefly a few of the workings of history relevant to theory of values. To anticipate, history presents two propositions and one probability concerning values: (i) At all times in Western culture men have believed in or sought a principle of control, a law of values. (2) The story of these principles of control reflects an intelligible process, each epoch or crisis in theory of value following historical causes. (3) The conditions and terms of three of these revolutions in thought are sufficiently clear to make possible an understanding of the conditions and terms of the next crisis. In order to reveal the evidence for these propositions I have chosen, as a point of attack, the idea of progress, the theory of control in the realm of values which has most affected our own times and which, through an analysis of its component elements, leads us back to every crisis in the history of values.