Axio

After considering the world, the nihilist delivers this terrible sentence: ‘Nothing has value’.

Neither happiness nor human existence—and the same goes for the rest: everything could vanish without regret!

What should we say? Is it possible to show him that something, at least, does have a value?

It is difficult, because nobody agrees: for some, order holds value; for others, disorder. One loves to travel; another prefers to read. Some shout, ‘Long live the fatherland’, others, ‘Long live freedom’. One cherishes the nature they walk through; another destroys it.

So there is no consensus, no point of agreement, in the area of values.

Some even value violence and love to cause harm and suffering: evil is also an object of love!

What really has value? How do you respond to a nihilist?

Here lies the most obscure problem: the problem of values.

How can it be resolved? How do we discover what holds real value? What method should we use?

Perhaps by turning to a deeper, more fundamental question:

What is a value?

Let us open a book on values. There, we may find something like this: ‘Let us speak of values—the beautiful, the true, the good...’

Such an approach fails to grasp the radical nature of the problem, for the nihilist denies that the beautiful, the true, and the good hold any value, and thus rejects them as values.

We cannot, therefore, use these examples as a basis for an authentic reflection on values. From the outset, we assume precisely what we seek to prove, rendering this approach inherently dogmatic.

So we face a problem: how can we reflect on values without relying on any value already recognised as such?

Such, however, is the challenge thrown down to us by the nihilist.

Likewise, in such books, we are told about different types of value: economic, moral, aesthetic, and religious values...

In fact, what I am looking for is the value of morality, religion, art, and the like.

And the value of morality is not itself a moral value, nor is the value of art an aesthetic value...

No more than courage has a courageous value, or fear a fearful value.

The plurality of things that have value does not entail the plurality of values. So value only makes sense in the singular.

We must seek this singular, unique value that all these things might share.

Likewise, by value, we do not mean the qualities we attribute to objects or people.

‘He is nice’, ‘This hammer is solid’, ‘This horse is fast’.

The question of value has not advanced one inch through such judgements. The real inquiry must ask whether these qualities—kindness, solidity, speed—have value at all.

So value operates on another level, higher than that of qualities—a ‘meta-qualitative’ level.

Similarly, value is not the good, nor the end.

Under the title of supreme good, sovereign good, or ultimate end, the philosophical tradition has sought what is most valuable.

However, this overlooks that the supreme value might not be good for us; it could even be a danger, if the supreme value turned out to be evil or nothingness. This, alas, is one possible outcome of our inquiry, in which case it would be inappropriate to call it a supreme good or an ultimate end.

The supreme value may be for us a good or an end, but we have no right to take it for granted from the start.

In the same way, seeking value does not mean searching for the meaning of life—for perhaps what has value is the absurd.

Indeed, the fact that I find meaning in my life—through, for example, an activity that fulfils me—does not mean that the value of my life is founded to some extent on this.

Similarly, research into values is not a moral issue: what does the value of a work of art, or a piece of fruit, have to do with morality?

On the contrary, morality itself rests on this research. Indeed, when we seek the foundation of morality, we are attempting to establish the value of morality, or that good is more valuable than evil.

It is not enough to claim that morality is a duty or that being moral makes us happy, for one might respond: what has value is violating our duties, or even the annihilation of humanity—and with it, our aspiration for happiness!

We see it: a lot of confusion.

Words become entangled and mistaken for one another, so the problem of values cannot be resolved—perhaps because it has never truly been raised.

So what is value?

Let us begin with a provisional definition:

To have value is to be worthy of love

And to hold a high place in the hierarchy of all things.

This definition may evolve; the outcome of our inquiry might lead to a redefinition of value itself.

The question, ‘What has value?’, thus transforms into:

What is worthy of love?

And what holds a high place in the hierarchy?

What method should be used for this survey?

Some methods are only roads to nowhere.

Which ones?

If you ask me, ‘What is this tree made of?’, I can answer: wood.

But if you ask, ‘Does it have any value?’, I would not know what to say or which tool to use to answer.

For cutting it with an axe or sawing it will not magically reveal its value to us.

Similarly, I could conduct every possible experiment on a lamp—dismantling it, subjecting it to an electric current, and so on—yet still fail to determine its place in the hierarchy.

I might learn how it works, what it is made of, and other such details.

So it is not through experience that we can discover the value of a thing.

Experience can teach us what a thing is, offering insights into its essence or how it works, but nothing about its value.

And this is fortunate, for if it were otherwise, we could not know that murder is hateful without experiencing it firsthand—by killing with our own hands—and morality could only be preached by murderers.

In the same way, it is not by identifying this or that quality in the thing that we will solve the problem of values.

Trees are useful because we use their wood to heat our homes. Yet all we have done is replace one unfounded value—the tree—with another—utility.

Some argue that what is valuable is the useless. And if we respond that utility has value because it makes people happy, we only postpone the problem. For then we would be asked, ‘What is the value of human happiness?’—a claim the nihilist denies.

So the qualitative method leads to a regression to infinity.

Thus, when we meet someone who loves something, we may well concede that all qualities are present in this thing —beauty, goodness, indispensability, enrichment, and so on.

But to this astonished person, we must add: ‘Yes, but why is it lovable?’

What if we simply based our inquiry on the obvious?

Is it not obvious that pleasure is more valuable than pain? That good is better than evil?

Isn’t anyone who denies this simply acting in bad faith?

In fact, any obvious judgment of this kind dissolves by itself as soon as it is formulated.

For instance, it seems obvious that adventure is preferable to routine—but do we see mass departures to the other side of the world?

Or that wealth is preferable to poverty—yet some reject material possessions, choosing to live as hermits in complete self-denial.

And some people find in museums nothing but boredom.

One society condemns free love; another approves. This disagreement extends to divide men within the same society, the same region, the same town, even the same family.

Finally, people contradict themselves, suddenly valuing something that only yesterday bored them to tears.

This is the essential truth of relativism: there is nothing obvious about values!

Would we have better luck asking a specialist?

If we were to seek the value of dance, who would know the answer? Someone who has never practised the art and remains heavy and ungainly? Or an experienced dancer?

When asking about the value of a painting, would you turn to a great master or a scribbler who creates only works of poor taste?

What, then, is the difference between the specialist and the neophyte, apart from the former having far more experience in the field?

However, we have seen that experience does not tell us anything about the value of a thing, but only about what it is—its essence.

Experienced dancers know far more about dance than we do. They feel it in their flesh, knowing how every muscle must move and every joint must bend to charm us. Through practice, they have uncovered its thousand secrets.

Yet even at this level of expertise, they do not know its value, just as we do not.

If we must let the specialist have their say, who better to judge values than a specialist in values?

Now we see that these four methods lead nowhere: relying on experience, searching for qualities, grasping self-evidences, and questioning specialists.

In such discussions, we will always encounter these methods—and dismiss them.

We seem to have lost our way, yet certain things are becoming clear as we confront relativism.

One essential point is this: every value judgement is countered by an equal and opposite judgement, for none are well-founded.

This is why there is a problem: the problem of values.

We also see that anything, no matter how absurd or cruel, is loved by someone.

It is a fascinating and baffling sight, and yet we are talking about us:

It is the spectacle of human love, ourselves in our thousand loves!

Hence this terrible consequence:

We must suspend our value judgements, as they are unfounded and therefore lack legitimacy.

So we need to stop condemning what we find contemptible and praising what we find lovable.

This creates a rather unusual state of mind, requiring one to become like a sponge—loving and despising nothing.

This is the exact opposite of the dogmatist’s mindset, who clings rigidly to his value judgements, becoming mired in them.

He lives entirely confident in the ends he has set for himself. Nothing has ever shaken the substance of his life. He coincides with himself and knows no doubt.

The problem of values does not even appear to him as such. To him, it is merely a theoretical problem, a simple diversion to occupy idle minds.

There is no point in explaining our project to people like that. They cannot help but be irritated by such research. They cannot bear to see the value of what they love called into question and will reject any conclusion that does not align with their love.

Dogmatists can become activists if they devote their lives to what they arbitrarily attribute value, in the mode of action.

Through this commitment, their relationship with the world is one of perpetual indignation.

They attempt to mask their inability to establish the value of what they love by vigorously and relentlessly protesting against value judgements they find shocking, absurd, or scandalous.

They will attempt to sway and convince us of their cause using every irrational rhetorical tool at their disposal.

They will shed tears, raise an accusing index finger, their voice trembling in the throes of emotion.

Yet this indignation, though it may seduce briefly, cannot truly convince, for it rings hollow and lacks any real argument.

And we will no longer be intimidated by such displays.

So many tragic conclusions are possible in our research!

What will we do if we discover that nothing has value, or that what has value is evil?

Will we be able to withstand such a result? Will we have the courage to accept it, or will we run away from it?

Every step we take must be accompanied by deep anxiety, for what is at stake is the most serious matter of all.

An anguished suspension of our value judgements—this is the mindset we must adopt if we wish to address the problem of values authentically.

In this way, we can ensure that our inquiry is not swayed by prejudice and that we remain impartial.

Relativism sheds light, but it is only a starting point. It does not conclude the search for values but rather begins it: for now, every value judgement is countered by an equal and opposite judgement.

While our age is relativistic, this does not mean that relativism is the only valid doctrine of values today.

What truly defines our age is the cacophony of hierarchies of values, each asserting itself loudly, with violence and chatter.

Relativism, fanaticism, patriotism, cosmopolitanism... Our world does not appear to be one of a loss of meaning, but the one of the expression of all possible meanings.

This is the root of contemporary anxiety: the unconscious sense that the values we believe in—and sometimes defend with weapons—are ultimately unfounded.

This lack of foundation undermines all axiological doctrines: relativism, subjectivism, and nihilism are no more well-founded than the objectivism of values.

The impotence of objectivism is not a confirmation of relativism.

Postmodern impotence runs so deep that the judgement ‘there are only relative values’ is, for now, as unfounded as the opposite claim: ‘there are absolute values.’

Similarly, nihilism fails to establish the idea that 'nothing has value': the absence of proof for the value of life is not, in itself, proof of its negative value.

Above all, we observe this phenomenon: the oblivion of value, confused with related concepts such as good, end, and quality.

A question betrayed, and therefore closed, from its earliest formulation.

Here is another sign: the neglect of the pleasure derived from a thing's value—axiological pleasure.

The existence and nature of such a feeling is obvious:

When I believe something has great value and is worthy of love, any relationship I have with it will delight me.

For example, a walk in the forest, for the nature lover.

We might even imagine that the so-called aesthetic pleasure inspired by the beauty of a thing is, in fact, axiological pleasure, born of its value.

If I believe strength has value, I take pleasure in contemplating the square-jawed man or the waves unleashed by a powerful storm.

If I believe joy has value, I delight in hearing it in the chirping of birds in this garden or seeing it in the Mona Lisa's smile.

In fact, it is not the beauty of the thing that I appreciate, but the thing itself, or a part of it.

As we often do not like the whole object - the lion, for example, but only one aspect of it - his power, his mane... we think - wrongly - that we have to assume a quality in it, different from an ontological point of view: beauty.

Our gaze unnecessarily duplicates reality in a Platonist way.

In the end, beauty seems to be a useless redundancy: there is no such thing as 'beauty,' only contents of meaning we may or may not like!

When two aesthetes disagree about a work of art, it is not because one perceives a mysterious quality—beauty—that the other does not, nor because 'beauty is subjective.'

This is because a piece of art carries a multitude of meanings—its subject, period, technique, colours, conception of art, and so on. One person attributes value to one of these aspects, while another denies it.

In other words, what we call aesthetic disagreement is actually axiological disagreement, which can be resolved if we solve the problem of values.

You might think the colour red is beautiful, but is it not strange to attribute a value to it?

This will not surprise anyone who recognises that everything is loved by humanity—even the cold solidity of marble or granite.

Some love matter for its own sake; others, for the spiritual qualities it evokes, such as the serenity of mountains or the terror of a storm.

All these pleasures and displeasures can be explained without using the notion of beauty or aesthetics.

Now, there are a myriad of meanings in a work of art, you never know which ones will be spotted by the viewer and will be taken into account in a value judgement:

An infinite number of meanings can be chosen and opposed by the viewer.

This struggle for meanings in our minds which determines the final reaction of pleasure and displeasure is beyond our understanding.

We cannot therefore calculate mathematically whether we will like a work of art or not.

Yet this complexity does not undermine the core truth: it is the value—not the beauty—of the content of meaning that determines whether we feel pleasure.

Art loses nothing with the disappearance of aesthetics.

A work of art is now seen as something that reveals contents of great value.

Museums are places where you can live experiences of value, sometimes disconcerting!

So here is the value that resurfaces from the oblivion into which it had sunk.

But we cannot speak of oblivion or loss when it never presented itself as a memory or a gain.

Here, then, are the traps and pitfalls awaiting the unwary who embark on this perilous adventure—the search for value!

Now it is our turn to venture out, groping our way forward.

Is there any other way to get through the darkest night?

So let us ask ourselves: where do we look for the value of things?

In the object?

Our inquiry has shown it is vain and naive to seek value in the object, as if sawing the tree would reveal it to us.

Indeed, the relativism of our time is likely the result of the millennia-long failure of value objectivism.

Perhaps it is more fitting to look inward and seek value within ourselves.

What if value lay not in the object but in the subject who contemplates it? Perhaps we give the world its value...

The theory to be examined is this:

Human beings do not falsely project the value of things, like a fiction, but actually create it. In other words, value becomes as real as the thing to which it is attributed.

Humans create value as a sculptor creates a statue or a painter a picture.

Thus, the world is not devoid of value, as nihilism claims. It is empty of values that subsist independently in things themselves, but it is full of values bestowed upon things by humans.

But how is such a prodigy possible?

Do you think that when you look at an object and concentrate, a value will suddenly pop into your head, pass through the air, and become incarnate in the thing?

Would not this idea of the gift of values be a kind of magical thinking?

Even if such a donation were possible, it would not contradict nihilism, as it concedes that things lack intrinsic value.

If humans must give value, it is because the world is devoid of any inherent value—precisely what nihilism affirms.

The only way to confront nihilism is to contradict what it says, by showing that the world has value in and by itself.

After all, is that not a sign of incredible human pride? Of absolute anthropocentrism?

Indeed, if the universe is devoid of all value, and it is humanity that creates values and, in its great goodness, bestows them upon the universe—if humanity is the source of value for the world—then the human being becomes the axiological, rather than the spatial, centre of the universe.

This doctrine combines nihilism and anthropocentrism in an original way and need not be considered on its own but rather as part of the examination of nihilism.

From these various pitfalls, we return to our original question:

Where to look for value?

From what has emerged, neither in the subject nor in the object, either because we cannot give a value to the object, or because it cannot be found there.

Could there be a third way?

Perhaps value must be sought not in the object nor the subject, but in their relationship—in the special bond between object and subject in the field of value: love.

Since we are looking for what is worthy of love, maybe we need to elucidate the concept of love.

Until now, we have sought in vain for a solution to the problem of values, looking either in the object or in the subject.

Let us finally see if we can find this solution in their relationship, that is, in love.

If you want to know what is lovable, ask love itself!

So let us follow this path to discover the landscapes it reveals.

At the bend in the path, we arrive at this ancient question, which has accompanied the very emergence of philosophy:

What is love?

Could it be a feeling that is born between two spirits and unites them?

In reality, love can extend to any content of meaning. In this way, nature can be loved by walkers and ecologists alike. Music too, by the clumsy child or the virtuoso...

Love is not just a feeling of pleasure taken at the thought or presence of the loved one.

In reality, beneath this feeling of pleasure lies something else of a completely different nature.

Love is also a statement, a judgement, and even a thesis, which can be summed up as follows: ‘this, which I love, has value’.

In attributing value to the loved thing, love says something about it—meeting the classic definition of judgement.

It postulates a reality—the value of the being or object loved—making it a kind of theory, a thesis.

This is precisely what differentiates love from desire.

I can desire someone without valuing them. I might want an apple pie, but I do not place it high in the hierarchy of values.

But when I fall in love, I value the beloved.

Love now turns out to be both a feeling and a thesis. Or rather, a thesis buried at the heart of a feeling.

It seems this side of love has been overlooked or received less attention than its irrational or sentimental aspects, as studied or celebrated by psychoanalysis, religion, poetry, philosophy, and more.

The question is: will we discover anything interesting if we explore this hidden side of love?

First, we discover an essential condition of love, which takes the form of a law, a law of love:

To love, you have to attribute a value to the beloved.

If I break this law and say: ‘I love you, but you have no value’, my so-called love turns to contempt —a kind of contempt in disguise, masquerading as love.

We can no longer claim the title of lover if we violate this condition.

We think we love, we want to love, but in reality we despise.

Beyond this, we find that in love’s mysterious hidden side, its laws are concealed as essential conditions.

And we are left with this question: what might this table of the laws of love look like?

A second law is easily deduced: the lover must defend the beloved when this one is attacked.

Suppose the nihilist says to a nature lover: ‘Nature has no value’, and that the latter remains silent, instead of coming to the aid of the one he loves by showing what makes it so valuable...

What kind of lover would he be? A very poor lover!

Here is another example: sometimes two lovers, in an outburst of eloquence, declare to each other, ‘I love you for no reason’ or ‘I love you without knowing why.’

This may sound admirable, but in reality, it amounts to saying: ‘No matter how hard I look at you, I cannot see what makes you valuable.’

A kind of insult, then, disguised as a compliment—and once again, a kind of contempt masquerading as love.

Thus, we can reformulate this second law of love:

To love, we must be able to show what makes the beloved valuable.

However, what have we seen just now?

That the problem of values remains unresolved.

That every value judgement is opposed by an equal judgement.

That values lack foundation.

As a result, we cannot show the value of what we love, nor the negative value of what we hate.

For now, our loves seem to be a kind of contempt in disguise, as our relationship with things and beings takes the form of: ‘I love you without knowing why,’ or ‘I love you for no reason.’

Therefore, the human possibility of love remains to be thought.

Of course, there are some great love stories: there is no question of denying the most tender and delicate aspects of our lives.

Big feelings are real. But love is not just a feeling.

This is simply a classic doctrine: love is conceived as an ideal, a goal towards which we have striven without ever being able to reach it.

It is the possibility of achieving this task, which seemed infinite, that is raised again here.

Thus, love can no longer be taken for granted.

As long as love was seen as nothing more than a feeling of pleasure, it was easy for us to know whether we loved this or that being or object.

I enjoy looking at nature and walking in it; I love nature—it is as simple as that.

If we now admit that love, by its very meaning, implies conditions, then the question arises of whether we have respected all these conditions in our relationship with the object.

If that is not the case, then our relationship with the object is no longer love, but something completely different.

As a result, it is no longer certain that we love the object, although we intend to.

We want to love the object, but we cannot.

Love becomes a problem.

Now it is time to return to our original question:

How can this reflection on love enlighten the problem of values?

From the earliest thought, the problem of values has been posed in this way:

What must be loved?

However, the notion of right or duty is meaningless:

Where is this so-called duty? In the clouds? Is it based on reason? On God? On the consent of the majority?

How do you respond to someone who says that what has value is to disobey your duty, God, reason, or majority?

Thus, as long as we view the problem of values as a legal one, involving this famous ‘law in the clouds’, we cannot solve it.

In contrast, here is a new definition of value, which deliberately avoids the notion of law:

To have value is to be lovable—in other words, something that can be loved, as a matter of fact.

This definition relies solely on the concept of love: the obscure idea of value dissolves entirely into the clearer concept of love and is nothing beyond that.

It can even be discarded, replacing the question ‘What is of great value?’ with ‘What is lovable?’ or ‘What can be loved?’

What can be loved?

Everything, it seems—and this was our starting point: everything, even the most absurd or cruel, is loved.

Nevertheless, as we have just seen, love is not just a feeling of pleasure, and it could turn into disguised contempt, if we break one of the laws of love.

If love becomes a problem, ‘What can be loved?’ is a real question.

We now arrive at the core of our answer to the problem of values:

Anything that violates a single law of love cannot truly be loved.

Why? Because breaking these laws does not lead us to love, but to disguised contempt.

If we can only approach something through one or more forms of disguised contempt, this means it is contemptible, for we can only engage with it through contempt, leaving no possibility for a loving relationship.

Since it can only be despised, it cannot be loved. It is simply not lovable, for we cannot love it by any means.

Finding the value of something is simple:

The first step is to identify all the laws of love.

Once this table of laws is established, we must check whether the object’s nature would automatically lead us to break one of these laws in our relationship with it.

If it violates one, it has no value; if it does not, it has value.

This list of laws has never been drawn up, and so the problem of values has not been resolved.

If we want to determine what is edible, we must first understand what eating is: providing the body with nutrients that enable it to function properly.

We then know that only what meets this criterion is edible, while anything that harms our bodies is inedible.

So we deduce what is edible from what it means to ‘eat.’

In the same way, we will deduce what is lovable from what it means to ‘love.’

This is the meaning behind the phrase: ‘If you want to know what is lovable, ask love itself!’

A method is proposed:

We must now apply it and test its resistance.

Will it stand up to the test of reality?