Modes of Value Realization

Author(s): Nathan Rotenstreich

Source: Ethics, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Jan., 1963), pp. 126-132
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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 MODES OF VALUE REALIZATION
NATHAN ROTENSTREICH
I ing to the status they occupy in relation to
MORPHOLOGICAL analysis of values is a
time-honored philosophical concern.
Among the value typologies proposedacross
the ages, two seem to be central. In
one values are classified according to their
realms; and in the other they are classified
according to their status. The former type
of morphology posits two realms of value,
that of theory, on the one side, and that of
practice, on the other, conceiving pure con-
templation of ideal objects as the highest
value of theory, and justice-or the princi-
ple of rendering each man his due-as the
highest value of practice. A morphology of
this kind can leave the topographical divi-
sion of realms at that and need not neces-
sarily proceed to arrange a hierarchy of
values in which the values of one realm are
allotted a position superiorto that occupied
by the values of the other realm. There are,
of course, topographicalvalue morphologies
which do take the division into realms as a
point of departure for arranging values on
a graded ladder.
The latter variety of topographicalmor-
phology, which couples hierarchical ar-
rangement of values with realm classifi-
cation is illustrated, for example, by the
threefold division of values (utility values,
vitality values, and spiritual values, such
as holiness) proposed by Max Scheler.' In
addition to delineating the broad realms of
value, that is, the realm of theory and the
realm of practice, this morphology subdi-
vides the realm of practice into different
planes according to the diverse kinds of
objects toward which the activities in this
realm are directed.
Whereas the one major type of value
morphology classifies values according to
realms or planes of activity, the other well-
known morphologyclassifies values accord-
126
each other. Here the principle of classifica-
tion is that some values are intrinsic or
terminal whereas others are extrinsic or in-
strumental. Extrinsic values, according to
this approach, owe their status to the role
they play in facilitating the realization of
intrinsic values. Were one to apply this
principle of classification to Aristotle's
teaching, one could say that in his system
contemplation occupies the position of an
intrinsic value whereas health and leisure
occupy the position of extrinsic values.2
The thesis propounded in the present
note neither conformsto these morphologies
nor does it take issue with them but rather
proposes still another principle of classifi-
cation on the basis of still another possible
approach. This approach considers values
neither from the angle of their realms nor
from the angle of their rank but from the
angle of the diverse modes in which they
are realized. The method of the morphology
here proposedis phenomenological,not doc-
trinal. Its motive is to analyze the diverse
modes of relationship obtaining between
the concrete nature and patterns of human
life and activity, on the one side, and val-
ues, on the other. The problem to be ex-
plored concerns the nature of the relation
between concrete existence and values. Con-
trolling the exploration is the fundamental
assumption3 that values are principles of
conduct operative in reality and that as
such they constitute a formative element of
actions, realms of conduct, inclinations, etc.
II
What then are the modes of relatedness
obtaining between values and reality? The
first mode may be called the mode of em-
bodied value and defined as a complete
state or condition of reality or-at least-
 DISCUSSION
of human reality. That embodied value can
be discernednot only in human reality but
in suprahumanreality as well will be shown
presently. But to begin with, let us consider
the human embodiments of value. Take,
for example, the value of liberty as em-
bodied in the complete and permanentstate
or condition of man's very place in the
cosmos as a creature who is not totally de-
termined by the conditions of existence
and who occupies a position of his own. To
put it more moderately, it can be said that
even on deterministic premises man can be
shown to occupy a relatively autonomous
position from which he ventures into the
world in order to know it and act in and
upon it. For even deterministic systems al-
low the existence of a certain corner of be-
ing where man is not entirely determined
by various categories of physical, genetic,
historical, and psychological law. Under-
stood in this sense, liberty connotes not a
particular human activity but an original
state or condition and, as such, a complete
state or condition, a state manifest in di-
verse modes of activity and diverse works
such as knowledge, cognition, decision, erec-
tion of institutions, etc. To conceive of lib-
erty as a complete state and as the source
of diverse modes of activity is to affirmthe
incommensurabilityof liberty with any par-
ticular act or nexus of acts whatever. Ac-
cording to this conception, liberty is rather
the existential premise of diverse actions
after their kind.
Were we to apply our descriptionof value
realization qua value embodiment to the
divine realm, we could say of holiness, as
well, that it is to be understood not as a
deed done by God (in the sense that crea-
tion is a deed done by him, according to
the monotheistic religions) but a complete
state or condition. The religious view itself
conceives of holiness as a complete state, or,
to put it another way, of God's existence
as in itself a holy existence. In other words,
as conceived by the religious view, God's
existence is characterizedby holiness by its
very nature. In the light of this relationship
12 7
between God and holiness in the divine
realm and between man and liberty in the
human realm, one can uphold the scholastic
saying that ens et bonum convertuntur.
Upon what grounds, it may be asked, do
we rest our assumption that holiness and
liberty are values? Within the limits of the
present discussion, we can afford to disre-
gard this question, even though, as a matter
of principle, it is legitimate. As stated, our
approach to values is phenomenological-
morphological, not doctrinal. It seeks to
contemplate contents hitherto conceived as
values from the angle of the diverse modes
in which they are operative in reality.
Whether or not it is legitimate to conceive
these contents as values is irrelevant to a
morphologicalapproach of this sort. More-
over, a phenomenologicalanalysis of modes
of value realization need not consider the
ontological status of the values contem-
plated. Any theory of values is faced with
the problem of how the values are realized
in concrete existence, be their ontological
status and the grounds upon which it rests
as they may. If it be objected that our pro-
posal to take the existence of value embodi-
ments for granted is illegitimate since value-
permeated states are non-existent, then one
can suggest the following, hypothetical,
reply:
There are universes of discourse in which
the existence of holiness and liberty is
maintained. The existence of these values,
if only within the framework of such uni-
verses of discourse may therefore be taken
as the point of departure for a morphologi-
cal analysis of the manner in which they
are related to reality.
By the embodimentrelationship of value
to reality we mean that mode of relation-
ship in which the value under consideration
is a constituent element of the nature or
definition of the state in which it is realized.
In this case realizationis a permanentstate,
not an actualizing act. When we say that
man realizes liberty or God realizes holiness
in this sense, we do not mean that man
actualizes liberty through his acts or that
128 ETHICS
God actualizes holiness throughhis acts. An
embodied value is to the reality in which
it is embodied as is a definition to the de-
fined or a predicate to a subject. To con-
ceive of the relationship between holiness
and God or between liberty and man as a
subject-predicate relationship is to imply
that these values are not realized through
particularacts. With regard to these values
one speaks of realization not in the sense of
actualization through particular acts but in
the sense of a comprehensivestatus that is
prior to all particular acts. It is this com-
prehensive status that we have in mind
when we refer to the existential embodiment
of values in complete and comprehensive
states. In relation to liberty and holiness,
value realization does not connote a par-
ticular act or nexus of acts designed to ef-
fect an encounterbetween reality and these
values. Realization in the sense of a particu-
lar activity pertains to actions involving
directedness or intentionality. By contrast,
if holiness is an attribute of God, then holi-
ness is not realized through any act of God
but is rather prior to all acts. The same
would apply to liberty understood as an
attribute of man. In these cases the value-
permeated nature of the reality under con-
sideration is given.
Being embodied in comprehensivestates,
these values irradiate, as it were, the par-
ticular acts directed toward them. Hence it
is possible to describe a certain mode of
conduct or a certain way of life as holy in
the theological sense of mystic union with,
or imitation of, God. And hence it is possi-
ble to allot a value status to men's acts of
self-liberation from bondage in either the
public or the private sphere. Yet the fact
that acts directed toward value-permeated
states attain a value status of their own
does not obliterate the palpable and clear-
cut difference between acts motivated by
attraction to values such as holiness or lib-
erty and states the content of which is de-
fined by these values.
III
This brings us to the transition from
value realization qua embodimentin value-
permeated states to value realization qua
actualization through acts directed toward
values. That different modes of relatedness
to reality can be exemplified by a single
value follows from a closer examination of
the value of liberty. For liberty connotes
not only a comprehensivecondition such as
man's place in the cosmos or a free society's
place on the political map but also those
acts characterizedby freedom, acts such as
decision, choice, conscious directedness to-
ward goals, projection of plans, legislation,
etc. Such acts may be describedas active or
dynamic realizations of liberty, in concreto.
They represent not complete, liberty-per-
meated states but concrete and as such par-
tial and discrete, acts at times present, at
times absent. To say that liberty is not
realized in every moment of time through
acts of decision and choice is another way
of saying that through our acts we realize
the value of liberty not by way of embodi-
ment but by way of actualization. Hence
the constant burden of decision. Having de-
cided upon value actualization in one mo-
ment of time, we shall be faced with the
need to decide once again the following
moment.
Values realized through acts are never
realized once and for all, but must ever be
realized anew. By no one deed-dictated by
decision or choice and as such an actuali-
zation of liberty-are we freed from the
burden of realizing liberty anew in the mo-
ment to come. Not even such a value as
liberty, which regarded from one angle is
a total or completed state, can release us of
the burden of its concrete actualization here
and now. This applies not only to our de-
cisions and choices as acts anchoredin com-
plete states but also-and a fortiori-to
those of our acts which are not actualiza-
tions of our innate disposition but rather
the fruits of directedness toward humane
goals, such as charity or rescue. Since such
acts evidently do not follow from complete
 DISCUSSION
states and since they are directed toward
principles of conduct realized only through
isolated acts, they are exemplificationsnot
of the first mode of value realization-
namely, the mode of embodiment in total
value-permeated states-but only of the
second mode of value realization-namely,
actualization through concrete, partial ac-
tivities. Hence such values must be formu-
lated as immutable imperatives: immutable
both because they are never actualized once
and for all by the course of human activi-
ties and because they find no embodiment
in a state of human reality. An encounter
between these values and reality by way of
embodiment is barred by the very nature
of their content.5
In the second mode of value realization,
the encounter between reality and values is
effected by our acts-acts of dynamic di-
rectedness toward such values and acts of
deliberate endeavor to actualize them. Our
acts are not characterized by these values
as is God's existence characterizedby holi-
ness. Our acts are rather motivated by such
values, regulated by their content, or at-
tracted to the goals for which they stand.
This is why concrete acts are acts by which
reality is altered. For reality undergoes an
alteration when value contents such as
charity, rescue, or courage are translated
into actuality by deeds done. By contrast,
value realization through embodiment in
complete states does not involve an alter-
ation of reality. Embodied values define
reality, actualized values alter it.
At first glance, the relation between re-
ality and values embodied in complete
states may appear analogous to the relation
between reality and values actualized
through deeds done. The existence of insti-
tutions such as hospitals or legislatures
would seem to indicate that men do not
rely upon their unaided acts of actualiza-
tion for the realization of the values by
which these institutions are governed. In
other words, institutions may be regarded
as areas of reality created by men as com-
plete states, so to speak, objectively pre-
129
destined to realize such values as can be
realized only through the instrumentality
of acts directed toward them.
Regarded from this angle, man-made in-
stitutions-say philanthropic or parliamen-
tary institutions-might be conceived as
historical endeavors to create permanent
states the content of which is defined and
characterizedby values. But the analogy is
superficial. The maintenance of, for exam-
ple, philanthropic or parliamentaryinstitu-
tions does not cancel the permanent need
for deliberate acts whereby the directed
functioning of such institutions is activated.
The value-oriented functioning of institu-
tions is not automatic but rather presup-
poses the agency of concrete human beings
who realize particular values such as char-
ity or decision through their concrete acts.
The reality of institutions is but the sum
total of rules in conformity to which activi-
ties directed toward value realization are
conducted. In itself, institutionality is no
substitute for realizing acts. There is no
relatedness to reality of such values other
than the relatedness effected by men's acts.
There is evidently no guarantee that val-
ues related to reality in this manner will
indeed be realized. To the extent that a to-
be-realized value presupposesthe agency of
acts external to it for its realization, carries
no warrant that it will be realized. By con-
trast with the other mode of value realiza-
tion, this mode is markedby a sharp duality
between the value and reality, a duality
manifest in the difference between men's
concrete acts of directedness and contents,
imperatives, or principles of conduct, none
of which are acts. Nor is the differencebe-
tween such principles and reality canceled
by their momentary encounter effected
through the agency of value-realizing acts.
Here a value presupposes the distinct na-
ture of the context of reality with which it
is interwoven by the realizing act. Through
their interaction, value and reality contrib-
ute their specific features to the nexus of
realized value. Each plays its proper role
in the encounter. Neither can fulfil the
130 ETHICS
function of its counterpart.Whereas in the
first mode of value realization-the mode
of embodimentin complete states-the dif-
ference between reality and value is indis-
cernible, an analysis of the second mode
makes this difference manifest.
IV
Thus value realization through isolated
acts is to be distinguished from value reali-
zation through embodiment in complete
states, on the one side, and from what may
be called value realization through institu-
tional buttressing on the other side. An
institution facilitates or secures the realiza-
tion of values, but only isolated acts can
realize them in actual fact. The act of sav-
ing a man's life is temporally unique. By
contrast, a hospital-regarded as an insti-
tution designed to facilitate the saving of
human life-is an enduring reality. Al-
though an institution is no substitute for
concrete acts which actualize the value of
life-saving here and now, it does afford
auxiliary conditions conducive to the exe-
cution of the act of life-saving. Or, to take
another example, certain permanent molds
or patterns are created by the value-realiz-
ing act of election or decision in order to
secure its own unobstructed actualization
under favorable concrete conditions. The
rule of secret ballot in particular and the
forms and usages of election procedure in
general are institutional patterns created by
and for the act of election. Secrecy is an
auxiliary condition ministering, directly, to
the act of choice or election and, indirectly,
to the realization of liberty as a value actu-
alized through choice. It is because they
accommodate and promote the realization
of certain values that institutionalized areas
of reality such as the regular patterns of
secret voting or hospitals occupy a value
status in relation to the values realized with
their aid. Unlike concrete and isolated acts
of value actualization, such as the act of
saving a man's life, no institution is a direct
agent of value realization. Its agency is in-
direct, affording as it does the existential
conditions tendering to the execution of
value-actualizing acts.
The relation between direct and indirect
modes of value realization can be illumi-
nated by an illustration from another
sphere. Liberty constitutes a complete con-
dition not only from the point of view of
the individual but also from the point of
view of the body politic. Understood in the
latter sense, liberty is said to be realized
when the state is free, sovereign, and in-
vested with legislative power and authority.
Every act of state legislation is partial and
particularin comparisonto state sovereign-
ty which is a complete and comprehensive
condition, not an act. But in order to be
manifested in actual fact, the liberty of the
body politic must be defended and fortified.
Obstructionby internal or external violence
not only precludes the actualization of lib-
erty through concrete acts but even impairs
its embodiment in a complete condition. If
liberty is to be sustained, it must be sup-
ported by auxiliary conditions and pro-
moted by responsible persons. These re-
quirements are met by the army which
fortifies the liberty of the body politic and
protects it from harm. Soldiers serve liberty
not by actualizing it, nor by embodying it,
but by fortifying it. Liberty is defended or
restored by acts and fortified by ancillary
conditions promoting the execution of these
acts. As areas of reality, institutions are
auxiliary, not sufficient, conditions of value
realization. They are no substitute for acts
of direct value realization. In relation to
institutions there is neither value embodi-
ment nor value actualization. These obtain
either in relation to acts (actualization) or
in relation to complete states or conditions
(embodiment).
Several modes of value realization can be
exemplifiedby one and the same act. Thus,
for example, a soldier's act of courage can
actualize the value of saving human life or
the value of exemplaryconduct while at the
same time fortifying (not realizing) the lib-
erty of the body politic. Regarded from
still another angle, this very act of courage,
 DISCUSSION
provided it is the fruit of personal decision,
represents an actualization of personal lib-
erty. However, from the point of view of a
morphological analysis, the definitive dif-
ferences between the modes of value reali-
zation are far more significant than the pos-
sibility of their factual concurrence. One
major difference remains to be observed.
Unlike value embodimentin complete states
and value actualization through concrete
acts, both of which involve an intimate re-
lation between the value and the reality in
and by which it is realized, value fortifica-
tion through auxiliary conditions involves
no such intimate relation. On the contrary,
man's intimate connection with the values
he realizes is actually abrogated by the
anonymity of the institutionalized or pat-
terned auxiliary conditions he himself cre-
ates for the purpose of promoting value
realization in time through concrete acts.
Outside of realization in complete states
and/or through concrete acts, there can be
only an indirect, auxiliary relation between
reality and values. To put the difference
between complete states and concrete acts
on the one side and patterned or institu-
tionalized areas of reality on the other side
still another way, whereas the former are
related to values of themselves, the relation
of the latter to values must be activated-
activated by human beings who live and
have their being in time and who relate
themselves to values at the plane of tem-
poral existence. In the third mode, the actu-
alization of values in personal states or
throughpersonal acts is mediated by anony-
mous or impersonal auxiliary conditions.
As involving somewhat automatic proce-
dures and as void of intentionality-inten-
tionality being the mark of, and only of,
individual consciousness-institutional pat-
terns cannot realize values directly. Non-
automatic acts are the conditio sine qua non
of direct value actualization. Such acts are
not patterns, not even when occurring un-
der patterned conditions.
131
V
In view of the complexity of the relation-
ship between the three modes of value reali-
zation (embodiment, actualization, fortifi-
cation) the alternative typology alluded to
above-that is, the one which divided val-
ues into intrinsic-terminal values and ex-
trinsic-instrumentalvalues-cannot be ac-
cepted without qualification. One may ob-
ject to this typology, not without justifica-
tion, on the grounds that in a sense even
intrinsic values such as liberty or justice
or even health are instrumental values. For
one may regard liberty as a condition con-
ducive to the promotion of intellectual cul-
ture; justice as an auxiliary condition of
liberty; and health as a condition fostering
"the good life" in the Aristotelian sense of
the term. This warrants the conclusion that
instrumentality is a distinguishing feature
not of a type of value but of a mode of
value realization denoting the value status
of certain areas of reality, not the rank of
certain values in relation to certain other
values.
Nor, for that matter, do all modes of
value realization lend themselves to classi-
fication by reference to this yardstick.
Take, for example, the act of saving a
man's life. In relation to its effect-a man's
life saved-the act is instrumental. Yet, in
itself-as an occurrence-it has realized an
imperative, the imperative of saving human
life. Having translated an imperative into
a fact, the act cannot be conceived as pure-
ly instrumental. In this case it might per-
haps be well to distinguish between the in-
strumentality of the act in relation to its
effect and the agency of the act in relation
to its value content. By contrast, value
fortification through patterned areas of re-
ality is instrumental without qualification.
Patterned realities such as hospitals or se-
cret ballots are auxiliary conditions of value
realization,realizing no value in themselves.
But our task was to study the morphol-
ogy of value realization, not to arrange a
graded hierarchy either of values or of the
modes in which they are related to reality.
132 ETHICS

If our phenomenologicalanalysis has shed concrete acts, and promotion through aux-
light upon the morphologicaldistinguishing iliary conditions) our task has been accom-
marks of three modes of relationship ob- plished.
taining between reality and values (embod- HEBREW UNIVERSITY
iment in complete states, actualization in JERUSALEM

NOTES
1. Max Scheler, Der Formalismus in der Ethik
und die material Wertethik (Bern, 1954), p. 125.
2. C. S. Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and
Valuation (La Salle, Ill., 1946), p. 387.
3. For a more detailed exposition of the present
writer's conception of the nature of value, see
"Limites et crit'res de la connaissance," Entretien
D'Oberhofen, Dialectica (International Institute of
Philosophy, Griffin Neuchatel Swiss), XV, Nos. 1
and 2 (1961), 185-208, where the writer says: "I
shall employ the term value in the twofold sense
of a principle of action on the one hand and as a
criterion of evaluation on the other. By a principle
of action we mean a ground of preference prescrib-
ing the choice of one course of action rather than
another.... By its very nature as a principle of a
preferable action, a value is at the same time a prin-
ciple of evaluation."
4. For a similar line of reasoning in a different
direction cf. I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason,
remark to corollary to sec. 7.
5. Cf. the present writer's article, "Is There a
Primacy of Practical Reason?" in Experience, Ex-
istence, and the Good: Essays in Honor of Paul
Weiss, ed. Irwin L. Lieb (Carbondale, Ill., 1961),
pp. 241 ff.