Conclusion

Amy E. Varela

pp. 258-274

in: Ralph Ellis, Eros in a narcissistic culture, Berlin, Springer, 1996

Abstract

Many philosophers distinguish between two kinds of conception of value: On the one hand, there are atomistic-individualist conceptions, in which social, political and interpersonal relationships between people are viewed as alliances which help individuals to attain whatever each of them personally values, whether these values consist of pleasure or happiness (as with Bentham and Mill), or opportunities for self-realization (as with Galston). The social and political ramifications of this individualist approach to value then concern questions of social justice in the distribution of these opportunities and benefits for individuals, with rival notions of just distribution proposed by Rawls, Nozick, Gewirth and many others. By contrast to this atomistic individualism is the view that many important values arise only from relationships between people (Buber, Sandel); that many of the most valuable forms of experience are predicated of intersubjective relationships rather than of separable individuals (Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Foucault, and again Sandel); and that an adequate experience of the value of being is made possible only through the direct experience of the intrinsic value of another conscious being by means of empathic feelings (Scheler, Levinas).