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This book explores the overlooked but vital theoretical relationships between R. M. Hare, Alan Gewirth, and Jürgen Habermas. The author claims their accounts of value, while failing to address classic virtue-theoretical critiques, bear the seeds of a resolution to the ultimate question “What is most valuable?” These dialectical approaches, as claimed, justify a reinterpretation of value and value judgment according to the Carnapian conception of an empirical-linguistic framework or grammar. Through a further synthesis with the work of Philippa Foot andThomas Magnell, the author shows that “value” would be literally meaningless without four fundamental phenomena which constitute such a framework: Logical Judgment, Conceptual Synthesis, Conceptual Abstraction, and Freedom. As part of the 'grammar of goodness,' the excellence of these phenomena, in a highly concrete way, constitute the essence of the greatest good, as this book explains.  

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-02285-7

Full citation:

Introduction

Petro Stephen

1-7

Rethinking rationality

Petro Stephen

9-63

Rationality and dialectical necessity

Petro Stephen

65-174

The dialectical structure of value judgments

Petro Stephen

175-195

Virtue and the search for intrinsic goodness

Petro Stephen

197-219

Beyond dialectical necessity

Petro Stephen

221-308

Conclusion

Petro Stephen

309-317