Prinzip derWissenschaft,“Botanisten och filosofen”, and “Kritiska punkter i värdepsykologien” that Hägerström, for the first time, fully presents his conception of a judgment as being mental acts that are theoretical to their nature, and as such only concern themselves with reality and that which is objectively real.135 And furthermore, it is not until after this period that his meta-ethical theory definitely restricts the scientific investigation of laws and morals to purely epistemological investigations of the given facts, that is investigations into what we know of norms, but not what those norms necessarily must entail (the ontological metaphysics of morals).136 To Hägerström, value-judgments do not constitute proper theoretical judgments. In fact, value-judgments convey the feelings and interests of the speaker in connection to a conception of something (real), thereby failing to convey theoretical knowledge about reality.137 This does not mean that value-judgments are totally devoid of meaning, because what they lack in theoretical meaning, they compensate for in practical meaning and importance.138 Value-judgments and connected expressions possess a functional meaning aimed at directing actions, for which reason they most certainly have practical, directive, and normative meaning, notwithstanding their lack of theoretical meaning.139 What is inaccessible to science and scientific argumentation is the absolutely objective content of the normative meaning - the ontological essence of the value - but not its positive meaning. It is therefore clear that the theoretical dismissal of value-judgments does not bring about the “dissolution of morality” as some would have it.140 On the contrary, the theoretical redefinition of valuep a r t i v, c h a p t e r 6 290 135 E.g., Hägerström, P. d.W., pp. 80-86 and 98-104;“B. o. F.,” pp. 45-46;“Värdepsykologien,” pp. 61-62 and 69-73. See Part IV, Chapter 2. 136 Hägerström, “Moraliska föreställningar,” p. 50; “Moral Propositions,” p. 96; “Hägerström,” p. 91; Selbstdarstellungen, pp. 42-46. 137 E.g., Hägerström, “Hägerström.”; “The Philosophy of Axel Hägerström.” 138 See Hägerström, “Värdepsykologien,” pp. 61-62; Selbstdarstellungen, pp. 45-46. 139 Hägerström, “Hägerström.”; “The Philosophy of Axel Hägerström.” 140 Hägerström, Selbstdarstellungen, pp. 45-46.
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