ABSTRACT
Drawing on points found mostly in Husserl’s genetic phenomenology, this chapter presents a systematic phenomenological analysis of value and argues that the original mode of presentation of value is feeling. Through a reconstruction of the experiential conditions of higher order practical attitudes such as desires and evaluative beliefs, it is demonstrated how these are necessary conditioned by feelings of value. Such feelings serve crucial functions in the formation of practical meaning; they are presentational of value in a minimal sense and cannot be reduced to non-cognitive affection. It is further established that non-propositional lived-experiences must be taken seriously in the analysis of value and that the suggested analysis can serve as part of an explanation of the notion that emotions are crucial to practical rationality, but nevertheless at times distorting of it.
