Axiology

'Axiology' is the study of Value, and Philosophy has traditionally recognized three Values--Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, with the relations between the three open to further analysis. The branches of Philosophy that study these are Logic, Morality/Ethics, and Aesthetics, respectively. In Morality and Ethics, there have been four main positions on the nature of Goodness, which can be called 'Realism', 'Naturalism', 'Instrumentalism', and 'Emotivism'. 'Realism', e. g. Plato, believes that 'The Good' names a realm or entity that exists in itself. 'Naturalism', e. g. Aristotle, believes that 'Good' refers to some characteristic of the natural world. 'Instrumentalism', e. g. Spinoza, believes that 'a good' is something that promotes well-being. And, 'Emotivism', e. g. Stevenson, believes that 'good' is simply an expression of approval. The nature of the traditional opposite of 'Good', namely 'Evil', correspondingly varies according to position. For example, Nietzsche's phrase 'Beyond Good and Evil', often interpreted as a commitment to Immoralism, is actually a critique of Realism, in the name of Instrumentalism, for which he uses the 'Good' vs. 'Bad' pair. Despite the differences in the four positions, one traditional commonality is that they are all 'positive', in the grammatical sense of the term, i. e. 'is good' is a one-place predicate. In contrast, Evolvemental Phronetics is fundamentally comparative, namely, is an evaluation of possible Actions with respect to one another, in terms of greater or lesser degree of Evolvement. Thus, its Axiology is Naturalistic, but its central notion is the 'Better' vs. 'Worse' comparison. Likewise, 'Best'='Better than any possible alternative'='The greatest degree of Evolvement possible'. Hence, Phronetics, as the determination of Best Conduct, describes the course of Action that, under the circumstances, entails the greatest degree of Evolvement.