The Rise and Decline of Universal Values
The Rise and Decline of Universal Values
From a historical perspective, the concept of values appears to be a relatively recent invention, born out of the gradual decline of the great traditional ethical systems. In a world deprived of a common human purpose, all that remains are subjective preferences, lacking any shared rational criterion: this is precisely what we now refer to as values.
Yet, insofar as moral judgment essentially depends on sensibility, emotions, and personal convictions, values cannot resolve the moral crisis of modernity. They may even intensify it by replacing genuine ethical reflection with individual preferences.
In light of these considerations, it is necessary to examine the thought of several philosophers, beginning with Friedrich Nietzsche, whose analyses remain remarkably relevant today. For Nietzsche, values are never expressions of moral truth. They are always the result of power relations, passions, and interests. In On the Genealogy of Morality (1887), he states that “there are no moral facts, only moral interpretations.” Through this formulation, he radically challenges the very possibility of attributing universal validity to values. According to him, dominant morality emerges from what he calls “slave morality,” born of weakness, resentment, and the desire to transform a position of inferiority into one of moral superiority.
When Nietzsche calls for a “transvaluation of all values,” he does not seek to replace the old moral system with a new one. Rather, his aim is to expose the fictitious, constructed, and fundamentally political nature of every hierarchy of values. From this perspective, the mere use of the word values appears as a symptom of a nihilistic evolution: values continue to exist as empty shells, even though the metaphysical foundation that once granted them authority has disappeared.
The sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) extends Nietzsche’s reflection while developing an equally radical critique of the notion of values. In his famous lecture Science as a Vocation (Wissenschaft als Beruf, 1919), he argues that modernity is characterized by what he calls a “polytheism of values,” namely the coexistence of competing systems of values among which no rational decision can ultimately be established.
According to Weber, science is incapable of deciding between opposing values. It can only clarify their meaning, highlight their implications, and demonstrate the consequences of choosing one rather than another. Values are therefore not necessarily false; they are simply deprived of an objective foundation. Adherence to a value constitutes an existential choice, consciously assumed along with the costs it entails. The language of values cannot, therefore, serve as the foundation of rational consensus. It can express only a personal or collective decision, always made with awareness of the sacrifices it requires.
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) establishes an essential distinction between values and political principles. Values certainly possess genuine importance, but they acquire meaning only through concrete political action. Values such as freedom of expression or equality guarantee the possibility for individuals to participate in the public sphere and contribute to the life of the community. Principles, by contrast, demand public action and the constant exercise of judgment. According to Arendt, the shift from a language of principles to a language of values corresponds to a displacement of the center of gravity of political responsibility.
At the heart of her thought lies a fundamental idea: it is not enough to adhere to values; one must also act publicly in order to defend them. Social values can protect marginalized voices and prevent certain forms of domination or discrimination. Thus, the affirmation of human dignity constitutes a barrier against violations of fundamental rights.
But Arendt also warns against a major danger: blind obedience to legal principles that eliminates personal reflection. What she calls the “banality of evil” does not arise from particularly malicious intentions, but from the absence of critical thinking and moral judgment. She warns against the temptation to delegate ethical responsibility to external authorities. In her view, totalizing nationalisms readily glorify individual sacrifice and transform human beings into mere instruments of a collective objective. Sacrificial heroism then becomes part of a logic of political myths that glorify death in the service of abstract entities. Authoritarian regimes use martyrs to construct heroic memories and transform death into an instrument of political mobilization, at the expense of the intrinsic value of each individual.
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) adopts an equally critical position toward modern humanist values, such as democracy, freedom, or progress, when they become mere brand identities. According to him, these values have become simulacra designed to conceal the fact that they no longer correspond to any living reality. When Baudrillard discusses values, he is not concerned with classical morality opposing good and evil. His analysis focuses on the collapse of meaning itself. We live, he argues, in a universe of simulacra, where signs and images have replaced reality to such an extent that the original itself has disappeared. His deliberately provocative thesis can be summarized as follows: truth is often destructive, whereas illusion is indispensable to social life.
Why might falsehood sometimes be preferable to truth? Because falsehood constitutes a protective simulation, a simulacrum that shields us from the absolute emptiness of reality. Illusion does not conceal truth; rather, it is truth that conceals the absence of any ultimate reality. Falsehood has become the only universe in which we operate, and every attempt to reveal the truth ultimately produces only another simulacrum.
Baudrillard illustrates this idea through a typical scene from Hollywood cinema. A sexually liberated young woman provokes a man by inviting him to express his desire openly: “Do not be ashamed; tell me what you really want.” When he finally gathers the courage to answer, “I want to sleep with you,” she immediately slaps him across the face. For Baudrillard, seduction, play, and conscious illusion are preferable to the brutality of an imposed truth.
If Baudrillard is the philosopher of the disappearance of reality, Jean Genet is the poet of the inversion of morality. He does not merely distance himself from bourgeois values; he seeks to destroy them by radically reversing them. For him, commonly accepted values such as law, fidelity, patriotism, and morality constitute instruments of oppression. In response to these values, he develops an alternative “dark” system in which notions such as betrayal and theft become objects of sanctification.
Genet embraces an aesthetics of evil, transforming baseness into an object of grandeur and consecration. If society sanctifies fidelity, Genet sanctifies betrayal, because for him betrayal represents the ultimate liberation of the individual from every social obligation. When one betrays, one remains completely alone; and it is precisely in this solitude that true freedom resides.
Whereas Baudrillard views falsehood as simulation, Genet prefers falsification and the mask to naked truth. He elevates lies and betrayal into acts of active rebellion. According to him, society has established categories of good and evil solely in order to exercise control over individuals. For his part, he chooses to embrace the labels imposed upon him by society and transform them into an identity proudly claimed.
Genet’s positions find expression in cinema, particularly in the work of Jean-Luc Godard, through films that explore the blurring of identities, the fascination with the criminal figure, and the modern antihero who acts according to an inner aesthetic code rather than according to the laws of the state. Thus, it would never occur to me to say to a young woman, with admiration: “What a beautiful dress! I have exactly the same fabric at home, in the curtains of my house windows.”