This indeed amounts to a disappearance, as becomes clear when we examine what the theory actually asserts. If 'to seek moral value is to seek what is moral', one wonders what additional meaning the concept of value in that sentence actually provides. It seems to be nothing but an empty shell, a sound that supports no concept: the concept of value disappears entirely beneath that of morality.
Similarly, if we maintain that 'to seek aesthetic value is to seek what is beautiful', the concept of value fades behind that of beauty, losing any independent meaning. Finally, and more broadly, if we claim that 'to seek the value of a quality X is to seek what is X', we strip the concept of value of all meaning. Or rather, the only meaning it might retain is that of essence; in other words, we would be treating the search for the value of X as the search for what belongs to the essence of X. However, the concept of value is obviously and radically distinct from that of essence.

Here, then, we can see the distortions to which the conflation of value and quality leads. If, however, we acknowledge them as two autonomous and mutually irreducible concepts, we free the concept of value and allow it to unfold in its own specificity, making it possible to articulate the genuinely axiological question: does this or that quality X have value?

We then realise that value 'overhangs' the notion of quality: it is on the basis of value that all qualities are examined in axiological enquiry, or, to put it differently, value is meta-qualitative ('meta' here meaning external to and superior to), belonging to an entirely different sphere from that of qualities. This reveals the proper domain of axiology: its purpose is not to ask whether something is just, beautiful, or true, but to ask whether justice, beauty, and truth have value—leaving it to morality, aesthetics, and science to determine whether something is just, beautiful, or true.

We are not seeking to determine whether morality has moral value, beauty has aesthetic value, courage has courageous value, or fear has fearful value; rather, we seek to establish whether all these qualities possess value—a concept whose meaning remains unchanged regardless of the quality in question. Thus, as far as we can determine, there are no kinds of value. I therefore propose the following conclusion: value only has meaning in the singular.
Nevertheless, since the term 'values' in the plural has become established in usage, we will continue to use it, while insisting that doing so does not imply the existence of several kinds of value.
This confusion, which may appear merely grammatical, seems to have had significant consequences, which I now propose to examine.

The human sciences appear to pursue an ideal of scientificity and objectivity (though many researchers critically distance themselves from this ideal), translating it into a principle of neutrality, which we define as follows: the prohibition of any appeal to value in explaining a historical or social phenomenon—or, put otherwise, the prohibition on mixing judgements of fact with judgements of value. A strictly scientific explanation must avoid any form of value judgement; only factual judgements, together with hypotheses for linking, classifying, and explaining these facts, are permitted.
Since value has been conflated with quality, it is not only value that has been excluded from the field of the human sciences, but qualities as well. Our distinction between value and quality prompts us to reconsider the legitimacy of this exclusion, at least as regards qualities.