4/ Conclusion
If we accept that ethics and axiology are separate fields, and that seeking a foundation for morality is essentially an inquiry into determining morality's value—one that requires a thorough assessment of what holds value and what does not—then a fundamental point emerges: morality must ultimately be grounded in axiology.
Until axiology is established and can answer the question of what holds value, we cannot determine whether good possesses greater value than evil, whether morality itself has value, and therefore cannot provide morality with a secure foundation.
Traditionally, morality has aimed to be self-sustaining, seeking to root itself in moral concepts such as moral conscience or sentiments like sympathy and pity. Over the past century, numerous attempts have been made to ground morality in disciplines beyond these—sociology or psychology, for instance. As we have seen, such attempts have proved unsuccessful, since they can only reveal the origin of morality, not its foundation.
Our reflections suggest that morality ultimately rests upon axiology—which means that this ancient discipline, ethics, for all the depth of thought it has inspired, depends upon a field that, as yet, exists only in an embryonic state.
To summarise: the neglect of values has given rise to three main consequences—the conflation of morality and axiology, axiology's failure to establish itself as an independent and coherent discipline, and the absence of a secure foundation for morality.
It is striking that the very discipline morality has obscured and overlooked may, in fact, be the one that holds its foundation and the key to fulfilling its ultimate purpose.
Everything suggests that grounding morality depends entirely on the concept of value. The notion of value thus emerges as the indispensable concept required to undertake this foundational task. What, then, does the concept of value signify, and how can it be brought to bear on this end? What might axiology, the discipline devoted to studying value, entail? These questions will guide our next reflection.