5/ Hypothesis on the Origin of Post-Modern Anxiety
The absence of a foundation for values has led us to consider the state of mind the axiologist must adopt upon acknowledging this fact. This phenomenon also appears to shed light on an earlier question: why does the post-modern era seem so marked by anxiety about values?
I believe this anxiety arises from an unconscious awareness that the values we believe in and defend—sometimes even by force—may in fact have no solid foundation.
It would be mistaken to think that this absence of foundation affects only axiological objectivism, which holds that values are grounded. The absence appears to bear on all axiological doctrines: relativism, subjectivism, and nihilism seem no less unfounded than objectivism or value intuitionism.
Relativism might interpret objectivism's failure to establish values as confirmation of its own position. The depth of post-modern uncertainty is such, however, that the judgement 'There are only relative values' is no less unfounded than its opposite: 'There are absolute values'.
Nihilism, similarly, cannot substantiate the claim that 'nothing has value'; the absence of proof for life's value does not establish its negative value.
Nihilism, relativism, and similar positions remain unfounded in all likelihood because they fall into the same errors as objectivism. First, they attempt to validate themselves through one of the five ineffective methods we identified—the qualitative method or hedonism, for instance. Second, they do not anchor their reflections within the discipline of axiology, but instead lean on moral concepts or, in the case of relativism, sociological ones.
Post-modern anxiety appears to arise from this situation: the anguish stems from the unsatisfactory character of every axiological doctrine, even as human beings continue to assess their world axiologically.
More fundamentally, the very concept of value is growing increasingly opaque to the post-modern individual. We no longer fully understand what value means, even as we sometimes fight for it. Perhaps this very lack of understanding feeds our anxiety: what is value, after all?
Is the post-modern world one that has lost sight not only of the foundation of value, but of its very meaning?