Stratification of emotional life (Scheler)

First, Scheler seems to be making a case in favor of what we might refer to today as Emotional Intelligence, as a portal to more ethical behavior and optimum personal development, similar to the ancient Greek concern for promoting virtuous character.

Values are realized though personal apprehensions (i.e. "attractions" and "repulsions") of positive (and negative) qualities discoverable through our own pre-thought, pre-willed acts of preference.

This depth structure found in emotive life correlates reciprocally to Scheler’s formulation of an upward vertical apriori hierarchy of values as forming the basis of an intuitive ethics inspired by love,[10] emanating ultimately from the Divine.

[14] At our most periphery we have sensible feelings (e.g., a tickle, an itch, a fragrance, a taste, pleasure, pain, hunger, thirst, intoxication…), which manifest in relative modes of joy and suffering.

These feelings are shortest in duration, extended and localizable with reference to the lived-body, and are the most readily alterable and accessible through external means and stimuli.

These are, first, the purely psychic feeling states or emotions having a characteristically ego-quality (e.g., euphoria, happiness, sympathy, enjoyment, sadness, sorrow, anger, jealousy…), and which manifest intentionally as empathy, preferring, loving, hating and willing.

[17] As representing one’s prevalent mental disposition it is important to note that psychic feeling states are alterable though acts of free will, thought and positive social interactions.

This is particularly important since Scheler’s relied extensively on hierarchical “stratification” models as a sort of general motif[25] for his philosophy as a whole, as well as for a wide range of editorial topics.

In spite many striking content similarities with scientific psychological theories, Scheler’s philosophy is, by contrast, first and foremost a serviceable speculative top-down emanation model,[26] guided by love and values, and based upon dualistic metaphysical principals [27] of Vital Urge (Drang)[28] and Spirit (Geist).

[29] Likewise, science alone can not fully account the sustaining spiritual forces that lift man and culture beyond the limitations of practical necessity, adaptation and natural selection.