Scheler criticizes Kantian ethical “formalism” and bases a material ethic on the intentional character of “affective perception”, which aims at moral values (which are the object of preference and which is valid a priori, being hierarchical).
His work “The Position of Man in the Cosmos” is considered to be the beginning of a new branch of philosophy, philosophical anthropology. In this last work, he elaborates a dualistic vision of man (although opposed to Cartesianism) that confronts critically with naturalist, vitalist or idealistic mon ism: man is life and spirit. The spirit is pure actuality and not substance and consists of freedom and openness to the world, but in itself... it is powerless. In such a way, man can only draw his energy from the bottom of his vitality and by an act of “reduction” of the institute. In line with Husserl, it changes the sense of reduction: it transforms it into the containment and channeling of the vital instinct in the direction of man's spiritual life.