The Conference That May Still Save The World

Robert S. Hartman, Abraham H. Maslow, And The Seeds Of Conscious Evolution

Abstract

Following his year as a visiting professor of moral philosophy and cons ultant to the Dean of Students at MIT, and blunt dismissal at the end of the year, Hartman continued his efforts to establish an Institute of Human Values. Buoyed by the enthusiastic response to value theory among students and faculty, he and E. Francis Bowditch partnered with a small group of like -minded scholars in the Boston- Cambridge area, including Pitirim Sorokin, the pioneering and often abrasive Harvard sociologist and founder of the Harvard Center for Research in Creative Altruism. This article picks up where the last left off, delving deeper into his collaborative efforts to raise public awareness of value theory and promote its transformational possibilities. Particular attention is focused on the success of an October 1957 conference titled, New Knowledge in Human Values, and the influence of Hartman’s concept of intrinsic value on Abraham Maslow’s model of self actualization. At the same time, the article underscores the practical and political difficulties of integrating Hartman’s notion of “the good” into an increasingly materialistic society threatened by its implications for the status quo.