W książce tej będzie mowa o etyce uprawianej w drugiej połowie XX wieku przez Karola Wojtyłę i Tadeusza Stycznia. Powodem podjęcia badań nad tradycją etyczną, z której autor tej pracy sam się wywodzi, jest jej oddźwięk w Polsce i na świecie, tak w kręgach filozoficznych, jak i pozafilozoficznych. Wybór na papieża kardynała z Krakowa, który był kierownikiem Katedry Etyki na Wydziale Filozofii Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, sprawił, że jego myśl wzbudziła szersze zainteresowanie, zaczęto zwracać uwagę, że kluczem do zrozumienia nauczania Jana Pawła II jest jego filozofia człowieka. Osoba i moralność nie jest jednak kolejną publikacją o intelektualnym rodowodzie polskiego papieża, owszem jej przedmiotem jest znaczna część filozoficznego dorobku przyszłego biskupa Rzymu, chodzi w niej jednak przede wszystkim o samą etykę, a nie o tego, który ją uprawiał, książka ta zrodziła się bowiem z przeświadczenia, że Wojtyła wspólnie ze Styczniem, jako swym uczniem i kontynuatorem, wypracowali koherentny – co oczywiście nie musi znaczyć, że bezdyskusyjny – personalistyczny paradygmat etyki. Tym, co inspirowało moje badania i znalazło odzwierciedlenie w przedkładanej narracji jest próba zrozumienia tego, co personalizm wnosi do koncepcji moralności i jak określa jej miejsce w całokształcie spraw ludzkich.

O personalizmie mówi się w wielu znaczeniach, nie wszystkie z nich dają się ze sobą uzgodnić, ale wszystkie mają na pewno jedną cechę wspólną, wyrażają rangę osoby, jej ontyczną i aksjologiczną osobliwość. Zresztą już samo słowo „osoba” w języku polskim zdaje się wskazywać na osobną, właściwą sobie, niezbywalną pozycję tego, kogo tym słowem określamy. Nie sposób w tych wstępnych uwagach przyjrzeć się nawet pobieżnie tak różnorodnym znaczeniom terminu „personalizm”, należy natomiast uściślić, że w książce chodzi o personalizm będący wpływowym nurtem ideowym w kulturze XX wieku, na którego gruncie formowała się filozofia personalistyczna. Dlatego trzeba rygorystycznie odróżnić: personalizm, filozofię personalistyczną i filozofię osoby. Książka ta odnosi się zasadniczo do tych trzech płaszczyzn „kwestii personalistycznej”, rzutującej na przebudowę etyki, jakiej w swych pracach dokonali Wojtyła i Styczeń.

[…] Niniejsza książka przedstawia personalistyczne ujęcie etyki w pracach Wojtyły i Stycznia. Obydwaj są filozofami personalistycznego przebudzenia, ich teoretycznych zmagań na polu etyki nie można zrozumieć w pełni bez uwzględnienia doświadczenia tragizmu ludzkich losów, jaki stał się udziałem ich pokolenia, któremu przyszło zmierzyć się z dwoma totalitaryzmami: najpierw z nazizmem w okupowanej przez Niemców Polsce, potem z komunizmem zainstalowanym w naszym kraju wskutek porozumień w Jałcie, jakie podjęli członkowie antyhitlerowskiej koalicji, reprezentujący interesy wielkich mocarstw. „Doświadczenia wojenne, okupacyjne i tragiczne następstwa tego stanu rzeczy – zauważa Stefan Swieżawski – stały się próbą ogniową dla nurtów filozoficzno-światopoglądowych żywych u nas przed wojną”. Filozofowie skupieni w Lublinie na nowym wydziale KUL poszukiwali filozofii realistycznej, przeciwstawiającej się irracjonalizmowi, uwzględniającej prymat moralności, wrażliwej na misterium ludzkiego istnienia. Filozofia taka miała być spójną, ugruntowaną w poznaniu rzeczywistości odpowiedzią na cywilizacyjne barbarzyństwo. Jej naukowa powaga, metodologiczny szlif, historyczne osadzenie były wyrazem zaufania do ludzkiego rozumu, zdolnego do rzucania światła w mroki.

 

Nakładem Wydawnictwa KUL ukazała się praca ks. prof. Alfreda Marka Wierzbickiego pt. Osoba i moralność. Personalizm w etyce Karola Wojtyły i Tadeusza Stycznia.

• Tytuł: Osoba i moralność. Personalizm w etyce Karola Wojtyły i Tadeusza Stycznia
• Autor: Alfred Marek Wierzbicki
• ISBN: 978-83-8061-945-6
• Stron: 300
• Rok wydania: 2021

[tabs]
[tab title=”Spis treści”]

 

Spis treści

Wprowadzenie: Zwrot personalistyczny |  13

Część I. KAROL WOJTYŁA

Rozdział 1. Norma personalistyczna  |  25

• Jednocząca zasada etyki |  25
• Różnica między „kimś” a „czymś” | 28
• Afirmacja i odpowiedzialność | 31
• Wobec mentalności i teorii utylitarystycznej | 35
• Problem eudajmonizmu | 39

Rozdział 2. Wobec tradycji etycznych |  43

• Personalistyczne itinerarium |  43
• Max Scheler: doświadczalny świat wartości |  45
• Immanuel Kant: dominanta powinności moralnej |  50
• Tomasz z Akwinu: metafizyczne implikacje doświadczenia moralnego 55

Rozdział 3. Rola doświadczenia w etyce |  61

• Sytuacja przesilenia |  61
• Doświadczenie a poznanie naukowe |  65
• Teoria moralności a etyka | 68
• Warstwy doświadczenia moralności |  70
• Zwrot ku osobie |  76

Rozdział 4. Antropologiczne podstawy etyki  |  79

• Jak czytać Osobę i czyn? |  79
• Świadomość a podmiotowość osoby |  86
• Wolność a stawanie się człowieka moralnie dobrym lub złym |  92
• Normatywna moc prawdy | 97
• Autoteleologia osoby | 102
• Wobec kryzysu „gramatyki prawa naturalnego”  | 104

Rozdział 5. Uczestnictwo czy alienacja? Ku etyce społecznej  | 111

• Osoba i wspólnota | 111
• Uczestnictwo jako właściwość osoby | 114
• Postawy autentyczne i nieautentyczne | 116
• Alienacja jako przeciwieństwo uczestnictwa  | 118

Rozdział 6. Małżeństwo i rodzina jako communio personarum  | 123

• Cele małżeństwa a miłość | 124
• Dar i communio | 126
• Rodzicielstwo w logice daru | 131

Część II. TADEUSZ STYCZEŃ

Rozdział 1. Spór o naukowość etyki  | 137

• Wobec degradacji filozofii i myśli humanistycznej | 137
• Doświadczenie moralne i jego interpretacja  | 140
• Krytyczna dyskusja wokół niektórych ujęć etyki | 148

Rozdział 2. Krystalizacje metaetyczne | 155

• Ku metaetyce | 155
• Po co etyce metaetyka? | 158
• Odpowiedź na wyzwanie Davida Hume’a | 161
• Wielość nauk o moralności a etyka | 165
• Powinność i wartość | 167

Rozdział 3. Spór o istotę moralności | 171

• Ugruntowanie paradygmatu personalistycznego w etyce | 171
• Objawiać osobę: etyka a antropologia | 179
• Lubelski spór o istotę moralności | 184

Rozdział 4. Etyka niezależna?  | 189

• Dorobek polskiej myśli etycznej XX wieku | 189
• Uściślenie koncepcji etyki niezależnej | 196
• Etyka niezależna a społeczeństwo pluralistyczne | 201

Rozdział 5. Spór o sumienie  | 205

• Ambiwalencja autonomii moralnej | 205
• Struktura i funkcje sumienia | 210
• Sumienie a prawo naturalne | 215

Rozdział 6. Personalizm werytatywny | 221

• Kowalski staje się Sokratesem  | 221
• Autoinformacja autoimperatywem | 225
• Etyka bez kategorii dobra? | 229

Rozdział 7. O solidarność z każdym człowiekiem  | 233

• Wobec moralnego zrywu Solidarności | 233
• Afirmacja życia afirmacją osoby | 239
• Nienarodzony miarą demokracji | 242

Zakończenie: Czy istnieje lubelska szkoła etyki personalistycznej? | 247

Bibliografia  | 259

Indeks osób | 269

Summary | 275

 

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[tab title=”Wprowadzenie: Zwrot personalistyczny”]

 

Wprowadzenie: Zwrot personalistyczny

W książce tej będzie mowa o etyce uprawianej w drugiej połowie XX wieku przez Karola Wojtyłę i Tadeusza Stycznia. Powodem podjęcia badań nad tradycją etyczną, z której autor tej pracy sam się wywodzi, jest jej oddźwięk w Polsce i na świecie, tak w kręgach filozoficznych, jak i pozafilozoficznych. Wybór na papieża kardynała z Krakowa, który był kierownikiem Katedry Etyki na Wydziale Filozofii Katolickiego Uniwersytetu Lubelskiego, sprawił, że jego myśl wzbudziła szersze zainteresowanie, zaczęto zwracać uwagę, że kluczem do zrozumienia nauczania Jana Pawła II jest jego filozofia człowieka. Osoba i moralność nie jest jednak kolejną publikacją o intelektualnym rodowodzie polskiego papieża, owszem jej przedmiotem jest znaczna część filozoficznego dorobku przyszłego biskupa Rzymu, chodzi w niej jednak przede wszystkim o samą etykę, a nie o tego, który ją uprawiał, książka ta zrodziła się bowiem z przeświadczenia, że Wojtyła wspólnie ze Styczniem, jako swym uczniem i kontynuatorem, wypracowali koherentny – co oczywiście nie musi znaczyć, że bezdyskusyjny – personalistyczny paradygmat etyki. Tym, co inspirowało moje badania i znalazło odzwierciedlenie w przedkładanej narracji jest próba zrozumienia tego, co personalizm wnosi do koncepcji moralności i jak określa jej miejsce w całokształcie spraw ludzkich.

O personalizmie mówi się w wielu znaczeniach, nie wszystkie z nich dają się ze sobą uzgodnić, ale wszystkie mają na pewno jedną cechę wspólną, wyrażają rangę osoby, jej ontyczną i aksjologiczną osobliwość. Zresztą już samo słowo „osoba” w języku polskim zdaje się wskazywać na osobną, właściwą sobie, niezbywalną pozycję tego, kogo tym słowem określamy. Nie sposób w tych wstępnych uwagach przyjrzeć się nawet pobieżnie tak różnorodnym znaczeniom terminu „personalizm”, należy natomiast uściślić, że w książce chodzi o personalizm będący wpływowym nurtem ideowym w kulturze XX wieku, na którego gruncie formowała się filozofia personalistyczna. Dlatego trzeba rygorystycznie odróżnić: personalizm, filozofię personalistyczną i filozofię osoby. Książka ta odnosi się zasadniczo do tych trzech płaszczyzn „kwestii personalistycznej”, rzutującej na przebudowę etyki, jakiej w swych pracach dokonali Wojtyła i Styczeń.

Jako prąd ideowy personalizm kształtował się dopiero w XX wieku, jest on zatem kulturowym fenomenem nowoczesności. Stanowi odpowiedź, wręcz reakcją obronną wobec sytuacji, którą nie bez przerażenia nazywa się „katastrofą antropologiczną”. Próbuje uświadomić, że u podstaw wielorakich i wielofazowych kryzysów, jakie w XX wieku trapią ludzkość, a zwłaszcza świat zachodni, znajduje się degradacja człowieczeństwa, ugodzenie w to, co człowieka czyni człowiekiem Personalizm poniekąd rodzi się ze wstrząsu, jaki powoduje dehumanizacja, depersonalizacja, umasowienie życia ludzkiego i eksplozja przemocy w relacjach międzyludzkich Jako idea wyłania się on z elementarnego doświadczenia „przebudzenia personalistycznego”, w którym odsłania się z jednej strony powaga kryzysu, a z drugiej nadzieja na lepszy świat, który ludzie mogą dla siebie stworzyć Personalizm występuje jako ostatnia wielka narracja nowoczesności w momencie, kiedy inne wielkie narracje o rodowodzie oświeceniowym, totalizujące podmiot emancypacji, stanowią ideowe źródło sytuacji kryzysowych. Jest on poniekąd „wielkim marzeniem i utopijnym projektem”, odwołującym się do świadomości kruchości istot ludzkich i zarazem świadomości ich geniuszu do przezwyciężania swej kondycji

Juan Manuel Burgos precyzyjnie wyjaśnił dlaczego personalizm pojawił się w latach po I wojnie światowej¹. Dystans czasowy, jaki nas dzieli o tragicznego końca „pięknej epoki” oraz przesłonięcie jej okrucieństw przez okrucieństwa II wojny światowej, nie pozwalają w pełni zrozumieć skali przeżywanego wówczas wstrząsu moralnego i determinacji, z jaką zaczęto podejmować na nowo refleksję o humanizmie. Refleksja ta płynęła szeroką falą poprzez różne nurty filozofii. Wobec destrukcyjnego oblicza przemocy wojennej, autorytaryzmu i totalitaryzmu, będących zatrutym owocem popularnych ^[1] po I wojnie światowej ideologii: komunizmu, nazizmu i faszyzmu, ideologii porywających masy i zarazem podporządkowujących całość ich życia władzy politycznej, tradycyjny humanizm – czy to chrześcijański czy mieszczański – wydawał się ideą przestarzałą i pozbawioną mocy oddziaływania na świadomość „ludzi nowoczesnych”. Śmierć humanizmu była pokłosiem historyzmu, który zakładały nowoczesne ideologie przemocy. Sprzyjał jej również pozytywizm, zwłaszcza w sztywnej interpretacji scjentystycznej, rugujący problematykę humanistyczną w nauce. Do kryzysu humanizmu przyczyniał się również kryzys chrześcijaństwa w jego konfrontacji, nierzadko agresywnej z obydwu stron, z prądami wywodzącymi się z oświecenia Przesilenie kryzysu humanizmu, biegnącego tak różnorodnymi trajektoriami, kulminowało twórczo w postawie „przebudzenia personalistycznego”, przynoszącego odkrycie osoby Poprzedzało ono zatem i stwarzało ideowy grunt dla rozwoju personalizmu w filozofii XX wieku.

Personalizm stawał się cechą szerokiego nurtu odnowy filozofii i teologii w pierwszych dekadach XX wieku. Trudno go oddzielić od fenomenologii (Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Edith Stein) egzystencjalizmu (Gabriel Marcel), neotomizmu (Jacques Maritain) czy filozofii dialogu (Martin Buber). Niezależnie od odmiennych kontekstów, w jakich formowała się humanistyczna orientacja w filozofiach pierwszej połowy XX wieku, pomimo ich odmiennych metod oraz korzystania z różnych źródeł, filozofowie ci uznają wyjątkową pozycję osoby w całej rzeczywistości. Za ich sprawą zachodził zwrot personalistyczny w filozofii – personalizm jest więc w niej zjawiskiem szerszym aniżeli sama filozofia personalistyczna, do której przynależy znacznie węższa grupa myślicieli.

Emmanuel Mounier stosował termin „personalizm” na określenie rewolucyjnego ruchu promującego wolną od przemocy i nie popadającą w kolektywizm przemianę społeczeństwa mieszczańskiego opartego na zasadach indywidualizmu^[2]. Ten francuski myśliciel nie dysponował jednak gotową filozoficzną koncepcją osoby, odwoływał się do intuicji, która legła u podstaw jego krytyki społecznej kondycji człowieka z pierwszych dekad XX wieku Podobnie jak marksiści stawiał na rewolucję, ale miała to być inna rewolucja, odrzucająca przemoc i prawdziwie rozwiązująca praktyczną antynomię pomiędzy indywidualizmem a kolektywizmem^[3]. Nie bez znaczenia było rozczarowanie społeczeństwem mieszczańskim, rozczarowanie, które znalazło formę filozoficznej krytyki u bardzo różnych myślicieli ateistycznych i religijnych takich, jak Karol Marks, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud z jednej strony, Soren Kirkegaard, Antonio Rosmini i John Henry Newman z drugiej. Tych trzech ostatnich uznaje się często za protagonistów personalizmu, odnowę życia religijnego wiązali oni bowiem z głębszym uświadomieniem – niż to czyniła ówczesna kultura religijna, poddana wpływom racjonalizmu i indywidualizmu – że podmiotem życia religijnego i społecznego jest człowiek w swej egzystencjalnej niepowtarzalności. Mounier, posługując się słowem „personalizm”, ułatwił zrozumienie faktu, że idea rewolucji, która budziła tak wiele nadziei emancypacyjnych od czasów Wielkiej Rewolucji Francuskiej, nadziei związanych z wizją lepszego życia społeczeństw i narodów, jeśli ma osiągnąć swoje cele, to powinna respektować prawdę o osobie i wśród swych celów umieścić ideał wyzwolenia osoby jako zasady moralnego ładu we wspólnocie.

Aby jeszcze pełniej zrozumieć, że personalizm wyrasta ze sprzężenia filozofii człowieka z jego kondycją w świecie nowożytnym, należy uwzględnić, czym jest sama nowożytność jako projekt i jako fakt Nie sposób rozwijać w tym miejscu kwestii tzw. moderny dyskutowanej na wielu płaszczyznach we współczesnej debacie filozoficznej i socjologicznej Nie jest to na pewno kwestia jeszcze zamknięta. Ograniczę się do stwierdzenia, że w moim przekonaniu personalizm nie ma oblicza antymodernistycznego, przeciwnie wyrasta on z fundamentalnych dążeń moderny, jako reakcja na jej kryzys (kryzysy), i jest próbą nawiązania do oryginalnych intuicji, z których wywodzi się nowożytny zwrot antropologiczny.

Istotą nowożytnego projektu antropologicznego jest odkrycie ludzkiej podmiotowości, autonomii i związanej z nimi kreatywności w świecie i społeczeństwie. Charles Taylor, badając wielorakie pasma ideowe, które przyczyniły się do ukształtowania nowoczesnej wyobraźni społecznej (social imaginaery), na poczesnym miejscu umieszcza ideę wolności. Wyzwala ona energie społeczne, w wyniku których w miejsce „płynnej” osobowości ^porous self”), zanurzonej całkowicie w życiu wspólnoty oraz poddanej wpływom sił kosmicznych, pojawił się typ „mocnej” osobowości („buffered self”), stającej się protagonistą ekskluzywnego humanizmu (exclusive humanism)⁴. Personalizm ma wiele odmian, jedne z nich są bardziej, inne mniej „liberalistyczne”, prowadzą między sobą spór o rozumienie sensu wolności⁵, nie można jednak personalizmu zrozumieć bez odniesienia do nowożytnej koncepcji człowieka z jej, jakże słuszną i porywającą do zaangażowania w sprawy ludzkie, emfazą na podmiotowość – świadomość i wolność.

Personalizm europejski XX wieku rozwijany i upowszechniany był przez filozofów i teologów katolickich. Stanowi on istotną charakterystykę odnowy katolicyzmu, która swój wyraz znalazła w II Soborze Watykańskim. Chociaż Kościół czasów Vaticanum II, inaczej niż w poprzedzającej ją epoce, nie wskazuje na konkretną filozofię jako swoją „oficjalną”, to niewątpliwie duch myślenia personalistycznego wycisnął silne piętno na tym soborze. Zachodzi pewna analogia pomiędzy zasadą powrotu do źródeł, obecną w tzw. nowej teologii (nouvelle theologie), która znalazła odzwierciedlenie w dokumentach soborowych, a personalizmem jako nurtem ideowym, dążącym również do posługiwania się rygorami myślenia filozoficznego. Personalistyczną eksplozję w katolicyzmie XX wieku trzeba uznać za twórczy powrót do idei osoby, obecnej w starożytnej i średniowiecznej myśli chrześcijańskiej Należy jednak pamiętać, że personalizm nie jest dziełem erudytów, wydobywających archiwalne koncepcje intelektualne z przeszłości, tworzyli go ludzie zaangażowani w kulturowe wyzwania swej epoki, próbujący odczytać na nowo, w kontekście myśli współczesnej, znaczenie kategorii, która od dawna była obecna w kulturze chrześcijańskiej, aczkolwiek nie zawsze była eksponowana jako kategoria centralna ^{[4] [5]}

Pojęcie osoby upowszechniło się jako uwarunkowane teologicznie^[6], ale nie było ono pojęciem teologicznym, uzupełniało brak w filozofii greckiej, która okazała się niezdolna do adekwatnej interpretacji treści wiary chrześcijan. Pojęcie osoby wykorzystano, aby racjonalnie uściślić doktrynę trynitarną i chrystologiczną. Trzeba podziwiać geniusz spekulatywny chrześcijańskich teologów IV i V wieku, którzy dostrzegli konieczność mówienia o osobie w sytuacji, w której nie wystarczała kategoria substancji, aby mówić o Bogu i Jego działaniu wobec człowieka. Na podziw zasługuje ich „odwaga lingwistyczna”, sięgnęli po termin z dziedziny sztuki teatralnej i przenieśli go do teologii jako kategorię metafizyczną. Greckie prosopon oznaczało maskę, miało więc wąskie znaczenie techniczne, tymczasem w języku chrześcijańskich intelektualistów i biskupów słowo to zostało przeobrażone. Osoba to ktoś – ktoś, kto działa, i być może stąd skojarzenie z aktorem ukrywającym się pod maską i posługującym się nią, aby wyrazić siebie.

W myśli chrześcijańskiej rozwinęła się filozofia osoby, w której nie można pominąć wkładu autorów z późnej starożytności, zwłaszcza Augustyna i Boecjusza. Temu ostatniemu myśl zachodnia zawdzięcza definicję osoby, jakkolwiek definicja ta nie jest ani jedyna, ani do końca poprawna. Również myśliciele chrześcijańskiego średniowiecza pracowali nad definicją osoby, korzystając z zaawansowanego aparatu metafizycznego. Szczególnie ceniona współcześnie jest definicja Ryszarda ze św. Wiktora. Wielość definicji osoby ukazuje zarówno różne punkty odniesienia w ujmowaniu istoty osoby, jak i zasadniczy problem definiowalności osoby w ogóle^[7].

Myśl nowożytna z właściwym sobie antropologicznym przesunięciem problematyki filozoficznej interesowała się człowiekiem jako osobą. Filozofia osoby rozwijana była przez Francisco Suareza SJ jako kontynuacja scholastyki, a przez Johna Locke’a na gruncie empiryzmu. Locke’owska koncepcja osoby okazała się bardzo wpływowa w świecie anglosaskim. Wraz z rozprzestrzenianiem się myśli anglosaskiej w XX wieku zakorzeniona w empirycznej obserwacji koncepcja osoby stała się wręcz ujęciem dominującym, alternatywnym, a nawet konkurującym z ujęciem klasycznym, wywodzącym się z tradycji boecjańskiej. Ma ona wpływ na współczesne debaty etyczne w obrębie etyki stosowanej^[8].

Ani o średniowiecznej filozofii osoby, ani o jej nowożytnej „rywalce” nie można powiedzieć, że dochodzi w nich do głosu personalizm. Nie wystarczy prowadzić teoretyczne dociekania na temat istoty osoby, aby stać się personalistą. U źródeł personalizmu jest faktyczny „wstrząs” moralny, wywołujący niezgodę na degradację osoby, powodujący równocześnie „przebudzenie”, z którego rodzi się filozofia osoby. Może ona nawiązywać do tradycji klasycznej lub nie-klasycznej, personalistyczny posiew w filozofii katolickiej XX wieku w znacznej mierze dokonywał się poprzez recepcję i lekturę klasycznej, rozwijającej się w późnej starożytności i średniowieczu, filozofii osoby.

Dwudziestowieczny personalizm czerpie dużo inspiracji z filozofii Immanuela Kanta. Samego Kanta nie można jeszcze uznać za przedstawiciela personalizmu, ale etyka zawdzięcza filozofowi z Królewca iście kopernikański przewrót. Jest on pierwszym filozofem moralistą, który buduje etykę wokół kategorii osoby Druga formuła imperatywu kategorycznego ma wyraźnie personalistyczny sens. „Postępuj tak, byś człowieczeństwa tak w twej osobie, jako też w osobie każdego innego używał zawsze zarazem jako celu, nigdy tylko jako środka”^[9]. Personalizm etyczny Kanta jest kompleksowy: uwewnętrznia moralność wiążąc dobro moralne bezwzględnie z dobrocią (prawością) woli, interpretuje zasadę imperatywu kategorycznego jako zasadę personalistyczną, i wreszcie z godności osoby wyprowadza zasadę autonomii, wedle której osoba jest sama dla siebie moralnym prawodawcą. Splot tych trzech wątków jawił się Kantowi jako systemowo konieczny, widział w nim gwarancję przezwyciężenia utylitaryzmu i każdego innego typu naturalizmu w etyce, w rzeczy samej powiązanie zasady personalistycznej z zasadą autonomii i wypływającej z niej koncepcji kreatywnego sumienia prowadzi do fundamentalnego sporu w nowoczesnej etyce Nie jest to wyłącznie spór historyczny o interpretację stanowiska Kanta, autorowi Krytyki praktycznego rozumu udało się, jak nikomu przed nim, zwrócić uwagę na istotną rolę osoby w strukturze moralności i istotne znaczenie moralności dla bycia osobą. Myśl Kanta, będąca przedmiotem wielu analiz i sporów, poddawana krytyce i rewizji, stała się częścią dziedzictwa współczesnego personalizmu, otworzyła nowe perspektywy przed etyką wyrastającą z wrażliwości personalistycznej

Niniejsza książka przedstawia personalistyczne ujęcie etyki w pracach Wojtyły i Stycznia. Obydwaj są filozofami personalistycznego przebudzenia, ich teoretycznych zmagań na polu etyki nie można zrozumieć w pełni bez uwzględnienia doświadczenia tragizmu ludzkich losów, jaki stał się udziałem ich pokolenia, któremu przyszło zmierzyć się z dwoma totalitaryzmami: najpierw z nazizmem w okupowanej przez Niemców Polsce, potem z komunizmem zainstalowanym w naszym kraju wskutek porozumień w Jałcie, jakie podjęli członkowie antyhitlerowskiej koalicji, reprezentujący interesy wielkich mocarstw. „Doświadczenia wojenne, okupacyjne i tragiczne następstwa tego stanu rzeczy – zauważa Stefan Swieżawski – stały się próbą ogniową dla nurtów filozoficzno-światopoglądowych żywych u nas przed wojną”^[10]. Filozofowie skupieni w Lublinie na nowym wydziale KUL poszukiwali filozofii realistycznej, przeciwstawiającej się irracjonalizmowi, uwzględniającej prymat moralności, wrażliwej na misterium ludzkiego istnienia. Filozofia taka miała być spójną, ugruntowaną w poznaniu rzeczywistości odpowiedzią na cywilizacyjne barbarzyństwo. Jej naukowa powaga, metodologiczny szlif, historyczne osadzenie były wyrazem zaufania do ludzkiego rozumu, zdolnego do rzucania światła w mroki.

Filozofia z natury swojej idzie w głąb, szuka odpowiedzi na pytania, które niesie życie Jej doświadczalna osnowa daje impulsy do budowania wyjaśnień. W samej filozofii doświadczenie może pozostawać ukryte, ważne są w niej bowiem problemy i ich rozstrzyganie. Od siły doświadczenia a w przypadku personalizmu – od siły wstrząsu i bólu zależy jakość myślenia, trafność i spoistość przedstawianej teorii. To doświadczenie, które zrodziło personalizm w etyce lubelskich filozofów, trwa do dzisiaj zapisane w poezji. Ożywmy te doświadczenia i wyłaniające się z nich pytania w dwóch cytatach autorstwa poetów Czesława Miłosza i Karola Wojtyły. Polski noblista w IV „wykładzie wierszem” zapisał:

A ja tutaj, instruktor od niepamiętania,

Pouczam, że ból mija (bo jest bólem innych),

Dalej ratując w myślach pannę Jadwigę,

Małą garbuskę, bibliotekarkę z zawodu,

Która zginęła w schronie tamtej kamienicy Uważanej za pewną, a zapadła się,

I nikt nie mógł dokopać się przez płaty muru,

Choć wiele dni słyszano stukania i głosy.

Więc na wieki, na zawsze, zagubione imię,

Jej ostatnie godziny nieznane nikomu,

I czas ją unoszący, w warstwie pliocenu.

Prawdziwy wróg człowieka jest uogólnienie Prawdziwy wróg człowieka, tak zwana Historia,

Zaleca się i straszy liczbą mnogą.

Nie wierzcie jej. Podstępna i zdradliwa,

Nie jest anty-Naturą, jak Marks nam zalecał,

A jeżeli boginią, to ślepego Fatum.

Szkielecik panny Jadwigi, miejsce,

Gdzie pulsowało serce. To jedno kładę Przeciw konieczności, prawu, teorii¹¹.

A oto poetycka medytacja Wojtyły:

[…] każdy z nich [ludzi – A. M. W. ] niesie nieuświadomioną treść, którą nazywa się człowieczeństwem. Z tym łączy się bolesne doświadczenie tylu pokoleń. Czy można w nim się ukryć? Czy trzeba je, wręcz przeciwnie, wydobyć z ukrycia, jak przedmiot, który się podziwia lub też którym się gardzi? O człowieczeństwo, które możesz być wypełnione po samą swą górną granicę – lub wyniszczone po samą dolną! Jaka jest odległość tych granic?^{[11] [12]}

Filozofia lubelskich personalistów czerpała z obydwu ciemnych źródeł sprawy człowieka w XX wieku, u jej podłoża znajduje się czułość dla ludzkiego istnienia, którego nie sposób uogólnić, rodzi się ona także z tragicznej świadomości, że człowieka stać zarówno na świętość, jak i na bestialstwo. Aby sprostać głębi i towarzyszącej jej dwubiegunowości doświadczenia człowieka – doświadczeniu bycia człowiekiem i doświadczeniu stawania się człowiekiem – skoncentrowali swe badania filozoficzne wokół problemu: osoba i moralność. Budowali personalistyczną etykę w horyzoncie realistycznej metafizyki. Prawie przez pół wieku trudzili się przy tym samym warsztacie: Wojtyła pracował w Katedrze Etyki od 1954 do 1978 roku, kierował katedrą w latach 1957-1978, Styczeń pracował w tej samej katedrze w latach 1960-2001, a kierował nią w latach 1978-2001. Dzieje tej współpracy w istotnych punktach ujął Jan Paweł II w Liście do Księdza Profesora Tadeusza Stycznia na 70. urodziny swego następcy w Katedrze Etyki:

Nasza wspólna przygoda z etyką zaczęła się jeszcze przed Lublinem. W Lublinie jednak, na Wydziale Filozoficznym Katolickiego Uniwersytetu, miała ona swoją fazę decydującą. Tam spotykaliśmy się zarówno na wykładach, jak i na seminariach, które prowadziłem jako wykładowca dojeżdżający z Krakowa. Tam również dane mi było poznać Cię bliżej jako studenta głęboko zainteresowanego problematyką etyczną. Wszystkie kolejne stopnie naukowe: magisterium, doktorat, a z kolei habilitacja, następowały po sobie w dość szybkim tempie, tak że mogłem być spokojny o przyszłość Katedry Etyki na KUL-u. Formalnie wciąż byłem z nią związany aż do roku 1978, ale praktycznie wszystko już opierało się na Tobie^[13].

Podobnie książka Osoba i moralność, choć podzielona na dwie części, zachowuje swą jednorodność, ponieważ traktuje o konsekwentnym rozwoju tej samej koncepcji etyki, będącej dziełem dwóch bliskich sobie ludzi, związanych wzorcową przyjaźnią i wspólną pasją dla osoby.

 

 

^[1] J.M. Burgos, An Introduction to Personalism, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington DC 2018, s. 1-34.

^[2] Zob. E. Mounier, Revolution personaliste et communautaire, Editions du Seuil, Paris 1935; tenże, Fin de l’homme bourgeois, „Esprit” 9 (1941), nr 102, s. 609-617; tenże, Co to jest personalizm oraz wybór innych prac, tłum. A. Turowiczowa, Wydawnictwo Znak, Kraków 1960.

^[3] W tle personalizmu jest narastanie przekonania, że proste przeciwstawienie indywidualizm – kolektywizm stanowi drogę prowadzącą donikąd, bardzo szkodliwą iluzję. Daje temu wyraz Hildebrand w książce o personalistycznej istocie wspólnoty, pisanej w latach 30. XX wieku: „Przez długi czas zrozumienie dla sensu i wartości wspólnoty było przyćmione. Obecnie w tęsknocie do wspólnoty, w poszukiwaniu nowych jej form, z jakim często się spotykamy zdaje się odżywać wyczucie jej istoty. Zarazem szerzą się rozliczne i fałszywe pojęcia i tendencje Szczególnie częsta jest skłonność do tego, aby w oddaniu się jednostki »wielkiej«, rzekomo „wszechobejmującej wspólnocie upatrywać generalnie swoiste przezwyciężenie egoizmu” (D. von Hildebrand, Metafizyka wspólnoty. Rozważania nad istotą i wartością wspólnoty, tłum. J. Zychowicz, Wydawnictwo WAM, Kraków 2012, s. 31).

^[4] Ch. Taylor, A Secular Age, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 2007, s. 26-28.

^[5] W szkicu o typach personalizmu Wojciech Chudy wymienia trzy personalizmy: metafizyczny, liberalistyczny i etyczny. Typologia ta nie całkiem przystaje do głębszej analizy treści personalizmów, ponieważ większość filozofii personalistycznych ma charakter zarazem metafizyczny, liberalistyczny i etyczny, są natomiast różnice w odczytywaniu dominanty i one zdają się stanowić podstawę przywołanej „typologii”. Zob. W. Chudy, Pedagogika godności. Elementy etyki pedagogicznej, Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Lublin 2009, s. 23-39.

^[6] Zob. E. Piotrowski, Teologiczne uwarunkowania filozoficznej koncepcji osoby, w: Szkice o godności człowieka, red. M. Piechowiak, T. Turowski, Oficyna Wydawnicza Uniwersytetu Zielonogórskiego, Zielona Góra 2012, s. 21-34.

^[7] Główne definicje osoby w średniowieczu to: rationalis naturae individua substantia (Boecjusz), hypostasis distincta proprietate ad dignitatem pertinens (Aleksander z Hales), intellectualis naturae incommunicabilis existentia (Ryszard ze św. Wiktora), incommunicabilis subsistentia naturae rationalis (Tomasz z Akwinu), existens per se solum iuxta singularem quendam rationalis existentiae modum (Jan Duns Szkot). Zob. A. G. Wildfeuer, Person, w: Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche, t. 8, red. W. Kasper i in., Verlag Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2006, kol. 41-46. Wielość definiensów, jakimi posługiwali się średniowieczni filozofowie, zdaje się wskazywać na to, że dostrzegali problem z definiowaniem osoby przez Boecjusza jako substancji. W ten sposób wyrażali intuicję bliską tej, dzięki której teologowie doby Soboru Chalcedońskiego używali w odniesieniu do osoby kategorii hypostasis, a nie ousia, czyli kategorii hipostazy, a nie substancji

^[8] Zob. G. Hołub, Problem osoby we współczesnych debatach bioetycznych, Księgarnia Akademicka, Kraków 2010.

^[9] I. Kant, Uzasadnienie metafizyki moralności, tłum. M. Wartenberg, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Warszawa 1984, s. 62.

^[10] S. Swieżawski, Geneza lubelskiej szkoły filozoficznej, w: Obecność. Karol Wojtyła – Jan Paweł II w Katolickim Uniwersytecie Lubelskim. Dar i odpowiedzialność, red. A. Szostek, M. Filipiak, Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Lublin 2008, s. 16.

^[11] Cz. Miłosz, Sześć wykładów wierszem, w: tegoż, Wiersze, t. 3, Wydawnictwo Znak, Kraków 1993, s. 309.

^[12] K. Wojtyła, Promieniowanie ojcostwa, w: tegoż, Poezje, dramaty, szkice. Tryptyk rzymski, Wydawnictwo Znak, Kraków 2004, s. 448.

^[13] Jan Paweł II, [List do Księdza Profesora Tadeusza Stycznia, Watykan, 4 listopada 2000 r.], w: Codzienne pytania Antygony. Księga pamiątkowa ku czci Księdza Profesora Tadeusza Stycznia z okazji 70. urodzin, red. A. Szostek, A.M. Wierzbicki, Instytut Jana Pawła II KUL, Lublin 2001, s. 45.

[/tab]

[tab title=”Table of contents”]

 

Table of contents

Introduction: The Personalistic Turn   |   13

Part I. KAROL WOJTYŁA

Chapter 1. The Personalistic Norm   |   25

• A Unifying Principle of Ethics |   25
• The Difference between „Something” and „Somebody” |  28
• Affirmation and Responsibility |  31
• Facing the Utilitarian Mentality and Theory |  35
• The Problem of Eudaemonism |  39

Chapter 2. Facing the Ethical Traditions   |   43

• A Personalistic itinerarium   |   43
• Max Scheler: The Experienced World of Values  |   45
• Immanuel Kant: The Dominant of Moral Obligation   |   50
• Thomas Aquinas: Metaphysical Implications of Moral Experience… 55

Chapter 3. The Role of Experience in Ethics  |   61

• A Situation of Crisis |   61
• Experience versus Scientific Knowledge |   65
• The Theory of Morality versus Ethics |   68
• The Layers of the Experience of Morality |   70
• A Turn towards the Person |   70

Chapter 4. Anthropological Foundations of Ethics  |   79

• How to Read The Acting Person|   79
• Consciousness and Subjectivity of the Person |   86
• Freedom and How the Human Being Becomes Morally Good or Evil   |  92
• The Normative Power of Truth |   97
• Self-teleology of the Person |  102
• Facing the Crisis of the „Grammar of Natural Law”  |  104

Chapter 5. Participation or Alienation? Towards a Social Ethics   |  111

• Person and Community   |  111
• Participation as a Characteristic of the Person |  114
• Authentic and Non-Authentic Attitudes |  116
• Alienation as the Opposite of Participation |  118

Chapter 6. Marriage and Family as a Community of Persons   |  123

• Ends of Marriage and Love |  124
• Gift and Communion   |  126
• Parenthood as seen from the Prospective of the Logic of Gift |  131

Part II. TADEUSZ STYCZEŃ

Chapter 1. A Dispute over Ethics as a Science   |  137

• Facing the Decline of Philosophy and of the Humanist Thought…. 137
• Moral Experience and Its Interpretation   |  140
• A Critical Discussion of Some Concepts of Ethics |  148

Chapter 2. Metaethical Cyrstalizations   |  155

• Towards Metaethics |  155
• Why Does Ethics Need Metaethics? |  158
• A Response to David Hume’s Challenge |  161
• The Multiplicity of Sciences of Morality versusEthics |  165
• Obligation and Value |  167

Chapter 3. A Dispute over the Essence of Morality   |  171

• The Grounding of the Personalistic Paradigm in Ethics |  171
• To Reveal the Person: Ethics and Anthropology   |  179
• The Lublin Controversy over the Essence of Morality   |  184

Chapter 4. Independent Ethics?  |  189

• The Achievements of the Polish Twientieth-Century Ethical Thought 189
• The Clarification of the Concept of Independent Ethics |  196
• Independent Ethics and a Pluralist Society |  201

Chapter 5. A Dispute over Conscience   |  205

• The Ambivalence of Moral Autonomy |  205
• The Structure and Functions of Conscience |  210
• Conscience and the Natural Law |  215

Chapter 6. Veritative Personalism  |  221

• Kowalski becomes Socrates |  221
• Self-information and Self-imperative  |  225
• An Ethics without the Category of Good? |  229

Chapter 7. Solidarity with Every Human Being   |  233

• Facing the Moral Uprising of the „Solidarność” Movement |  233
• To Affirm Live is to Affirm the Person |  239
• The Unborn are the Measure of Democracy |  242

Conclusion: The Lublin School of Personalistic Ethics:

Does it Really Exist?  |  247

Bibliography  |  259

Index of Persons  |  269

Summary  |  275

[/tab]
[tab title=”Summary”]

 

Summary

The book Osoba i moralność [Person and Morality] has been intended as a study of personalism as expressed in the ethical theories of Karol Wojtyła (1920-2005) and Tadeusz Styczeń, SDS (1931-2010). From 1954 to 1978, that is, until he was elected pope John Paul II, Wojtyła worked as professor of ethics in the Faculty of Philosophy at the Catholic University of Lublin (which, to emphasize its ties to the distinguished professor, has changed its name to John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin). While fulfilling his obligations as professor, delivering lectures, conducting seminars, and preparing scholarly publications, Wojtyła was entrusted with Church offices which required his ever more intense involvement; he was appointed bishop, then archbishop, and eventually cardinal. His talented disciple, Fr. Tadeusz Styczeń, whose academic career was progressing steadily and quickly, helped Wojtyła perform part of his professorial duties. In 1971, when Styczeń obtained his post-doctoral degree (habilitacja) and, as an independent scholar, was prepared to hold the Chair of Ethics, Wojtyła planned to resign his academic position. Styczeń, however, persuaded him to change his decision. This fact is not only of anecdotal value, but – most importantly – testifies to a deep „syntony” between the disciple and the teacher, reflecting also the process of the emergence of a certain style in ethics: the style which, in view of its later development, may be described as characteristic of the Lublin School of Personalism in ethics

Because the actual „foundation” of the school was not just a single event, but an organic process of addressing basic ethical issues and applying results of those analyses to particular problems, Wojtyła and Styczeń may be regarded as the two „founding fathers.” Although it is possible to clearly distinguish the contribution of each of those two very different „workers” employed in the same „workshop,” their output can be regarded as their common achievement. The present book has been divided into two parts and tells a story of how the conception of ethics shared by the two thinkers developed over almost half a century. The fruits of their concerted effort may today be considered one of the „monuments” of the Polish philosophy of the 20^th century.

The election of Cardinal from Cracow – who, at the same time, worked as university professor in Lublin – to the papacy, that is, Wojtyła’s becoming Pope John Paul II, may seem to have brought an end to his philosophical collaboration with Styczeń. And, in an important sense, this was actually the case. As the head of the Holy See, the pope could no longer hold a university chair in Lublin. Thus – to cite Styczeń’s apt words – the Chair of Ethics was orphaned. Quite unexpectedly, however, the Chair of Ethics became involved in the activities of John Paul II. The „faraway land” from which pope Wojtyła came to the Vatican attracted attention of the Church – and of the whole world. The mentality of the pope from outside Italy and his philosophical thought were found intriguing; his works were translated into numerous languages, commented upon, and given more or less accurate interpretations. It was rightly presumed that the thought of Karol Wojtyła and the teaching of John Paul II were connected. Obviously, it was also clear that the past of the man who became John Paul II could shed only limited light on his activity and teaching as pope, but it was also absolutely certain that the philosophy he had developed, and particularly his ethics to which he had devoted most of his intellectual effort, is a necessary key to the understanding of the message carried by his pontificate.

The cooperation between Styczeń and his teacher did not stop in 1978, but it underwent a considerable institutional transformation. Although the Pope could no longer remain an active philosopher, his philosophical ideas influenced his pastoral work of the successor of St. Peter responsible for the entire Catholic Church. Moreover, he supported the emerging philosophical milieus inspired by important motifs present in his philosophical oeuvre. To a certain extent, Wojtyła’s personalism, considered as a modernized version of Thomism was adopted in the traditional centers of Catholic thought. It is worth remembering, however, that Wojtyła’s thought was criticized in those Catholic milieus in which Thomism was believed outdated, incapable of adequately addressing contemporary problems and new anthropological, civilization-related, and ecclesial challenges. Fortunately, after 1980, the originality of Wojtyła’s personalism was appreciated in new academic institutions which Fr. Prof. Tadeusz Styczeń, then the successor of Karol Wojtyła to the Chair of Ethics in Lublin, helped establish Those centers were the John Paul II Institute at the Catholic University of Lublin, the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein, and the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at the Pontifical Lateran University (within the following two decades, the latter institute opened over a dozen of branches across several continents). During the pontificate of John Paul II, not only did Styczeń spread the knowledge about Karol Wojtyła’s personalist philosophy, but he also advanced his own ideas, thus ensuring the continuity of the school and its influence all over the world.

The ethics developed by Wojtyła and Styczeń is part of philosophical and theological personalism, a broader current of thought which may be regarded as an expression of the attempts to renew the Catholic intellectual tradition. The personalist „explosion” left its mark on different currents of thought, and particularly on those 20^th century philosophical schools and movements which strove to overcome the reductionist approach characteristic of positivism. Personalism influenced neo-Thomism (Jacques Maritain), phenomenology (Max Scheler, Dietrich von Hildebrand, and Edith Stein), existentialism (Gabriel Marcel), and philosophy of dialogue (Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas). These philosophers, albeit very different, shared a common perspective which made it possible for them to recognize the significance of the problem of man. A theoretical interest in the concept of person (introduced by early Christian thinkers) was part of the „personalist awakening” which spread across culture in the first half of the 20^th century. Personalism appeared as a response to the crisis of humanity experienced by modern man, aroused hope for overcoming different forms of alienation present in modern societies, offered an alternative to violence, and restored the transcendent meaning to human existence Personalism was like a dream, or a utopia, an idea rather than a „finished” philosophical theory. Emmanuel Mounier, whose contribution to the personalist turn cannot be overestimated, considered personalism as a kind of revolution which would help build communities in a pacifistic fashion, avoiding the destructive dialectics of individualism and collectivism.

For Wojtyła and Styczeń, the discovery of the centrality of the person resulted from their direct existential experience of the totalitarian systems, Nazism and Communism. Wojtyła’s youth and Styczeń’s childhood coincided with the time of the German occupation which brought death to almost six million of its citizens of the Polish and Jewish nationalities. To the end of his life, Styczeń, who had lived in a village near Cracow and just several kilometers from Auschwitz, remembered the disturbing smell of the wind blowing from the direction of the crematories Having endured the Communist regime (1944-1989), Poland became „the land of a particularly responsible witness,” as John Paul II said to his fellow-countrymen during the first pilgrimage to his homeland in 1979. The witness he had in mind was that borne to the truth about the inviolable dignity of the human person.

All the social strata suffered from Communist repressions in Poland and, although the intensity of the repressions varied in different periods of the Communist rule, the systemic distortion of truth remained its unchanging characteristic. Thus, to the Poles who resisted Communism, the right to search for truth and to tell the truth became inseparable from human dignity. That is also why they attached so high a value to the culture based both on Christianity and on the Enlightenment The last decade of the Communist regime in Poland witnessed an extraordinary encounter and cooperation between Catholics and people of secular identity who all shared the enthusiasm for the idea of solidarity and recognized the priority of community over difference and conflict. The „Solidarność” movement embodied in many ways the idea of a non-violent revolution which Mounier had developed in response to the challenges posed by totalitarianisms and expounded in his personalist texts written already during the interwar period Polish workers, intellectuals, and clergy found a common language: it was the language of the modern doctrine of human rights which provided justification to their resistance to the violence inflicted on them by the Communist regime and inspired their efforts towards political and economic transformation. Their quest for liberation from totalitarianism was rooted in the desire to give freedom to an individual human subject and also to promote free collective subjectivity.

Personalism emerged in the 20^th century as an ideological response to the crisis of humanity. In a way it „had to” come into being as a „spiritual necessity” in the context of a difficult search for hope. This is fully borne out by the connection of philosophical reflection on the person developed by the Lublin moral philosophers with the history of their country: the history whose witnesses and participants they became. Confronted with the reality of totalitarianism, Catholic philosophy could not just reproduce what it had classically affirmed, but had to return to its roots, reconsider them, and discover the centrality of the person. As someone jokingly said at the time, the only place, from Berlin to Seoul, where philosophy survived and thrived was the Catholic University of Lublin. It is easy to contradict this claim by pointing to facts: philosophy was developed also in other academic and non-academic centers in Poland. Yet, the claim in question, being an expression of equal measures of pride and isolation, is in a certain sense true. In fact, the philosophy Wojtyła and Styczeń started at the Catholic University of Lublin was new: it was developed mainly within the field of ethics and combined the classical, Aristotelian and Thomistic, philosophy of being with the modern philosophy of the subject. Such a synthesis was made possible by an in-depth, realistic reflection on the historical experience of man, which embraced, on the one hand, a negation and destruction of humanity and, on the other, the effort to safeguard – to use Wojtyła’s term „the irreducible in man.”

It would be a mistake, however, to reduce Wojtyła’s ethics to a mere response to the challenges of totalitarianism Instead, his ideas were rooted in a belief that all the important issues of human existence must be regarded in the light of the fundamental human experience in which the human being is revealed to him- or herself. An effort to understand morality and an attempt at its normative interpretation presuppose a twofold understanding of the person who is both the subject of morality and the object of human actions. The ethics advanced by the Lublin personalist takes the shape of a general theory based on a sound knowledge of human affairs which does not a priori separate lofty spiritual experiences from the prose of everyday „material” life. It must be remembered that Wojtyła was not only a philosopher, but also a poet and playwright In one of his plays, he showed a young couple expressing their love and fascination with each other by going together to buy a pair of shoes, a simple everyday activity they lived through with a psychological intensity never experienced before.

The personalistic norm, one of the key elements of Wojtyła’s ethical thought, was formulated as if accidentally, on the occasion of an analysis pertaining to what is today called „applied ethics.” In his book Miłość i odpowiedzialność [Love and Responsibility] (1960), he intended to address questions emerging during his work, as pastor and professor, among young people who frequently talked to him about love, engagement, and marriage. His book evolved into an in-depth analysis of metaphysical, psychological, and ethical aspects of love His discussion of the relation of the person to the sexual drive, love, and chastity, as well as the connection between God and the human love, was set against the background of the fundamental ethical concepts explained in the first part of the book. Having described the personal being as an autonomous subject endowed with interiority and particular dignity, Wojtyła argues that love is the only adequate response a person may give to who the person is So understood and interpreted in the light of moral experience (whose center is a person’s experience of personhood in both himself and other human beings who are „objects,” or „addressees” of his actions), the personalistic norm coincides with the Christian commandment of love.

The call to love is a positive content of the personalistic norm, its negative expression being the prohibition to use the person as a means to an end or to reduce her to an object of use. It is difficult to ignore a certain similarity of this view to Immanuel Kanfs ethics of the categorical imperative (Wojtyła’s ambivalent attitude to Kant’s ethical paradigm will be discussed later) Introducing the category of the person affects, on the one hand, particular moral judgements and decisions and, on the other hand, the general understanding of morality as a domain of the person Thus the personalistic norm makes it possible to consistently interpret the traditional Catholic doctrine of the ends of marriage: procreation of children (procreatio), mutual help (mutuum adiutorium), and remedy for concupiscence (remedium concupiscentiae) must be integrated by the principle of love. In this sense, love does not constitute another purpose of marriage, but gives meaning to each of its particular ends, at the same time eliminating the need to arrange them in a hierarchy or to assess their relative values The personalistic approach proposed by Wojtyła amended the overly objectifying – almost utilitarian – interpretations upheld in Catholic handbooks of moral theology. Against the Catholic ethics of the i95os, his proposal emerged as fresh, free from reductionist tendencies, and opened a new field of dialogue with new moral theology which in those years had just begun to develop and which, intent on avoiding the naturalistic fallacy, risked another kind of reductionism, namely the absolutization of the subjective aspect of morality.

Wojtyła’s considerations on the ends of marriage does not take much space in Love and Responsibility, being presented as if on the margin of a detailed moral and existential reflection, yet they contain in nuce an outline of an original, personalistic solution to the controversy between the traditional ethics of natural law and the new ethics of creative reason With his philosophical intuition into the integration of person and nature, Wojtyła, a priest working among young people and himself a young professor of ethics, anticipated the debate which would break out only during the pontificate of John Paul II.

Similarly, the personalistic principle makes it possible to understand the phenomenon of shame and its „absorption” in the acts of love. The issue of the moral significance of shame had attracted attention of moral philosophers since antiquity, but it is only in more recent times that Vladimir Solovyov and Max Scheler connected the experience of shame, and especially of sexual shame, with the experience of the dignity of the person; they considered shame as an expression of the transcendence of the human person over her biological nature. Wojtyła developed this view by indicating that apart from the law of the protection of the subjectivity of the person by shame, there is also the law of the absorption of shame by love: shame disappears in the process of man’s and woman’s opening up to each other and mutual total gift of self in the marital act.

Wojtyła’s ethical personalism, the theory outlined and applied to the particular issues of marital and sexual ethics in Love and Responsibility, is of great cultural significance. Personalism opposes the utilitarian mentality which exerts an increasing influence on the models of experiencing sexuality in the age of secularism and expansive consumerism. Obviously, as a Catholic priest, Wojtyła believes in the views on marriage and family proclaimed by the Church, but it is important to note that to justify these views he uses philosophical arguments, consistent with the content of the Catholic faith but, at the same time, methodologically independent from it. He finds these arguments in the personalistic interpretation of spousal love developed via phenomenological analysis of the dignity of the person and of moral duty (which is rooted in dignity). Wojtyła’s opposition against the utilitarian mentality has given an impulse towards the renewal of the traditional Catholic vision of marriage and family: he showed that the vision in question was grounded no so much in tradition, mores, or law, as in the truth about the person and about her fulfillment in love achieved through responsibility and the gift of self. Wojtyła’s objective was not only to undermine the utilitarian mentality, but also to reinstate the value of the person and her love in the Catholic mentality.

While developing his critique of the utilitarian mindset in Love and Responsibility, Wojtyła scrutinized philosophical ideas of David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill and, in his articles and lectures, criticized utilitarianism as an ethical theory which, in his view, stands in opposition to the personalistic understanding of morality. While personalists believe that moral obligation stems from the absolute value of the person rooted in her dignity (for instance, Kanfs categorical imperative or Wojtyła’s personalistic norm), adherents of utilitarianism see the source of moral order in sense impressions and rational calculation. According to Wojtyła, utilitarianism replaces the objective concept of the good with its subjective understanding Humanitarianism, so frequently postulated by utilitarians, does not coincide with personalistic ethics: the former aims at improving external conditions of human life, while the latter, as a form of deontological ethics, finds the criterion of the moral goodness of human actions in a selfless respect for the dignity of the person as an objective value.

It would be an error, however, to oppose usefulness and moral goodness. Wojtyła avoids this misconception. He does not suggest an opposition between usefulness or pleasure and goodness, nor does he reject the former to defend the latter; instead, he argues that it is normatively superior. On personalistic view, it is essential for morality that the subject be „moved” by the truth about the person seen as a good (value). The rationality of moral action is not limited only to the sphere of means, but primarily refers to the understanding of the mode of being specific to the person in comparison with other entities, her being „someone” and not „something.”

The critique of utilitarianism leads Karol Wojtyła to argue against eudaemonism and to propose a reconstruction of Christian ethics. Although his ethical works imply the necessity to break with the eudaemonist tradition, Wojtyła remains cautious about purging Aristotelian-Thomistic ethics of the elements of eudaemonism, as if putting off this task indefinitely. Tadeusz Styczeń and Andrzej Szostek, his outstanding disciples and continuators, took it upon themselves by separating the eudaemonist model of ethics from the personalistic one and distinguishing between personalism and what Styczeń called deontonomism (that is, the ethics based on a command of an authority). Each of the three mentioned ethical systems justifies moral obligation in a different way and thus each of them indicates a different form of motivation for human action. According to eudaemonism, an action is motivated by its happiness-generating quality, according to deontonomism by a dictate, or command, of an authority, while personalism claims that an action must „affirm” the person conceived of as a good (value).

Ex post, a move from personalistic norm to personalistic ethics may seem obvious, yet to embark on such a venture, it was necessary to make, on the one hand, a comparative analysis of different ethical systems and, on the other hand, an indepth scrutiny of the experience of morality. In his reflection on the foundations of ethics, Karol Wojtyła succeeded in weaving these two apparently separate threads together by combining research into the history of ethics with analysis of the data given in the experience of morality. Thus, to construct the personalistic model of ethics, Wojtyła followed two parallel paths: one leading through the history of philosophy, the other through phenomenological insight into things in themselves. To put it more precisely, the phenomenological insight into the content of experience made it possible to bring order into the historical heritage of ethics. Outlined in i95os and ig6os, in the ethical thought of Wojtyła, personalism provides – according to Styczeń and Szostek – a new model for ethics: it retains some elements of the ethical tradition (in which, undoubtedly, „personalistic pre-intuitions” have been present) and, at the same time, brings to the fore the connection between the reality of morality and the reality of the person. It is also worth noting that the continuity, apparent in the works published by the Lublin personalists of two generations, of the reflection on the significance of accepting the personalistic norm as the fundamental norm of morality for the model of ethics, may provide an important argument to consider Wojtyła and Styczeń as the founders of the Lublin School of Personalism. Although the reflection in question is homogenous, it is possible to identify several stages in its development.

To indicate an influence of the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, or Max Scheler on Karol Wojtyła’s conception of ethics does not mean to say that his views were in any way eclectic. The multiple historical sources helped him understand the complex reality of „morality-person” better. The history of ethics taught Wojtyła that, firstly, different ethical traditions focused on different particular aspects of reality and made them a basis for universal theories; secondly, it was necessary to attempt a synthesis to provide a more adequate, more faithful, and more complete insight into morality itself – an insight made possible by uniting the aspects that had previously been separated. Formed by his Thomistic studies in Cracow and Rome, Wojtyła follows, to a certain extent, in the footsteps of Aquinas and, like his medieval teacher, considers various, even contradictory, opinions in order to extract the truth. His hermeneutics, similar to that proposed by St. Thomas and embracing also the Thomistic ethical thought, prompted Wojtyła to revise the latter and to seek inspiration in the ideas of Kant and Scheler. The aim of such a revision was not only to complement the old medieval theory, rooted in the even older Aristotelian tradition, with the concepts developed by modern and contemporary philosophy, but, more importantly, to build a consistent ethical system: a personalistic interpretation of morality grounded in experience.

Wojtyła thoroughly scrutinized the ethics developed by Scheler and considered whether it could be used as a foundation for Christian ethics. To this problem he devoted his post-doctoral thesis (habilitacja) presented at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow in 1953. His conclusion was that Scheler’s phenomenological ethics, due to its main philosophical presuppositions (such as essentialism, emotionalism, obscuring the proper object of morality either by psychological research or by the sociological analysis of ethos, the ambiguous idea of imitation [Nachahmung], and subjectivism in the theory of conscience), would not be an adequate tool for Christian moral theology. However, according to Wojtyła, the discrepancy between the Christian vision of morality and Scheler’s phenomenological ethics does not undermine the value of phenomenological method as a cognitive tool which makes it possible to grasp the phenomenal aspect of the object of ethics and to make the latter closer to the concrete realities of life.

An emphasis Scheler put on the axiological character of morality aroused particular interest in Wojtyła who, like the German phenomenologist, believed that material analysis of values might lead to overcoming Kanfs formalism. He criticized, however, Scheler’s antithetical view on value and norm as mutually exclusive and argued that the reduction of the phenomenon of morality to emotional feeling of values does not correspond to experience. He also disagreed with Scheler’s rejecting the participation of human will in the pursuit of moral goodness. It was an analysis of the experience of morality that convinced Wojtyła of the error Scheler had made in explaining the connection between values and the person As the analysis of the experience of morality reveals the agency of the person, the latter cannot be conceived as the only „place” where values manifest themselves. The fact of the person’s agency in his quest for moral fullness contradicts the image, inherent in Scheler’s understanding of morality, of the human psyche infiltrated or flooded with values. On this view, the psyche remains passive and its role is reduced to preferring higher values and being permeated with the love for them The controversy between Wojtyła and Scheler is, in fact, a controversy between two different phenomenologies of values.

A critical interest in Kanfs ethical philosophy allowed Wojtyła to develop his own outlook on the modern anthropological turn and its effect on the paradigm of ethics. He valued highly Kant’s understanding of the personalistic essence of morality and the latter’s emphasis on the normative character of ethics. In Kantian ethics, however, duty is so predominant that it becomes not only the key element of morality but, in fact, its only element Apriorism and placing morality in the realm of reason alone make morality fade away from individual human lives Separating consciousness from the act, Kant banishes the moment of agency and the process of moral improvement from the field of morality. Normativity, as interpreted by Kant, has no objective grounding, as the notions of law and duty are based on the subjectivist premises of the „Copernican turn in philosophy.” In spite of his fascination with Kanfs formula of the categorical imperative, Wojtyła believes that Kant has actually impoverished the object of ethics. His important ethical discovery is clouded by confusion, or even errors, in his views on being and man.

It is not surprising that Wojtyła was attracted by a metaphysical theory of action and of the good, a theory in which being is considered as the foundation of morality. He claims that the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics of human action, with its inherent theory of act and potency, explains how the human being becomes morally good. Against the background of such metaphysics, ethics reveals what Wojtyła called a „perfectiorist” (perfekcjorystyczny)^[1] (as opposed to perfectionist) trait. Through the agency of her will, the person perfects herself morally and can thus achieve her fullness as a human being.

However, it would be a mistake to believe that Wojtyła intended to restore Thomistic ethics. His endeavor must not be seen as confined to any philosophical theory or school. In his quest to reach the fundamental truth of things in themselves, he is a thoroughly modern thinker and, at the same time, a thoroughly classical one. The philosophical tradition or, properly speaking, various traditions are simply stimuli for his research As a result, he has proposed his personalistic ethics as a new model of interpreting morality. In this model, different motives present in the tradition are combined to enable a synthetic – fuller and more consistent – understanding of the reality of „person-morality” conceived as a whole. The originality of his project must not be judged only against the ideas of moral philosophers who inspired his investigations. Rather, his originality lies in uniting all the aspects of morality given in experience – in contrast to different schools of ethical thought which have absolutized some of these aspects.

Karol Wojtyła planned – as we can learn from his handwritten notes – to write a book on the concept of experience in ethics. Some short articles published at the end of i96os and the beginning of i97os also testify to this intention. These papers help understand his conception of moral experience (morality) and his attitude towards the positivistic view (popular in those days, but today – as it seems – obsolete) on the experience of morality.

Moral experience is individual and concrete; it is rooted in the life of a particular real person and of communities of persons, while the experience of morality reveals its essential traits and makes it possible to grasp the universal properties of what is given in moral experience. Moral experience (morality) includes the questions concerning (1) good and evil and (2) the reason of good. The former concerns the content of duty, the latter – the justification of duty. According to Wojtyła, these questions give origin to two disciplines: ethics and theory of morality. Ethics is normative, while theory of morality is explanatory. Neither ethics nor theory of morality can be reduced to descriptive disciplines, such as sociology or psychology of morality. Normativity can be found in the very experience of morality, it is frequently present in dramatic situations in life and, therefore, cannot be ignored without distorting the essence of the object of ethics and of the philosophical theory of morality based on it.

The dispute with positivism (which allowed only descriptive ethics) concerns the understanding of experience. Wojtyła conceives the latter as an inner experience involving reason, with its capacity to pose questions and to gain insight into actual states of affairs. In his view, experience is inseparable from understanding, there is no gap between empirical data and thought processes: interpretation and explanation referring to the content of experience itself. In the case of moral experience (morality), the content is essentially, and not just accidentally, normative. In other words, by philosophizing on moral issues, we continue our intellectual (and, to a large extent, systematic) exploitation of the experience of morality, our making it rationally evident and understanding it Wojtyła refutes positivism, as it were, on its own ground, by showing that a narrow, and in particular scientistic, concept of experience refers to a type of reality different from the moral reality presenting itself directly to a subject.

The experience of morality reveals the actual complexity and multilayered nature of the homogenous phenomenon of morality in which three different planes may be distinguished: axiological, normative, and praxeological. Value, duty, and act are the constitutive elements of a complete experience of morality As Wojtyła argues in his studies on the history of ethics, theories of morality offered by various ethical systems – either classical or contemporary – are sometimes completely disparate because they usually consider, at their starting point, only one aspect of the multilayered experience of morality. He believes that a philosophical interpretation of morality must, on the one hand, show the individual planes of experience as separate and distinct and, on the other hand, emphasize the unity of the fact of morality as rooted in the being of the person.

Wojtyła’s studies on the history of ethics and his reflection on the role of experience in constructing theories of morality are a further step on the path towards personalism in ethics. Let us remember that Wojtyła’s first step was to show the personalistic norm as revealing a deeply personal nature of human relationships, and in particular of marital love which is nurtured by each of the spouses aware of their responsibility for the other. At the initial stage of his ethical reflection, the author of Love and Responsibility follows the normative 'orbit⁷ of ethical considerations. The attentive reader, however, would easily note that the normative orbit overlaps with the axiological one. This becomes evident when Wojtyła ponders about what kind of being or, more properly speaking, who the person is, and about love as the only adequate response to the measure of the person’s being and dignity. A norm is both imperative (as applied to the will of a subject) and cognitive (as rooted in the subjecfs reason) in nature, since it is an expression of the truth about a value. Recognizing a person’s dignity – either spontaneously, in an instant, or as a result of a prolonged cognitive process – results in discovering a norm of morally good behavior towards her. The normative space is vast and extends from showing respect to making the gift of self, but regardless of how much is required in a given situation, the norm always stems from the understanding who the „addressee” of an action is, in other words, from the understanding that affirmation is due to every person from every other one. Value and duty are correlated in such a way that they are always revealed as intertwined – yet it is easy either to separate them too hastily, or to blend one of these elements into the other. According to Wojtyła, a personalistic theory of morality (that is, one in which morality is understood as being „about” the relationships between persons) makes it possible to perceive both the difference between norms and values and the necessary bond between these two „layers” of the person’s moral life more clearly and distinctly than non-personalistic interpretations of morality (that is, ones that disregard its connection with the person) do.

Although it has its definite object and thus can be interpreted theoretically within a philosophical system, the experience of morality is part of a real, biographically unrepeatable life of a person. The link between the biography of a person and morality are his actions which make him morally good or evil. Morality, considered from the perspective of the human act, is dynamic and totally contingent, and pertains to human biographies and to the history of humankind. A person may achieve moral greatness and forfeit it. In fact, human life – not only human life as such, but above all the life of an individual where moral improvement and failure alternate – is a drama of the incessant struggle for the quality of its moral element.

An approach to morality solely from the perspective of values and norms does not reflect its dynamic – unrepeatable and dramatic – structure. Only when we acknowledge the tension (present in the human action) between a norm and a value from which the norm stems, we can see how morality is grounded in the being or, strictly speaking, in the drama of the person. Otherwise, theories of morality risk becoming schematic: the „normative,” or „axiological,” truth they proclaim may diverge from the „existential” truth of the moral life of a person who shapes herself with her own acts. Wojtyła’s affinity for Aristotelian-Thomistic concept of ethics as a practical discipline is based on his thorough analysis of the experience of morality. One does not have to share the eudaemonist interpretation of the norm of morality to be able to appreciate the contribution of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas to the understanding of the key role of praxis in the constitution of a moral being or, in fact, in the moral self-constitution of the person.

In his studies on the problem of experience in ethical theory, Wojtyła indicated two paths to follow while investigating the foundations of normative ethics: one of them leads towards axiology, the other towards anthropology. The personalist normative ethics should thus travel the path of reflection on values and, at the same time, the one of inquiry into the human person and her acts.

Wojtyła, however, did not develop his axiology, leaving it in outline, as it was presented in Love and Responsibility, where he discussed the connection of the personalistic norm with the truth about the dignity of the person. His axiology is of anthropological character and does not include more general and more fundamental reflection on values, such as the considerations proposed by the representatives of realistic phenomenology (Scheler, Hildebrand, Roman Ingarden), but is concerned directly with the value of the person, the value of humanity and, obviously, the moral value itself, as normatively and dynamically connected to the values of the person and of her humanity. Personalist axiology does not exhaust anthropology but is its distinctive part. It is impossible to understand morality without understanding who the person is, but it is also true that without considering morality as a specific attribute of the person, not only would a philosophical interpretation of the person be incomplete, but decidedly wrong. Even focusing on the value of the person, axiology aims at grasping a value and its foundation. Therefore, the concentration on the insight into the values of the person and her humanity may lead to isolating this insight from the existential and dynamic reality of the person, as well as to the theoretical separation of value from being. The fact that at a later stage of his philosophical activity Wojtyła did not address axiological issues does not mean to say that he did not appreciate them. Due the link between the value of the person and the being of the person is inseparable, the axiological themes are present but remain hidden in the anthropological questions to which the cardinal from Cracow devoted his study Osoba i czyn [The Acting Person] (1969), published almost ten years after Love and Responsibility.

In the introduction to The Acting Person, Wojtyła emphasizes that he had excluded ethical questions from his analyses, just as one can put certain elements of mathematical expressions outside brackets. Such bracketing of normative-axiological issues does not diminish their importance for anthropological reflection, nor does it express Wojtyła’s intention to abandon the project of building a consistent system of personalistic ethics whose outline began to emerge in his earlier works There are certainly many keys to the interpretation of The Acting Person, the book whose philosophical horizon seems, in a sense, to surpass everything its author had written before This outstanding work provoked numerous critical questions and, at the same time, became a source of inspiration. In short, the attempt to produce a synthesis of the philosophy of being with the philosophy of consciousness, and thus to transform the metaphysics of being into „the metaphysics of the person,” is shocking to some and inspiring to others.

It would be a simplification to believe that Karol Wojtyła’s investigation into the person through an analysis of her actions was motivated simply by his ambitious theoretical project to connect the axiological-normative aspect of ethics with its practical aspect and to combine, in a consistent theory, the concept of the person as value-norm with the concept of the person as an agent and cause of the moral value of her actions. Wojtyła, however, belongs among the thinkers who give their philosophizing a deeper moral meaning by addressing questions important at a given historical moment, that is, questions that must be asked and answered for the sake of humanity. He is convinced that the aim of philosophizing is not only a theory, but also an appropriate praxis; not only knowledge, but also awakening. The personalistic reconstruction of philosophy attempted in The Acting Person is a response to the condition of the human being in the mid-20^th century. The shock caused by the multifarious degradation of the human dignity could not remain without a radical response from philosophy. The social sciences and the humanities accumulate ever greater knowledge about the human being. This knowledge, however, becomes more and more specialized, fragmented, and abstract. As a result, the increase in knowledge in different disciplines devoted to the study of man obscures his irreducible subjectivity so that man becomes „the unknown” to himself.

Wojtyła is neither the first, nor the only author who has recognized the crisis in the „sciences of man,” but his proposal is distinguished by its audacity. To inspire contemporary people with hope, it is, of course, necessary to understand who the person is and what is the nature of her activity in the world. However, the boldness of Wojtyła’s proposal does not lie only in its cognitive value, that is, in the results which may be expressed in the form of a coherent system he sought with great passion to build. Wojtyła seems audacious also in a truly philosophical sense: through his philosophy, he has touched what is pre-philosophical, the very source of philosophical questions and of energy necessary to seek the answers – namely wonder. Wojtyła writes that wonder has the power to crush the obvious, to make a person shake her intellectual habits and confront mystery. The attitude of wonder is not just an accessory to personalism, but its particular trait which distinguishes personalistic philosophy from any philosophy of „purely objectivistic” kind. Personalistic philosophy, with its pursuit of scientific (rational) objectivization, does not spring just from the wonder inspired by the fact that there exists „something” rather than nothing, but from an even greater wonder at the existence of „someone.” In personalism, as Wojtyła conceives it, the philosophy of the person is grounded in the lived experience of the person.

It must be added that the shift of Wojtyła’s interest from ethics to anthropology was in some way prompted by his participation in the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965. Reading his numerous speeches delivered at the Council sessions, one is impressed by an extraordinary personalistic sensitivity of the bishop from Cracow. At the time, the thought that the truth about the human being as a person is the key to understanding the pastoral novelty of the Council was ripening in his mind. During the preparations for the synod of the Cracow Archdiocese, designed to help the local Church adopt the teaching of the Council, Wojtyła published U podstaw odnowy. Studium o realizacji Vaticanum II [Sources of Renewal: The Implementation of the Second Vatican Council] (1972). The book may be read as a „pastoral translation” of The Acting Person. The implementation of the Council, on Wojtyła’s view, consists in shaping the awareness and attitudes of the faithful in order to strengthen their Christian subjectivity in the community of the Church. Renewing the Church from within, making it capable of dialogue calls for a renewed philosophy of the human being, for a more complete and deeper understanding that the human being is a person. As the Council was based mainly on the pastoral premises, no official philosophy was proposed in the Counciliar documents. Karol Wojtyła, however, had no doubt whatsoever that personalism was the philosophy which had integrated the ideas proposed by the Council and animated the activities of the Church in the modern world.

Does this mean to say that the then professor of ethics at the Catholic University of Lublin suspended his ethical reflection? By turning towards anthropology, Wojtyła did not abandon ethics completely. Already after The Acting Person was published, he conceived, in cooperation with other scholars at the Chair of Ethics, a project of a handbook of personalistic ethics based on the ideas proposed in his book on the philosophy of the person. The project has never been completed and the unfinished manuscript of the first part of the handbook (Tadeusz Styczeń was expected to be the author of its second part) was published only in 1991 under the title Człowiek w polu odpowiedzialności [Man in the Field of Responsibility]. Despite being rather sketchy, the book completes the personalistic reconstruction of ethics, on which Wojtyła worked for over a quarter of a century. Among his works addressing theological, philosophical and social problems, one can distinguish what I would call „the personalistic corpus” whose core consists of three books: Love and Responsibility, The Acting Person, and Man in the Field of Responsibility. The books may be read as a unique itinerary of personalism in ethics: they illustrate the path along which Wojtyła’s philosophy developed by moving from ethics to anthropology and then traveling back, returning from anthropology to ethics. The circularity of ethical-anthropological discourse, the parallelism between ethical and anthropological reflection, and anthropological arguments used in ethics are specific methodological characteristics of the Lublin School of Ethics. This approach, developed by Wojtyła and perfected by Styczeń, has been adopted by their disciples. With his characteristic succinctness, Styczeń writes that „the role of ethics is to reveal the person”.

It is time to recapitulate the presentation of the anthropological foundations of ethics discovered in the process of „looking at the person through the window of her act” (as it was expressed by Styczeń). The insights obtained in this process concern, on the one hand, the person as a subject of morality and, on the other hand, the very essence of morality conceived as a rational and free response of a person to the value of person or, in other words, to the person as an object of morality. Thus, The Acting Person provides the reader with anthropological insights which shed light on morality and make it possible to understand this reality more clearly and completely. Wojtyła’s analyses of consciousness, self-determination, integration of nature in the person, and participation are, as such, pre-ethical and do not refer directly to axiological and normative principles. However, by showing the connection between morality and the agency of the person or explaining the position of the person in the structure of morality, the analyses in question help understand what morality is in itself. In my further discussion, I have also shown how some anthropological insights enhance our perception of axiological-normative problems. This is the case of our understanding of consciousness, natural law, and virtue All these ethical categories have originated from ancient philosophy and have taken root in classical ethics with its different normative paradigms, and the claim that they have been discovered and introduced to ethics only by personalism would be unjustified. What personalism actually does is, as it were, place them on a different level than that available to the earlier ethical paradigms, discover not the particular categories applied in the interpretation of morality, but their deep grammar, and reveal the separateness of the essence of morality from the essence of the person and, at the same time, their union.

The Acting Person is usually regarded as a synthesis of the classical philosophy of being and the modern philosophy of consciousness. Wojtyła looks at the problem of consciousness not only from the epistemological perspective, but also from the ontological one. He is interested in the role of consciousness in the constitution of the human self and distinguishes between the reflecting and the reflexive functions of consciousness. The former is related to cognition and mirrors the objectifying activity of the intellect, while the latter plays a „subjectifying” role, that is, makes it possible for the person to live through her own subjectivity. So understood, consciousness interiorizes human knowledge and, at the same time, creates a space for the lived experience of the identity of a particular, concrete self, thus constituting the unrepeatable subjectivity of a person. The subjectivity in question must not be mistaken for subjectivism: subjectivity is a distinctive trait of being a person, while subjectivism is an epistemological error resulting from the absolutization of consciousness (which is one of the aspects, and not the whole, of the human being). Subjectivism considers consciousness as an agent (that is, a subject and efficient cause of cognitive acts and processes), thus distorting the realistic, object-oriented, intentional nature of human cognition. By emphasizing the reflecting (mirroring) function of consciousness, Wojtyła shows that consciousness as such is not intentional and that intentionality has its source in the human intellectual faculty The subjectivity of a person, constituted thanks to consciousness, remains open to objective reality: both the reality which is external to it and the internal reality grasped through self-awareness and self-knowledge.

What is the significance of this ontological discussion of consciousness for the understanding of morality? The Aristotelian-Thomistic ethics gave a lot of attention to the analysis of human action considered as conscious and free (the so called voluntarium). In a way, Wojtyła descends to a still more fundamental level to show that the attributes of the human action are the attributes of the person herself. The awareness of being an agent and an efficient cause of one’s act (self-awareness) is a necessary element of performing this act. Thanks to consciousness, there is a connection between a person and her being an agent. The person is aware of her agency and of the object of her action and thus her responsibility for the action is proportional to her awareness. Wojtyła does not depart here from the Thomistic understanding of the connection between awareness and responsibility but provides the traditional theory with essential foundation and in-depth justification. He explains, firstly, to what extent the properties of an action are the properties of the person who performs it and, secondly, in what way moral value born of an action „fills out” the consciousness of a subject and thus constitutes his or her inner identity.

The analysis of consciousness as an attribute of the person makes it possible to understand the dynamics of moral life, moral value being for every person an indicator of the level of his individual human development, as it were, of the level of humanity he has achieved in his life. Already in his early writings Wojtyła rejected perfectionism in ethics, that is, the standpoint according to which the level of moral life must be evaluated with always the same – always the greatest – measure.

Instead, he defended what he called „perfectiorism” and appreciated the dynamics and processual nature of the realization of moral value. On this view, moral value is gradable and depends on a variety of factors – reflected in consciousness – affecting the moral subject. Perfectiorism regards morality as the pursuit for excellence, as the process in which moral subjects become perfect, yet the process itself is more important than the achieved level of perfection.

While reflecting the drama of moral life and its contingency, consciousness due to its „subjectifying” function – unites the subjectivity of the person with her moral condition. Consciousness interiorizes morality and, at the same time, objectivizes it: it is in the field of her consciousness that a person experiences her becoming morally good or evil. Recognizing the role of consciousness in the origin of moral value supports the idea of ethics as a practical discipline. According to Wojtyła, the practical and the normative profiles of ethics determine and limit one another. General norms are applied to the unrepeatable existential condition of a person who consciously performs and lives through her action On the other hand, the interiorization of an action by consciousness opposes ethics developed according to casuistic principles, that is, the total objectivization of morality; the inner connection of consciousness to truth opposes situational ethics, that is, the total subjectivization of morality.

The person expresses and fulfills herself in an action, as an action reveals and actualizes essential qualities related to personal mode of being, such as consciousness, freedom, and transcendence. The freedom of action is a manifestation of the freedom inherent not only in the will as a faculty that determines the dynamics of human activities, but mainly of the freedom inherent in the person and making her capable of self-determination This self-dependence characteristic of the person is made possible by the structures of self-possession and self-governance The transcendence of the person is revealed by her ability to refer to the objective reality outside herself and, at the same time, by her ability to refer to herself. Self-determination consists in that the person regards herself as her own aim, as her object which, however, preserves it subjective structure and interiority. Whenever the person determines herself by making a decision to achieve a good which she desires (and which presents itself as in some way valuable), she creates, at the same time, her moral personality. Self-determination is manifested both in horizontal transcendence and in vertical transcendence. The two modes of transcendence are „grown together,” inseparable; they overlap and mutually explain each other, while expressing both the substantiality of the person and her relational nature, that is, her existing in relation to the world and to herself. Should human beings be capable only of horizontal transcendence, they would be similar to other animals, perhaps cleverer, capable of expanding and transforming their environment, but still immersed in it Thanks to vertical transcendence – based on freedom conceived as an attribute of the person – human beings exist in themselves and, at the same time, go beyond themselves, that is, exist as persons.

The person’s self-teleology, revealed by the analysis of self-determination, helps understand the personal structure of the moral sphere of human life. The fact that a person can make himself his aim (or his end, as Kant would have it) precludes regarding him as an object, similar to other objects in the world. The concept of self-teleology clearly echoes Kant’s language. However, in contradistinction to Kant, Wojtyła emphasizes that the principle of self-teleology follows, to equal measure, both from stating the fact and from the norm. The affirmation of the person’s freedom and his self-teleology is justified both metaphysically and ethically; what is more, metaphysics and ethics contribute to a consistent interpretation of the fundamental human experience which Wojtyła described with a phrase „man acts.” Although it is a pre-ethical analysis which reveals freedom as a source of human action and its moral value, the analysis of self-determination is also of normative importance. Having discovered that the person is an aim for himself, one must not disrespect the person’s being an aim, whether in one’s own person or in another. In other words, without recognizing the fact of personal freedom, it is impossible to explain the fact of morality as a distinctive trait of the person’s life, while without practical respect for personal freedom it is impossible to affirm the person for his own sake. One may claim, without any exaggeration, that Wojtyła’s analysis of self-determination is the core of his anthropological and ethical thought, as well as the key to the understanding of the relationship between ethics and anthropology.

The philosophical affinity between Wojtyła and Kant, however, has its limitations. Undoubtedly, the ethics of the categorical imperative and the ethics of the personalistic norm are rooted in the same wonder over the fact of human freedom, they are both expressions of the „personalistic turn” and the rejection of the naturalistic understanding of morality, as in eudaemonism or utilitarianism. Both Kant and Wojtyła believe that the sphere of morality is included in the sphere of freedom, but they differ in their views on the source of moral duty: Kanfs standpoint can be described as „decisionist,” while Wojtyła’s is cognitivist.

According to Kant, the person as a rational being can achieve and preserve her autonomy only when she becomes a moral lawgiver for herself. On Wojtyła’s view, the transcendence of the person in an act and the person’s constituting herself morally are determined by the moment of her relating to the truth about the good; thus, freedom is understood as the person’s self-dependence in truth. Wojtyła explains that the normative power of truth is manifested in conscience (which guarantees the autonomy and interiorization of moral life), where the knowledge of the truth about the good and, in particular, of the axiological truth about the person, transforms into duty.

Wojtyła’s view on this issue makes it possible to decide the dispute between Kant and Hume over the (a priori or empirical) status of moral consciousness. At the same time, with his concept of the „truth about the good,” Wojtyła expands the understanding of experience as such and unites experience and reason (divided by two modern currents of thought, rationalism and empiricism) He also restores the classical conception of natural law and develops its personalistic interpretation. Considered from the phenomenological perspective, according to the manner they manifest themselves, nature and person are irreducible each other: the manifestation of the former is a dynamism described as „something happens in man,” while the latter is revealed in „man acts ” However, a more thorough analysis of the bodily and mental structures of man leads to the discovery that, in fact, nature.

is integrated in the person. Natural inclinations are included in the life of the human being as a person, so they must not be regarded as if operating „outside” her, in some separate, purely biological or psychological sphere of her life. The discovery of the integration of nature in the person protects us from anthropological dualism, traditionally formulated as the dualism of body and soul, and, at the same time, from „ethical dualism,” present in the overly idealistic versions of personalism which considered nature as morally irrelevant.

The pre-ethical reflection on the anthropological foundations of ethics is completed by the considerations concerning the social aspect of the existence and activity of persons. In the concluding part of The Acting Person, Wojtyła presents an outline of the theory of participation. He describes participation as an attribute of the person, as that which makes her capable of living in a community. Recognizing both the person’s irreducible subjectivity and her relational nature manifested in her participation in the humanity of others, Wojtyła rejects the visions of social life based on either individualism or collectivism (he calls the latter „totalism” or „anti-individualism”). Participation consists in that the person, acting together with others, contributes to the achievement of the objective common good and, simultaneously, achieves her own personal fullness, according to her self-teleology Participation is opposed to alienation. By introducing the latter concept, the moral philosopher from Lublin engages in a creative dialogue with Marxism. While Marxists find the source of alienation in external social and economic factors, Wojtyła shows that alienation is a consequence of a distorted relationship between the social structure and the person.

Wojtyła’s theory of participation certainly opens a new perspective on the problem of alienation. However, it is also worth noting that the theory in question has in a way anticipated the controversy between the communitarians and the libertarians which broke out in the last decades of the 20^th century. The originality of Wojtyła’s ethics consists in his belief that an ethics of the person would be impossible without an ethics of community He always emphasized that the personalistic norm is the norm of solidarity, while the practice of solidarity is a „translation” of the metaphysics of the person into social reality His philosophical insights were, on the one hand, inspired and, on the other hand, confirmed by the Biblical ethics of neighborly love.

The second part of the book devoted to ethical output of the Lublin philosophical milieu presents the views proposed by Tadeusz Styczeń. As already mentioned, he was a student of Karol Wojtyła (who supervised his doctoral thesis). After obtaining his post-doctoral degree (habilitacja), Styczeń remained, as it were, in the background, still working with his professor, to succeed him, in 1978, to the Chair of Ethics and, later, become the director of the John Paul II Institute. Styczeń’s own thought may be regarded as a result of an exemplary reception of his teacher’s basic ethical insights, completed with fresh, original analyses At the time of John Paul II’s pontificate, Styczeń even more daringly developed his own variation of personalistic ethics which, on the one hand, stems from Karol Wojtyła’s thought and, on the other, incorporates new insights Fr. Styczeń liked to quote the Latin maxim: duo cum faciunt idem non est idem (when two do the same thing, it is not the same thing), which may be well applied.

to his relationship to Wojtyła’s ethical output. This means to say that ideas have their own lives, are taken up by other minds, developed, and applied in new ways. If a teacher’s philosophical conception finds its creative continuation in the ideas of his students – as in the case of Wojtyła and Styczeń – one can expect a philosophical school to emerge. However, keeping in mind the deep ideological connections of Styczeń’s ethics with the ethics developed by Wojtyła, one must also realize that the two Lublin professors had rather different intellectual temperaments.

Wojtyła showed almost no inclination to polemic In his analyses of the views he did not share he frequently discovered some „seeds of truth,” which helped him combine different aspects of reality in one synthetic view. He appears to have mastered the art of synthesis through dialogue, his path towards the truth traversed different philosophical ideas, and his intellectual work reckoned with pluralism in thinking. Styczeń also referred in his texts to ideas of other authors: his erudition was truly impressive and embraced classical and modern authors, Polish and international, philosophers and poets. However, his analyses of other thinkers’ arguments were accompanied by a critical discussion. Adopting a highly polemic approach, he clarified his own standpoint, and because of this style of philosophizing, he may be described as a master of precision.

Like Wojtyła, Styczeń believes that ethics is a theory which explores philosophically the experience of morality. A great part of his early works is devoted to metaethical problems, and particularly to looking for an epistemologically justified and methodologically correct starting point for ethics. He uses the philosophical tools prepared in the metaethical debate held by English- and German-speaking scholars (supporters of logical positivism, intuitionism, and phenomenology) at the beginning of the 20^th century. His contribution to the debate is a personalistic interpretation of morality based on the reflection on the category of moral experience and on a detailed analysis of its content. Thus, he has introduced the key „trinomial” of experience-moral duty-person to metaethical discussions.

On Styczeń’s view, experience conceived as a direct source of knowledge must not be identified – as in empiricism – with sense perception. Due to its content, moral experience – related to the intellectual apprehension and understanding of moral duty – cannot be enclosed in such a narrow epistemological framework. The fact of the experience of moral duty occurring either in the life of an individual or in that of a community and the cultural „reflexes” of that experience in literature, theatre, or film provide the foundation for a broader concept of experience which would include an essential element of intuition. Moreover, the experience of moral duty is not a cognitively complete apprehension of „what I ought to do,” but implies further insight and explanation of what is experientially given. The object of the experience in question is real; it is known in an apodictic and, at the same time, incomplete manner, which is expressed in the questions inherent in the experience: (1) What do I ought to do?, (2) Why do I ought to do what I ought to do?, (3) Why do I ought to do anything at all? Thus, the experience of duty calls for understanding and explanation, and engages human reason by leading it deep into the content of that phenomenon which manifests itself spontaneously and is grasped in a kind of primary perception that may be identified as intellectual intuition.

Moral experience has a normative content rooted the experience of the person. This idea was already developed in Wojtyła’s metaphysical reflection and Styczeń refers to it in order to complete it and make it more precise. Moral duty appears as a relationship between a person who is the subject of an action and a person who is its object, or „addressee.” Duty conceived as a norm commands or forbids an action because of the good (value) the person of its addressee is. Following the classical tradition, Styczeń calls the value of the person, her ontological and axiological magnitude, „dignity” and considers it to be the ultimate reason which explains the fact and the content of the experience of moral duty.

The identification of datum morale, i.e., of the personalistic content of moral experience and of the real existence of its object, as the point of departure for ethics makes it possible to settle the dispute over the status of this discipline as a science. Because of the nature of its object, ethics must be regarded as both an empirical and a normative discipline. This leads inevitably to crystalizing the metaethical conclusions characteristic of Styczeń’s version of personalistic ethics. He confronts his model of ethics, conceived as a theory providing an integral and consistent justification to the primary data of moral experience, with the models of ethics which either assume too narrow a concept of experience or entirely ignore the empirical foundations of ethics

Styczeń’s metaethical position may be described as personalistic cognitivism. Like all cognitivists, he acknowledges empirical sources of moral knowledge, which are rejected by acognitivists, and in particular by emotivists The latter believe that moral duty is apodictic, nevertheless it is something different than objective knowledge; as it does not display any properties of a judgement (is non-propositional), moral duty is a purely psychological phenomenon The broadened conception of experience, that is, the conception that include intellectual intuition, liberates ethics from the bonds of naturalism. Styczeń appreciates the contribution of George Edward Moore and Max Scheler to overcoming naturalism in ethics, but observes, with his usual precision, that their versions of intuitionism do not fully correspond to the actual content of moral experience. The norm „affirmation is due to every person from every other one,” interpreted as the content of moral duty, is a better expression of what is given in moral experience than the statement that good is indefinable. According to Styczeń, Scheler was innovative in emphasizing the personalistic „profile” of moral experience but, focusing exclusively on the eidetic description of values, could not ground his theory in cognitive acts which grasp the real existence of those values.

Styczeń criticizes Scheler for constructing a personalistic ethics in an a priori manner and placing it on a general level, while ignoring the concrete nature of values whose real existence is discovered on the experiential level. However, Scheler’s apriorism is different than that characteristic of Kanhs ethics, rightly criticized by Scheler for its formalism due to the separation of norm from its axiological content Eidetic reduction applied to values and focusing only on their general essences does not suffice to overcome apriorism and implement the project of ethics as an empirical discipline. In his discussion with Scheler, Styczeń shows that the drama of morality (of which, by the way, Scheler was highly aware) is not played in the eidetic sphere, but in the existential one, as a drama of concrete, real people.

Styczeń believes that the aspect of existence must not be disregarded in the metaethical analysis of the object of ethics. He emphasizes that the judgement concerning moral obligation is a kind of judgement of existence, in which the existence of the fact of concrete obligation related to what is actually due from one person to another is stated. The sensitivity to the existential concreteness of a person is a distinctive feature of personalistic thought: such sensitivity can inspire the „personalistic awakening” in the culture dominated, on the one hand, by totalizing ideologies and, on the other hand, by a narrow naturalistic-scientistic approach which disregards the problem of personal subjectivity by failing to recognize it as a real problem. By acknowledging the reality and unrepeatability of the human person, personalism finds common ground with existentialism, which asserts the priority of existence over essence. This claim has been, of course, interpreted in many different ways and is included in both the theistic and atheistic types of modern existentialism.

Existentialism appears to be more pronounced in Styczeń’s views than in Wojtyła’s, which may testify to an exceptionally deep natural sensitivity of the former philosopher to the reality of the person and to the paradox of her dignity and contingency. Not by accident is Pascal’s thinking reed frequently mentioned in Styczeń’s texts. His emphasis on existence as the constitutive factor of the reality of the person and, at the same time, of the reality of her moral duty leads to the conclusion that ethics cannot become a fully philosophical discipline unless it is given a theoretically justified status of the metaphysics of morality.

Working on the conception of ethics as an empirical science, Styczeń introduces to the ethical discourse St Thomas’s concept of being as composed of essence and existence (the concept renewed by modern Thomists, such as Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Stefan Swieżawski, and Mieczysław A. Krąpiec, OP). The inspirations drawn from existential Thomism coincide, in Styczeń’s work, with a precise analysis of the experience of morality. This would eventually lead him to a revision of the model of ethics upheld in the i9^th and 20^th century Thomistic textbooks. Having identified the empirical starting point for ethics, the recognition of „the existence of moral obligation,” it is impossible to consider ethics as a deductive discipline and moral norms as allegedly deduced from the data supplied by anthropology and metaphysics; at the same time, the philosophical realism, born of the confrontation of thought with existence, calls for „the metaphysics of morality” as the culmination of the personalistic interpretation of ethics.

Decoding the personalistic content of moral duty makes it possible for Styczeń to tackle the problem of „Hume’s guillotine.” In a certain sense, Styczeń agrees with the famous (and subject to particularly intense discussions in 20^th century metaethics) claim of the philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment that there is no transition from „is” statements to „ought” statements. Namely, if one adopts a narrow understanding of experience (as Hume did), ethics cannot be considered as an empirical discipline. According to Styczeń, however, there is no need to look for a way to „fill the gap” between „is” and „ought,” because the „gap” is an illusion created by a narrow empiricism (or, more precisely, sensualism), and it would suffice to broaden the concept of experience to acknowledge that what is due to every person from every other one can be grasped together with the truth about the person’s dignity. Because the experience of moral obligation is a fact, norms and moral judgements are not deductive statements, but are analogous to existential judgements in which the existence of things is stated. Thus an „ought” statement is actually a variation of an „is” statement.

Metaethical research on the proper object of ethics affect the model adopted in developing this philosophical discipline. Styczeń understands ethics as creating cognitive conditions which favor the epiphany of the person: the task of a moral philosopher is to reveal the person. If, then, moral duty reveals the person and binds one categorically to treat her in a manner that corresponds to her dignity (and the only such manner is to affirm the person for her own sake), ethics must be conceived as a normative anthropology. There is no deductive link between anthropology and ethics. However, due to the latter’s empirical point of departure, where the connection between moral duty and the person is immediately revealed, the normative content of ethical discourse is also anthropologically significant. This anthropological element helps explain moral experience in the light of the data given in the fundamental human experience, that is, shows that the fact of morality and the fact of the person correspond to each other not only formally, but also with respect to their content.

The personalistic reconstruction of ethics, began by Karol Wojtyła, was completed in the work of his two disciples: Styczeń and Szostek They co-authored the article Uwagi o istocie moralności [Remarks on the Essence of Morality] (1974), which should be regarded as a ground-breaking study in which the controversy concerning the source of the norm of morality has been systematically presented Although both authors draw their conclusions from the phenomenological analysis of the experience of morality – the analysis performed, in a sense, independently from any available ethical theories – their short study provides also a key to the problem of losing and finding the proper object of ethics in the history of Western thought. Antonio Rosmini was probably the first philosopher who observed that many a time what was considered as ethics did not address its proper object. He believed that a great part of ethical thought is, in fact, an inapt combination of eudaemonology (the theory of happiness) and ethics (theory of moral goodness) The first rigorous separation of ethics from eudaemonology can be found, in his opinion, in Kanfs distinction between the categorical imperative and hypothetical imperatives Rosmini points to the ambivalence of Kant’s personalistic ethics: the latter has correctly identified the object of morality, but his understanding of the subject of morality as an absolutely autonomous moral lawgiver is mistaken.

Styczeń and Szostek clearly separate the eudaemonist and the personalistic paradigms of ethics. Up to this point, they seem to share their intellectual journey with Kant, yet later, in the light of the experiential data granting them a fuller insight into the essence of morality, they problematize his ethics They discuss three interpretations of the source of the norm of morality: in eudaemonism it is happiness, in deontonomism a command of an authority, and in personalism the truth about the dignity of the person. Both in the ethics of happiness and in the ethics of command, moral obligation is distorted due to the heterogenization of the moral good. Eudaemonist theories interpret moral goodness as an entirely neutral quality, while deontonomism sees the will of a moral lawgiver as the criterion of the good (thus deontonomism is a voluntarist ethics).

It appears that eudaemonism, due to reducing the moral good to happiness (seen as the object of desire and pursuit), may be considered as a system in which the rationality of human action and the rationality of moral duty itself were, in fact, taken into account, while deontonomism, in which obligation is derived from command, entirely disregards the rationality of action; in the latter view the will of an authority is the sole justification for duty (stat pro ratione voluntas – the will takes the place of reason). Kant believed that both the ethics based on authority and the ethics of happiness (as rooted solely in experience) are expressions of moral heteronomy. The ethics of autonomy requires a rational (that is, independent from experience) foundation, as moral duty is a fact of reason. The moral philosophers from Lublin appreciate Kant’s effort to break with heteronomy in ethics but, at the same time, consider the ethics of autonomy as a kind of voluntarist ethics. Styczeń’s analyses of primary moral experience lead to the conclusion that the rationality of moral obligation is not grounded in an act of the subjecfs decision as to the content of moral law, but in an act of cognition of the objective state of affairs. The personalistic norm reflects the actual axiological connection between the person as a subject and the person as an object; the relation is there even if it is the relation of a person to herself. Moral obligation, as seen by Styczeń, is categorical and gratuitous, just as Kant described it; on the other hand, it is also rational, that is, objectively justified by experience, whose role Kant consistently denied.

Styczeń’s talent for dialogue with the contemporary ethical thought combined with his precision both contributed to his conception of independent ethics developed within the personalistic paradigm. He referred to the idea of independent ethics proposed after the Second World War by Tadeusz Kotarbiński in the context of the clash of Marxism (used as an ideology by the Communist authorities who proclaimed new „revolutionary morality”) with Catholicism (which defended the traditional values). Kotarbiński claims that ethics is independent, because it is based on the „evidence of the heart” and, as rooted in experience, does not need to look for justification either in religious doctrines or in atheism.

In the book Etyka niezależna? [Independent Ethics?] (1980), Styczeń engages in a creative discussion with Kotarbiński. Sharing his views on the independent starting point for ethics, Styczeń strengthens them with the ideas about ethics as an empirical discipline proposed by Tadeusz Czeżowski and also with his own analyses of the primary moral experience in which moral obligation is revealed as a real relationship between persons. The discovery and affirmation of moral duty, however, do not exhaust the ethical discourse; the tasks of ethics include also passing judgements on the moral goodness of an action. Arguments defending moral norms cannot ignore the knowledge provided by philosophy and science, and especially by the social sciences, and also – keeping in mind its epistemological peculiarity by theology: a judgement on the goodness of an action would be impossible without the knowledge supplied by disciplines other that ethics itself. The claim of ethics to total independence must be limited because of the methodological specificity of ethics.

While endorsing the methodological autonomy of ethics, based on its empirical point of departure, Styczeń emphasizes that personalism as an ethical system is a humanism, since it is the dignity of the person that justifies moral duty. This makes his standpoint akin to the conceptions proposed by moral philosophers active in the Lvov-Warsaw School milieu. The school, founded by Kazimierz Twardowski, gained renown particularly for their achievements in logic, but this does not mean to say that the different forms of ethical intuitionism (which reinforced cultural universalism and humanism) belong among the less important achievements of the many philosophers coming from that milieu, which greatly influenced the 20^th century Polish thought.

Styczeń’s ideas on the epistemological and methodological autonomy of ethics coincide with those proposed by Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Tadeusz Czeżowski, Marian Przełęcki, and Andrzej Grzegorczyk and testify to the possibility of dialogue between Christian and secular ethics. Interestingly, at the time of the domination of Marxists in academia in Poland, Styczeń did not engage in the Christian-Marxist dialogue; he believed that the regime which subordinated scholarly research to political power did not create the necessary conditions for honest and reliable dialogue. Yet, he was involved in a dialogue on their shared philosophical interests with those representatives of lay ethics who were not Marxists. As a kind of independent ethics, personalism seems to address the contemporary need for intellectual tools useful in seeking the ethical foundations for pluralist societies. Styczeń contributes two important principles to this quest: (1) the principle of shared values and (2) the principle of pluralism in interpreting and justifying the shared values.

By defending the autonomy of ethics rooted in the autonomy of moral experience and its specific object, Styczeń became a critic of the understanding of moral autonomy (derived from Kant’s thought) conceived as an autonomy of the subject who constitutes the content of moral law. The analysis of moral experience which, due to its intimate connection to the person, is an important part of human experience, shows that human conscience has a cognitive, and not creative nature The conception of creative reason was a leading idea in the new moral theology and Styczeń, who began his critical reading of the relevant books as early as i97os, initiated discussions on works by some of the proponents of this new current, engaged in polemics, and organized symposia. However, Styczeń seems to have regarded the debate with the new moral theologians as an argument within the „personalistic family.” Also in this case, through discussion and polemics, he attempted to clarify the meaning of the „anthropological turn” in modern and contemporary thought. He argued that the fundamental experience of ethics, the experience which reveals the axiological-normative relationship „person-morality,” precludes both radically objectivist and radically subjectivist models of ethics. One must remember that in the structure of morality, the person is both a subject and an object and that, as a free being open to truth, the person is also capable of transcendence.

Around the reflection on the cognitive aspect of consciousness, Tadeusz Styczeń endeavored to construct a general theory of ethics, sometimes described as „veritative personalism” (veritas – truth), as opposed to „dignitative personalism” (dignitas – dignity). Although this attempt has remained unfinished, it triggered a years-long discussion between Styczeń and his disciples. The theory was praised as an interesting proposal of how to make personalism more rigorous and, on the other hand, criticized for some conceptual gaps and unclarities.

Indeed, in the later period of Styczeń’s work, beginning in ig8os, the principle of the „normative power of truth” achieved the status of the main principle of ethics. Speaking of „freedom in the truth,” Styczeń referred to the real-life story he called „Kowalski’s case.” Kowalski, an activist of the „Solidarność” Trade Unions, was imprisoned by the Communist regime during the martial law (1981-1983). He would have been released, had he agreed to sign a declaration of political loyalty conflicting with his conscience. In Kowalski’s refusal, Styczeń recognized the experience of Socrates and interpreted it as the fundamental moral experience which is, simultaneously, the fundamental experience of humanity: I must not deny the truth I have recognized because if I did, I would assault the very core of my humanity; I would deny the rational structure of myself as a person with my own act of freedom. Styczeń regarded such an act as tantamount to moral suicide.

In this brief summary it is impossible to present all the themes addressed in the debate on Styczeń’s attempt to construct an ethics as a theory explaining the normative power of truth. The key issue is the elimination of the category of good from the language of ethics. Such a radical move finds no justification either in the output of Wojtyła on which Styczeń draws or – more importantly – in the reality of „person-morality.” Wojtyła argues that conscience reveals „the truth about the good,” which means to say that the moment of assertion of truth by a personal subject in a judgement is not the only bearer of normativity; the other one is the „material,” objective aspect of the judgement, the fact that the asserted truth is „about” something. By disregarding the language of values, ethics runs the risk of declining into doctrinairism or… empty verbosity.

Fr. Tadeusz Styczeń belongs to a generation of Polish moral philosophers whose ideas were submitted to the extraordinary test of historical transformations triggered by the social and political movement of „Solidarność” in Poland (1980) and the fall of Communism in the Central-Eastern Europe (1989). In the last two decades of the 20^th century, Styczeń’s ethical „workshop,” which appeared a quiet retreat where one could peacefully reflect on metaethical questions, turned into a laboratory of social and political thought working full speed to address the urgent issues posed by the transformation Poland was passing through after Communism had collapsed. At that time, Styczeń tackled a variety of problems related to human rights, democracy, the rule of law, justice, the axiological profile of Europe, and globalization. He looked at all those problems through the prism of „the dignity of the person” which, in the field of social ethics, is the source of the principle and the ideal of „solidarity „.

In the light of personalistic ethics, democracy appears as a value which guarantees the inalienable equality of rights to all citizens While safeguarding democratic procedures, however, one must not disregard their axiological foundation, and therefore Styczeń emphasized that the good of the person must be the basis for lawgiving. He also criticized the belief that moral relativism is the „proper” philosophy of democracy. Parallelly to this critique, he indicated „fractures” in the democratic ethos of the countries which withdrew legal protection of unborn children. In this context he formulated the principle: „the unborn are the measure of democracy.” This does not mean to say that the legal protection of nasciturus is the only moral criterion in political ethics. This particular criterion is rooted in the universal principle of lawmaking, that is, in the respect for human dignity. Depriving anyone of legal protection, a state would act against the very essence of law which implies equality of all individuals. Legal protection of the unborn is consistent with a democratic idea of a state’s commitment to the rights of minorities: fulfilling this commitment, a state acts according to the principle of solidarity, instead of protecting particular interests. His reflection on the ethical implications of legal protection of human life made it possible for Styczeń to develop the principles of political ethics and also prompted him to assume the responsibility of an expert consulted by politicians.

The intention of the author of this book was to present a study of the development of ethical reflection in the milieu of the Chair of Ethics at the Catholic University of Lublin’s Faculty of Philosophy in the second half of the 20^th century. However, the picture presented in the book is incomplete, as it does not comprise the achievements of Wojtyła’s and Styczeń’s disciples whose intellectual activity illustrates the reception of the personalistic model of ethics There are also reasons to believe that the Lublin professors did not seek to create another school of moral philosophy; they are known to have been reluctant to describe themselves as personalists and to have regarded the ethical tradition and its great questions with painstaking respect It is their dialogue with tradition, based on a deep insight into the reality of the person and morality, that have given them a distinctive place in the panorama of the contemporary ethical thought.

Wojtyła’s intuitions and Styczeń’s precise analyses are complementary. In the context of the anthropological turn, and especially of the personalistic awakening, they initiated the reconstruction of Christian ethics They reflected and enriched the personalistic sensitivity of their tragic time by attempting to rethink the foundations of ethics „from scratch.” They transformed their fascination with the person into a source of new life for classical philosophy. They might have agreed with Paul Ricoeur, who believed that ideological currents, and especially philosophical systems, are short-lived However, even if personalism loses its philosophical relevance and dies, the person will live. Wojtyła and Styczeń wanted their philosophy to accompany moral struggles of real people of their time, wanted their thought to promote life and to awaken human beings to their humanity. I believe that their moral passion – so important if one considers ethics as a practical discipline – will continue to inspire the coming generations of philosophers. Those new philosophers will perhaps invent new conceptual tools, and use the old ones in new ways, but I am convinced that they will remain under the spell of what fascinated and perturbed their predecessors.

Translated by Patrycja Mikulska

^[1] In the published translation of Wojtyła’s paper „W poszukiwaniu podstaw perfekcjoryzmu w etyce” discussing the difference between perfectiorism (perfekcjoryzm) and perfectionism (perfekcjonizm), Theresa Sandok, OSM, decided not to introduce a new English term and rendered perfecjoryzm as the „perfectionism in the first sense” and perfekcjonizm as the „perfectionism in the second sense.” See Karol Wojtyła, „In Search of the Basis of Perfectionism in Ethics,” in idem, Person and Community: Selected Essays, translated by Th. Sandok, Peter Lang, New York – Paris 2008, pp- 45–56.

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