person and common good the personalistic

PERSON AND COMMON GOOD: THE PERSONALISTIC NORM

IN WE- RELATION IN ST. KAROL WOJTYLA’S CHRISTIAN PERSONALISM

A Thesis

presented to the

Department of Philosophy

Immaculate Conception Major Seminary

Tabe, Guiguinto, Bulacan

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

BACHELOR OF ARTS MAJOR IN PHILOSOPHY

by

Francis Edward Arañez Baasis

February 1, 2015

1

Chapter 1

Introduction

A. Background of the Study:

What is a community? Community is often defined through its etymology. It is

said that community comes from the words communis, which means ‘common,’ and

unitas, which means ‘unity.’ Therefore, community is normally defined as ‘common

unity.’ With this definition, it seems that, when a group of people is united towards a

common goal it is already a community. This definition is good but it actually lacks

something very important. Community does not only mean of doing something towards a

goal with others. They must also create a special bond that will give an authentic mutual

or reciprocal relationship for the good of every member. That is why; a group of people

cannot already be called a community. Though they may have common actions towards a

common end, but does not have special bond that relates them with one another, they will

be just a group of people acting with same end and not really a community. Without this,

the relationship inside the community may fall in utilitarianism. They will just use one

another to attain their end. This using of persons denies the dignity of man given by God.

People nowadays use the word ‘community’ as if it is just simply a word to

identify a group of people without knowing the authentic meaning of it. During the

Second Vatican Council, the real meaning of community is rediscovered through the help

of many Christian philosophers and theologians. They found out that the word

‘community’ has its theological roots. It is rooted in the sacred relationship of the Trinity

which is a κοινωνία (koinonia). This was used by the early Christians to express their

2

mutual relationship with God. Then later, they also used this to express their relationship

with one another as a community of believers who partake in the one body of Christ,

which is the Church. It is said that as “The Church is the image of the triune God, and, as

such, is to be characterized in terms of its relationships: relationships so constructed that

each individual is focussed towards the others.”1 As κοινωνία, the members of the

community express their reciprocal relationship with God and with one another. They

define this as the “reciprocity with God, with Christ, with the Spirit: in particular, that

special communio which God founds, with human beings through the Word and through

the Lord's Supper.”2

This shows that a community does not simply mean a group people who are being

united. There must be a reciprocal relationship with one another. This reciprocal

relationship is actually a basic human need. There is no human person who can live

without this kind of relationship. No one can live without someone who can mutually

provide them their basic needs such as food and shelter. No one can live without someone

who can mutually listen and speak to them. No one can live without other people who

will mutually show them the standards for judging: what is good and evil, what is right

and wrong, what is beautiful and what is not.

Reciprocal relationship is important in a community. Only with this kind of

relationship, the human persons can be treated properly. As the Trinity relates with each

other as Persons, so as the human persons relate with one another and form this kind of

1Peter Neuner, “The Church as Koinonia: A Central Theme of Vatican II,” The Way (1990), 177.

2Ibid., 176-7.

3

community. Community must properly treat each other as human person, so they can be

authentically called a community of persons. This kind of relationship must be present in

every community of persons. Actually, we all belong to only one human family, one

human community. Therefore, this is what should every human person must aim. This

can actually answer the task of many thinkers nowadays. According to Ramon Reyes, the

task of the philosopher today is:

“…keeping alive and vibrant that ideal yet implied ultimate goal of all human

striving and action—the Truth. Indeed, the whole Truth. Such task would involve,

among other things, the formation of a final, full consensus that binds together all

persons and all nations, as members and co-participants in one global human

community of meaningful word, meaningful labor, meaningful action, and

meaningful belief.”3

In line with this, the researcher will seek the truth of the human person relating

and participating with one another inside an authentic community. This theoretical

research aims to explicate what is the real meaning of community of persons. This will be

in the light of the Christian Personalism of the philosopher-Pope, Karol Wojtyla. The

researcher decided to choose his philosophy because of the way it values the dignity of

the human person and his thinking is in line with the Christian thinking of community.

As a personalist, Karol Wojtyla defends the value of every human person.

Wojtyla believes that every unique human subject, though incommunicable, needs to

participate with other personal supposita to achieve his self-fulfillment in the process of

becoming a human person. As human persons relate with one another, they are forming a

3Ramon C. Reyes, “The Role of the Philosophers as Social Thinker and Critic, Revisited,” Suri Vol. 2.

No. 2 (2014): 18.

4

community. There are actually two dimensions of community, the I-You relation and the

We-Relation. The I-You relation is simply the interpersonal relationship with other human

person. The we-Relation is the communal relationship towards a common good. Wojtyla

calls a community that is authentically participating and acting with one another by the

virtue of common good a we.

We, as a plural form of I, expresses a kind of unity that inhibits any inauthentic

relationship of many I’s. Therefore, the researcher believes that every member of this we

are practicing the appropriate relationship with one another. This proper relationship is

under the personalistic norm which aims to make persons participate properly and

authentically with other persons. It aims to form a mutual relationship of persons through

love. Love opposes any inappropriate attitude towards other person which is ‘using.’

Only through love, the person can be properly realized because it is based on the dignity

of the human person.

In this opus, the researcher will explicate how to eliminate any violation of

persons inside the community in the light of the Christian Personalism of Karol Wojtyla.

B. Statement of the Problem:

A group of people having same end does not already form a we. There must be an

authentic relationship with every member who is submitting themselves on a common

good. It is not good to see a group of people ‘using’ others just to attain their end in the

group. The intention of the researcher is to answer this major problem: How does the

5

community participating in a we-relation becomes free from any utilitarian attitude on

person through the personalistic norm? This problem will be answered through the

philosophy of St. Karol Wojtyla focusing on his notion of human person and community.

Related to the major problem, these are the sub-problems that will also be

answered by the researcher:

1. How to relate properly with other human persons without violating their dignity

inside the community?

2. How do the common good and the personalistic norm go hand in hand in we-

relation?

3. How does love fulfill and tighten up the participation in the community?

4. How does the use of goods affect the relationship inside the community?

C. Significance of the Study:

John Paul II, in his Solicitudo Rei Socialis, worried in the lack of giving

importance on the mutual relationship of individuals rooted on the dignity of the human

person. He said: “When individuals and communities do not see a rigorous respect for the

moral, cultural and spiritual requirements, based on the dignity of the person and on the

proper identity of each community, beginning with the family and religious societies,

then all the rest - availability of goods, abundance of technical resources applied to daily

life, a certain level of material well-being - will prove unsatisfying and in the end

contemptible.”4

4John Paul II, Solicitudo Rei Socialis, 33.

6

It is very visible in the society nowadays that there are many communities in

political, economical, and social sphere that are being formed like a mushroom. Many

people are joining and giving themselves to different communities. Despite this, it is also

very evident that there are many communities formed for the sake of selfish profit.

Members of those communities are being used as a mean toward an end. This study is

significant with this issue in the society. People need to rediscover that there must be a

reciprocal and mutual relationship among themselves inside the community. Their

relationship must be rooted in the dignity of the human person.

This research is also an addition of further interpretation of the Christian

Personalism of St. Karol Wojtyla. This research will focus on his notion of the human

person and community. This will give emphasis on the relation of the personalistic norm

to his notion of we. The researcher believes that the we is not simply a participation of

group of people towards the common good. Through the personalistic norm, the relation

as a we is being realized as it is. This research will prove that we is not just a mere

gathering of people having a same end rather it is more about the relationship of the

members of the community that partake on the common good which is not just a good of

many but a good of all.

In the future ministry of the researcher, this also has significance. As future leader

of a community of believers, he can encourage the submission of individual goods of

every parishioner for the good of the Church without violating any dignity of persons

through applying what his thesis in the light of philosophy of Karol Wojtyla.

7

D. Review of Related Literature:

To prove that the claimed significance of the study is true, the following review of

related literature is being provided. The following books, articles and theses that are

related in this study were conducted by different scholars. These will guide the researcher

to come up on the relation of the personalistic norm to the common good of a we.

Books

Aguas, Jove Jim S. Person, Action and Love: The Philosophical Thoughts of

Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II). Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing

House, 2014.

This book of Aguas is about the entire philosophy of Karol Wojtyla. He discusses

almost everything about the philosopher and his thoughts. Aguas, being one of the top

Filipino Wojtylan scholar, gives the researcher a simple but substantial presentation of

Wojtyla’s philosophy. He has taken the challenge to broaden and enrich the awareness

and understanding to this very historic philosopher in the present era. This is a rich

expository synthesis on the philosophy of Wojtyla.

This book has eight chapters. The first chapter is about the biography and

influences of Karol Wojtyla. In this chapter, Aguas shows how the experiences of

Wojtyla forms his thinking on the human person. The second chapter is about ‘Person

and Subjectivity.’ He presents the ontological and the personalistic value of the human

person as a subject. The third chapter is about ‘Person and Human Act.’ This is about the

action of man on how it reveals him as a person. The fourth chapter is about the ‘Person

8

and Psychosomatic Integrity.’ This is about the totality of the human person and the

integration of the body and psyche. The fifth chapter is about the ‘Intersubjectivity and

Participation.’ The human person as a subject need to be with others to make him more a

person. The sixth chapter is about the ‘Person, Love and Human Sexuality.’ This is the

exposition of the work of Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility. The seventh chapter is about

‘Ethics and Moral Philosophy.’ This is the search of Wojtyla on the perfectionism in

Ethics.

This book is a great help for the researcher. He will use this book to support his

arguments and interpretations in the philosophy of Karol Wojtyla. The difference of this

book to this research is that, this gives more emphasis on the community, specifically on

the we-relation of Wojtyla. Then, the researcher will relate this on the personalistic norm

of Wojtyla.

Curry, Agnes B., Nancy Mardas, George F. McLean, eds. Karol Wojtyla's

Philosophical Legacy. Washington: Council for Research in Values and

Philosophy, 2008.

This volume of the Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change of the Council

for Research in Values and Philosophy is a collection of talks of wide-range scholars of

those who are intimately knowledgeable with the thought of Karol Wojtyla prior to his

election as the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church. The scholars was asked of what

might Wojtyla have continued to contribute to phenomenology in particular, and

philosophy in general, if he had not been elected Pope. They also discern the streams of

9

phenomenological thinking in the letters, other writings and speeches of this philosopher-

turned-Pope.

This book has three parts: the part one is about Thomism, Phenomenology and

Personalism; the part two is dedicated to the Social Philosophy, and the part three is on

the ‘Metaphysical Question: What Is a Human Being.’ The researcher is concern only on

the part two which is about the Social Philosophy of Karol Wojtyla. The part two is

compose of chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 of the book. The related topics in this research are the

chapter 7 and chapter 9 of this part of the book.

In chapter 7, the contributor Hans Köchler talks about “Karol Wojtyla’s Notion of

the Irreducible in Man and the Quest for a Just World Order.” Köchler is actually a

companion of then-Cardinal Wojtyla on giving lectures on phenomenology and

philosophical anthropology at an intellectual colloquium in Fribourg. Köchler outlines in

his paper the philosophical understanding of the human person of Wojtyla. The emphasis

is on the uniqueness and irreducible quality of each person. He examines the

philosophical implications of this focus, especially for the person as the moral subject and

explores the relationship of that such definition implies between the person and society.

On one hand, this is related in the researcher’s work on Wojtyla. The researcher

also wants to examine the relationship of man as a subject of his actions to his or her

relationship to others in the society, particularly in relating with them as a we. On the

other hand, the researcher wants to give emphasis on the relationship of the proper

actions of man towards the other members of the community who are partaking on a

common good. The researcher believes that man, as a moral agent, must relate properly

10

with others who are submitting themselves to the common good following the

personalistic norm of Karol Wojtyla. They must respect the dignity of the other person

and avoid using them just to achieve their individual good.

In chapter 9, the scholar Deborah Savage talks about the “Subjective Dimension

of Human Work: The Conversion of the Acting Person in Laborem Exercens.” Savage

argues that the Laborem Exercens is grounded on Wojtyla’s magnum opus, The Acting

Person. Savage discusses the personal structures of self-determination, self-possession,

and self-governance in light of Wojtyla’s theory of consciousness and also addresses his

use of the categories of potency and act in light of an expanded understanding of the

notion of suppositum. Savage also notes that the normative claim that worldly conditions

must the respect for the human dignity. It is grasped fully only in terms of the concrete

reality of human personhood. Savage believes that the principle of participation is

ontologically grounded in Wojtyla’s theory of person and moral order. This means that

every human person is subjected into it.

On one hand, this part of the book is related to the work of the researcher on

proper acting of person as person inside the community. The action towards the common

good must be rooted on the truth of the good that transcends the person to become fully a

person. The person must realize himself in his actions. On the other hand, the researcher

gives more emphasis in the relation of the common good and the personalistic norm that

must goes hand in hand to attain the authentic community which is the we. Also, Savage

focuses only on the action of the person. The researcher also gives emphasis on the action

of the community that they must realize themselves as a community of persons.

11

Francisco, Rolyn B. Karol Wojtyla’s Theory of Participation: Based on his

Christian Personalism. Makati: St. Paul’s Philippines, 1995.

This book of Francisco presents the summary and critical evaluation of the

Christian Personalism of Karol Wojtyla. This gives emphasis in the human community

where participation is realized presupposes a proper view of human persons who

constitutes it. This study is about the person as revealed by acts, then the person as

revealed by acting together with others, and finally the person as revealed by his or her

relationship to God.

The chapter III of the book, “Towards a Theory of Participation,” deals with the

man-acts insofar as it is an act of communion with others. The human person is fulfilled

through acting together with others. Participation is viewed in terms of the relation of

person with and to other person. It is both property and ability of every human person

who are social beings. Participation then, is the mutual relation between a human person

with other human person where each of their dignity are being respected and valued. This

presents also the two kinds of relationship in participation: the I-You and the we

relationships. “He or she is so revealed as I to you; the you as the other I to me; and

persons reveal themselves in the We.”5 The person is represented by the personal

5Rolyn B. Francisco, Karol Wojtyla’s Theory of Participation: Based on his Christian Personalism

(Metro Manila: St. Pauls, 1995), 109.

12

pronouns I, you and we, and their conscious relation to one another constitutes a human

community.

This book will guide the researcher towards the proper understanding of the

Christian Personalism of Karol Wojtyla especially on his Theory of Participation.

Francisco interprets the notion of we of Wojtyla as a multiplicity of interpersonal

relationship or there are many I-thou relationship in a we-relationship. This means that

there are many reciprocal relationships inside the social dimension of community.

Schmitz, Kenneth L. At the Center of the Human Drama: The Philosophical

Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/ Pope John Paul II. Washington, D.C.: The

Catholic University of America Press, 1993.

This book of Schmitz is the synthesis of the philosophy of Karol Wojtyla and his

life. Schmitz relates how Karol Wojtyla sees the human person through his stages of his

life. This book is composed of five chapters. The first chapter is entitled “On Stage: New

Word for Ancient Truths.” This chapter is about the early life of Wojtyla as theater artist.

Wojtyla is both an actor and a playwright during his time. His plays are often about the

relationship of man with God and about the human love connecting it to the divine love.

These plays are connected on how he sees the human person who is dignified by God and

the proper way to relate with him is only through love. The second chapter is entitled “At

the Lublin Workshop: Retrieving the Tradition.” This is more on the study of the

philosophy of Wojtyla. Schmitz shows that the interest of Wojtyla in philosophy is in

ethics. But this interest is worked out in the larger context of nature, condition, and

13

destiny of the human person. The third chapter is entitled “In the Cracow Study: A

Philosophy Matures.” In this chapter, Schmitz shows how Wojtyla provides his analysis

with a more articulated attention to human subjectivity and to the interior life of the

person as moral agent. The fourth chapter is entitled “From Peter’s Chair: A Christian

Anthropology.” This is about the writings of Wojtyla as Pope John Paul II. Schmitz

focuses on how John Paul II uses his philosophy in his writings as the supreme pontiff of

the Catholic Church especially on the significant interpretation of the scriptures

particularly in Genesis 1 and 2 that gives emphasis on the notion of the nature of the

human person. The last chapter is entitled “Taking the Measure of the Philosophical

Project: Modernity Meets Tradition.” This is about the implementation of the Second

Vatican Council rooting in his philosophy. In the philosophy of Wojtyla, he grounded his

contemporary phenomenology in the traditional Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy.

Because of this, John Paul II, find it not so difficult to implement the Second Vatican

Council, where the traditional view of the Church is updated and reflected in the modern

era.

This synthesis done by Schmitz is a great help for the researcher to understand

more the philosophy of Karol Wojtyla. Also, Schmitz shows a wider interpretation on the

thought of the philosopher seen in his life. The researcher will utilize some of the

interpretation of Schmitz to prove his research. The difference of this book to this

research is the discussion of the community as a we.

Simpson, Peter. On Karol Wojtyla. California: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning,

Inc., 2001.

14

This book is about the life, writings and philosophy of Karol Wojtyla. The author

of this book thoroughly explains the main works of Wojtyla, The Acting Person and Love

and Responsibility. This book is divided into five chapters: Life and Works of Karol

Wojtyla; The Philosophical ‘Prise de Position’; The Acting Person; Love and

Responsibility; and Philosophical Theology.

The first part of this book focuses on how Karol Wojtyla came up on his thought

on the human person in line with his life. The second part is about the philosophical

development of Karol Wojtyla in his Personalism. There he gives the position of Karol

Wojtyla from classical definition of man to the contemporary philosophy focusing on

phenomenology of Max Scheler. In the next chapter, the author acknowledges how

Karol Wojtyla grounded his work The Acting Person on the premise that “operari

sequitur esse”. For a being to act, it must exist first. There is also a discussion on self-

determination, self-possession and self-governance which shows the freedom of the

person to act and be responsible to it. It also highlights the other relevant factors of the “I

Act” moment which are fulfillment, duty, conscience, responsibility and felicity. In the

last part, it discusses the integration of the person in action and his theory of

participation. This concept of participation is very optimistic that it can create a

community of acting persons. Then, in his interpretation of Love and Responsibility,

Simpson discusses how Karol Wojtyla, in his thought on Human Dignity, believes that a

person must not be an object of using. The proper approach on Human Person is only

15

through love. He also discusses the sexual ethics of Karol Wojtyla on marriage. The book

concludes on the discussion of the connection of his concept on human person in Trinity.

As the researcher review this book, he sees connection of his research to the

interpretation of Simpson. A community is not just a mere union of people. This

discussion of Simpson on the community is closely similar to the interpretation of the

researcher. The researcher then will utilize the discussion of Simpson on community.

Moreover, Simpson gives the connection of the personalistic norm in the Acting Person.

Personalistic norm can only be found in the book Love and Responsibility. Similar to this,

the researcher will also give the connection of the personalistic norm to the

Intersubjectivity by Participation in the Acting Person. The difference of this research to

Simpson’s interpretation is that the researcher will also show the connection of the

personalistic norm to the notion of we and common good of Wojtyla.

Articles

Coughlin, John J. "Pope John Paul II and the Dignity of the Human Being."

Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy Vol. 27 (2003): 65-80. In Scholarly

Works Paper 494. http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/494.

(Accessed May 18, 2014).

Coughlin presented in this article the philosophical foundation of the pontifical

teachings of Pope John Paul II. He presented especially how the Philosopher-Pope

defended the dignity of the human person which has metaphysical, existential, and moral

16

dimensions. John Paul II sees the human being as created in the image and likeness of

God and conflicted as a consequence of freedom to choose between good and evil.

The philosophical foundation of John Paul II for the defense of the dignity of the

human person begins with two ancient truths according to the author. First, it posits the

“universality of one human nature that transcends the limits of history and culture”6 and

the classical metaphysical view, which understands the “human person as characterized

by the intellect and free will”7 which are in accordance with the modern standpoint. The

philosophical understanding of John Paul II refuses to limit the person to mere genetic

factors as being determinative of who the person is and what the person may become. He

rejects the schools of thought of determinism, empiricism, and idealism.

As a philosopher and bishop in communist Poland, Karol Wojtyla developed a

theory of the human being that stressed solidarity and participation in subsidiary

structures such as the family, church and labor unions in order to offset the alienation

yielded by the communist system of law.8 This eventually developed into a profound

insight about the human dignity of the philosopher Pope.

This article will guide the researcher on understanding the philosophical

underpinnings of the papal writings of John Paul II connecting it in his early works as a

philosopher. This article also gives the importance of the understanding of theological

6John J. Coughlin, "Pope John Paul II and the Dignity of the Human Being," Harvard Journal of Law &

Public Policy Vol. 27, (2003), in Scholarly Works Paper 494. http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_

scholarship/494 (accessed May 18, 2014): 66.

7Ibid., 67.

8Ibid., 75.

17

foundations of his philosophy. Though this article shows how the philosophical

underpinnings of the works of John Paul II greatly helps his theological view, the

researcher will deal more on how the papal writings of John Paul II support the idea of

his philosophy on participating with other human persons.

Mejos, Edward Dean A. “Against Alienation: Karol Wojtyla’s Theory of

Participation.” Kritike Vol. 1. No. 1 (2007): 71-85.

This article discusses the problem in our society today which is alienation. There

are many people who are being alienated by their fellow human person. The concept of

alienation negates the person as a subject. It deprives man the value of a human person.

Alienation is in contrast with the common good of a community. It rejects the person to

relate himself to other people. With alienation, one cannot experience entering into a we

relationship.

Mejos presented two systems that foster alienation: individualism and

totalitarianism. Individualism isolates the person from others as an individual who

concentrates on himself and his own goods. Since the individual good is valued the most,

it follows that every individual must act to protect himself from another. Totalitarianism,

on the other hand, is characterized as the need to find protection from the individual, who

is seen as the chief enemy of the society and the common good. The concept of person in

alienation denies the capability of a person to enter into a community. With this problem

of alienation, man cannot fulfill himself as a human person. “Man’s fulfillment is

something which requires an active interaction with the world because it is through his

18

interaction with the world that he is called upon to perform specific actions which

inevitably form him as a person.”9

The researcher believes that alienation will only be present if the person inside the

community does not relate with others as human person. The members of a community

must relate properly so that everyone inside the community can attain their fulfillment as

a human person.

Waldstein, Michael. “The Common Good in St. Thomas and John Paull II.” Nova

et Vetera Vol. 3, No. 3 (2005): 569-578.

This article is about the comparison of the concept of communion and community

of Thomas Aquinas and John Paul II. On one hand, in the thought of St. Thomas, the

“common good” plays an important role but apparently not on John Paul II. On the other

hand, John Paul II gives importance on the concept of “Gift of Self” which St. Thomas

apparently not give in to. However, Waldstein gives the connection of these ideas of St.

John Paul and St. Thomas which according to him is a suggestive unity.

On his introductory remarks, Waldstein defines common good as “a good in

which many persons can share at the same time without in any way lessening or splitting

it.”10 The common error of many people on their notion of common good is that, it is

others’ good and not really the personal good. John Paul II said that “The common good,

9Edward Dean A. Mejos, “Against Alienation: Karol Wojtyla’s Theory of Participation,” Kritike Vol. 1.

No. 1 (2007): 71.

10Michael Waldstein, “The Common Good in St. Thomas and John Paull II,” Nova et Vetera Vol. 3, No.

3 (2005): 569.

19

by its very nature, both unites individual persons and ensures the true good of each…

There is a shortage of people with whom to create and share the common good; and yet

that good, by its nature, demands to be created and shared with others: “Bonum est

diffusivum sui” [good pours itself out].”11 In this line, lies the connection on the concept

of St. Thomas and John Paul II as Waldstein says: the good, which means preeminently

the common good, and self-communication or, in the realm of persons, self-gift.12

This article will be the aid of the researcher in understanding the common good of

the Philosopher-Pope in light of his papal writings. This will guide the researcher to give

a better understanding of what common good really is. In the common good, there is a

need of gift of self. This gift of self is an act of love of the human person. This is where

the addition of the researcher in this interpretation comes in. The personalistic norm must

be there so that those who partakes in the common good is being related by everyone

properly as human person.

Williams, Thomas D. “The One and the Many: Unity, Plurality and the Free

Society.” Alpha Omega Vol. X, No. 3 (2007): 387-98.

This article is about the problems on the socio-political organizations and cultures

which are having tensions with each other. This paper examines the relationship between

the one and the many in the context of the free society towards the right ordering of

human society. The article elaborates the problem of individualism and collectivism, the

11John Paul II, Letter to Families, 10.

12Waldstein, “The Common Good in St. Thomas and John Paul II,” 571.

20

principle of common good, the contribution of the school of thought of Personalism, and

the role of human rights. This is done in light of Pope John Paul II’s social thought.

In the Thomistic Personalism, Karol Wojtyla characterized the two extreme

positions in the society, the individualism and totalitarianism:

On the one hand, persons may easily place their own individual good above the

common good of the collectivity, attempting to subordinate the collectivity to

themselves and use it for their individual good. This is the error of individualism,

which gave rise to liberalism in modern history and to capitalism in economics.

On the other hand, society, in aiming at the alleged good of the whole, may

attempt to subordinate persons to itself in such a way that the true good of persons

is excluded and they themselves fall prey to the collectivity. This is the error of

totalitarianism, which in modern times has borne the worst possible fruit.13

The problem with this evil political system is that it denies the objective truth

which also denies the dignity of the human person which no one must violate even by an

individual, a group, a class, a nation or even a state. “The protection of human freedoms,

the satisfaction of human needs and rights and the stability and security of a just social

order give the common good a solid foundation of non-negotiable human goods.”14

Diversity must also contribute to the common good. Amidst the diversity of many

different people, the dignity and the moral truths of every human person must be

recognized in order to promote the good for everyone. “It is therefore urgently necessary,

for the future of society and the development of a sound democracy, to rediscover those

essential and innate human and moral values which flow from the very truth of the

human being and express and safeguard the dignity of the person: values which no

13Karol Wojtyla, “Thomistic Personalism,” Person and Community: Selected Essays, ed. Theresa

Sandok (New York: Peter Lang, 1993), 174.

14Thomas D. Williams, “The One and the Many: Unity, Plurality and the Free Society,” Alpha Omega

Vol. X, No. 3 (2007): 393.

21

individual, no majority and no State can ever create, modify or destroy, but must only

acknowledge, respect and promote.”15 This is the contribution of the personalism in the

understanding of the common good for it derives from its understanding of the person

himself. It prohibits the absolute subordination of the individual to the collectivity and it

demands respect for the inviolability and hence the radical equality of all persons.

It is said that the common good does not stand in opposition to the particular good

of persons, but rather comprises it, as well as the good of families and other mediating

social institutions and associations.16 This is related to the researcher’s work in a sense

that this researcher also wants to prove that the common good does not oppose the

individual good of the human person. As a person, who is also good, the common good

must not damage it nor commit injustice on the human person. The difference of this is

that, the researcher believes that the personalistic norm is needed, so that, the common

good is rooted in the truth of the good and it will be a good for everyone. The common

good must respect the dignity of the human person.

Williams, Thomas D. “What is Thomistic Personalism?” Alpha Omega, Vol. VII,

No. 2 (2004): 163-97.

This article proves that Karol Wojtyla does not just expose the writing of Thomas

Aquinas in his essay, “Thomistic Personalism”. Wojtyla completed the philosophy of

man of Thomas Aquinas through the insights from the 20th century personalism

15John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, no. 71.

16Williams, “The One and the Many: Unity, Plurality and the Free Society,” 394.

22

especially with regards of the subjectivity of the person. This article by Williams offers

the notion of personalism in general, on its historical and ideological roots and of the

distinctive characteristics of a personalism grounded on the metaphysics and

anthropology of Thomas Aquinas.

What is important in this article is that the person does not justify metaphysics

rather metaphysics justifies the person and his various operation in the thought of Karol

Wojtyla. Being grounded in Thomistic metaphysics, a personalistic philosophy of

Wojtyla is rooted on a fertile soil and avoids too much subjectivism that many

personalisms are prone to.

The importance of the uniqueness of a human person can be discovered in this

article. The uniqueness of the human person plays an important role in the Thomistic

personalism of Wojtyla. Though the person is unique, he never exists in isolation. Human

person finds the perfection of his uniqueness in communion with other persons. “Though

the person’s vocation to interpersonal communion is discernible to human reason, it finds

its deepest explanation in revelation and especially in man’s being created to the image

and likeness of God, who is himself communio personarum.”17

Theses:

Santiago, Alma S. “Self-Fulfilment and Participation in and through the Conjugal

Act in the Light of Karol Wojtyla’s Philosophy of the Person.” Master’s

Thesis, University of Santo Tomas Graduate School, September 1992.

17Thomas D. Williams, “What is Thomistic Personalism?” Alpha Omega, Vol. VII, No. 2, (2004): 195.

23

This research of Santiago is an expository synthesis of the philosophy of Karol

Wojtyla on his notion of the acting person and sexual ethics. Santiago conducts a

philosophical study on how man and woman fulfills themselves, by way of participation,

in their intimate union expressed in and through the conjugal act according to the thought

of Karol Wojtyla.

This thesis has three chapters. The first chapter is entitled “Self-Fulfillment and

Participation.” This is about the notion of Human Person and Participation of Wojtyla.

This discusses the self-fulfillment of man through participating with others. The second

chapter is entitled, “Natural Complementarity of Man and Woman.” This is about the

sexual ethics of Wojtyla. Santiago discusses how man and woman, through their bodies,

participate with each other by following the commandment of love. The third chapter is

entitled Self-Fulfillment in and through Conjugal Act.” Santiago presents here the

importance of subjectivity of man in the conjugal act. There is a need of reciprocal

relationship that helps both man and woman to attain their self-fulfillment in conjugal act.

This thesis helps the researcher to interpret the philosophy of Wojtyla thoroughly

especially on her discussion on the common good, and the notion of we as a social

dimension of participation. The difference of this research to Santiago’s opus is that the

research done by Santiago focuses specifically on the conjugal act between man and

woman inside the marital life. The researcher will focus his research on the social and

communal aspect of participation which is the relationship between the multiplicity of

I’s. The husband and wife is a we and there is a need for them to attain their self-

fulfillment through each other in their conjugal act. In the researcher’s work, he believes

24

that every members of the we-community can attain self-fulfillment in whatever action

they are doing as long as it follows the personalistic norm.

Klopfenstein, Mitchell Leon. “Towards an Ethical Community Response to

Pandemic Influenza: The Values of Solidarity, Loyalty, and Participation.”

Master’s Thesis, Indiana University Graduate School, July 2008. In

IUPUI Scholar Works Repository, https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/

handle/1805/1673/Towards%20an%20Ethical%20Community%20Response%

20to%20Pandemic%20Influenza,%20The%20Values%20of%20Solidarity,%

20Loyalty,%20and%20Participation.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed June 15,

2014).

Klopfenstein uses the notion of solidarity and participation of Karol Wojtyla to

show the proper action done by the community in times of pandemic threat. Klopfenstein

chooses the notion of community of Wojtyla because of its emphasis on the value of

personal action in developing the attitude of solidarity in the community. He believes that

through this philosophy of Wojtyla, he can prove that the sense of solidarity is a virtue

and a desirable social characteristic.

The research of Klopfenstein has three chapters. The first chapter is about the

Pandemic threat. He presents different infectious disease that is a great threat on a

community in the course of history. One of this is the influenza which is a virus that

emerges to which the human population has little or no immunity and a pandemic causing

widespread illness possible. Klopfenstein believes that the potential of a pandemic to

severely disrupt social life demands community planning, which requires a broad

discussion of shared values to organize a collective response. His response to this is to

have the community values of participation, loyalty, and solidarity which is in chapter

25

two of his research. Because this is a discussion about the health of human persons, it

presupposes that in the public health policy, there must be ethical values, principles,

norms, interests and preferences. Ethical discussion must be done as he believes that the

philosophy of Wojtyla is a good foundation for the discussion in this case. He wants that

every members must submit themselves in every decision-making that they will be doing

to attain the good of everyone under the virtue of solidarity and loyalty to the community.

He wants the community to be one for all. They must act, especially in with this

pandemic threat, together with others in the community. Klopfenstein says, “Wojtyla

understands participation to express the personal value of our actions as we exist and act

together with others in different systems of social life.”18 In the third chapter of his thesis

which is the “Towards and Ethical Approach to Pandemic Influenza Preparedness,”

Klopfenstein presents different actions that can be done by the community: the duty to

care, willingness, and ability to provide care. He also presents the duty of the physicians,

the risk and the duty of the society during the pandemic threat.

Klopfenstein uses the philosophy of Wojtyla to response on the problem of the

community planning in times of a pandemic threat. Klopfenstein believes that there must

be a proper action of the community during those times. The researcher thoroughly

understands this work of Klopfenstein thoroughly. The researcher believes that this is

related to his research in a sense that he is also searching for the proper relationship of the

18Mitchell Leon Klopfenstein, “Towards an Ethical Community Response to Pandemic Influenza: The

Values of Solidarity, Loyalty, and Participation,”(Master’s Thesis Indiana University Graduate School, July

2008) in IUPUI Scholar Works Repository, https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/1673

/Towards%20an%20Ethical%20Community%20Response%20to%20Pandemic%20Influenza,%20The%20

Values%20of%20Solidarity,%20Loyalty,%20and%20Participation.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed June 15,

2014): 41.

26

community members. The difference of this research to that of Klopfenstein’s opus is

that, Klopfenstein deals on the pandemic threat through the participative attitude of

solidarity. In the researcher’s work, he believes that the community during the

submission of goods, they must think of the good of others. The action towards other

members of the community must be personalistic.

E. Methodology:

Research materials such as books and journals that are found in the Immaculate

Conception Major Seminary Library, Rizal Library of Ateneo De Manila University, and

Ecclesiastical Library of the University of Santo Thomas are utilized. This researcher

also utilized the World Wide Web for the development of his work.

The analysis of Wojtyla’s personalistic norm and notion of we shall use the

methodological hermeneutics framework:

a. Methodological Hermeneutics Framework (also called exegetical or

explanatory interpretation [Rescher 1999:117] and formal interpretation [Almazan

1997:56])

The philosopher as author is considered the creator of the text. The text is

the “life expression” (Dilthey 1977:123) of the philosopher. As life expression of

the philosopher, “the text is a group of signs selected, arranged, and intended by a

philosopher in a certain context to convey some specific meaning to an audience”

(Garcia 1992:178). The text is the effect and the cause is the lived experience of

the philosopher. “This is not mechanical cause and effect but dynamic causation”

(Quito 1990:45).

The text of philosopher is a finished fact. The locus of the text is in the

mind of the philosopher. The meaning of text is also in the mind of the

philosopher. This is the original meaning of the text.

27

The interpretative act is a reconstruction of the philosopher’s theory which

involves the following analyses (Schleiermacher 1998:xxviii-xxx):

1) Analysis of the grammatical construction of the language of the

philosopher’s text. (In this analysis, the philosopher’s person disappears and only

appears as an organ of language.) This form of analysis is a generic form of

analysis. More specific forms of analysis could focus on the analysis of the

“original text or the most accurate text by comparing all available materials”

(Almazan 1997:40); analysis of the “sources of a text in terms of authorship,

collaboration, revision and chronology of text” (Ibid.:56); analysis of the

“redaction of the text or how the written sources were used by an editor or

redactorand what this interpretative editing says about the [philosophical]

interests by the redactor” (Ibid.:78)

Analysis of the technical construction of the language of the philosopher’s

text in the context of his life situation. (In this analysis, language with its

customary power disappears as the organ of the philosopher as person.) an

example of a study that uses the methodological hermeneutics framework is the

work of Castillo (1973). Castillo traced the development of Thomas theory of

natural law through St. Thomas’ works like the Questiones Disputate De Veritate,

De Potentia, De Unione Hypostatica, Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa

Theologiae in the context of St. Thomas’ life situation and variation in linguistic

expression.19

This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter is entitled

“Introduction.” The researcher will discuss the background of the study, statement of the

problem, significance of the study, review of related literature, methodology, and

definition of terms. The second chapter is “Christian Personalism: Man as a Person

Together with Others.” The discussion about the notion of human person and the theory

of participation of Karol Wojtyla will be exposed in this chapter. It will be discussed in

the third chapter of this research the “We as the Social Dimension of Person in

Participation.” The notion of community, the interpersonal relationship, the concept of

common good and the participative attitudes will be present in this chapter. The

19 Emmanuel D. Batoon, A Guide to Thesis Writing in Philosophy, Part I, Proposal Writing (Philippines:

REJN Publishing: 2005), 61-62.

28

discussion about the Personalistic Norm in Relation to the Common Good of We is in the

fourth chapter of this research. The researcher will show here the importance of the

personalistic norm in realizing the common good of the we. The Researcher will explicate

in this chapter that every human person must be respected in accordance to the dignity

inherent in them. It will show that the we is free from any utilitarian attitude. It will give

importance on love, as the proper way to relate with one another, even with the non-

acting persons inside the community. Also, through the personalistic norm, nature must

also be given importance, because it can affect the life of every human person in the

community. This research will be concluded in the fifth chapter which is about the

summary, conclusion, and recommendation of this research.

e.1. Scope

This philosophical work will endeavor on presenting an intercommunal

dimension of participation rooted in the philosophy of Karol Wojtyla. This will be aided

by the philosophical writings of Wojtyla such as The Acting Person, Love and

Responsibility, and Person and Community: Selected Essays. The researcher will also

utilize his works during his Pontificate which has philosophical insights closely related

on the subject of this research. These works are supplemented by secondary sources such

as journals and theses of those who studied the philosopher’s thought which have a great

significant for this opus to help the researcher understand more the Philosophy of Karol

Wojtyla.

29

e.2. Limitation

The researcher failed to read the original works of Karol Wojtyla in Polish and

Latin Language. However, he used the authentic translations of the works in English

language that appeared authoritative because they contain extended and critical notes

regarding the original texts.

Though the researcher will be using the personalistic norm which can be found in

the book Love and Responsibility which deals on the sexual ethics, he will not discuss the

person and sexuality. He will be using the personalistic norm in its general and social

sense, which is looking on a person not as an object to be use.

G. Definition of Terms:

1. Acting Person- This term was used by Wojtyla for those human persons who

experience their actions. This means that they are conscious in every action that they are

doing. The researcher believes that the members of the community must be acting

persons so that the community can be fully a community of persons.

2. Common Good- Wojtyla says that “the common good corresponds to the

transcendence of the persons and forms the objective basis for their constitution as a

social community or a we.”20 The researcher will use this in the same manner. Through

the virtue of the common good, the members of the community will submit themselves to

it and will the good of all.

20Wojtyla, “Person: Subject and Community,” 246.

30

3. Group of People- The researcher will use this phrase to differentiate from it the

word ‘community’ which has a greater meaning than just a mere group of people who

does not participate on a common good or does not have any interpersonal relationship

with each other.

4. Love- The researcher will use this word to indicate the proper acting towards a

person. Wojtyla believes that only through love, the dignity of the person is being

affirmed and realized. This is also the willingness to do the good of others. Wojtyla says,

“Man’s capacity for love depends on his willingness consciously to seek a good together

with others, and to subordinate himself to that good for the sake of others, or to others for

the sake of that good.”21 That is why, the researcher believes that through love, the

common good which is the good of all can be attain.

5. Non-Acting Person- The researcher will be using this term to represent the

people who are not able to act for themselves. They are not acting persons in the sense

that they do not have any capacity to fully become an acting person. The actions that they

can make do not have a moment of efficacy unlike of those who have a capacity to be an

acting person. Wojtyla does not have proper term for them so the researcher produced

this term for his research. The researcher believes that they may not be fully a person but

they are still human beings who have the dignity of being a human person. Ontologically,

they are a human person.

6. Personalistic Norm- According to Wojtyla, “Strictly speaking, the

commandment says: ‘Love persons’, and the personalistic norm says: ‘A person is an

21Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, trans. H.T. Willets (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 29.

31

entity of a sort to which the only proper and adequate way to relate is love.’”22 This is the

proper way of relating with other person. The researcher will use this not on the sexual

ethics, as Wojtyla does in his work Love and Responsibility, rather in the communal

sense. No one should use another person inside the community.

7. Using- in relating with persons, this is the opposite of loving. It is treating the

person as something ‘useful.’ Useful is whatever gives pleasure and minimizes pain or

discomfort. In utilitarianism, this becomes the standard of moral action. It is relating with

other person as long as it is pleasurable. Wojtyla says that pleasure is “in contradiction

with the proper structure of human action.”23 The researcher will utilize this word as any

action which treats the person a mere object towards an end. It is any action that devalues

the dignity of the human person. It seeking only the good of the self and not of others.

8. We- This pronoun is the plural form of I. This shows the multiplicity of I’s

which can be conceived and understood through activity where the different I’s are acting

in common with one another towards a particular good. The we is formed through the

virtue of common good.

22Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, 41.

23Ibid., 37.

32

Chapter 2

Christian Personalism: Man as a Person Together With Others

This chapter will focus on the truth about being a human person. Man is not just

merely a human being rather man is a person. People nowadays are confused on the

difference of being a man and being a person. Many people are using this terms

interchangeably as if they are in the same meaning and same usage. In philosophy, there

is a distinction between the two words. Every man is a person but not all persons are

man. Person is an entity who can be a subject, who can say “I.” There are three entities

who are persons: God, angels and man. This shows that man is above from other

creatures in this world. Man is not just simply a being, but he is also a person who has

dignity.

In this chapter, the researcher will present on how a human being can be fully a

human person. As a person, he must be in control of himself, knows, and experiences

himself in everything he acts. For it only through that way that a human being can say he

is fully a person. But as a person, he is not alone acting in this world; he co-exists

together with other human beings.

The term ‘person’ is actually rooted from the Christian Theology. This is coined

to explain the relationship of the Trinity. The Christian Theology holds that God is a

being in three persons: “According to Augustine and late patristic theology, the three

persons that exist in God are in their nature relations. They are, therefore, not substances

that stand next to each other, but they are real existing relations, and noting

besides…Relation, being related, is not something superadded to the person, but it is the

33

person itself.”24 For that reason, man as a person is also must be in relation with other

persons. Man as a person, therefore, is always together with others.

Man, as a social being, is in constant participation with other human beings. The

researcher will also present in this chapter that a person has a need and property to

participate. Man can fully realize himself that he is a person if he is participating with

other human beings. Therefore, there is a great need for man to be with other persons.

But in participation, man must not forget the value of others. His actions towards other

human beings must be proper to him as a subject and proper to the object who is the other

person. The other is also a human person like him.

A. The Human Person:

What is man? There are many series of investigations and studies conducted

concerning this question. There are many empirical data that give inadequate answers, for

they did not give the totality of what man really is. It is ironic because man does not

know the whole of him despite of being a man. This inadequacy can be the reason why

man does not act properly in accordance to his nature. It is also the reason why many

people, nowadays, does not act properly towards other persons.

For Wojtyla, man is not just a mere object of this world. Man is above all other

creatures in this world. Man is unique. Man is created in the image of God. That is why,

man has a dignity that no one can take it away from him. There is something which is in

him that is very personal. “The person is not an ‘individualized humanness;’ it actually

24Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology,” Communio: International

Catholic Review, 17 (Fall, 1990), 444.

34

consists rather in the mode of individual being that pertains to mankind alone. This mode

of being stems from the fact that the peculiar type of being proper to mankind is

personal.”25

Man is both a subject and an object. Wojtyla is against in the reduction of man.

There must be a proper way of looking of man who is not just a being but as a subject, as

a person. “Today more than ever before we feel the need—and also see a greater

possibility—of objectifying the problem of the subjectivity of the human being.”26 That is

why Wojtyla introduces his concept of Acting Person to provide a proper way of

understanding the human person rooted in the metaphysics through the methods of

phenomenology.

a.1. Proper Understanding of Man as Person

Karol Wojtyla is aware of this great struggle of appreciation and understanding of

the wholeness of human being. “Today’s era,” he observes, “is a time of great

controversy about the human being, controversy about the meaning of human existence,

and thus about the nature and significance of the human being.”27 If man does not

understand of what it to be a truly human being is, many problems arise. With this, Karol

25Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person, trans. Andrzej Potocki, ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka (Dordrecht,

Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1979), 83.

26Wojtyla, “Subjectivity and the Irreducible in the Human Being,” 209.

27Wojtyla, “Person, Subject and Community,” 220.

35

Wojtyla gives a notion of human person which has its roots in the traditional Aristotelian-

Thomistic and the methodology of phenomenology.

“”28 is the traditional and classical Aristotelian

definition of man. It fulfills the requirement of knowing according to Aristotle. The

species is man. The genus is animal or living being. That distinguishes the given species

in genus is being endowed with reason. For Wojtyla, this definition of man is

unquestionable. “It became the dominant view in metaphysical anthropology and

spawned a variety of particular sciences, which likewise understood the human being as

an animal with the distinguishing feature of reason.”29 Wojtyla sees this definition of man

as cosmological type of understanding man. “In the philosophical and scientific tradition

homo est animal rationale, the human being was mainly an object, one of the objects in

the world to which the human being visibly and physically belongs.”30 This belief stands

as the basis of understanding human being as a person.

In the medieval era, there is this well-known and widely used definition

formulated by Boethius: persona est rationalis nature individual substantia. Person is an

individual substance of a rational nature. The person is a concrete entity which is

tantamount to the unique or to the individualized. “The concept of the ‘person’ is broader

and more comprehensive than the concept of ‘individual,’ just as the person is more than

28Man is a rational animal.

29Wojtyla, “Subjectivity and the Irreducible on the Human Being,” 211.

30Wojtyla, “Subjectivity and the Irreducible on the Human Being,” 211.

36

individualized nature.”31 This view only shows that a rational nature does not possess its

own subsistence as a nature because it subsists in the person. The person then is a

subsistent subject of existence and action.32 But this definition is too limited. Individuals

seem to be parts of a generic whole.33 Hence, it inadequately describes the human person

who is seen more completely as suppositum or subject.

Wojtyla understands the person as irreducible to a mere essence. Following the

thought of Thomas Aquinas, he believes that the person is a totality.

He is the possessor of a nature that uniquely mirrors God. He possesses an

intelligence that is, in principle, capable of knowing and intentionality becoming

all things; he has a will, an ability to love and relate himself to each person and to

everything of worth in ways that bind together in his boundless subjectivity the

whole world in a special way.34

He further asserts the Thomistic position that “takes precisely this occasion to assert that

in the created world the person is the highest perfection: the person is perfectissimum

ens.35 Man as an entity, who is a person, also has this perfection. Wojtyla explains that

the Thomistic view man as a person is objective interpretation of man. But he also points

out the limitation of such interpretation as far as analyzing more deeply consciousness

and self-consciousness.36

31Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 73.

32Jove Jim S. Aguas, Person, Action and Love: The Philosophical Thoughts of Karol Wojtyla (John Paul

II), (Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2014), 27.

33Ronald D. Lawler, Christian Personalism of Pope John Paul II, (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press,

1982), 33.

34Ibid.

35Wojtyla, “Thomistic Personalism,” 167.

36Aguas, Person, Action and Love, 33.

37

To understand the totality or the wholeness of the human person, the inadequacy

of the traditional concept of man is complemented with the modern phenomenological

method. In phenomenology, consciousness is always consciousness of something other

than consciousness. In this method, person is irreducible and a subject which is unique.

But there is a danger in this, the extreme subjectivism. It is an absolutization of the

experiential aspect. Wojtyla said that when consciousness is absolutized, “it at once cease

to account for the subjectivity of man, that is to say, his being the subject, or for his

actions; it becomes a substitute for the subject.”37 The experiences and values lose their

status in the reality. “Now, when we begin to accept the ‘pure consciousness’ or the ‘pure

subject,’ we no longer are interpreting the real subjectivity of man.”38 That is why

phenomenology must be grounded in the metaphysical terrain of the traditional notion of

person. Phenomenology is important because of its personalistic approach that

understands man in his innerness, his uniqueness and his irreducible character.

There are two contrasting conception on man: the objective type, which is from

the traditional notion of human person, makes man as an object of this world; and the

subjective type, which is based on pure consciousness, makes man a pure subject. For

Wojtyla, both are inadequate but when put together, they can arrive in the totality of the

human person. Thus, with the combination of traditional metaphysics and the modern

phenomenological analysis, Wojtyla came on understanding of man as person is subject

of both existence and action:



38

…the person, the human being as the person—seen in its ontological basic

structure—is the subject of both existence and acting, though it is important to

note that the existence proper to him is personal and not merely individual—

unlike that of an ontologically founded merely individual type of being.

Consequently, the action - whereby is meant all the dynamisms of man including

his acting as well as what happens in him - is also personal. The person is

identifiable with an ontological basic structure (suppositum) in which a provision

is to be made: the ontological structure of ‘somebody’ manifests not only its

similarities to but also its differences and detachment from the ontological

structure of ‘something’.39

Man is a personal suppositum, a fundamental expression of the whole experience of man.

“Metaphysical subjectivity, or the suppositum, as the trasphenomenal and therefore

fundamental expression of the experience of the human being, is also the guarantor of the

identity of this human being in existence and activity.”40

Wojtyla endeavored this because of his concern for the human person. He

believes that man is not just an object or just a pure subject. Man for him is a person, a

personal supposit who is both subject and object of existence and action. However it is

not yet complete, because this will actually lead us to the spiritual nature in man, his

dignity as a human person which is the heart of his philosophy.

a.2. Dignity of the Human Person

As a personalist, Wojtyla is not only concerned about human person but intensely

concerned also to the human dignity. He is intensely concerned about this because he

experienced in his early years the problematic condition of the human person. He


40Wojtyla, “Person: Subject and Community,” 233.

39

becomes a victim of barbaric regimes, Nazism and Communism, which molded him to

search for what is proper to man. He endeavored to a philosophy of man which regards

every human person with dignity, regardless of race, religious beliefs or political

orientation that opposed these systems:

The two totalitarian systems which tragically marked our century – Nazism on the

one hand, marked by the horrors of the war and the concentration camps, and

communism on the other, with its regime of oppression and terror – I came to

know, so to speak, from within. And so it is easy to understand my deep concern

for the dignity of every human person and the need to respect human rights,

beginning with the right to life. This concern was shaped in the first two years of

my priesthood and has grown stronger with time. It is also easy to understand my

concern for the family and young people. These concerns are all interwoven; they

developed precisely as are result of those tragic experiences.41

The term dignity was taken from the Latin term dignus which means worthy of

esteem and honor, due a certain respect, of weighty importance. In ordinary discourse,

dignity is used only in reference to human persons. The early Greeks held that not all

human beings have worth and dignity. Most humans are by nature slavish and suitable

only to be slaves. Most men do not have natures worthy of freedom and nature proper to

free men, hence they never used the term dignity for all human beings but only to a few.

While other traditions have limited dignity to some kinds of men, the Judeo-Christian

tradition made human dignity a concept of universal application.

In the created world, the human person is ontologically or objectively the most

perfect being and such perfection is the result of the rational and thus spiritual nature

which subsist in the person.42 Reason and freedom are the two properties concretized in

41John Paul II, Gift and Mystery: On the Fiftieth Anniversary of My Priestly Ordination, (New York:

Doubleday, 1996), 66-67.

42Jove Jim S. Aguas, “The Notions of Human Person and Human Dignity in Aquinas and Wojtyla.”

Kritike Vol. III, No. 1 (2009), 51.

40

the person. Wojtyla, therefore, says that the human person is “always rational and free

concrete being, capable of all those activities that reason and freedom alone make

possible.”43 It is the rational soul that gives man his spiritual capacities or faculties of

intelligence and will and makes him a person.44 This is the most obvious and basic reason

that shows that man is dignified above other created beings. These is cannot be said to

other entities in the world. The person is distinguished from all other entities even from

the most advanced animals because of his specific inner self, an inner life that is

characteristic only of person.45 This characteristic sets him apart from other entities.

However, it is also such spiritual life that allows him to be involved and related to the

world of objective entities: “A person is an objective entity, which as a definite subject

has the closest contact with the whole (external) world and is most intimately involved

with it, precisely because of his inwardness, its interior life.”46 As a distinctly defined

subject, he establishes contact with all other entities through his inner self. Because of

this spiritual and rational nature, he does not react to them in a purely spontaneous or

mechanical manner. This solidified that man is really above all creature because of his

capacity to relate with them through his spiritual nature.

The dignity of man, though grounded in his essence as a person, acquires a greater

significance because it came from a divine source. Man’s personal essence is a

participation of the divine personal essence hence his dignity is a participation of the

43Wojtyla, “Thomistic Personalism,” 167.

44Aguas, “The Notions of the Human Person and Human Dignity in Aquinas and Wojtyla,” 51.

45Ibid., 52.


41

divine dignity.47 The basic dignity comes directly from God’s creative act.48 It is because

of God who created man in His image and became a human being. God, who is a Person,

created man also a person. Despite this, man reduced himself because of sin.

Nevertheless, God redeems the dignity of man by sending His son in the world. For that

reason, man has a dignity which is always because of God:

The dignity of the human person finds its full confirmation in the very fact of

revelation, for this fact signifies the establishment of contact with God and human

being. To the human being, created in “the image and likeness of God,” God

communicates God’s own thoughts and plans…God also “becomes a human

being;” God enters into the dram of human existence through the redemption and

permeates the human being with divine grace.49

The dignity of the human person must also be observed and preserved. That is

why, as a human person dignified by God, he must act in accordance to this dignity.

Otherwise, as Wojtyla said, “we shall find ourselves in conflict with the very purpose of

human existence.”50 The dignity of the human person must always be acknowledge.

Wojtyla further wrote: “To acknowledge the dignity of the human being means to place

people higher than anything derived from them in the visible world. All the human works

and products crystallized in civilizations and cultures are only a means employed by

people in the pursuit of their own proper end. Human beings do not live for the sake of

47Jove Jim S. Aguas, “Affirming the Human Person and Human Dignity: A Rereading of Aquinas,”

Unitas, 75:4 (December 2002), 571.

48Aguas, “The Notions of the Human Person and Human Dignity in Aquinas and Wojtyla,” 41.

49Wojtyla, “Dignity of the Human Person,” 179.

50Ibid., 180.

42

technology, civilization or even culture; they live by means of these things, always

preserving their own purpose.”51

a.3. Acting Person

According to St. Thomas Aquinas:

Of actions done by man those alone are properly called human, which are proper

to man as man. Now man differs from irrational animals in this, that he, is master

of his actions. Wherefore those actions alone are properly called human of which

man is master. Now man is master of his actions through his reason and will;

whence, too, the free will is defined as the faculty and the will of reason.

Therefore those actions are properly called which proceed from a deliberate will.

And if any other actions are found in man, they can be called actions of a man,

but not properly human actions, since they are not proper to man as man.52

Following this line of thinking, Wojtyla considers action as a deliberate human action.

Man as subject freely acts. However, Wojtyla goes beyond that of St. Thomas. Action,

for him, is not just proper only to man as man, but as a person. Action is conceived as a

specific moment of revealing man as a person, a personal supposit, a subject. “Action

serves as a particular moment of apprehending—that is, of experiencing—the person.”53

It allows understanding the person fully. For Wojtyla said,

…action reveals the person, and we look at the person through his action. For it

lies in the correlation inherent in experience, in the very nature of man’s acting,

that action constitutes the specific moment whereby person is revealed. Action

51Wojtyla, “Dignity of the Human Person,” 178-9.

52Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1-2.q1.a1 trans. by English Dominican Fathers (New York:

Benzinger Brothers, Inc., 1947).


43

gives us the best insight into the inherent essence of the person and allows us to

understand the person most fully.54

Operari sequitur esse. Wojtyla believes that it is in and through the human acts

that we are given access to the very dynamic reality of the person because the act is the

fullest manifestation of man-person in the dynamism proper only to him.55 There are two

structures of action for Wojtyla: the man-acts and something-happens-in-man. The

difference between these two structures is the so-called ‘moment of efficacy.’ Something-

happen-to-man are those passive actions happens in him. Man-act is not just a deliberate

kind of action but it reveals man as subject. In the action of man, there is a moment of

efficacy: “experience of myself as the agent responsible for this particular form of

dynamization of myself as the subject.”56 Man, thus in a wholly experiential way is the

cause of his acting.57 Man-acts are the focus of Karol Wojtyla in his philosophy of Acting

Person because it is a conscious action that reveals him as a person. Being conscious in

his action also means that he is the subject of his actions. As a subject of his action, he is

fully free. The person must determine himself that represents the deeper, more

fundamental dimension of human authorship. In his acting, “because a human being—a

person—possesses free will, he is his own master…No one else can want for me. No one

can substitute his act of will for mine…I am, and I must be, independent in my actions.”58


55Alma S. Santiago, “Self-Fulfilment and Participation in and through the Conjugal Act in the Light of

Karol Wojtyla’s Philosophy of the Person.” (Master’s Thesis, University of Santo Tomas Graduate School,

September 1992): 19.


57Ibid., 67.


44

As a free conscious acting person, it presupposes attitude of responsibility.59 “In

this sense, he must accept his actions as his own property and also, primarily because of

their moral nature, as the domain of his responsibility.”60 That is why, as an acting

person, he must follow what is proper to his conscience and norms. He has an obligation

“to bind the conscience and bring it to act in compliance with the precepts of the norm.”61

Through this, the transcendence of an acting person is revealed through desiring and

choosing the moral good which is proper to his conscience. With this, man is being

fulfilled as a person: “man as the person, lives and fulfills himself within the perspective

of his transcendence.”62 Through doing moral good actions, man fulfills himself: “I fulfill

myself through doing good, whereas evil brings me unfulfillment.”63

Acting Person then is not someone who is just merely doing actions. With self-

determination, man is free and conscious in his own action. That is why, as an Acting

Person, he is responsible and has obligations in his actions through following properly his

conscience and moral norms.

59It should be clear that not every human being has realized his full personhood that is why not everyone

can have this attitude of responsibility on their actions. On the first place, they are not conscious and

determined in their actions. Secondly, they always need other persons to decide for them. This does not

mean that they are not human person, they are just unable to act fully as persons. Williams gives the

following example of those kind of persons: “Young children, senile adults, and mentally incompetent are

not able to act fully as persons.” In George Huntston Williams, The Mind of John Paul II: Origins of his

Thought and Action (New York: The Seabury Press, 1987), 207. This will be discussed in the Chapter 4 of

this research. The term that the researcher will use for these kind of person is “non-acting person.”


61Ibid., 164.

62Ibid., 181.

63Wojtyla, “The Person: Subject and Community,” 235.

45

a.4. Notion of the Other

If the I is a personal supposit, so as the other. If the I has a dignity of being a

human person, so as the other. If the I is a self-determined, conscious and free acting

person, so as the other. If the I is unique, irreducible, incommunicable human being, so as

the other. “The other is always one of those I’s, another individual I, related

experientially in some way to my own I.”64 The other as another I also experiences

elements that is in I. There must be a proper understanding of the other to avoid any

conflict. Acting towards the other must be in accordance to the nature of human person.

Otherwise, the other will become just a mere object of the I which in the end, the dignity

of the I and the other will be violated.

As an acting person, the actions are not just towards the self but also towards the

neighbor who is also a human person. The other may not be like exactly of the I, the I is

existing and acting always with an other. The consciousness that the other is a different I

points out the capacity of the I to participate in the humanity of the other, and to make

participation possible. Understanding the other as different I does not mean a separation

but the need to participate with, to make contact with, and to be with. The notion of the

other includes all human beings so that everyone is not just an I but also an other. The

other who could either be a he or a she is always someone who is experientially and

actually in relation with the I.65

The other does not just signify that the being existing next to me or even acting in

common with me in some systems of activities is the same kind of being as I am.

64Wojtyla, “Participation or Alienation?” 200.

65Ibid., 198.

46

Within the context of this real situation, ‘the other’ also signifies my no less

real—though primarily subjective—participation in that being’s humanity, a

participation arising from my awareness that this being is another I which means

‘also an I.’66

Because the other is also an I, it is through the other that the person and action would be

correlated that results participation.

B. Participation:

Man as a social being is living and existing together with others. Man, therefore,

must always be in participation. In the general sense, participation means “taking part in

something.”67 It is like a basketball player taking part in his team on a basketball game.

But this is not the core of the phenomenon of participation of Karol Wojtyla.

Participation must be understand in a twofold manner: “First, it is conceived as property

of the person, which is expressed by the ability to give a personalistic dimension to his

own existence and action while existing and acting together with others. Second it is

conceived as an ability to share in the humanity of others.”68

Participation is better understood on the basis of the person’s transcendence and

integration in action, when this action is performed together with other persons.69 When

the persons participate with one another, they perform an action and at the same time

fulfill themselves as a person together with others. Participation signifies a basic


67Francisco, 44.

68Ibid.

69Francisco, 45. Transcendence manifests man’s self-determination and self-possession. Integration

manifests the unity of the human person.

47

personalization of the relationship of one human being to another.70 Participation is one

trait of the experience of existing and acting together with others. However, Wojtyla

asserts that it is not simply a trait of man’s acting together with others; equally important

is the fact that it is an experience by which the very structure of the person engaged in the

acting with others is revealed.71 This only shows that it is not just in acting that the person

is being revealed because in participation, the person is being revealed more. Through

participation, the person is able to assert himself and determine his actions in accordance

with the actions of other persons.72 Wojtyla says:

Acting “together with others” thus corresponds to the person’s transcendence and

integration in the action, when man chooses what is chosen by others or even

because it is chosen by others—he then identifies the object of his choice with a

value that he sees as in one way or another homogeneous and his own. This is

connected with self-determination, for self-determination in the case of acting

“together with others” contains and expresses participation.73

That is why the self-determination of man is important in participation because even

when he chooses the object chosen by others, he identifies the object of his choice with a

value that he sees as his own. This also shows that in participation, it is the person who is

the subject himself. He is a conscious, efficacious, self-determining, and self-fulfilling

subject who exists and acts together with others.


71Aguas, Person, Action, and Love, 164.

72Ibid.


48

Participation is a dynamic correlation of person and action. In participation, it

includes both the ability of acting together with others and the realization of the

personalistic value of action and the fulfillment of the person himself. Wojtyla says:

In this correlation “participation” signifies, on the one hand, that ability of acting

“together with others” which allows the realization of all that results from

communal acting and simultaneously enables the one who is acting to realize

thereby the personalistic value of his action. However, this ability is followed by

its actualization. Thus the notion of “participation” includes here both ability and

realization.74

b.1. Participation as Task and Property

The nature of man is supposed to be rational and he is the person in virtue of the

function of reason; but as the same time he has a ‘social’ nature.75 The traditional

philosophers say that man, by nature, is social. In Wojtyla’s personalism, the point is that

man is a person—his self-becoming is a real process—precisely in relating with other

persons.76 Participation is a potentiality of a person that needs to be actualized to fulfill

himself. It is to say that participation is a property potential of man and a task to actualize

it fulfill himself as a person. The person has his specific attribute the right to perform

actions and the obligation to fulfill himself in the action.77 As Wojtyla says, “For if in

acting ‘together with others’ man can fulfill himself according to this principle, then, on


75Ibid.

76Santiago, 55.


49

the other hand, everyone ought to strive for that kind of participation which would allow

him in acting together with others to realize the personalistic value of his own action.”78

The first sense of participation refers to the fact that persons, while existing and

acting together with his fellow human persons, are capable of fulfilling themselves in

such activity. For that reason, participation is a property of man. Wojtyla says: “I view it

as a property of the person, a property that express itself in the ability of human beings to

endow their own existence and activity with a personal (personalistic) dimension when

they exist and act together with others.”79 The second sense of participation is that it is a

task of man to participate, to act and exist with his fellow human person because he

cannot attain the fulfillment of himself as a person if he will not participate. It is a task

because it is prescribed by the commandment of love: “that each of us must continually

set ourselves the task of actually participating in the humanity of others, of experiencing

the other as an I, as a person.”80 Participation as a task must be axiological. This task can

and should be placed at the basis of the strictly ethical order and strictly ethical

appraisal.81




81Ibid.

50

b.2. Limitations of Participation

Participation as an attribute of every human person where the I fulfills himself by

existing and acting ‘together with others’ has this antithesis: the alienation. Alienation is

essentially a personalistic problem which is ethical problem as well. Alienation “creates

an occasion for depriving people in some respect of the possibility of fulfilling

themselves in community.”82 There are two limitations of participation which are forms

of alienation, namely, the ‘individualism’ and ‘objective totalism.’

Individualism, which implies a denial of participation, sees an individual as a

supreme and fundamental good to which all the goods of the community must be

subordinated. Individualism limits participation, since it isolates the person from others

by conceiving him solely as an individual who concentrates on himself and on his own

good; this latter is also regarded in isolation from the good of others and of the

community.83 The individual good is valued most in the society. Being together with

others becomes a mere necessity of an individual. For that individual, others are the

source of limitation to achieve the good. Other people become his enemy that causes him

to protect his own good from them. It is a denial and rejection of participation. In

individualism, the property of human being to participate that allows to fulfill himself in

acting ‘together with others’ does not really exist.

Totalism, on the other hand, is the reversed individualism. In individualism, the

enemy to achieve the goal of an individual is the community, while in objective totalism,


83Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 273-4.

51

it is the good of an individual who is the chief enemy. It is a belief that in attaining the

common good, the individual good must be limited: “totalism assumes that inherent in

the individual there is only the striving for individual good, that any tendency toward

participation or fulfillment in acting and living together with others is totally alien to him,

it follows that the ‘common good’ can be attained only by limiting the individual.”84

In both of these alienating systems, man is inhibited from participating in the

community. The ability and property of man to participate is being denied. Thus, Wojtyla

rejects both of these limitations of participation that deprives man to fulfill himself.

Wojtyla believes that “every human being must have the right to act which means

‘freedom in the action,’ so that the person can fulfill himself in performing the action.”85

In the next chapter, the notion of community will be discussed.


85Ibid., 275.

52

Chapter 3

We: Social Dimension of Person in Participation

In the previous chapter, the researcher exposed that man is not just merely an

object of this world but also, more importantly, a person. Wojtyla shows that in

understanding man, it is not similar with analyzing other beings in this world. Wojtyla

explains that there are two inadequate understanding of man: the objective and subjective

understanding of man. The objective understanding man is the traditional conception of

man. Traditional philosophers such as Aristotle, Boethius and St. Thomas Aquinas define

man as an individual substance in a rational nature. Man as a person is an ontological

supposit. It made man as mere object of this world that can be understood through

classifying, like other beings. In the contemporary philosophy, Max Scheler’s

phenomenology defines man as person who is a pure subject, a pure consciousness,

irreducible and incommunicable. Wojtyla combined these two notions of man to come up

with the proper understanding of man who is personal supposit in a rational nature,

capable of experiencing himself in his action as a person. Wojtyla believes that this

shows man as not just a mere being but as one having dignity above other beings. This

dignity is not gained but given by God by creating him as an Imago Dei. God is a person

and He made man a person.

As a person, he is a subject. As a subject, he is acting towards another person. As

a relational personal being, man is always in relation with others. Therefore, he must

participate with other persons to achieve his fulfillment. In that way, he realizes himself

53

as a person acting together with others. As a person, who always in relation, belongs to a

social dimension. This dimension is in the form of we.

Actually, the structure of we is a part of Christianity. It is a relationship of the

community of believers to God. When an individual believes in God, it must be in a

communal act. Cardinal-then Joseph Ratzinger said: “The believer, as such, never stands

alone: to become a believer means to emerge from isolation into the “we” of the children

of God; the act of turning to the God revealed in Christ is always a turning also to those

who have already been called.”86 The community of believers submit themselves in one

profession of faith. This ecclesial act of the community of believers has this social

structure of we. Ratzinger further said: “Hence initiation into Christianity has always

been socialization into the community of believers as well, becoming “we,” which

surpasses the mere “I.”87

In this chapter, the researcher will present the social dimension of being a person

who is acting and living together with others toward a common good. The virtue of

common good must not eliminate the individual good rather it must perfect it. In this

dimension of participation, the good of an individual person becomes the good of all. The

multiplicity of I’s, though they are all incommunicable, willingly and consciously submit

themselves in this common good and form a We. They become then a community acting

with a purpose of achieving the good which is for all. This goal is not easy to achieve but

86Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “The Primacy of the Pope and the Unity of the People of God,”

Communio: International Catholic Review 41 (Spring, 2014), 113. This text originally presented at a 1977

academic symposium on the theme of “Service to Unity: On the Nature and Commission of the Petrine

Ministry,” is taken from the book Fundamental Speeches from Five Decades, ed. Florian Schuller, trans.

Michael J. Miller, J.R. Foster, and Adrian Walker (San Franciscan: Ignatius Press, 2012), 13-33.

87Ibid., 114.

54

this will make every human person achieve their fulfilment personalisticaly and

axiologicaly.

A. Notion of Community:

Community, in a general sense, is a group of people composed of different

individuals, living and acting together as a group. But this sense of community is just a

“material fact,” which says nothing about community in the thinking of Wojtyla because

it is only a mere multiplicity of beings. Wojtyla understands the community not as this

multiplicity of subjects itself, but always the specific unity of this multiplicity. According

to Wojtyla, “this unity is accidental with respect to each subject individually and to all of

them together.”88 Wojtyla’s notion of community therefore introduces a new subjectivity

in the process of acting. This new subjectivity is the contribution of all members of the

community. It is quasi-subjectivity. Wojtyla says: “In fact, it is but a quasi-

subjectiveness, because even when the being and acting is realized together with others it

is the man-person who is always its proper subject.”89 However, this does not mean that a

community is a new person: “What Wojtyla means by this is that the only proper subjects

are individual persons… The community is not a new person or suppositum alongside

individual persons…It belongs, rather, to the accidental order and it is a matter of new

relations existing among real subjects, real acting persons.”90



90Peter Simpson, On Karol Wojtyla (California: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, Inc., 2001), 38.

55

There are two kinds of community that Wojtyla gives distinction: the community

of being and the community of acting. The members of the community of being have

been grouped together because of the natural bonds that exist among the members.91 The

examples of this kind of community are the family, the nation, and the state. These are

examples of community of being because the members inside those communities never

choose their family or their nationality. The Filipino nation, thus, is a community of

being that qualifies every Filipino citizen as a member of this community. The other kind

is the community of acting. This means that the members of this community are grouped

together and the common goal of the group provides the bond of union.92 The examples

of this kind of community given by Wojtyla are the workers digging together a trench,

and students cooperating in memorizing lectures. It can be found in this kind of

community the common action towards a common end. There is an accidental union

among the members of this kind of community.

Wojtyla is interested in the community of acting for it has something to do with

the dimensions of participation. In this kind of community, not only the objective unity

towards a goal can be analyzed. Wojtyla becomes interested here because the personal

subjectivity of each individual in this kind of community can be examined and

investigated. Also, in this kind of community, interpersonal and social relations are

occurring. Wojtyla further elaborates:

By analyzing only the multiplicity of human supposita and the unity of objective

interpersonal and social relations that corresponds to them, we obtain a somewhat

91Santiago, 58.

92Ibid.

56

different picture from the one we get when we focus on personal subjectivity, and

thus on the consciousness and lived experience of interpersonal and social

relations in a particular human multiplicity.93

Actually, the community of being can also be a community of acting if the

community of being acts together with each other towards a certain goal. A good

example is the family. As community of being, they are bonded naturally, but when they

act towards a certain goal, example is to have a good livelihood, then each of the family

members do something to attain it. Thus, they become a community of acting.

The community of acting must realize themselves as a we for them to become an

authentic community. If a community of acting just remains on attaining a certain goal

without realizing themselves as we, there would be a conflict. As a community which

unites, there must be an authentic interpersonal relationship with the members of the

community that realize the value of each member. In the end, this will result to acting

towards the common good of the community. These will be elaborated on the succeeding

topics in this chapter.

B. Dimensions of Participation:

Wojtyla distinguishes two mutually irreducible dimensions of participation: the

interpersonal which is the one-to-one interpersonal relationship which is signified by the

I-You Relation; and the social dimension which is communal and signified by we-

relation. According to Wojtyla, in the life of the human person, from his beginning and

through his long development, his whole existence is immersed in these two dimensions


57

of community.94 The entire life of a human person is lived within these dimensions of

participation. These are not reducible to each other as Williams interprets it:

These two kinds of togetherness are not reducible to each other or derivative one

from another, although they interpenetrate in their “profiles.” Although the

“privileged” interpersonal communities of I-thou are friendship and marriage, this

modality, or patter, permits of considerable extension in the direction of plurality

and can eventually take on some of the characteristics of a We-Community.95

b.1. I-You: Interpersonal Dimension of Participation

As it was presented in the previous chapter, there is a need for a human person to

participate in attaining his fulfillment as a person. It was also showed how an I is a

concrete human person, a human subject, unique, irreducible, rational, and self-

determined subject and object of his actions. It was also discussed how the other is a

different I, though like the I, is a someone who is a concrete human person also. And

there is a need for the I to participate with his fellow human persons properly which

reveals himself more of a person. This is actually the very starting point of the first

dimension of participation: the I-You Relation. It must be noted that the you is always in

the singular form that is why it is an interpersonal relationship. Wojtyla explains:

A thou [you] is another I, one different from my own I. In thinking or speaking of

a thou, I express a relation that somehow proceeds from me, but also returns to

me. “Thou” is a term that expresses not only separation, but also a connection.

This term always contains a clear separation of one from many

others…Nevertheless, in thinking or speaking of a thou, I always have some sense

that the concrete human being who I thus describe is one of many whom I could


95Williams, The Mind of John Paul II: Origins of his Thought and Action, 217.

58

so describe, that at other times or in other situations I also describe (and

experience) various other people in the same way, and that I could describe each

of them in this way.96

The I-You relationship points to the plurality or multiplicity of subjects and the

fact that the you is another I. In the I-You relationship, the need of the I to participate

with the you, to constitute oneself and achieve the fulfillment of both I and you, is being

emphasized by Wojtyla. Both the I and the you experiences a mutual revelation of both as

subjects. The self-revelatory act of both is manifested through consciousness. In this kind

of relation, there is a reflexivity because it demonstrates the ability of the I to return from

which it proceeds, to the I itself. Despite this, it does not mean a counter-relation or a

reciprocal relation. As Wojtyla elaborates: “I am referring to the very same relation that

proceeds from my I to the thou for this relation has a complementary function, which

consists in returning to the I from which it proceed.”97 In other words, even if the

relationship is reciprocated or not, it does not matter because it will always return to the

subject. So by reflexivity, Wojtyla means a unidirectional, unilateral relation that

proceeds from the I to the thou and returns to the I. Through this relation, the I gains a

fuller experience, maybe a better perspective of himself through the other self.98 It is, in a

sense, a verification of the self in the light of another self. Wojtyla stresses:

…in the normal course of event, the thou assists me in more fully discovering and

even confirming my own I: the thou contributes to my self-affirmation. In its

basic form, the I-thou relationship, far from leading me away from my


97Ibid., 242.


59

subjectivity, in some sense more firmly grounds me in it. The structure of the

subject and of the subject’s priority with respect to the relation.99

As the subjectivity of the I is being confirmed in the I-You relation, “the subject as

a subject in itself represents a personal subjectivity peculiar to himself and the person

because his self-transcendence and integration is able to affirm his own personal

subjectivity.”100 As the I is being revealed and being confirmed in this kind of relation,

the spiritual nature also of the person is being revealed and confirmed, his dignity. There

must also be a mutual acceptance and confirmation of the value of the I and the you as a

human person. That is why, if this relationship will be reciprocal, participation forms

essential constituent of an interpersonal relationship: “when a thou that for me becomes a

specific other, and thus “also another human being,” simultaneously makes me its own

thou; when two people mutually become an I and thou for each other and experience their

relationship in this manner. Only then, it seems to me, do we observe the full character of

the community proper to an interpersonal I-thou relationship.”101

The reciprocal revelation in the I-You relation also has an axiological significance.

In this relation, the I and the you should reveal themselves in their tendency towards self-

fulfillment manifested in the acts of the conscience, thereby revealing the transcendence

proper to man as person understood as the dignity of man as person. Therefore, both

subjects must accept and confirm it. Moreover, this serves as moral ground of the

relationship. This shows that they must be responsible to each other. Wojtyla asserts:

99Wojtyla, “The Person: Subject and Community,” 242-3.

100Agua, Person, Action and Love, 175.


60

In interpersonal I-thou relationships, the partners should not only unveil

themselves before one another in truth of their personal reality, but they should

also accept and affirm one another in that truth. Such an acceptance and

affirmation is an expression of the moral (ethical) meaning of interpersonal

community.102

If the I-You relation refers directly to person-to-person themselves and indirectly

to the multiplicity of person joined by relation. When it refers directly to the multiplicity

or plurality of persons and indirectly to the persons belonging to that plurality, it is now

called we-relation. This is what Wojtyla means when he says, “Communio, which is

essentially an I-other relationship, should be clearly distinguished from communitas,

which embraces a larger number of persons.”103 The we-relation signifies several people

who are coexisting as a result of accidental relations. Wojtyla calls this group as social

group or society. It is accidental because society itself is a complex of relations. Though

this is an accidental relation, people inside it are personal subjects who are substantial

beings.

b.2. We: Social Dimension of Participation

We-relation signifies not only a plurality of people but also a community existing

and acting together in common actions. By common actions, it does not mean that person

have same actions. The meaning of the common action for Wojtyla is activities, along

with the existence of those many I’s, “are related to a single value, which, therefore,



61

deserves to be called the common good.”104 People, who engage in a we relationship,

experience themselves existing and acting together with others but they experience this in

a whole new dimension.105 Through the we-relation, the person discovers acceptance and

confirmations of his or her concrete personal subjectivity in relation to the common good.

The transcendence of the human person is being expressed in we-relation. In fact, the

common good actualizes the transcendence of each I, of each person: “the “common”

relation of may I’s to a common good, by virtue of which this multiplicity of subjects

appears to itself (and to others as well) as a specific we and is that we, is a particular

expression of the transcendence proper to the human being as a person.”106

The we relationship not only allows a person to form a new kind of relationship

with others but he is also able to experience his humanity as well as the humanity of

others more fully.107 Inside the we-relation, the I-You relation is not being eliminated. The

I-You relation inside the we-relation makes the participation more authentic. When each

members of the we-relation is having interpersonal relation with one another, there the

we-relation is being more actualized. That is why the I-You relation is always there and

never ceases in a we-relation. Wojtyla believes that marriage is the best example of

interpersonal relationship that takes a social dimension without eliminating the

interpersonal relationship. The participation of the man and a woman started in an I-You

relation, accepting into their relationship a set of values. They are mutually and


105Mejos, “Against Alienation,” 75.


107Mejos, “Against Alienation,” 75.

62

exclusively revealing themselves to each other that transcends their action to do what is

proper for the other. Then, having a common good, to form a family, they are also

forming a we. Despite this, the husband and wife do not cease as I and You to each other:

they still continue to have an interpersonal relationship.

The we-relation will be thoroughly explicated in the following parts of this

chapter as the focus of this study. It must be noted that a group of people must have, first

and foremost, a common action. They must be a community of acting. This common

action is realized as the common good of the community which the proper term is we.

C. We-Relation and Common Good:

The notion of common good is important in the we-relation because it is the

fundamental value of the relationship that each member is called to participate with. By

virtue of the common good, the different I’s in the we relation come to realize that they

are “definite we,” and therefore are able to focus their actions towards this value.108 From

the interpersonal relationship, though it still remains, the direction of the relation is

fundamentally changed as they are being determined by the common good. This also

forms a mutual relationship between the members. They are being united because of this

common good. They are not just merely acting together but they have common actions

towards that common good.


63

There are many errors on the notion of common good. Many people conceive

common good as something material that the community is attaining, e.g. money, fame,

awards, records, etc. But common good for Wojtyla is not an alien good to the person.

Therefore, it is not just a mere material. Common good is also not just a good of the

many. If this will be the basis of common good, there is a possibility that it is not true.

Common good must be understood as something which unites every individuals that

ensures the true good of each. It is a good which is truly and fully common to every

member of the community. Wojtyla emphasizes common good as the good of the many

but in its fuller dimension; it is the good of all. To elaborate this proper notion of

common good, the following subparts will give a thorough explanation of it.

c.1. Conceptions of Common Good

The teleological conception of the common good is about the common good as

the end of the community. A community is just merely participating towards an objective

and material end. They can be possibly called a community of acting who is not yet in the

we-relation. They are coexisting and acting together but lack an interpersonal relation

with the members of the community. When this is the conception of common good of a

community, they are acting like mere machines or robots. In this conception, the

subjective moment of common good for the individuals is being disregarded.

Wojtyla explains common good in two senses: the objective sense which refers to

the good which is the goal of the common action performed by the community; and the

subjective sense which refers to the conditions and somehow initiates from the persons

64

acting together. The conception of common good must be both subjective and objective

to arrive on a personalistic conception of common good. The objective conception, which

is towards an end, is present together with the subjective conception. The subjective

conception of common good is strictly related to participation as property of the acting

person. As Wojtyla says, “our concern is therefore with the genuinely personalistic

structure of human existence in a community, that is, in every community that man

belongs to.”109

Thus, common good is not just an end of the community. There is this subjective

sense of common good that seeks the good of each subject and just of the community

itself. It must also not be purely subjective sense. There will be a conflict if it will be

purely subjective. Community is a multiplicity of subjects, of different subjects who has

different individual goods. That is why; there is the precedence of the common good to

the individual good. The subjects must submit their individual good for the common

good.

c.2. Submission of Individual Goods for the Common Good

As the superiority of the common good must be observed in a we-relation, the

individual good must be submitted. The superior value of the common good is based on

the fact that the good of every subject of the we community gains fuller expression and

realization.110 It must be noted that this is not to block or repress the good of an


110Francisco, 59.

65

individual. This is not actually contrary to the acting person who has a self-determination,

self-possession, and self-governance because the free and conscious subject cannot be

possessed by anyone. Otherwise, it is the free and conscious subject who submits his own

good for the good of the community with self-determination.

To realize the common good, the individuals must be ready to submit their

individual good willingly. It is in a sense very difficult but it has a significant value to

achieve the fuller sense of common good. It is not actually taking away the individual

good of the personal subjects in the community. Rather, the individual good is being

conditioned for the sake of the common good. Wojtyla reflects on this:

The common good is often a difficult good; perhaps it is even so in principle. We

Poles know from our own history how much the common good we call “Poland”

or “our homeland” has at times cost particular individuals and even whole

generations of our countrymen and women. The amount of effort expended in

achieving the common good, the amount of sacrifice of individual goods—to the

point of exile, imprisonment and death—testifies to the greatness and superiority

of this good. The situation mentioned here by way of example (and very telling

ones indeed, especially the extreme situations) are convincing proof of the truth

that the common good conditions the individual goods of the members of the

community, the human we.111

Readily and willingly sacrificing the individual good and sacrificing it for the

good of the community corresponds to the ability inherent in every individual to

participate. This capacity to participate enables man to fulfill himself without acting

contrary to his nature. As Wojtyla says, “since such a sacrifice corresponds to the ability

of participation inherent in man, and because this ability allows him to fulfill himself, it is

not contrary to nature.”112 This action of man is not simply doing for the sake of just



66

doing it. It must be rooted in the axiological pattern. It must be through the ability of

human person to transcend in his actions. It must be rooted in the truth of the good and

the truth of conscience inherent in the nature of man.

c.3. Transcendence of the Subject in and through Common Good

As it was said in the preceding part of this chapter, the common good actualizes

the transcendence of the human person. It is the transcendence of every human person

which allows each member to relate with one another and connect to a common value.

The meaning and significance of transcendence, particularly in relation to the fulfillment

of the person and the conscience, is an important element of the self-fulfillment of the

subjective self.113 Hence, the relation to the common good, a relation that unites the

many I’s, must be grounded on an axiological value of their action towards their

fulfilment. As Wojtyla says, “transcendence is realized in relation to truth and to the good

as true.”114 The common good that unites the multiplicity of subjects must be a true good.

The common good becomes the good of the community inasmuch as it creates in the

axiological sense the conditions for the common existence, which is followed by

acting.115

When the good of individuals have been realized for the common good, it will

provide a basis of new unity which will lead to the realization of this transcendence of the




67

human person inside the community in participation. As it is said that the transcendence

of the human person is realized in the conscience, the actions formed is rooted in the truth

and in the true good. The social community is essentially free from any form of

utilitarianism because it is based on the realm of the objective and authentically

experienced truth of the good and truth of the conscience.116 In the we community, each

member, in the name of this truth, embraces hardships and sacrifices connected with the

realization of the true and authentic common good. And in behalf of the same truth, “they

also achieve all those values that go to make up the true and inviolable good of the

persons.”117

Thus, the common good realizes the transcendence of the human being in a sense

that it actualizes the nature of man towards the truth and the good. In this way, the

participation in the we community becomes authentic. All members must realize their

transcendence to achieve the true common good of the community. This must be

common in every member of the community. Though they act in a different way, it is still

towards the common good. The we, as have been mentioned, does not simply signify

multiplicity or plurality of subject; it refers more importantly to the subjectivity y of this

multiplicity, or at least to the achievement of such subjectivity though, of course, there

will be diversity in terms of the realization of this subjectivity, in terms of the proportion



68

and nature of each social community.118 The subject is realizing what is essential for the

we community. In this context, Wojtyla says:

…they also display a readiness to realize the subjectivity of the many, and, in the

universal dimension, the subjectivity of all—for this is what a complete

realization of the human we entails. It seems that only on the basis of this kind of

social community, one is which a factual multi-subjectivity develops in the

direction of the subjectivity of the many, can we perceive in the human we an

authentic communio personarum.119

Speaking of the authentic communion of persons, Wojtyla also discussed the

different participative attitudes in a We Community. In these attitudes, there are authentic

and inauthentic attitudes in participation in a We Community. Of course, Wojtyla desires

the authentic attitudes in a communal relationship.

D. Participative Attitudes in We-Relation:

The we community is composed of different subjects having common actions

towards the common good. Because of the multiplicity of I’s, there are different attitudes

that are acted by different members of the community. It is said that there is a difficulty

in achieving the common good because every individual good must be submitted for the

common good of the community. Through this, the transcendence of the acting person

must also be realized. As the person acts together with others inside the community, there

is still possibility of having a different attitude towards the good. This is not actually a

118Aguas, Person, Action and Love, 183-4.

119Wojtyla, “The Person: Subject and Community,” 251-2.

69

problem, if it is authentic. The problem will be in the inauthentic attitude of different

members of the social community, or we community.

Wojtyla mentions certain attitudes that would either contribute or hinder the

realization of participation. Those who can contribute are those authentic attitudes,

namely, solidarity and opposition. Those attitudes that can hinder the realization of

participation are those of inauthentic attitudes, namely, conformism and non-

involvement. There are also other factors or attitudes that may or may not enhance the

participation but only these attitudes are discussed by Wojtyla in his notion of

participation.

d.1. Authentic Attitudes

Wojtyla presented two attitudes that can enhance and contribute to an authentic

we-relation: solidarity and opposition. They may perceive them as contrary to each other

but for Wojtyla, these attitudes confirms the common good: “We propose that the proper

meaning of both “solidarity” and “opposition” emerges from the investigation of the

community of acting or being and by reference to the common good specific for this

community.”120

The first authentic attitude discussed by Wojtyla is the attitude of solidarity. It is

“the natural consequence of the fact that human beings live and act together; it is the

attitude of a community, in which the common good properly conditions and initiates


70

participation, and participation in turn properly serves the common good, fosters it, and

furthers its realization.”121 It is a constant readiness to accept and to realize the share of

each member of the community. Individual man acts always for the “benefit of the

whole” for the common good. Man, in accepting this attitude, transcends his own needs,

his own good, in view of the common good. He looks beyond his own share because of

the common good. This intentional reference allows him to realize essentially his own

share.122 With this attitude, the person prevents himself from violating the rights and the

good of other members of the community and he promotes the good of everyone. It

allows the person to find fulfilment of himself through complementing others in the

community. In this sense, solidarity is in harmony with the principle of participation.123

But solidarity does not mean to keep strictly to one’s own share. Wojtyla says that it is

lack of solidarity: “Such possibility indicates that in the attitude of solidarity the

reference to the common good must always remain alive: it must dominate to the extent

that it allows one to know when it is necessary to take over more than one’s usual share

in acting and responsibility.”124 Through the attitude of solidarity in the community, any

tendency toward particularism or divisions must be spurned. He asserted that there must

be a mutual complementariness in a solidaristic we community: “every member of a

community has to be ready to ‘complement’ by his action what is done by other members

of the community.”125 But this does not mean that they will just agree with each other,


122Ibid., 285.



71

according to Wojtyla, the attitude of solidarity necessarily includes the attitude of

opposition.

The attitude of opposition is not a contradiction of solidarity, for a person who

truly pursues a common good may even oppose some means toward achieving it.126 The

notion of opposition of Wojtyla is far from rejecting the common good and the principle

of participation. Wojtyla says: “The one who voices his opposition to the general or

particular rules or regulations of the community does not thereby reject his membership:

he does not withdraw his readiness to act and to work for the common good.”127 There

are many different interpretations of opposition and some really devoid the element of

common good. That is why, it should be clear that Wojtyla interprets opposition as

aiming “more adequate understanding and, to an even greater degree, the means

employed to achieve the common good.”128 It seeks as its purpose a constitutive role

within the community. “They seek for that participation and that attitude to the common

good which would allow them a better, a fuller, and a more effective share of the

community life.”129 Opposition appears to be constructive in a sense that it confirms the

correctness of the community. “The structure of a human community is correct only if it


126Francisco, 64.


128Ibid., 286.

129Ibid., 286.

72

admits not just the presence of a justified opposition, but also that practical effectiveness

of opposition required by the common good and the right of participation.”130

The meeting point of solidarity and opposition is dialogue. “Dialogue is the

proper attitude that will reinforce solidarity and promote participation among members

who are in opposition to one another.”131 Dialogue brings out issues to promote active

participation that eliminates any partial or subjective views which are the source of

conflicts and misunderstandings among the members of the community. But this is still

towards the common good: “the principle of dialogue, far from avoiding tensions,

conflicts, or fights among people, brings into light what is right and real in these

controverted issues, for the good of the people.”132

Solidarity and opposition are authentic attitudes because they allow the realization

of participation and the transcendence of the person in action inside the community. The

opposite of these attitudes are conformism and non-involvement or avoidance.

d.2. Inauthentic Attitudes

The attitudes of solidarity and opposition are authentic because there is a

realization of the personalistic value of action and participation. The attitudes

conformism and non-involvement are not authentic because it is impossible with these

attitudes to have a realization of personalistic value of action and participation. The loss


131Santiago, 74-5.

132Francisco, 69-70.

73

or rejection of these elements, which is accidental, would gradually change solidarity into

conformity, and opposition into avoidance or non-involvement.133 That is why the

inauthentic attitudes are, in a sense, relative to authentic attitudes.

To conform, according to Wojtyla, “denotes tendency to comply with the

accepted custom and to resemble others, a tendency that is in itself natural, in many

respects positive and constructive or even creative.”134 The community is swayed towards

servility which is highly negative. It is a specific form of passiveness which results to his

actions just ‘something-happens-to-him’ without being responsible and committed in the

community. It is a mere compliancy, inactive even though acting. Wojtyla elaborates:

“conformism consist primarily in an attitude of compliance or resignation, in a specific

form of passiveness that make the man-person to be but the subject of what happens

instead of being the actor or agent responsible for building his own attitudes and his own

commitment in the community.”135 The individual who is a conformist does not accept

his share in constructing the community because he is just allowing himself to be carried

away by unanimous decision. Conformism is tantamount to “a definite renunciation of

seeking the fulfillment of oneself.”136 It is an indication of personal weakness because the

individual does not transcend his becoming a person and he does not make any choice

and decision for the community. It only shows that the conforming man does not really

133Francisco, 70.

134Wojtyla, The Acting Person, 345. This is the literal translation found in the Appendix of The Acting

Person.

135Ibid., 289.

136Williams, The Mind of John Paul II: Origins of his Thought and Action, 214.

74

care about the common good of the community. “On the surface, servile conformism

shows man’s confirmation and manifestation of solidarity, underneath, it denies solidarity

and evades opposition.”137 Wojtyla observes, “Beneath the uniform surface, there lies

latent differentiation, and it is the task of the community to provide for the necessary

conditions for turning into personal participation.”138 In short, conformism leads to a

mere uniformity rather than unity of the community.

Together with conformism, the attitude of avoidance is characterized by

purposelessness to the common good. Though avoidance is more authentic than

conformism, still, it is an inauthentic attitude. As the attitude of conformism evades

solidarity, that attitude of avoidance evades opposition.139 Avoidance or non-involvement

is nothing but a withdrawal from acting together with others in the community. The

avoiding individual does not commit himself on a share or responsibility inside the

community. The individual isolates himself from other people. This may be a sign of

protest or opposition but Wojtyla means here of avoidance or non-involvement is that: “a

kind of substitute or compensatory attitude for those who find solidarity too difficult and

who do not believe in the sense of opposition.”140 It may be acknowledged as a form of

protest but still it is an act lacking of participation. It is characterized by a person’s

absence from participating in his community.141 The attitude of avoidance or non-

137Santiago, 75.


139 Ibid.,

140Ibid., 291.

141Francisco, 72.

75

involvement is actually an act with a personalistic value in a sense that it is deliberately

and consciously chosen by the member. But Wojtyla says, “even if these reasons to

justify its being adopted by the individual these same reasons become an accusation of

the community insofar as it has caused it.”142 If the avoidance or non-involvement is the

only solution seen by the individual to solve the personal problems, the problem is in the

community. There is a wrong notion of common good inside the community. That is

why, though it is more authentic than conformism for that action has a personalistic

value, it is still inauthentic attitude.

Conformism and avoidance or non-involvement are both inauthentic attitude.

There is also this “conformist non-involvement” which is the combination of these two

attitudes. These two attitudes “causes man to abandon his striving for fulfillment in his

prerogatives to be “himself” by the community and thus tries to save it in isolation.”143

The conformist maintains appearance in the community while the no-involvement

disappears in the community but both does not care about the common good of the

community. Wojtyla says that these attitudes deprive something very important: “of that

dynamic strain of participation unique to the person from which stem actions leading to

his authentic fulfillment in the community of being and acting together with others.”144

With these inauthentic attitudes, the we community cannot achieve because it is really

being an acting person participating with other acting person. Therefore, the we

community must participate with an authentic attitude towards each other. Only through


143Ibid.

144Ibid.

76

then, will the community be authentic and rooted in truth of being a human person acting

and existing together with others.

In the succeeding chapter, the relation of the personalistic norm to the common

good of we–relation will be explicated. Personalistic norm can eliminate every

inauthentic attitudes inside the community. It can make the community free from the

utilitarian attitude of members.

77

Chapter 4

Personalistic Norm in Relation to the Common Good of We

The researcher exposed in the preceding chapters of this research how man, as a

person, who is a subject and object of his action, exists and acts together with other

human persons. The previous chapter elaborates the need of every human person to

participate with each other to achieve their fulfilment. In existing and acting together with

others, they are being bonded of the virtue of the common good. With this, the

multiplicity of I’s can fully say that they are a we. We is formed through the submission

of individual good of many I’s towards their goal, the common good of the community. It

is also a multiplicity of interpersonal dimension of participation. The individual person is

not just merely participating with one person but in every I in the social dimension. As it

bonds individual person, the common good must be rooted in the truth of conscience and

of freedom. This common good is difficult to achieve but it is the only way that a group

of people can say that they are a We as such. Authentic and inauthentic attitudes may be

present in participation. To avoid the inauthentic attitude, every member must freely

submit themselves with self-determination and self-consciousness so that every

individual person experiences themselves in their acting together with others. In this

chapter, the researcher will explicate how participation in we-relation is perfected only

through following the personalistic norm and the commandment to love. Every member

of the community shares their ‘humanness’ to one another by the virtue of common good

and respecting the dignity of every human person inside the community.

78

In chapter 2 of this research, the notion of the human person is discussed. Man is

not just mere object of this world but man is also a subject. He is not just a mere

suppositum, rather a personal supposit who is a subject and object of his action. Man is,

therefore, above other creatures. In his spiritual nature, the human person has a sublime

dignity because he is created in the image and likeness of God. His dignity as a human

person is not acquired nor gained. Rather, the dignity of the human person is from God.

Because of this, man must be properly understood. Also, every action that man would

take reveals himself as a person. Therefore, man must act in accordance to his nature.

Man must act with dignity. He is the subject of his actions.

Man, as a subject, uses various means to attain his end. Man in his various

activities makes use of the whole created universe, takes advantage of all its resources for

ends which he sets himself, for he alone understands them.145 The whole created universe

is ordained for the utilization of man in order to serve his end. He can make food out of

animals, fruits and vegetables if he is hungry. He can make a shelter out of trees, rocks

and metals. He can make everything he wants out of this natural world. A problem arises

in his relation to other human beings. There is this possibility that man, as a subject,

makes other human beings an object of his action to attain his end. The question here is

that: is it really permissible to make use of other human person to attain one’s end?

In a community, using a person is possible. Their relationship with each other

may fall on seeking the pleasure with each other. Some members of a community are just

remaining in the community as long as it is pleasurable to them. With this kind of attitude

145Wojtyla, Love and responsibility, 25.

79

inside a community, there is no authentic participation. Moreover, this community cannot

constitute a we-relation. As it was discussed in the Chapter 3 of this research, the we has

a common good which is rooted in the truth of the good and the truth of conscience

inherent in the nature of man. The human person transcends in his actions towards others.

Using is not possible in constituting an authentic we. There is a personalistic relation

inside this dimension of participation. Every member of the community must relate to

each other properly as person. This not must be present inside the communal relationship.

To relate properly to others inside the community, because of their dignity of the human

person, there is a demand for them to be loved.

The demand to love is to oppose the utilitarian principle of using persons. In his

Christian Personalism, Wojtyla gives the significance of the Commandment to love in the

Gospel in his personalistic norm. Though commandment of love is not same as the

personalistic norm, taking in a broader view, “commandment of love is the personalistic

norm.”146 The commandment of love is to love God, the Perfect Personal Being, and to

love neighbors, the other human persons. According to Wojtyla, “Strictly speaking, the

commandment says: ‘Love persons’, and the personalistic norm says: ‘A person is an

entity of a sort to which the only proper and adequate way to relate is love.’”147

As every person submits themselves for the good together with others, they are

also forming this we-relation. This is the social dimension of participating and relating

with other persons through love. Every member of the we must willingly submit


147Ibid.

80

themselves for the common good, the good of all. The individuals will submit their own

personal good to relate properly and adequately with one another. This kind of action is

love, a self-giving for the good of others. Therefore, as a community, the we fulfills the

personalistic norm and also follows the commandment to love. Love is present in relating

with one another in we-relation. That is why, everyone and everything is being treated

properly in this dimension of participation. All members of the we is the object of love

even the non-acting person who cannot participate fully as person. Also, the common

good of we aims the good of everyone even those who are ordained to serve the

humanity, the other creatures.

A. Non-Utilitarian Attitude of We:

The utilitarian principle, according to Wojtyla, “preaches the maximum of

pleasure for the greatest possible number of people—obviously with a minimum number

of discomforts for the same number.”148 It may look like a something good, but behind

this principle is an inadequate approach on the value of human person. Utilitarian only

sees the pleasure and not the proper action. It is bounded on what is the good of an

individual in using other person for pleasure. Wojtyla means that it is something that “I

put a value on the pleasure of this person only in so far as it gives pleasure to me”149 This

shows that the relationship of this individual is only because of pleasure. And because of

this, they are using one another to attain their pleasure. The utilitarian does not see the


149Ibid.

81

other as a person, but only something that can give him pleasure. He sees the other as an

object that he can be used to attain what he wants. Appropriating this in participation,

people are just relating with one another because it is pleasurable. The authentic and

proper value of person is being ignored. Utilitarian participation is very limited. It is just

for pleasure but not really for the good, the true good. Utilitarianism does not really see

the true essence of participation. Utilitarianism leads to the limitation of participation.

Therefore, in strict sense, utilitarian attitude is not really participation.

As a limitation of participation, Utilitarianism is a form of alienation. It is

alienating other human person by treating them just a mere object of their end. Utilitarian

attitude is very individualistic because those utilitarian subjects are just thinking of their

own good and not of those people who are being used. A good example of this is the

problem of corruption. The corrupt individual is thinking only of his good. Directly, the

corrupt utilitarian makes use of lower class people to manipulate the allocation of funds.

The funds which are actually for all members are just going to his own pocket without the

consent of all members of the community. The corrupt utilitarian does not think of those

other members of the community as a person who also has a right for the funds of the

community. So, indirectly, he treats other members of the community as something

which is not important, something which is not valuable. He is actually using other

person to make him rich. Utilitarian attitude also is totalism because it limits the

individual to participate in accordance to his value as a human person. Examples of those

who are being reduced in their proper participation to the community are those who work

in poor conditions. They are those laborers who are forced to accept this kind of

condition in exchange of unemployment and starvation. There are inadequate physical

82

facilities and occupational safety measures in their working places. They are experiencing

unreasonable working schedule, unjust compensation, inadequate leave benefits, unstable

status, and physical and emotional abuses. After working with these conditions, at the end

of the day, they would just receive very low salary. These people are being reduced to a

thing and being treated as something with no emotions, feelings and experience. These

people do not even feel that they are a subject. They are being treated in this way just to

attain the objective common good of the community. They disregard the subjective sense

of common good which is the proper treatment to the members of the community.

A community that possesses a utilitarian attitude is not an authentic community. If

the community relates with each other in a we-relation, utilitarianism in the community is

eliminated. Wojtyla said that the constitution of a we by many human I’s is in itself

essentially free from utilitarianism because it lies within the realm of the objective and

authentically experienced truth of the good, which is also the truth of the conscience.150 It

does not just embrace the difficulties of attaining the common good of the community. It

also does not achieve all those values that go to make up the true and inviolable good of

the person. This value which is proper to human person is the basis of the norm that

should govern the actions that have the person as the object. This is the personalistic

norm.

The personalistic norm of Wojtyla is being emphasized in his works on the

Catholic sexual ethics. But this norm is not just applicable in the union of man and

woman, but also in participating in every person. The personalistic norm urges every


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human person to act what is proper to other human person. It is a demand to treat persons

as person. In 18th century, a philosopher whose name is Immanuel Kant formulated an

imperative: act always in such a way that the other person is the end and not merely the

instrument of your action.151 This statement is restated by Wojtyla in a more personalistic

way than of Kant’s. Wojtyla’s personalistic norm is: “whenever a person is the object of

your activity, remember that you may not treat that person as only means to an end, as an

instrument, but must allow the fact that he or she, too, has, or at least should have,

distinct personal ends.”152 Different from that of Kant, the personalistic norm of Wojtyla

is based on all forms of human freedoms especially of the conscience. Besides, it is a

norm related to the commandment to love. Love demands to treat other person properly

as person who is an end in himself. In relation to this, Wojtyla describes his personalistic

norm in its negative and positive aspects:

The norm in its negative aspect, states that the person is the kind of good which

does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the

means to an end. In its positive form the personalistic norm confirms this: the

person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love.153

Thus, the personalistic norm states that the person must not be merely a means to

an end of someone’s pleasure or of someone’s good. In fact, not even God can use a

person merely as a means to an end:

151Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, 27. In the book of Kant, it is written as: “Act so that you treat

humanity whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only.”

In Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. By L.W. Beck (New York: Library of

Liberal Arts, 1959), 428-9.


153Ibid., 41.

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On the part of God, indeed, it is totally out of question, since, by giving man an

intelligent and free nature, he has thereby ordained that each man alone will

decide for himself the ends of his activity, and not be a blind tool of someone

else’s ends. Therefore if God intends to direct man towards certain goals, he

allows him to begin with to know those goals, so that he may make them his own

and strive towards an end, the choice of course, is left to man’s free will.154

This means that God only directs human beings in so far as He makes known to them the

goals that are proper to their nature so that they may integrate these goals into their own

person.

The human person, who possesses a particular richness and perfection because of

his dignity, must not be treated as an object to be used. But it seems that in reality, using

a person is inevitable. In his discussion of this, Wojtyla gives instances where this

problem arises: organization in labor in a factory; relationship between a commanding

officer and a ranker in an army; and relations between parents and children in the family.

It would seem that in each case the former directs the latter to ends which the former has

chosen and perhaps alone knows. To solve this dilemma, it must first be understood that

the problem with the utilitarianism is that the capacity of the human person to be self-

determined is being rejected. That is why, if the latter subordinates themselves willingly

to the former, the latter in not being violated as a person. But it is not just conforming to

what is needed but it must be for the good of both of them. The good of the act must be

desired by the agent acting and the agent being acted upon. Rocco Buttiglione observes


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this in his study on Wojtyla’s philosophy as, “the meeting of the wills which are oriented

toward the good is the ethical substance of love.”155

B. Love as Common Good of the We:

Human person is always in constant participation with other persons. Thus, the

common good and proper way of relating to human person can and must be pursued at

the same time. The full realization of human dignity is always in the context of the

communal relationship. An individual cannot act fully as a person without other persons.

“In keeping with the social nature of man, the good of each individual is necessarily

related to the common good, which in turn can be defined only in reference to human

person.”156 If the common good and the value of the human person are separated, it will

lead to violence and instability. This is what happened to those groups of people who

wants to achieve their aim, they disregard the value of many people. They did not even

respect the life of their members and of those people around them. There are groups of

people in the society today who are engaging in terrorism, violence, destruction, war, and

other social disputes because they have separated the value of the human person to their

goal.

Common good radically must be personalistic in a sense that it is concerned with

the truly personalistic structure of human life in the community to which the human

155Rocco Buttiglione, Karol Wojtyla: The Thought of the Man Who Became Pope John Paul II, trans.

Paolo Guietti and Francesca Murphy (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,

1997). 89.

156Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1905.

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beings belong. Common good is the good of the community in that it creates in an

axiological sense which is the personalistic norm. It is the good that is being desired by

both the subject and object of the action in the community. It unites them to strive

mutually for the good of all. They choose this good as their end freely and with self-

determination. Wojtyla says that in “people consciously choose common aim, this puts on

a footing of equality, and precludes the possibility that one of them might be

subordinated to the other.”157 However, having a common good does not yet actually

love. It will only become love depending on “his willingness consciously to seek a good

together with others, and to subordinate himself to that good for the sake of others, or to

others for the sake of that good.”158 Nevertheless, without the common good, love is quite

unthinkable. Common good “unites the persons involved internally, and so constitutes the

essential core round which any love must grow.”159 To attain the we, which is free from

any utilitarian attitude, love, therefore, must be the common good of the community. It

will “gradually eliminate the purely utilitarian or consumer attitude to the person…”160

With this, treating persons inside the community is proper to persons as persons.

This realization of Wojtyla shows that person is not only capable of participating

in the communal life, and is not just merely existing and acting together with others,

rather, fundamentally, man also has the ability to share in the humanness of every other

human being. “The man-person is capable not only of partaking in the life of a


158Ibid., 29.

159Ibid., 28.

160’ Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility, 29. The Latin word consumere means ‘to use.

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community, to be and to act together with others; he is also capable of participating in the

very humanness of others.”161 The membership in the community must reach to the

humanness of every man: “Only then can we claim that participation serves not just

fulfilment of some individual being, but that it also serves the fulfilment of every human

person in the community, indeed, because of his membership in the community.”162

Everyone must, therefore, strive for the kind of participation that will enable everyone to

attain fulfillment by realizing the personalistic value of their actions. Moreover, it is a

kind of participation that mutually giving themselves in every member of the community.

This becomes then the foundation of love as the common good of the community.

The commandment to love found in the personalistic norm is present in the

communal participation. “The commandment, ‘thou shalt love,’ has itself a thoroughly

communal character; it tells what is necessary for a community to be formed, but more

than anything else it brings into prominence what is necessary for a community to be a

truly human.”163 The personalistic norm must also be the norm in the community. Only

through personalistic norm, the community is sharing the humanness with each other.

Their bond is not just because of the common good or the good that they can get from the

community. Rather, they are participating with each other because they love each other

and they want to attain the good of every one. This goes beyond the existing and acting

together with others. Because of the commandment to love, all the necessary elements

and dimensions of participation is being realized and perfected. The we consists in



163Ibid., 296.

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sharing the humanness of every human being, and this ability to share in the humanness

of others is the very core, actually, of all participation and the condition of the

personalistic value of all existing and acting together with others. It is a mutual sharing of

the self which is fulfilling the commandment to love.

“The commandment of love is also the measure of the tasks and demands that

have to be faced by all men—all persons and all communities—if the whole good

contained in the acting and being ‘together with others’ is to become a reality.”164 With

this kind of relationship, members of the community go beyond the differences and

distances between each of them. Everyone seems to be reachable. Everything around the

community is being taken cared of for it aims the good of everyone. No one is being

alienated, for everyone is in participation with one another. With this, the participation

with those human persons who are non-acting persons is possible. Also, the community

would be responsible stewards in utilizing the ordained creatures for the good of every

human person.

C. We Relating to Non-Acting Persons through Love:

During his Pontificate, John Paul II warned every community of the dangers

being imposed to the human dignity by some systems which actually diminish

participation and solidarity. This concerns those people who are powerless in the society

who cannot even possess themselves. Those people are the unborn, young children who

are not yet in the age of reason, disabled persons, senile adults and those who are having


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mental incapacities. These people cannot defend themselves and fight for their rights and

dignity as a human person. They seem to be just a burden for other people in the society.

He writes: “A person who, because of illness, handicap or, simply just by existing,

compromises the well-being or lifestyle of those who are more favored tends to be looked

upon as the enemy to be resisted or eliminated.”165

The researcher called them ‘non-acting persons.’ These persons do not have any

efficacy in their actions therefore everything that they will be doing are merely

“something-happens-to-man” actions. The persons inside the womb, the children who are

just starting to know how to act, and those who cannot think right anymore such as those

people who have mental disabilities and senility, those who are not conscious of their

actions and cannot really experience fully what they are doing. They cannot be fully

determined by their actions because they do not possess and govern themselves fully.

Despite this, ontologically in Wojtylan sense, they are still human persons.

The problem in the society nowadays is that these people are being marginalized

as if they are not human person. They are being mistreated, abused, neglected and

harmed. People are not giving them the proper attention that they need to survive. Many

people treat them as “useless” in the society. They are being alienated in the community

especially if the community is totalitarian because it does not think of the good of all its

members and what is being regarded only is the good of the community. If these people

are not being included in the participation, the participation is limited. Sadly, in the

society, many members of the society are disregarding the value of these poor human

165John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, no. 43.

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persons. The unborn, if unwanted, are being aborted. There are children who are being

thrown into the streets whose parents do not care what would happen to them there.

Persons with disabilities physically or mentally are not properly being taken cared of

because they are being identified as problem or burden. Those people who have serious

illness are being killed through euthanasia as if there are really no hopes for them to

survive. Adults who cannot act properly, including those who are senile and forgetful are

also being neglected and letting them die without giving any care and attention. They are

being alienated and treated inappropriately. This should not be the case. Though they

cannot act fully as person, they still have a part in the participation. Their part will only

be recognized if the relation is in we-relation.

It is true that those human beings who cannot consciously and determinedly

make an action does not act fully as a person. Despite this, it does not mean that they are

not a human person. Looking on their ontological value, they possess the dignity of the

human person. As been presented in chapter two of this research, the dignity of the

human person does not necessarily be gained by the person; rather it is given by God.

Therefore, human beings who act or do not act fully as persons are still human persons

who need to be respected and to be loved. Their dignities are just being misperceived or

not perceived at all.

If they cannot act fully as persons, the responsibility for them is given to those

who can be an acting person. The acting person must not look at those powerless people

as a burden in attaining the good of everyone; rather they must be seen as human person

who also has a good. Their good must also be respected and recognized. They must also

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be considered in attaining the common good even if they cannot participate fully to

achieve it. Participating with them in a we-relation can encourage every member of the

community to transcend fully in their action because they become more responsible in

every member of the community including the non-acting persons.

Participating with people who are non-acting persons shows how the humanness

of the person acting is being actualized. They go beyond on what the other can give to

them. They relate with them through love. A mother, with self-determination and because

of love, should be willing to sacrifice everything, even her life for the child who is not yet

an acting person, inside her womb. That is her nature as a mother of the child. Then,

when that child is born, the family will be responsible to the child while he or she is

growing up until he can stand on his or her own. The child cannot survive and develop as

an acting person without guidance and assistance from the people around him or her. For

those human persons who have physical or mental incapability, it is good that there are

also many people who are giving themselves in serving them. They are assisting those

human persons and giving them everything that they would need. They are consciously

doing it for the good of those powerless persons. It is also good to see those communities

who are taking care of the elderly and giving them respect even though they could not act

properly anymore. They must not be disregarded; rather, they must be given special

attentions which are proper to them. With these actions above, the we-community is

acting authentically.

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D. We as Steward of Nature:

The researcher believes that when the we is constituted authentically, the

multiplicity of I’s who are acting persons will not just be responsible with their members

of the community. The we is also determinedly responsible with other creatures in this

world. It is part of the spiritual nature of man to relate with the other creatures of this

world. Wojtyla says, “A person is an objective entity, which as a definite subject has the

closest contact with the whole (external) world and is most intimately involved with it,

precisely because of his inwardness, its interior life.”166 Because he has this spiritual

nature, he is above them. For that reason, man must be responsible to them. In scriptures,

God said to man: “…fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the

see and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”167

Moreover, they must be responsible to the nature because it also affect their relationship

with one another. They must be responsible in the world and the use of its goods because

they care for them and for other people. If they will not be good stewards, there will be

negative results that will be faced by the we.

Looking on the phenomenon of the world today, developments and changes are

constantly occurring. The discovery of different empirical experiments, promotion of

technology and control of material goods are always there. Indeed, it is only recently,

with the problems of overdevelopment, overconsumption, pollution, and other threats to


167Genesis 1:28.

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the environment that the conditional character of man’s stewardship has begun once

again to be recognized more widely.168

The natural world plays an important role in the life of every human person. They

are part of the we in a sense that human persons need them. Reciprocally, they also need

human persons to survive. Other creatures may enter into the human life in many

different ways. Sometimes, they threaten the life of many which made people forced to

fight against it. Sometimes they provide foods and other material needs for human lives.

They are also being used to enhance the lives of man. They also attract the human person

to contemplate in its beauty.

Wojtyla believes that the nature, in a sense, participates in the existence of every

human person. Wojtyla says, “There is also in nature, or the world, a kind of readiness to

put itself at our disposal: to serve human needs, to welcome within it the superior scale of

human ends, to enter in some way into the human dimension and participate in human

existence in the world.”169 But because man is still in the “bondage to corruption,”170

Wojtyla is encouraging everyone to realize themselves, to think what they are doing, to

transcend in their actions, and to act properly towards the natural resources of the world.

It is a call for every we to become stewards of creation for they exist together with other

creatures in this world. Wojtyla wants these questions to be asked by every member of

the community of this world: “Does human work, in using the riches of creation, always

168Kenneth Schmitz, At the Center of the Human Dram: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol

Wojtyla/ John Paul II (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 97.

169Wojtyla, “The Constitution of Culture Through Human Praxis,” 270.

170“…under which—as St. Paul writes—‘all creation has been groaning and sighing until now’ (Rom.

8:21-22).” Ibid.

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and in all things bear the stamp of rational order, the stamp of a radiation of humanity?

Does it not at times turn into brute plunder—dictated, moreover, primarily by an intent to

mutually destroy and dominate one another?”171

Ecological problems present in the society are also anthropological problems.

John Paul II says, “at the root of the senseless destruction of the natural environment lies

an anthropological error.”172 Irresponsibility to nature connotes also the irresponsibility to

one another. As the natural resources are being destructed, lives of many people are also

being destructed. Therefore, the way nature is being treated, so as the other human

persons.

Some thinkers give solution in the problem of man in environment which reduces

the newly born human persons as “new mouths to be fed” or other new rivals of the

nature. They want a population control to attain ecological equilibrium. They do not

regard self-discipline and moderation to the use of natural resources as a solution rather,

to attain biodiversity, “the human population needs to be reduced by several billion.”173

This solution does not constitute any participation rather alienation. It limits the

participation in a community which has been exposed in the chapter 2 of this research.

People seem to be opponents of a common good that is why they should be eliminated. It

is opposing to the personalistic norm because human person becomes a means towards an

end. The dignity and life of the human person in this solution is being disregarded.

171Wojtyla, “The Constitution of Culture Through Human Praxis,” 270.

172John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, no. 37.

173Lester Embree, “The Possibility of a Constitutive Phenomenology.” Eco-Phenomenology: Back to the

Earth Itself, ed. Charles S. Brown and Ted Toadvine (Albany: Suny Press, 2003), 47.

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This should not be the case. The researcher believes that participating in a we-

relation is a solution in which the personalistic norm and dignity of the human person is

harmonized in stewarding the creation. As a we, the environment becomes part of the

common good which is also for the good of every individual. That is why, every member

of the we must be responsible in their actions in using the good from the natural

resources. Being responsible to the environment is also being responsible to other people

who also need the environment to survive. Therefore, the we must act together with other

creatures by thinking different programs that will promote good relationship between

human persons and environment. As John Paul II says,

…therefore, that all ecological programmes must respect the full dignity and

freedom of whomever might be affected by such programmes. Environment

problems should be seen in relation to the needs of actual men and women, their

families, their values, their unique social and cultural heritage. For the ultimate

purpose of environment programmes is to enhance the quality of human life, to

place creation in the fullest way possible at the service of the human family.174

The we-relation can form a “covenant between human beings and the

environment, which should mirror the creative love of God.”175 Pope Benedict XVI says

to all members of Human Family, “Covenantal relations, both with other persons and

with creation, take into account all these structures; requiring the gift of self, they are

deeper than contracts but contain them, as eros can only be fully itself inside of

agape.”176 Every member of the we must submit themselves in taking care of the

environment. Taking care of the environment is also a form of participating with one

174John Paul II, “Address to the Members of the Agency of the United Nations,” (August 1985).

175Benedict XVI, “The Human Family, A Community of Peace,” Message for the World Day of Peace,

1 January 2008.

176Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, Part One.

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another towards the common good. The we must have solidarity in taking care of the

environment which is part of their existence. The we must form an “environmental

solidarity.” It is:

…the recognition of a common desire for beauty and meaning, the realization that

we share a common destiny with other beings, the apprehension that the

participation of others is necessary for a common good that is deeper than the co-

incidence of our private goods or our ideology. That ecological issues are

profoundly tied up with the ontological and anthropological tensions of existence

—between self and world, nature and freedom, persons and community—is not

unknown to ecological thinkers.177

As a we, human persons must be good stewards of creation. All of them are

coming from God, therefore they are good. Also, they possess an inherent dignity. But

human persons do not possess the absolute sovereignty of creation; they are just being

called to be stewards. That is why the we must not destroy the environment. As Kenneth

Schmitz says,

in the making of the heavens and the earth, God has already declared the

prehuman creation to be good without anticipatory reference to man; and so, it is

safe to assume that earth and sky and all living things possess an inherent dignity

and value cannot be overridden by arbitrary human design, even though other

creatures do not possess the distinctive value conferred upon man by the image-

relationship.178

The we must utilize the ordained creature properly by becoming responsible

stewards of creation. In this way, the we is fulfilling the personalistic norm which is

relating through persons. By being good stewards, the we is showing not a love for

creation but a love for other people. Through caring for nature, people are also being

cared. The natural world is for every human person.

177Mary Taylor, “A Deeper Ecology: A Catholic Vision of the Person in Nature,” Communio:

International Catholic Review, 38 (Winter 2011), 589-90.

178Schmitz, 96.

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Chapter 5

Summary, Conclusion, and Recommendation

A. Summary:

The researcher would like to summarize this humble opus by answering a very

simple question that encompasses the whole study: how does a human person must act in

attaining the common good of the community?

The chapter 2 of this study is about the notion of human person in light of Karol

Wojtyla. As a personalist, Wojtyla has a high regard on the value of the human person.

He wants to show the totality of what it is to be a human being. The truth about man is

that he is not just merely a ‘something’ in this world. Man is not just an object. Man has

dignity inherent in him. This dignity is not gained through his hardships and work. Man

has a dignity because he is created in the image and likeness of God and also redeemed

by Him. God, who is a person, made man also a person. That is why; man has the dignity

of being a human person who is above all other creatures in this world. Similar to God, as

a person, he can fully say that he is an I. This shows that man is not just an object, but

also a subject.

In the ancient period, man is defined by Aristotle as a rational animal. In the

beginning of the medieval period, a definition of person given by Boethius influenced the

notion of the human person of St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas defines man as a person

possesses the nature that mirrors God. These understandings of man are the generic

definition. They understand man in cosmological sense which is objective. In the

contemporary era, Schelerian phenomenology went into extreme side of understanding

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man. It absolutized the subjectivity of man. Man becomes a pure-consciousness or

consciousness itself. It lacks a metaphysical terrain where this definition can be

grounded. This definition of man can lead to subjectivism. Wojtyla, find all of these

understandings of man as inadequate to see the totality of being a human person.

Nevertheless, he unites all of these definitions and came up to a definition that is

adequate to see the totality of man and his dignity of being a human person. For Wojtyla,

man is a personal supposit who is a subject and object of existence and action.

The human person must not just merely exist in this world. As a person he must

act, he must be an acting person. As an acting person, his actions reveal himself as a

person. That is why, what a man act is what he becomes. As an acting person, he

experiences his actions by being conscious and determined. No one can decide for him.

Only himself, being an I, can choose what to act. With this, he must be careful in every

action that he would take. He must act in accordance to his nature as a human person. He

must always remember that he has a dignity that must be revealed in every action that he

would do. Therefore, man as good must act only what is good. With this, he is fulfilling

himself as a person. He must act what is proper to him as a person. Only good actions can

fulfill him as person. He is responsible in every action that he would do. That is why, he

must follow his conscience and the moral norms that can lead him to act only what are

good. Every action of man affects other human beings.

Because there is an I, there is an other to be with him. Like the I, the other is also

a human person who possesses the dignity of the human person. The other is a kind of

being same as the I. The I exists together with this other. Similar to the I, the other is also

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capable of acting that reveals him as a person. This shows that no man exists alone. Man

is a social being and he is existing together with other human beings. Man has a task and

property of participating with others. That is why, every human being, as a person, is

called to participate with others. In acting together with others, man is fulfilling himself

and realizes the personalistic value of his action. If a human person chooses not to

participate with others, he is alienating not just to other persons but also to himself. It is

because he becomes whatever he chooses to act.

The chapter 3 of this study is about the communal relationship of man in we-

relation. When man acts together with others, he is submitting himself to the common

good. They now form a community of persons. Because of their purpose, they are a

community of acting. They form an interhuman relationship that reveals themselves with

each other. In Wojtyla’s theory of participation, there is these two dimensions of

participation: the I-You relation and the we-relation.

The I-You relation expresses a mutual relationship of the I and the you. It is an

interpersonal relationship between two persons that form a community. They are

fulfilling each other in the way they act together. In this kind of relationship, there is a

reflexivity which demonstrates the mutuality and complementarity. Nevertheless, this

reflexivity means unilateral relation that proceeds from the I to the you and returns to the

I. Through this relationship, the I gains a fuller experience of himself. That is why, the

subjectivity of the I is being confirmed in this kind of relationship. There is a mutual

acceptance and confirmation of the value of the I and the you as a human person. This

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leads the I being responsible to the you. As the subjects are accepting and confirming the

value of one another, it becomes the source of the moral ground.

If the I-You relation is the interpersonal dimension of community, the we-relation

is the social dimension of community. It is more complex than the I-You relation because

the I is not just participating with a singular you but on a plural you. There is the

multiplicity of I’s in this kind of relationship. What also made this relation different from

the I-You relation is the common good. Through this relationship, the person discovers

acceptance and confirmations of his or her concrete personal subjectivity in relation with

the common good of the community. The person inside this relationship is able to

experience his humanity as well as the humanity of others more fully. Nevertheless, this

relationship does not eliminate the I-you relation rather it makes this relation more

authentic.

In the we-relation, they can only be a we through the virtue of the common good.

With this common good, every individual participating inside this community are

submitting their individual good for the good of the community. This common good is

not actually a material that the community pursues to attain such as money, fame,

territory, etc. Moreover, this common good in not just a good of the many rather it must

be the good of everyone, the good of all. It ensures the good of each individual. Because

of this, the common good must respect the good of every member of the community. On

the other hand, this common good is not easy to attain. Every member of the community

must submit fully themselves willingly and consciously. Submitting the individual good

to the common good is not to eliminate the good of the individual, rather it is to condition

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it to the common good of the community. Every member is encouraged to sacrifice, to

have a gift of self, for the good of the community that fulfills his nature as a human

person. Through this, the human person is transcending in his action through the common

good. It is realized in relation to truth and to the good as true. Every member, then,

embraces the hardship and sacrifices in relation to the true and authentic common good

that they want to attain together with others. It is only then that a community can fully

say that they are a we.

Inside the community, it is composed of many subjects who have different

attitudes towards the common good of the community. There is authentic and inauthentic

attitude of members inside the we. The authentic attitudes are the solidarity and

opposition while the inauthentic attitudes are conformism and avoidance.

The community of persons will only be authentic if the members of the

community promote solidarity towards the common good. The common good properly

conditions and initiates participation of every member of the community. The individual

goods of every member of the community are in turn properly serves, fosters and realizes

the common good further. The individual member of the community acts for the good of

the community. He goes beyond his own good for the common good. He goes beyond his

share to by the virtue of common good. Having this attitude, the individual does not

violate the rights and the good of other members of the community. He finds fulfillment

through complementing others in the community. This attitude of solidarity dominates

the participation in the community to the extent that it allows one to know when it is

necessary to take over more than one’s usual share in acting and responsibility. But this

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does not mean that they will just agree with each other, according to Wojtyla, the attitude

of solidarity necessarily includes the attitude of opposition. Opposition, as an authentic

attitude of the community does not mean that it is contradicting the solidarity, rather it

enhances the solidarity. The purpose of opposition is a constitutive role in the

community. There is an opposition because they are seeking a better, fuller and effective

share in the life within the community. It promotes dialogue that eliminates any partial or

subjective views which are the sources of conflicts and misunderstandings among the

members of the community. The opposite of these attitudes are the conformism and the

avoidance.

The inauthentic attitudes of participation made the realization of action and

participation impossible. It changes the solidarity into a servile conformism and

opposition into avoidance. Conformism, as the opposite of solidarity, the individual is

just being swayed towards servility. The individual is merely complying on which is in a

very passive form. The individual merely accepts any decision of the community.

Avoidance, as the opposite of opposition, is the withdrawal of the individual from the

community. It is an indication of lack of active concern for participation by being absent

in the community. These attitudes are denial of participation and indifference to the

common good. It is the indication that the individual does not want the fulfillment of

himself through acting together with others. In this sense, the community does not

constitute an authentic we-relation.

The relationship inside the community may fall in to the evil of seeking pleasure

with or from others. There is a possibility that an individual is relating with others in the

103

community because the individual seeks pleasure for himself while being with others.

This is actually a violation in the dignity and value of man as a human person. For the

community to be free from this wrong attitude, the members of the community must

observe the personalistic norm which urges every member to relate with others in the

community properly. This is presented in the chapter 4 of this study. The personalistic

norm avoids the ‘using’ inside the community that leads to an authentic we that is free

from any utilitarian attitude on person. Personalistic norm respects the value of the

human person. It is a norm that urges every human person to avoid using another person

as an object, as means for his end. The personalistic norm says that the only proper way

to relate with others is through loving them. Love then is the opposite of using. People

are not meant to be used but to be loved.

The personalistic norm in relation to the we shows that the common good of the

community must be personalistic also. The common good of the community must lead to

loving every member of the community because they are human persons. The common

good of the community must respect the value and dignity of every human person that is

why they must relate with them through love. With this, the community becomes an

authentic we who is free from any utilitarian attitude. Only through the personalistic

norm, the particular richness and perfection of the human person because of his dignity is

revealed in the community of persons. The common good must go hand in hand with the

personalistic norm to avoid the dangers that violate the value of man as a human person.

The personalistic norm in the we can go beyond the common good of the

community through participating in the humanness of others. Their participation is not

104

just on what they can achieve, rather, it is now more on the personal meaning. With this

in participation in we-relation, every member of the community attains fulfillment by

realizing the value of their actions. It becomes a mutual self-giving inside the community.

This enhances the community to become more truly human. No one can be alienated then

in the community because they already realized everyone’s value. It includes in the

participation those who are powerless to participate. The researcher called them “non-

acting persons” because they are person who cannot act fully as person. Inside the

community, they must also be treated properly because they also have the dignity of

being a human person even though they do not possess themselves fully. Many people

are treating them as an object which is “useless.” But inside the we, they must not be

treated like that. They must be respected and the proper way to relate with them is

through loving them.

It is said that the only entity that we can use are only those ordained creatures that

serve the human needs to survive. This actually leads the researcher in the thinking of

stewarding properly the nature as a form of loving the persons. Every human person

treats the environment as something good. Human person cannot actually participate with

these goods same as they participate with persons. Nevertheless, what the humanity are

doing in the environment always affect other human person. But because God ordained

the nature to serve the needs of every man, they, in a sense, participate in the existence of

every human person. But the problem is that the humanity destructs the nature that brings

also destruction to the lives of other people. This means that what every human person

does in the nature, it all goes back to them. When the nature is being harmed, the life of

the human beings is also harmed. To avoid this, as a we, the nature must be used

105

properly. The we must be responsible steward of God’s creation. In this way, the Creator

is being respected, being loved. Also, in this way, other human beings are also being

cared and being loved.

The only way to relate with the human person inside the community must only be

through loving every I’s inside the community. They must be treated properly to attain

the fulfillment of every person.

B. Conclusion:

How the we community becomes free from any utilitarian attitude on person

through personalistic norm? This is the intention of this study on Christian Personalism

of Karol Wojtyla.

The researcher believes that the personalistic norm of Karol Wojtyla is related to

the we dimension of participation. The personalistic norm plays an important part so that

the relationship in a we does not violate the dignity of the members of the community

who are human persons. As the individuals in the community participate with each other,

there is the danger of using the person to attain their good. There is a possibility that

some human persons only participate inside the community as long as it is pleasurable for

them, as long as they are getting something from it, and as long as they attain their good

which actually violates the good of others. That is why in every communal participation,

the personalistic norm must be regarded so that their community constitutes an authentic

we which is free from any utilitarianism.

106

The common good of the community must also go hand in hand to the

personalistic norm. In this sense, the common good becomes personalistic common good

that is free from any violence that can endanger the life and the rights of different I’s

inside the community. Because the personalistic norm says that the proper way to relate

to other human person is through love, the common good must be rooted from love to

avoid harmful actions that can conveys injustices in the dignity of the human person.

Only through love that the participation in a we-relation can fulfill the authentic

participation. Every member who are participating in we that observes the personalistic

norm becomes truly human. They discover the personalistic value of their action towards

the common good. They discover that their action must be always for the good of others.

They realize the importance of their actions in relating with other human person.

Everything that they will act, directly or indirectly, can affect other human person. That is

why; they must always act properly because it is always towards others.

The we must always live in love. Love as the common good unites every human I

into a we. Only through this the community that it fulfills its real meaning: koinonia.

Only if the community fulfills each other through love, they are really living as God

created that is free from brokenness and alienation. Every member of the community is

treated as a person whose only way to relate is through love.

C. Recommendation:

This study shows only a part of the richness of the philosophy of the great saint

and thinker, St. Karol Wojtyla. His Christian Personalism can relate to many things

107

which can be a source of study. It is true that there are now many thinkers who are

studying his philosophy. Despite this, while the researcher is researching and studying his

philosophy, there are many other topics that are good subjects of study. The researcher

recommends the following topics to investigate and to research:

1. A good topic to be pondered upon is the relationship of a we to God. It must

answer the question: How a we can participate with God?

2. In the society nowadays, there is the notion of “us” against “them.” It is an

intercommunal conflict. The researcher believes that the philosophy of Karol Wojtyla can

give solution to this issue.

3. Another good topic is the notion of the universal we. The question here is: how

does the human person can act together with every human being in the world?

There are many other topics that can be studied out of the philosophy of Karol

Wojtyla that relates every human person to each other and relates them to the Divine

Person who is God.

108

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person and common good the personalistic

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