The article is primarily concerned with the ambiguities which surround the concept of the person. According to the philosophical tradition taking its roots from Locke's definition, personhood depends on consciousness. Therefore, “personhood” can be ascribed to different entities, and only these entities acquire a moral standing. This can entail that a human being may or may not be considered as a person, as well as higher animals and even artificial machines. Everything depends on manifest personal characteristics. In order to sort (...) out different meanings ascribed to “person,” I distinguish between being a person and acting as a person. Then, I show that a human being is a paradigm of the person and his being always precedes his acting. (shrink)

Karol Wojtyła developed an interesting model of human consciousness. He also demonstrated how vital the role is that consciousness plays in the process of becoming a person. His project encompasses such theses as the following: that consciousness is not a semi-autonomous subject, that it is not an intentional power, that it has both a receptive and an experiencing / interiorizing character, and that it must be distinguished from knowledge and self-knowledge. In this paper, I try to show how all these (...) claims fit together. I also examine some of his more controversial theses—especially his claim about the non-intentionality of consciousness. (shrink)

This article is about the method of philosophizing employed by Karol Wojtyła. He worked out his main ideas concerning the human person within a Thomistic framework, but at the same time made extensive use of the method typical of phenomenology. The article sets out to demonstrate that these two approaches do not exclude each other, but can instead be considered complementary. Phenomenology, in the version employed by Wojtyła, aims to do justice to the experience of the person, and its analysis (...) helps us understand the richness of the latter. At the same time, all of the phenomena that pertain to the person demand further explanation, and this can be supplied by Thomistic metaphysics. The method devised by Wojtyła can be expressed in the formula “from phenomenon to foundation.”. (shrink)

Bioethics is a relatively young discipline. Within it, discussion is still taking place concerning the methodological status of the subject. Nevertheless, putting aside this inner aspect of bioethics, one thing appears striking. The short-lived existence of bioethics is surprisingly associated with a great number of bioethical projects, aimed at tackling complex problems, arising in the realm of health care. It seems that the rapid enhancement of biomedical sciences and biotechnologies - carrying with it many moral dilemmas - creates a pressure (...) leading to a new sort of ethical reflection, as well as deepening further existing reflections. Looking more generally and somewhat superficially at existing approaches to bioethical matters, one can distinguish two tendencies. One of them puts forward creating a general ethical system drawing upon a specific notion of morality, and drawing up a set of moral rules and principles. The second one finds its starting point in separate cases, in their analyses, playing down the role of general moral theories. The best example of such an approach is a modern casuistry catching on especially in English speaking countries. The spreading tendency of casuistic analyses does not eliminate the fact that many bioethicists still make an effort to pursue the first of the mentioned trends by building up a general bioethical framework. Hugo Tristram Engelhardt is a good example of such a thinker. He is a medical doctor and philosopher working at Rice University in Houston. In the course of over 30 years of his medical and philosophical research, Engelhardt has outlined two bioethical projects: the project of secular bioethics and the project of Christian bioethics. (shrink)

This paper deals with a discussion concerning the value of life. Specifically, it addresses the idea of speciesism, a term coined by Peter Singer, whereby human life is endowed with special significance because of its membership in the species Homo sapiens. For Singer, it is an example of erroneous thinking. On such an account, the idea of human dignity seems to be highly problematic. In this article, the author directs a number of critical voices, both methodological and ontological, toward scepticism (...) concerning a species belonging. He argues that natural species play quite important roles in the existing reality. The author further tries to prove that the realm of life should be associated with a so-called intrinsic value. In the light of that, any living entity possesses its axiological importance and should be considered and treated accordingly. Human dignity is a corollary of the special place accorded in such reasoning by the value of human life. The article concludes with a thesis that the stance arguing for human dignity is still unthreatened and ready for further development. (shrink)

In his book The Acting Person Karol Wojtyła makes frequent references to the concept of truth. He analyzes truth expressions in various realms, including the epistemological, the metaphysical, the moral, and the axiological. He does not, however, say exactly what he means by truth. This essay analyzes select passages from this book and tries to formulate a coherent understanding of truth as Wojtyła conceived it. This essay puts special emphasis on the question of axiological truth, for this concept is novel (...) within the Thomistic framework of philosophizing and seems to be a consequence of the philosopher’s encounter with phenomenology. In the centre of attention is the first edition of this book published in 1969 in Poland. The main intention of the article is to grasp the very first Wojtylian approach to the problem of truth. (shrink)

In this paper two concepts of the self are presented and contrasted, namely a narrative and a substantial self. The discussed concepts have been variously assessed in contemporary philosophy. It seems, however, that the substantial concept is nowadays an object of severe criticism, whereas the narrative notion celebrates its genuine triumph. In the paper, the author argues that this asymmetry is exaggerated and disproportionate, and opposition between them is not so obvious and clear-cut. The author argues that those two concepts (...) in fact need each other and can, to a certain degree, complement one another. In the article, an example of such complementarity is sketched. (shrink)

This article concerns the way of philosophizing by Karol Wojtyła; a special emphasis is put on the relation between philosophical anthropology and ethics in his thought. The Polish thinker was active in both of them and it seems initially that ethics was his main area of expertise. However, a close examination of select works of Wojtyła confirms that philosophical anthropology was his main field. He was interested in how the person is revealed in his acts, including moral acts. Thus, the (...) person as such remains at the center of attention and reflection of the thinker and his involvement in ethics was to demonstrate how that person matures on the dynamic level. Karol Wojtyła is pre-eminently a philosopher of the human person. (shrink)

The concept of personhood has been recently strongly criticized by some bioethicists. The present article aims at refuting these criticisms. In order to show how the notion of personhood operates in bioethics, two understandings of it proposed by an Italian bioethicist Maurizio Mori are sketched: a person as a part of the cosmological order and a person as an autonomous-like entity. It is argued that none of the proposed understandings is adequate. The cosmological concept perceives the person as a derivative (...) of the empirical processes. The autonomous-like, in turn, conceives the person as a freely acting subject. This paper endeavours to prove that both conceptions are one-sided. In order to do that, the thought of German philosopher Robert Spaemann is deployed. He convincingly points out that the person must be considered from a so-called “modus existendi” stance. It means that to be a person is to possess a unique way of being. That being encompasses the material content not as a casual factor but as an indispensable mean of expressing itself. The final thesis is that the person's being is man's life. Drawing upon such a conclusion, it is taken up a critical discussion with the views rejecting the usefulness of the concept. (shrink)

The article reviews the book "Encyklopedia Bioetyki," edited by Andrzej Muszala.

The article reviews the book Elementy etyki lekarskiej [Issues in Physician Ethics], by Tadeusz Biesaga.

This article endeavours to sketch the debate about the concept of a person in the realm of bioethics. Initially, it sets out three understandings of the issue, namely the concept of a person in naturalistic philosophy, in the current of communitarianism and in one of the humanistic positions. The analysis of these approaches lead to the conclusion that a human person is perceived either as an empirical and psychological entity or as a free subjectivity creating him/herself. This thesis provides stimulation (...) for further research. In order to avoid a kind of dualism in the perception of a person stemming from the stances outlined above, the personalistic approach is developed. This points out that a human being should be depicted as one indivisible entity unifying in itself more strictly its self, a subjective aspect of the person, with nature-body aspect which is an objective facet of being human. Given this personalistic perspective, a person comes out as an embodied subjectivity formed by the unique personal act of existence. In this article, such a concept of a person is argued as a vital support in the complex field of bioethical dilemmas. (shrink)

This article is about the philosopher as a potential therapist. It starts from tendencies exhibited by a group of contemporary philosophers involved in a so-called human enhancement. Drawing on the newest discoveries of genetics, genetic engineering and pharmacology, they offer a set of therapies aimed at the extensive ‘improvement’ of the human condition. In the second part of the paper, selected ideas concerning philosophical therapy by the Ancient philosophers are presented. They basically employed personal contact, conversation, and wise counselling. Then (...) these two approaches to this kind of therapy are compared and contrasted. The contemporary approaches offer novel, technical ways of intervention but are blind as far as far-reaching goals and the essential goods of human life are concerned. Despite serious cultural differences, the contemporary therapy can learn a lot from the ancients. If the human being is to be treated by philosophers, an integral picture of who the former is must be taken into account. This means that both his interiority and exteriority should be subjects to the therapy. (shrink)

The book deals with the philosophy of the human person as worked out by Karol Wojtyla. It presents a number of fundamental issues necessary to understand Karol Wojtyla's personalism. Thus, first it undertakes Wojtyla's move from the philosophy of the human being to the philosophy of the human person; second, it presents Wojtyla's epistemological approach to the person against the background of other philosophies concerned with the human person; third, it describes the metaphysical structure of the person; four, it analyses (...) the person's selected faculties (consciousness, emotions); five, it presents some aspects of the action of the person (a person's causation, or their role in dialogue); and finally, it tries to sketch the problem of personal dignity. (shrink)