Paul KucharskiCorresponding author

Speaking Rationally About the Good
Karol Wojtyła on Being and the Normative Order

Article
20/1 - Spring 2015, pages 29-49
Date of online publication: 12 janvier 2016
Date of publication: 12 janvier 2016

Abstract

In this paper, I explain and defend Karol Wojtyła’s claim that “if we wish to speak rationally about good and evil, we have to return to the philosophy of being. If we do not set out from such ‘realist’ presuppositions, we end up in a vacuum.” I begin by outlining Wojtyła’s existential understanding of the good, according to which the good for x is found in those ends that complete the being that is lacking in x, or that enhance its existence in keeping with its nature. (Here Wojtyła is drawing from, and building upon, Thomas Aquinas’s account of goodness and being.) Then I explain how Wojtyła moves from an existential understanding of the good to the thesis that “exemplarism is the very heart of the normative order.” Finally, using representative thinkers from both the Continental and Analytic traditions, I defend Wojtyła’s claim that when we divorce goodness from being we end up in a moral vacuum, in a kind of nihilism where the good signifies nothing other than the rationalized articulation of one’s subjective needs, desires, or wishes. In such a state, the only means for resolving moral disagreements is through the consensus of the majority or the forceful rule of the strongest will.

Keywords

Cite this article

Kucharski, Paul. “Speaking Rationally About the Good: Karol Wojtyła and the Heart of the Normative Order.” Forum Philosophicum 20, no. 1 (2015): 29–49. doi:10.35765/forphil.2015.2001.03.

Bibliography

Adams, Robert Merrihew. Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Aertsen, Jan. Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas. Leiden: Brill, 1996.

Anscombe, G. E. M. “Modern Moral Philosophy.” In Ethics, Religion, and Politics, 26–42. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981.

Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by David Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Ayer, A. J. Language, Truth, and Logic. New York: Dover, 1952.

Collins, James. The Existentialists: A Critical Study. Chicago: Regnery, 1952.

Darwall, Stephen, Allan Gibbard, and Peter Railton. “Toward Fin de siècle Ethics: Some Trends.” The Philosophical Review 101, no. 1 (1992): 115–189. doi:10.2307/2185045.

Davenport, John J. Will as Commitment and Resolve: An Existential Account of Creativity, Love, Virtue, and Happiness. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007. doi:10.5422/fso/9780823225750.001.0001.

Dell’Olio, Andrew J. Foundations of Moral Selfhood: Aquinas on Divine Goodness and the Connection of the Virtues. New York: Lang, 2003.

Doolan, Gregory T. Aquinas on the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008.

Finnis, John. Natural Law and Natural Rights. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Foot, Philippa. Natural Goodness. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. doi:10.1093/0198235089.001.0001.

Frankena, William F. “The Naturalistic Fallacy.” Mind 48, no. 192 (1939): 464–77. doi:10.1093/mind/XLVIII.192.464.

Frege, Gottlob. The Foundations of Arithmetic: A Logico-Mathematical Enquiry into the Concept of Number. Translated by J. L. Austin. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1980.

Geach, Peter. “Assertion.” The Philosophical Review 74, no. 4 (1965): 449–65. doi:10.2307/2183123.

Geach, Peter. “Good and Evil.” Analysis 17, no. 2 (1956): 33–42. doi:10.1093/analys/17.2.33.

George, Robert P. In Defense of Natural Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198267713.001.0001.

Hittinger, Russell. A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987.

Kenny, Anthony. Aquinas on Being. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Klemke, E. D. “Living without Appeal: An Affirmative Philosophy of Life.” In The Meaning of Life, edited by E. D. Klemke, 162–74. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Klima, Gyula. “On Kenny on Aquinas on Being.” International Philosophical Quarterly 44, no. 4 (2004): 567–80. doi:10.5840/ipq200444446.

Koorsgaard, Christine. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Koterski, Joseph. Introduction to Medieval Philosophy: Basic Concepts. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

Kucharski, Paul. “The Contributions of Personalist Arguments to Natural Law Reasoning.” In La persona: divina, angelica, humana [The Person: Divine, Angelic, Human]. Edited by María Esther Gómez de Pedro, Maite del Pilar Cereceda Martínez, and Ignacio Serrano del Pozo, 679–87. Santiago, Chile: RIL editores, 2014.

Kupczak, Jarosław. Destined for Liberty: The Human Person in the Philosophy of Karol Wojtyła / John Paul II. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984.

McInerny, Daniel. The Difficult Good: A Thomistic Approach to Moral Conflict and Human Happiness. New York: Fordham University Press, 2006.

Moore, G. E. Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903.

Nagel, Thomas. The Possibility of Altruism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.

Pieper, Josef. “Human Nature and the Created State.” In Problems of Modern Faith: Essays and Addresses. Translated by Jan van Heurck. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1985.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology. Translated by Hazel Barnes. New York: Citadel, 1956.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism and Humanism.” Translated by Philip Mairet. In The Continental Philosophy Reader. Edited by Richard Kearney and Mara Rainwater, 65–76. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Sokolowski, Robert. Christian Faith and Human Understanding: Studies on the Eucharist, Trinity, and the Human Person. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2006.

Sokolowski, Robert. “Soul and the Transcendence of the Human Person.” In Christian Faith and Human Understanding, 151–64.

Sokolowski, Robert. “What is Natural Law? Human Purposes and Natural Ends?” In Christian Faith and Human Understanding, 214–35.

Stevenson, Charles L. Ethics and Language. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944.

Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Allen, TX: Christian Classics, 1981.

Trinkaus Zagzebski, Linda. Divine Motivation Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Veatch, Henry. For an Ontology of Morals: A Critique of Contemporary Ethical Theory. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971.

Waldstein, Michael. Introduction to Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, by Karol Wojtyła [John Paul II], 1–128. Translated by Michael Waldstein. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2006.

Williams, Bernard. “Conflicts of Values.” In Moral Luck, 71–82. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Wojtyła, Karol. The Acting Person. Translated by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979.

Wojtyła, Karol. Love and Responsibility. Translated by H. T. Willetts. San Francisco Ignatius Press, 1993.

Wojtyła, Karol. “On the Metaphysical and Phenomenological Basis of the Moral Norm in the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and Max Scheler.” In Person and Community: Selected Essays, 73–94. Translated by Theresa Sandok, OSM. New York: Lang, 1993.

Wojtyła, Karol [John Paul II]. Memory and Identity: Personal Reflections. London: Weidenfeld Nicolson, 2005.

Copyright