Three New Questions

 These questions were at the core of my never finished dissertation. Again, trying to ape Aquinas. 

Quaestio. Whether the affirmation of a common human nature is compatible with the disclosure of the human person as a unique someone who is revealed in word and deed.

 

Objection 1. It would seem that the affirmation of a human nature is incompatible with the reality of the person as a unique someone. For if there is a nature which precedes and defines what it is to be human, then each human being is what he is by instantiating a universal essence which determines the kinds of acts proper to him. But that which is determined by an essence cannot be said to determine itself, for it is already specified in advance as to what it is. Hence, if there is a human nature, then the person is not free but is merely the unfolding of what has already been given. Therefore, the person cannot be a “who” who discloses himself in action, but is only a what whose behavior expresses an underlying structure.

 

Objection 2. Further, it would seem that there is no need to posit a real subject or soul underlying the words and deeds by which a person is disclosed. For what is called a person appears to be nothing other than the unity of a life as it is narrated in memory, language, and social recognition. To seek for a metaphysical subject beneath such disclosures is to hypostatize what is in truth only a practical or grammatical unity. Thus, the person is not a subsisting being but a construct arising from the interpretation of actions within a shared form of life. Therefore, the supposition of a real subject of existence adds nothing to the intelligibility of personal identity and may be rejected.

 

On the contrary, that which speaks, understands, and loves cannot be reduced to the universal nature it shares with others, nor to the story told about it by itself or by another, but must be that which possesses and performs such acts. But the performer of an act exists prior to its performance. Therefore, the person who is disclosed in word and deed must be a subsisting subject of existence and not merely the narrative unity of acts.

 

I answer that the affirmation of a common human nature does not negate the uniqueness of the person but rather grounds the possibility of personal self-disclosure. Nature here is not a script. It signifies the intrinsic principle of a being’s operations, according to which it is capable of acting in determinate ways. Thus to say that the human being possesses a rational nature is not to impose upon each an identical pattern of life or action, but to affirm that each is capable of truth, freedom, and love, and of self-transcending activity grounded in knowledge of the good. From this it follows that freedom is not opposed to nature as though it must negate what is given to exist, but rather proceeds from nature as one of its highest actualizations, for only a being whose operations are not fixed by instinct alone can determine itself in view of what it understands to be good.

     Yet nature does not exhaust what is most proper to the person. For many share the same nature, but no two share the same act of existence whereby they are. No definition of the human essence could ever fully capture my sons or daughter. The act of being by which this human exists is incommunicable and cannot be multiplied in another, even though another may possess the same nature. Hence, that which is most fundamental in the person is not the universal content of what he or she is, but the singular act whereby this one is. From this it follows that the person is not merely an instance of humanity but a subsisting subject whose existence is his or her own, capable of self-possession and of entering into relations of knowledge and love. In such relations the person does not merely exercise a power common to the species but reveals himself or herself as this one, whose identity is disclosed over time in speech, action, and the history of a life.

      Accordingly, the universal nature answers to the question what kind of being this is, whereas the act of existence answers to the question who is there. The intelligibility of human flourishing depends upon the first, since only if there is a nature proper to the human being can there be ways of living that perfect or diminish it as human. But the irreplaceable worth of the person depends upon the second, since the good realized or betrayed in a life belongs not to an abstract humanity but to this one who exists and acts. Thus the disclosure of the person in narrative presupposes a metaphysical subject capable of such disclosure, while the metaphysical account of nature finds its fullest expression only in the concrete history wherein the person determines himself or herself through free acts in view of what is understood to be good.

 

Reply to Objection 1. The existentialist objection proceeds from the supposition that nature determines in the manner of an external blueprint or fixed program which must be either obeyed or resisted. It is true that If nature determines, then freedom must negate nature. But nature signifies not a script for action but the source of a being’s capacities. Hence, to possess a rational nature is not to be deprived of freedom but to possess the power of self-determination in view of intelligible goods. Thus freedom is not the negation of nature but its highest perfection, since only a being capable of understanding the good can determine itself toward it or away from it.

 

Reply to Objection 2. The denial of a real subject arises from the observation that the person is known through word, deed, and narrative, and rightly so. Yet that which is disclosed in such acts must be that which performs them. A narrative does not speak, nor does a pattern of recognition love or understand. Therefore, the unity of a life as lived and told presupposes a subsisting subject whose acts are gathered into such a unity. To deny this subject is to render unintelligible the very acts by which the person is disclosed, for there would then be no one who speaks or acts but only the occurrence of speech and action without a performer. Hence, the disclosure of the person in history presupposes, rather than replaces, the existence of a real subject who lives that history.

 

 

 

Quaestio. Whether the human person is nothing other than the temporal and narrative unity of a life lived in the world, or rather a subsisting subject whose act of existence grounds and makes possible such unity.

 

Objection 1. It would seem that the supposition of a subsisting subject or soul underlying personal action is both unnecessary and misleading. For the human being is not first given as an isolated substance which then enters into relations, but as always already existing in a meaningful world of practices, language, and concern. What is called the self is not an underlying entity but the unified pattern of one’s involvement in the world, disclosed in the interpretation of one’s possibilities and enacted through one’s projects. Thus the “who” that appears in speech and deed is not the manifestation of a metaphysical subject but the temporal unfolding of a way of being-in-the-world. To seek for a stable bearer of these acts beneath their occurrence is to import into the analysis of existence a framework derived from the study of present-at-hand things, and so to misunderstand the mode of being proper to the human. Therefore, the person is not a subsisting subject but the historically situated disclosure of a life lived among others.

 

Objection 2. Further, it would seem that personal identity is constituted by narrative rather than grounded in a prior metaphysical unity. For what makes a life intelligible as the life of one person is not the presence of an underlying subject but the coherence of its story as told and retold within a shared linguistic and social practice. The unity of the person consists in the capacity to appropriate past actions and future possibilities as one’s own within a narrative framework that confers meaning upon them. Outside of such interpretive practices there is no fact of the matter as to the identity of the self, but only the succession of events. Therefore, the person is not a subsisting being who has a history, but the history itself as unified in narrative form.

 

On the contrary, that which understands its possibilities and appropriates its past as its own must be that which exists to do so. But neither a project nor a narrative exists except in the one who projects or narrates. Therefore, the unity disclosed in lived involvement and in the telling of a life presupposes a subject of existence capable of such disclosure.

 

I answer that the human being is indeed disclosed in and through his or her involvement in a world of meaning, and that the identity of the person comes to light in the temporal history of a life as interpreted in word and deed. Yet such disclosure presupposes that which is disclosed. For involvement, interpretation, and appropriation are acts which belong not to a world but to one who exists in the world. The intelligibility of being-in-the-world requires that there be one who is in the world, and whose existence is not exhausted by the roles, practices, or narratives in which it is expressed. Likewise, the unity of a life as told in narrative presupposes that which lives it, for a story does not confer existence upon its subject but orders the acts of one who already is. Hence, the narrative constitution of personal identity is secondary to the real, existing unity of the one whose acts are gathered into such a history.

      Accordingly, it must be said that the person is neither an isolated substance whose relations are accidental nor a mere construct arising from interpretive practice, but a subsisting subject (soul) whose existence is disclosed and articulated through historically situated action. The history of a life manifests the person as this one who exists and acts, but does not bring that person into being. Thus the temporal and narrative unity of the self presupposes the metaphysical unity of a subject capable of self-possession, whose act of existence grounds the possibility of understanding, projection, and remembrance. In this way the phenomenological truth that the person appears in the history of a life is preserved, while the reduction of that appearance to the history itself is avoided.

 

Reply to Objection 1. The analysis of human existence as being-in-the-world rightly rejects the treatment of the person as a present-at-hand object among others. Yet from this it does not follow that there is no subsisting subject, but only that such a subject is not given in the manner of an object. For the one who exists is disclosed precisely in the enactment of possibilities within a meaningful world, and not as a detachable bearer of properties. Hence the rejection of objectifying accounts of the self does not abolish the subject but purifies the understanding of its mode of being.

 

Reply to Objection 2. Narrative unifies the life of a person by rendering intelligible the succession of acts and experiences as belonging to one history. Yet this unity presupposes that which performs the acts so unified. For appropriation, remembrance, and anticipation are operations which require a subject capable of self-reference across time. Therefore, narrative identity does not constitute the person but expresses the temporal coherence of the one who exists and acts, and whose act of being grounds the possibility of a life that may be told as one.

 

 

 

Quaestio. Whether morality is grounded in the cultivation of the virtues according to the perfection of human nature, or rather in an absolute and sui generis demand arising from the dignity of the person as disclosed in love.

 

Objection 1. It would seem that morality is grounded in the cultivation of the virtues according to the perfection of human nature. For the good for any being consists in the fulfillment of its nature, and the virtues are those stable dispositions by which the human being is enabled to act well in accordance with reason. Thus the moral life consists in the habitual ordering of one’s passions and actions toward the mean determined by right reason, so that one becomes capable of achieving human flourishing. But this account proceeds from an understanding of the human being as a rational animal whose fulfillment consists in the excellent exercise of powers proper to its nature. Therefore morality is intelligible as the perfection of human capacities and does not require appeal to any absolute demand arising from the dignity of the person as such.

 

Objection 2. Further, if morality were grounded in an absolute demand arising from the dignity of the person as disclosed in love, it would seem to lack intelligibility in terms of human flourishing. For love, as it is experienced in response to another, appears to be contingent upon personal attachment, sympathy, or imaginative identification, none of which can serve as the basis for universally binding obligations. Moreover, the appeal to dignity as something absolute and sui generis seems to resist explanation in terms of the goods proper to human nature, and thus to detach morality from the teleological structure of human life. Therefore, such an ethic of love cannot provide a stable foundation for moral judgment but risks reducing morality to the expression of sentiment.

 

On the contrary, that which is owed to another as one who exists cannot be derived solely from considerations of what conduces to the flourishing of the agent. For the prohibition against cruelty or degradation does not arise from the fact that such acts impede the perfection of the one who performs them, but from what is seen in the one to whom they are done. But what is thus seen is not merely an instance of a rational nature but this one who exists and whose life matters in an irreducible way. Therefore, morality arises from the recognition of the dignity of the person as such and cannot be reduced to the cultivation of the virtues as perfections of human nature.

 

I answer that the cultivation of the virtues according to the perfection of human nature and the recognition of the absolute dignity of the person as disclosed in love are not opposed but belong to different moments within the moral life. For the virtues dispose the human being to perceive and respond appropriately to what is good, both in oneself and in another. Yet what is disclosed in love is not merely the presence of a being capable of flourishing according to its nature, but the reality of one whose existence is his or her own and who therefore matters in a way that cannot be assimilated to the agent’s pursuit of fulfillment. In such recognition the other is apprehended not as a contributor to the common good nor as an occasion for the exercise of virtue, but as this one whose life has an absolute significance.

      Accordingly, while virtue ethics explains how the human being may become the kind of person capable of acting well, it does not by itself explain why certain acts are unconditionally excluded, even when they might appear to contribute to the agent’s flourishing or to some broader good. The absolute character of certain moral prohibitions arises from the recognition that to treat another as though his or her life were of no account is to deny what is disclosed in the very acknowledgment of that other as someone. Thus the demand not to humiliate, torture, or kill the innocent does not follow from a calculation of goods but from the recognition of the other as one whose existence places a claim upon us simply in virtue of being his or her own.

     Therefore, the virtues may be said to prepare and sustain the moral agent in responding rightly to the dignity of the person, but the ultimate ground of moral obligation lies in the recognition of that dignity as absolute and not merely as an aspect of human flourishing. In this way the teleological account of moral formation is preserved, while the sui generis character of moral demands arising from love is affirmed.

     This recognition of the other as one whose existence matters absolutely finds its fullest intelligibility in caritas, by which the person is enabled to love another not merely as a participant in a shared human nature but as one created for his or her own sake and destined for communion with God. For in charity the other is apprehended under the aspect of one loved by God, and thus as bearing a dignity that places an unconditional claim upon us which cannot be reduced to considerations of flourishing or utility.

 

Reply to Objection 1. The account of morality in terms of virtue rightly emphasizes the role of stable dispositions in enabling the human being to act in accordance with reason. Yet reason itself is perfected not only by the discernment of what conduces to flourishing but by the acknowledgment of what is owed to another as someone. Thus the virtues are ordered not merely to the perfection of the agent but to the truthful recognition of the other, which may impose limits upon the pursuit of one’s own fulfillment.

 

Reply to Objection 2. Love, as the recognition of another as someone whose existence matters, is not reducible to sympathy or sentiment, but discloses a reality which claims acknowledgment independently of the agent’s inclinations. Hence the appeal to dignity does not detach morality from the teleological structure of human life but reveals the good toward which the virtues themselves must be ordered, namely the just and loving regard for the other as one whose being is not at our disposal.