This paper will search for answers to three crucial questions which concern the nature of the person as the subject of social life.

(a) Is the person only a set of roles constituted entirely in function of a structure or system in which one plays a particular part? If so, one could not refuse to do whatever the system demanded or tolerated. Or is the person a subject in his or her own right, with his or her proper dignity, heritage, goals and standards?

(b) Is there merely a stream of consciousness which becomes a person only upon the achievement of a certain level of self_awareness? If so, it becomes difficult to integrate the experiences of early childhood and the emotions of adult life which play so central a role in moral maturity. Or is the person an essentially free and responsible psycho-physical subject?

(c) Finally, does a person's freedom consist merely in implementing a pattern of behavior encoded in one's nature. If so, there would be little place for the anguish of decision, the pains of moral growth, or the creativity of a moral life. Or is this free subject a creative center whose basic dynamism consists in realizing a unique inner harmony of both values and harmony and outer community of peace for which moral education should contribute both form and content?

To undertake a response to these question it is necessary to note that the notion of the person has not always had an identical or unchanging meaning. By natural growth, more than by mere accretion, the notion has managed to incorporate the great achievements of human self_discovery for which it has been both the stimulus and the goal. This continuing process has been central to philosophy from its earliest days. Like all life processes, the search for the person has consisted in a sequence of important steps, each of which has resulted in a certain equilibrium or level of culture. In time each has been enriched and molded by subsequent discoveries. It may not be incorrect to say that this search is also at the heart of our personal life.

To look into this experience it will be advantageous to study the nature of the person through reflection on a series of paired and progressively deeper dimensions: first, as a role and as the one who lives out this role; second, as free self_consciousness and as the subject of that freedom; and third, as moral agent and as searching for one's moral development and fulfillment. The first member of each pair is integral to an understanding of the human person and of moral growth, but it requires also its corresponding dimension and evokes the pair on the level that follows.

One means for finding the earliest meaning of a particular notion is to study the term by which it is designated. As earliest, this meaning tends to be more manifest and hence to remain current. The major study³ on the origins of the term `person' concludes that, of the multiple origins which have been proposed, the most probable refers to the mask used by actors in Greece and subsequently adopted in Rome. Some explain that this was called a `persona' because by `sounding through' (personando)⁴ its single hole the voice of the wearer was strengthened, concentrated and made to resound clearly. Others see the term as a transformation of the Greek term for the mask which symbolized the actor's role.⁵ Hence, an original and relatively surface notion of person is the assumption of a character or the carrying out of a role. As such it has little to do with one's self; it is defined rather in terms of the set of relations which constitutes the plot or story_line of a play.

These difficulties suggest that attention must be directed to another level of meaning if the person is to find the resources required to play his or her role. Rather than attempting to think of a role without an actor, it is important to look to the individual who assumes the role and expresses him or herself therein. Caution must be exercised here, however, lest the search for the subject or the self appear to reinforce the excesses of self_centeredness and individualism. This could be a special danger in the context of cultures whose positive stress on self_reliance and independence has been rooted historically in an atomistic understanding of individuals as single, unrelated entities. This danger is reflected, for example, in the common-law understanding of judicial rulings, not as defining the nature of interpersonal relations, but simply as resolving conflicts between individuals whose lives happen to have intersected.

In order better to appreciate the members of a community it is helpful to consider them on three progressively more specific dimensions, first as instances of a particular type, that is, as substances; secondly as existing, that is, as subsisting individuals; and thirdly as self_conscious, that is, as persons. The order in which these three will be considered is not accidental for, while it is necessary to be of a certain definite type, it is more important to exist as an individual in one's own right; for the person, finally, it is important above all that one be selfconscious and free. Hence, our exposition begins with substance and the subsisting individual in order to identify some general and basic__though not specific or exclusive__characteristics of the person, whose distinctive self_awareness and freedom will be treated in the following sections.

Secondly, as the basic building blocks in the constitution of a world, these individuals are not merely undetermined masses. As the basic points of reference in discourse and the bases for the intelligibility of the real world, these individual components must possess some essential determinateness: they must be of one or another kind or form. The individual, then, is not simply one thing rather than any other; he or she is a being of a definite__in this case a human__kind,¹⁶ relating to other beings each with their own nature or kind. Only thus can one's life in the universe have sense and be able to be valued.

Thirdly, being of a definite kind the individual has its own proper characteristics and is able to realize a specific or typical set of activities. These activities derive from, or are "born of" (from the Latin, natus) the person according to its kind--which therefore is called "nature." The determination of what activity is moral will need to include not only the good to be derived from the action, but respect for the agent and for his or her nature.

In the search for the subject of moral education the work of Aristotle has made an essential contribution by directing our attention to three factors, namely: (a) individual beings, (b) who are particular instances of a definite kind, and hence (c) capable of specific types of activities. It should be noted that all three are concerned with the kind or type of the agent.¹⁷

This is important, but it is not enough for moral education, for one can know well enough what kind of thing a unicorn is but, as none has ever existed, they have never acted or entered the field of activity in which morality is found. Similarly, one might know what kind of musician is needed in order to complete an orchestra, but this does not mean that one is available to be engaged for a concert. In sum, in order to consider the field of moral action it is important to take account not only of the nature or kind of agent involved, but also of his or her actual existence and actions.

From this there followed a series of basic implications for the reality of the person. It would no longer be considered as simply the relatively placid distinct or autonomous instance of some specific type. Rather, it would be understood in the much more dynamic manner of existing. This means not only being in its own right or, as it were, standing on its own two feet (subsisting), but bursting in among the realities of this world as a new and active center (ex-isting). This understanding incorporates all the above_mentioned characteristics of the individual substance, and adds three more which are proper to existence, namely, being complete, independent, and dynamically open to action and to new actualization. Since existing or subsisting individuals include not only persons, but rocks and trees, however, these characteristics, though fundamental for persons, still will not be exclusive to them.

Further, the existing individual requires not merely a complete nature, but his or her proper existence. As existing, the individual is not merely an instance of a specific nature or kind, but a concrete reality asserting him/herself and dynamically struggling to achieve his/her fulfillment. In the person this goes beyond merely walking a course whose every step is already charted; it includes all the unique, fully individual choices by which a life is lived. It is subject then to combinations of the precarious and the stable, of tragedy and triumph in its self-realization. These are described by the American pragmatists and Continental existentialists as the very stuff of life, and hence by Dewey as the very stuff of education.

Secondly, as subsistent the person is independent. Being complete in its nature it is numerically individual and distinct from all else. In accord with one's individual nature, one's existence is, in turn, unique; it establishes the subject as a being in its own right, independent of all else. This, of course, does not imply that the human or other living subject does not need nourishment, or that it was not generated by others: people do need people, and much else besides. There is no question here of being self_sufficient or absolute. What is meant by independence is that the needs it has and the actions it performs are truly its own.

In turn, this means that in interacting with other subsistent individuals one's own contribution is distinctive and unique. This is commonly recognized at those special times when the presence of a mother, father, or special friend is required, and no one else will do. At other times as well, even when as a bus driver or a dentist I perform a standard service, my actions remain properly my own. This understanding is a prerequisite for education to responsibility in public as in private life. It is a condition too for overcoming depersonalization in a society in which we must fulfill ever more specialized and standardized roles.

Another dimension of this independence is that the human person as subsisting cannot simply be absorbed or assimilated by another. As complete in oneself one cannot be part of another, for being independent in existence one is distinct from all else. Hence, one cannot be assumed or taken up by any other person or group in such wise as to lose one's identity. In recent years awareness of this characteristic has generated a strong reaction against the tendencies of mass society totally to absorb the person and to reduce all to mere functions in a larger whole--whether state, industrial complex, or consumer society.

As noted above, it is perhaps the special challenge of the present day, however, to keep this awareness of one's distinctive independence from degenerating into selfishness--to keep individuality from becoming individualism. The individual existent, seen as sculpted out of the flow and process of the physical universe, cannot be rightly thought of as isolated. Such an existent is always with others, depending on them for birth, sustenance and expression. In this context, to be distinct or individual is not to be isolated or cut off, but to be able to relate more precisely and intensively to others. My relation to the chair upon which I sit and the desk upon which I write is not diminished, but is made possible by the distinction and independence of the three of us. Their retention of their distinctness and distinctive shapes enables me to integrate them into my task of writing. Because I depend still more intimately upon food, I must correlate more carefully its distinctive characteristics with my precise needs and capacities. On the genetic level it is the careful choice of distinctive strains that enables the development of a new individual with the desired characteristics. On the social level the more personable the members of the group the greater and more intense is its unity. Surveying thus from instruments such as desks, to alimentation, to lineage, to society suggests that as one moves upward through the levels of beings distinctness, far from being antithetic to community, is in fact its basis. This gives hope that at its higher reaches, namely, in the moral life, the distinctiveness of autonomy and freedom may not need to be compromised, but may indeed be the basis for a community of persons bound together in mutual love and respect.

The third characteristic of the subsistent individual to be considered is this openness to new actualization and to interrelation with others. The existence by which one erupted into this world of related subjects is not simply self_contained; it is expressed in a complex symphony of actions which are properly one's own. It is not merely, as was noted above, that running can be said only of an existing individual, such as Mary, who runs. What is more, actions determine their subject: it is only by running that Mary herself is constituted precisely as a runner. This will be central to the next part of this study, the person as moral agent.

It is important too for our relations to, and with, others for the actions into which our existence flows, while no less our own, reach beyond ourselves. The same action which makes us agents shapes the world around us and, for good or ill, communicates to others. All the plots of all the stories ever told are about this, but their number pales in comparison with all the lives ever lived, each of which is a history of personal interactions.¹⁹ The actions of an individual existent reflect one's individuality, with its multiple possibilities, and express this to and with others. It is in this situation of dynamic openness,²⁰ of communication and of community that the moral growth of persons takes place. As subsistent therefore the person is characteristically a being, not only in him/herself, but with other beings. About this more must be said below.

To summarize: thus far we have seen the early derivation of the notion of person from mask. For this to evolve into the contemporary notion of person a strong awareness both of the nature and of the existence of independent individuals needed to be developed. The first was achieved by the Greeks who within the one physical process identified basically different types of things. Substances are the individual instances of these specific types or natures. This provides the basis for consciousness of one's own nature and in its terms for relating to others within the overall pattern of nature.

There were limitations to such a project, for in its terms alone one ultimately would be but an instance of one's nature; and in the final analysis the goal of a physical being is but to continue one's species through time. This was true for the Greeks and may still be a sufficient basis for the issues considered in sociobiology, but it did not allow for adequate attention to the person's unique and independent reality. This required the development subsequently of an awareness of existence, as distinct from nature or essence, as that by which one enters into the world and is constituted as a being in one's own right. On this basis the subsisting individual can be seen to be whole and independent, and hence the dynamic center of action in this world.

Because Locke's concern for knowledge was part of his overriding concern to find a way to build social unity in a divided country he considered his notion of the self to be the basis for an ethic of both private and public life. As conscious of pleasure and pain the self is capable of happiness or misery, "and so is concerned for itself."²² What is more, happiness and misery matter only inasmuch as they enter one's self_consciousness as a matter of self_concern and hence direct one's activities. The pattern of public morality, with its elements of justice as rewarding a prior good act by happiness and as punishing an evil act by misery, is founded upon this identity of the self as a continuing consciousness from the time of the act to that of the reward or punishment. `Person' is the public name of this self as open to public judgment and social response; it is "a forensic term appropriating actions and their merit."²³

This early attempt to delineate the person on the basis of consciousness locates a number of factors essential for personhood, such as the importance of self_awareness, the ability to be concerned for oneself, and the basis this provides for the notions of responsibility and public accountability. These are the foundations of his Letters Concerning Toleration which were to be of such great importance in the development of subsequent social and political structures in many parts of the world.

This is more than an issue of "names ill_used";²⁵ it is symptomatic of the whole cluster of problems which derive from isolating human consciousness from the physical identity of the human self. These include problems not only regarding communication with other persons for which one depends upon physical signs, but regarding the life of the person in the physical world in whose unity and harmony one's consciousness has no real share, indeed, by contrast to which it is defined.²⁶ Existential phenomenologists have noted the desiccating effect this has had even upon consciousness, while environmentalists have pointed up the destruction it has wrought upon nature.

This implies a problem for personal identity itself. Locke would claim that this resides in the continuity established by linking the past with the present in one's memory.²⁷ But, as there is no awareness of a substantial self from which this consciousness proceeds,²⁸ what remains is but a sequence of perceptions or a flow of consciousness recorded by memory.

Finally, Leibniz would question Locke's claim to have provided even that public or forensic notion of the self through which he sought to provide a sufficient basis for legal and political relations. Memory can deal with the past and the present, but not with the future; planning and providing for the future, however, is the main task of a rationally ordered society. Further, Locke's conclusion that, since the self is consciousness, the same self could inhabit many bodies of different appearances would undermine the value of public testimony, and thereby the administration of justice.²⁹ Though self_consciousness is certainly central and distinctive of the person, more is required for personhood than a sequence of consciousness, past and present.

As free, the person must not be legislated to by anyone or on the basis of anything else; to avoid heteronomy one must be an end_in_oneself. It was Kant's self_described goal to awaken interest in the moral law through this "glorious ideal" of a universal realm of persons as ends_in_themselves (rational beings).³¹ The person, then, is not merely independent, as is any subject; he or she is a law_making member of society. This means that the person not only has value which is to be protected and promoted, but has true dignity as well, for he is freely bound by and obeys laws which he gives to himself.³² As this humanity is to be respected both in oneself and in all others, one must act in such wise that if one's actions were to constitute a universal law they would promote a cohesive life for all rational agents.

Further, this bespeaks a certain absoluteness of the individual will which is essential if the person is not to be subject to domination by the circumstances he encounters. If one is more than a mere function of one's environment-_whether this be one's state, or business, or neighborhood-_then Kant has made a truly life_saving observation in noting that the law of the will must extend beyond any one good or particular set of goods.

Nevertheless, there are reasons to think that still more is needed for an understanding of the person. In Part I of his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals Kant correctly rules out anything other than, or heteronomous to, human freedom and will as an adequate basis for ethics, at least as far as using one's own ability to think and to decide are concerned. Nor does he omit the fact that these individuals live their lives with others in this world. As the good is mediated by their concrete goods, however, a role for experience must be recognized if right reason is to conform to the real good in things. Further, there is need to know more of the reality of the person in order to understand: (a) not only how will and freedom provide the basis for ethical behavior, but (b) by what standards or values behavior can be judged to be ethical, and (c) how ethical behavior is integral to the project of a person's self_realization. Something more than a postulation of freedom (along with the immortality of the soul and God) is essential to enable the development of the person to be guided throughout by his "glorious ideal."

By attending directly to consciousness and freedom, however, both left similar problems of great importance to the present project. The first regards the way in which consciousness and freedom are realized in the person as a unique identity with a proper place in society, and indeed in reality as a whole. It is true, as Locke says, that the term `person' expresses self_aware and continuing consciousness, as well as its status in the public forum. But, one needs more than an isolated view of that which is most distinctive of man; one needs to know what the person is in his or her entirety, how one is able to stand among other persons as a subject, and how in freedom one is to undertake one's rightful responsibilities. One educates not consciousness or freedom, but conscious and free subjects or persons. Further, it is necessary to understand the basis of the private, as well as the public, life of the person, for a person is more than a role, a citizen, or a function of state. The second problem regards the way in which through time and with others the person can attain his/her goal of full self_awareness, freedom and responsibility, namely, how the person can achieve his or her fulfillment.

In sum, what Locke and Kant discovered about the person by considering self_awareness in the abstract and for the political arena needs now to be integrated with what was seen above regarding the individual and existing subject in order to constitute an integral person as a rational and free subject.

This required establishing: (a) that the universe is ruled by law, (b) that a person could have access to this law through reason, and (c) that the person has command of his relations to this law. These elements were developed by Heraclitus around 500 B.C. He saw that the diverse physical forces could not achieve the equilibrium required in order to constitute a universe without something which is one. This cosmic, divine law or Logos is the ruling principle of the coherence of all things, not only in the physical, but in the moral and social orders. A person can assume the direction of his life by correcting his understanding and determining his civil laws and actions according to the Logos, which is at once divine law and nature. In this lies wisdom.³⁵

This project has two characteristics, namely, self_reflection and self_determination. First, as the law or Logos is not remote, but within man__"The soul has a Logos within it"³⁶__the search for the Logos is also a search for oneself.--"I began to search for myself."³⁷ Self_reflection is then central to wisdom. Second, the attainment of wisdom requires on the part of man a deliberate choice to follow the universal law. This implies a process of interior development by which the Logos which is within "increases itself."³⁸

A similar pattern of thought is found in the Stoic philosophers for whom there is a principle of rationality or "germ of logos" of which the soul is part, and which develops by natural growth.³⁹ A personal act is required to choose voluntarily the law of nature, which is also the divine will.

Aristotle took the second step by applying the same principle to the internal structure of living beings. He concluded that the unity of their disparate components could be explained only by something one, which he termed the soul or psyche, whence the term `psychology.' The body is organized by this form which he described as "the first grade of actuality of a natural body having life potentially in it."⁴¹ For Aristotle, however, the unifying principle of a physical subject could not be also the principle of man's higher mental life, his life of reason. Hence, there remained the need to understand the person as integrating self_consciousness and freedom in a subject which is nonetheless physical.

This progression of steps leading to the one principle, which enables that which is complex to constitute nonetheless a unity, points in the person to the one form which is commonly called the soul. By this single formal principle what Locke articulated only as a disembodied consciousness and Kant as an autonomous will are able to exist as a properly human subject. This is physical truly, but not exclusively, for it transcends the physical to include also self_consciousness and freedom. Similarly, it exists in its own right, yet does so in such wise that it exists essentially with others as a person in society.

There are pervasive implications for education in such an integration of the physical with the self_conscious dimensions of the person through a single principle. One does not become a person when one is accepted by society; on the contrary, by the form through which one is a person one is an autonomous end-in_oneself and has claim to be responded to as such by others. Hence, though for his or her human development the person has a unique need for acceptance, respect and love, the withholding of such acceptance by others__whether individuals, families or states__does not deprive them of their personhood. One does not have to be accepted in order to have a claim to acceptance. (Hence, even in circumstances of correction and punishment, when one's actions are being explicitly repudiated, one must not be treated as a mere thing.) The right to an education is based within the person and needs to be responded to by family and society.

Similarly, it is not necessary that the person manifest in overt behavior signs of self_awareness and responsibility. From genetic origin and physical form it is known that the infant and young child is an individual human developing according to a single unifying and integrating principle of both its physical and its rational life.⁴³ The rights and the protection of a human person belong to a person by right prior to any ability consciously to conceive or to articulate them. Further, the physical actions of young children through which they express themselves in their own way and respond to others are truly human. Indeed, though the earlier the stage in life the more physical the manner of receiving and expressing affection, the earliest months and years appear to be the most determinative of one's lifetime ability to relate to others with love and affection.

Finally, attempts to modify the behavior of a person must proceed according to distinctively human norms if they are not to be destructive. Despite at earlier life stages greater operational similarities to some animals, only by an abstraction can infants and very young children be said to be small animals. They are human persons, and integrally so, in each of their human actions and interactions. Not to attend to this is to fail to realize who in fact is being educated to the detriment and dishonor of both the person and the educative process.

There is a second insight of great potential importance in the thought of Heraclitus. When he refers to the Logos⁴⁴ as being very deep he suggests multiple dimensions of the soul. Indeed, it must be so if human life is complex and its diverse dimensions have their principle in the one soul. Plato thought of these as parts of the soul; in these terms the development of oneself as a person would consist in bringing these parts into proper subordination one to another. This state is called justice, the "virtue of the soul."⁴⁵ Both the Republic and the Laws reflect amply his concern for education, character formation and personal development understood as the process of attaining that state of justice. The way to this is progressive liberation from captivity by the objects of sense knowledge and sense desires through spiritual training, as described in the Phaedo and the Republic. All this prepares the way for what is essential, namely, the contemplation of the transcendent Good. This alone establishes that inner harmony of soul through which the person is constituted as free and responsible, both in principle and in act. Because this vision, not only of some goods, but of the transcendent Good, cannot be communicated by teaching but remains "an extremely personal interior vision,"⁴⁶ the uncalculating and unmeasured love shared in family, Church and other communities has special importance for moral education.

By the human form or soul the human individual as a person is open in principle, not only to particular states of affairs or events, but to the one source, logos and goal of all. Through this, in turn, one is able to take account of the full meaning of each thing and freely to relate oneself to others in the coordinating virtue of philanthropia, the love of all mankind.⁴⁷ As it is of foundational importance for a truly moral life to have not merely access to some goods, but an ability to evaluate them in terms of the Good, the form or soul as the single organizing and vivifying principle of the person is the real foundation for the person as an end in him/herself.

Correlatively, recent thought has made crucial strides toward reintegrating the person in one's world. The process of identifying the components of the world process initiated by the Greeks was inherently risky, for as analytic rather than synthetic it would turn attention away from the understanding of personal identity and thereby distract from grounding the person in the One. Cummulatively, the intensive modern concentration upon freedom in terms of self_consciousness would generate an isolating and alienating concentration upon self.⁴⁸

Some developments in recent thought have made important contributions to correcting this individualist__even potentially solipsist__bias. One is the attention recently paid to language and to the linguistic character of the person. Our consciousness is not only evoked, but shaped by the pattern of the language in which we are nurtured. In our highly literate culture__many would say in all cultures__the work of the imagination which accompanies and facilitates that of the intellect is primarily verbal. Hence, rather than ideas being developed and then merely expressed by language, our thought is born in language. As this language is not one's private creation, but that of one's community over a long period, conscious acts, even about ourselves, involve participation in that community. To say that our nature is linguistic is to say that it is essentially "with others."

From what was said of being_in_the_world it follows that the person is also being_with_others, for one is not alone in sharing in this world. Just as I enter into and share in the world, so also do other persons. Hence, as essentially sharing-in_the_world, our being is also essentially a sharing with_others; the world of the person is a world in which we are essentially with others. In this light a study of the existence of the rational subject with others or of person and society is a natural extension of the above. For Aristotle this was the study of politics, within which was situated as a first step the domain of personal morality or ethics. Similarly, this study of the person must attend also to its moral growth not only as a matter of personal fulfillment, but in order to lay the groundwork for the ensuing discussions regarding the relation between person and society.

THE PERSON AS MORAL

A person should be understood also in terms of his or her goals, for activities progressively modify and transform one in relation to the perfection of which one is by nature capable and which one freely chooses. Thus, though infants are truly and quite simply human beings, they are good only in an initial sense, namely, as being members of the human species. What they will become, however, lies in the future; hence they begin to be categorized as good or bad people only after, and in view of, their actions. Even then it is thought unfair to judge or evaluate persons at an early age, before it can be seen how they will "turn out" or what they will "make of themselves," that is, what character and hence constant pattern of action they will develop.

Further, one's progress or lack thereof can be judged only in terms of acting in a manner proportionate to one's nature. A horse may be characterized as good or bad on the basis of its ability to run, but not to fly. One must be true to one's nature, which in that sense serves as a norm of action; in this new sense I am a law to myself, namely, I must never act as less than one having a human nature with its self consciousness and freedom. Below we shall see a way in which being true to this nature implies constituting both myself and my world.

This self_conscious experience depends upon the objective reality of the subject with all the characteristics described above in the section on the self conscious and free subject. This, in turn, is shaped by the reflexive and hence free experiences of discovering, choosing and committing oneself. In these reflexive acts the subject in a sense constitutes oneself, being manifested or disclosed to oneself as concrete, distinct, and indeed unique. This is the distinctively personal manner of self actuation of the conscious being or person.

The result for the person is a unique realization of that independence which was seen above to characterize all subsistent individuals. Beyond mirroring surrounding conditions and what happens to one, beyond even the objective realization of oneself as affected by those events, the person exists reflexively as the subject and source of actions. As a person one has an inward, interior life of which he/she alone is the responsible source. This implies for the person an element of mystery which can never be fully explicated or exhausted. Much can be proposed by other persons and things, much even can be imposed upon me, but my self_consciousness is finally my act and no one else's. How I assess and respond to my circumstances is finally my decision, which relates to, but is never simply the result of, exterior factors. Here finally lies the essence of freedom, of which the ability to choose between alternatives is but one implication. What is essential for a free life is not that I always retain an alternative, but that I determine myself and carry through with consistency the implications of my self-determination--even and at times especially, in the most straightening of circumstances. In this the person finally transcends that growth process originally called the physis or the physical, and is considered rightly to be not only physical but spiritual as well.

This, of course, is not to imply isolation from one's physical and social world; rather it bespeaks in that world a personal center which is self_aware and self_determining. More than objective consciousness of oneself as acting, in inward reflexion at the origin of my action I freely determine⁵² and experience myself as the one who acts in freedom. The bond of consciousness with action that derives from self_determination is crucial for a full recognition of subjectivity. It protects this from reduction to the subjectivism of an isolated consciousness which, being separated from action, would be more arbitrary than absolute.

Self_determination in action has another implication: in originating an action the person's experience is not merely of that action as happening to or in him, but of a dynamism in which he participates efficaciously. As a self I experience myself immanently as wholly engaged in acting and know this efficacy to be properly my own, my responsibility. Hence, by willing the good or evil character of an action, I specify not only the action which results, but myself as the originator of that action.

Finally, I am aware of my responsibility for the results of my actions which extend beyond myself and shape my world. The good or evil my actions bring about is rooted in good or evil decisions on my part. In making choices which shape my world I also form myself for good or evil. By their subjective character actions become part of the person's unique process of self_realization.⁵³

Action then manifests an important dimension of the person.⁵⁴ On the one hand, the need to act shows that the person, though a subject and independent, is not at birth perfect, self-sufficient or absolute. On the contrary, persons are conscious of perfection that they do not possess, but toward which they are dynamically oriented. The person is then essentially active and creative.

On the other hand, this activity is essentially marked by responsibility. This implies that, while the physical or social goods that one can choose are within one's power, they do not overpower one. Whatever their importance, in the light of the person's openness to the good as such one can always overrule the power of their attraction. When one does choose them it is the person__not the goods__who is responsible for that choice.

Both of these point to two foundations of the person's freedom, and hence of one's ability to be a self_determining end_in_oneself. First, one's mind or intellect is oriented not to one or another true thing or object of knowledge, but to truth itself and hence to whatever is or can be. Second and in a parallel manner, the person's will is not limited to__or hence by__any particular good or set of goods. Rather, because oriented to the Good Itself or to God, it is freely open to any and all goods.

In this manner things as good, that is, as actually realizing some degree of perfection, are the basis for an interlocking set of relations. As these relations are based upon both the actual perfection things possess and the potential perfection to which they are thereby directed, the good is perfection both as attracting when it has not yet been attained and as constituting one's fulfillment upon its attainment. Goods then are not arbitrary or simply a matter of wishful thinking; they are rather the full development of things and all that contributes thereto. In this ontological or objective sense all beings are good to the extent that they exist and can contribute to the perfection of others.

The moral good is a more narrow field, for it concerns only one's free and responsible actions. This has the objective reality of the ontological good noted above, for it concerns real actions which stand in distinctive relation to our own perfection and to that of others--and indeed to the physical universe and to God as well. Hence many possible patterns of actions could be objectively right because they promote the good of those involved. Others, precisely as inconsistent with the real good of the persons or things, are objectively disordered or misordered.

Because the realm of objective relations is almost numberless whereas our actions are single, it is necessary not only to choose in general between the good and the bad, but in each case to choose which of the often innumerable possibilities one will render concrete. However broad or limited the options, the act as responsible and moral is essentially dependent upon its being willed by a subject. Therefore, in order to follow the emergence of the field of concrete moral action, it is important not only to examine the objective aspect, namely, the nature of the persons, actions, and things involved. In addition one must consider the action in relation to the subject, namely, to the person who in the context of his/her society and culture appreciates and values the good of this action, chooses it over its alternatives, and eventually wills its actualization.

The term `value' here is of special note. It was derived from the economic sphere where it meant the amount of a commodity by which it attained a certain worth. This is reflected also in the term `axiology' whose root means "weighing as much" or "worth as much." It requires an objective content-_the good must really "weigh in" and make a real difference. But the term `value' expresses this good especially as related to wills which actually acknowledge it as a good and as desirable.⁵⁸ Thus, different groups of persons or individuals, and at different periods, have distinct sets of values. A people or community is sensitive to and prizes a distinct set of goods or, more likely, it establishes a distinctive ranking in the degree to which it prizes various goods. By so doing it delineates among the limitless order of objective goods a certain pattern of values which, to an extensive degree, mirrors its corporate free choices and constitutes a basic component of its culture.

By giving shape to the culture this constitutes as well the prime pattern and gradation of goods which persons born into that culture experience from their earliest years. In these terms they interpret their developing relations. Young persons peer out at the world through a lens formed, as it were, by their family and culture, and configured according to the pattern of choices made by that community throughout its history, often in its most trying circumstances. Like a pair of glasses it does not create the object; but it does focus attention upon certain of the goods involved rather than upon others. This becomes the basic orienting factor for one's affective and emotional life. In time, it encourages and reinforces certain patterns of action; in turn, these reinforce the pattern of values.

Bodily or somatic dynamisms, such as the pumping of blood, are basically non_reflective and reactive. They are implemented through the nervous system in response to stimuli, though generally they are below the level of human consciousness, thereby enjoying a degree of autonomy. Nonetheless, they are in harmony with the person as a whole, of which they are an integral dimension. As such they are implicit in my conscious and self-determined choices regarding personal action with others in this world.

At a second level, dynamisms of the psyche are typified by emotivity. In some contrast to the more reactive character of lower bodily dynamism and in a certain degree to the somatic as a whole, these are based rather within the person. They include, not only affectivity, but sensation and emotions as well. These feelings range from some which are physical to others which are moral, religious and aesthetic. Such emotions have two important characteristics. First, they are not isolated or compartmentalized, but include and interweave the various dimensions of the person; hence, they are crucial to the integration of a personal life. They play a central role in the proximity one feels to values and to the intensity of one's response thereto. Secondly, they are relatively spontaneous and contribute to the intensity of a personal life. This, however, is not adequate to make them fully personal for, as personal, life is not only what happens in me, but above all what I determine to happen. This can range beyond and even against my feelings.

The other, or vertical dimension of transcendence follows the sequence of levels of personal reality. Personal actions are carried out through a will which is open and responsive to The Good and as such able to respond to, without being determined by, any particular good or value. Thus, it is finally up to the person to determine him/herself to act. One is able to do this because personal consciousness is not only reflective of myself as an additional object of knowledge, but reflexive or self_aware in its conscious acts.

If such actions derived merely from my powers or faculties of knowledge or will, in acting I would determine only the object of my action. Instead, these actions derive from my self as subject or person; hence, in acting I determine equally, and even primarily, myself. This is self_determination, self_realization and self_fulfillment in the strongest sense of those terms. Not only are others to be treated as ends in themselves; in acting I myself am an end.

This process of deliberate choice and decision manifests a dimension of the person which transcends the somatic and psychic dynamisms. Whereas the somatic was extensively reactive, the person through affection or appetite is fundamentally oriented to the good and positively attracted by a set of values. These not merely are known by the mind, but evoke an active response from the psychic dynamisms of the emotions in the context of responsible freedom.

It is in the dimension of responsibility that one encounters the properly moral dimension of life. For in order to live, oneself and with others, one must be able to know and choose what is truly conducive to one's good and that of others. To do this the person must be able to judge the true value of what is to be chosen, that is, its objective worth both in itself and in relation to others. This is moral truth: the judgment whether the act makes the person good in the sense of bringing authentic individual and social fulfillment or the contrary.

In this as person I retain that deliberation and voluntary choice whereby I exercise my proper self_awareness, self_possession, and self_governance. By determining to follow this judgment I am able to overcome determination by stimuli and even by culturally ingrained values, and to turn these instead into openings for free action in concert with others. This vertical transcendence in one's actions as willed enables the person to shape him/herself, as well as one's physical surroundings and community.

This can be for good or for ill, depending on the character of one's actions. By definition only morally good actions contribute to the fulfillment of the person, that is, to one's development and perfection as a person. As it is the function of conscience as man's moral judgment to identify this character of moral good in action,⁵⁷ moral freedom consists in the ability to follow one's conscience. This must be established through the dynamisms within the person, and must be protected and promoted by the related physical and social realities. This is a basic right of the person__perhaps the basic social right__because only thus can one transcend one's conditions and strive for fulfillment. Moral education is directed particularly at capacitating the person affectively to exercise this right.

The work of conscience is not a merely theoretical judgment, but the development and exercise of self_possession through one's actions. In this one's reference to moral truth constitutes one's sense of duty, for the action that is judged to be truly good is experienced also as that which I ought to do. When this is exercised or lived patterns of action develop which are habitual only in the sense of being repeated. These patterns are modes of activity with which we are familiar; in their exercise--along with the coordinate natural dynamisms they require_-we are practiced; and with practice comes facility and spontaneity. Such patterns constitute the basic, continuing and pervasive shaping influence of our life. For this reason they have been considered classically to be the basic indicators of what our life as a whole will add up to or, as is often said, "amount to." Since Socrates the technical term used for these specially developed capabilities is `virtues'.

A person's values reflect then, not only his/her culture and heritage, but within this what he has done with its set of values. One shapes and refines these values through one's personal, and hence free, search to realize the good with others in one's world. They reflect, therefore, not only present circumstances which our forebears could not have experienced, but our free response to the challenges to interpersonal, familial and social justice and love in our days.

In the final analysis, moral development as a process of personal maturation consists in bringing my pattern of personal and social virtues into harmony with my corresponding set of values along the vertical pole of transcendence. In this manner we achieve a coordinated pattern of personal capabilities for the realization of our unique response to The Good.

7. "That accepteth not the persons of princes." Job 34: 19. See also Deut 10:17; Acts 10:34_35; Rom 2:10_11.

9. A. Danto. See n. 2 above.

10. (Boston: Beacon, 1957), p. 61.

12. Ibid.

17. Metaphysics, VII 4_7.

22. Essay, n. 17.

23. Ibid. nn. 18 and 26.

24. Ibid. n. 20.

25. Ibid., n. 29.

27. Locke, Essay, ch. 27, n. 15.

29. New Essays, nn. 20_66.

31. Foundations III, p. 82.

32. Foundations II, pp. 53_59.

36. Heraclitus, fn. 115 (trans. by C. De Vogel, p. 31). See also fn. 45.

37. Heraclitus, fn. 101 (trans. by C. De Vogel, p. 31).

38. Heraclitus, fn. 115 (trans. by C. De Vogel, p. 31).

41. Aristotle, De Anima II, 2 4l2 a 28_29.

46. Republic, VI 609 c. See De Vogel, pp. 33_35.

48. Different cultures, of course, are variously located along the spectrum from individualism to collectivism.

53. Wojtyla, pp. 32_47.

56. Mehta, pp. 90_91.

57. Wojtyla, The Acting Person, p. 197.

58. Ibid., p. 156.