CHAPTER V

For the last half century, from John Dewey's emphasis upon socialization to the more recent emphasis upon the person, education has retained one general goal, namely, to get beyond providing information in order to focus upon the development of the person. Though the need for content has often required reaffirmation, the time is long passed when schools were considered to be only repositories of knowledge upon which students might draw. The ancient respect and even veneration of one's teacher as one who creatively affected the student's life and personality is being reborn in the conviction that, along with information and even knowledge in its broadest sense, real education must promote the development of the student's powers to examine and evaluate, to create and communicate, to feel and to respond.

Nowhere is this more true, or more specifically intended, than in programs of moral education. Values clarification programs aim at bringing students to a greater consciousness of the values they possess; cognitive-developmental programs are directly concerned with the growth of the student's ability to make moral judgments. Further progress through identifying more adequate goals and enriching the content of such moral education programs depends upon improving our understanding of the nature of moral growth.

This, in turn, requires clarifying both the place of moral development in the life of the person and the nature of the person as a distinct and responsible agent in the community. Such understanding is not, of course, fabricated upon the moment, but is derived from the long experience of humankind. Hence, we should review our heritages for answers to three crucial questions about the person as the subject of a moral life and of moral education.

(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 one's proper dignity, heritage, goals and standards?

(b) Is one merely a stream of consciousness, who becomes a person only upon the achievement of a certain level of self-awareness? If so, it is 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 and outer community, for which moral education should contribute both form and content?

To respond to such basic concerns those who are involved with education must have available the full resources of their heritages. At the same time, because the task of self-creation on the part of the student will reflect one or more of the multiple modes of our contemporary self-understanding, it can be expected that not everyone will subscribe to all the possible dimensions of the meaning of the person--certainly not in the same mode or to the same degree. Hence, one involved in the moral education of others in a pluralistic society must be clear about the potential dimensions of the person: what they are,¹ how they are rooted in our cultural heritages, how they affect the aims and methods of moral education, and how they can be interrelated in a mutually reinforcing manner toward the development of a more integrated person and a more cohesive society. Indeed, there may prove to be a certain correlation of the above-mentioned questions both with the dimensions of the subject as a distinct-yet-related responsible moral agent and with the progressive development of the person throughout life.

For orientation in this task let us begin by delineating the meaning of person by contrasting it to a number of other notions. These contrasts will serve subsequently as guideposts for a series of positive and progressively deepening insights regarding the nature of the person, their moral growth, and self-fulfillment.

First and most notably, persons are contrasted to possessions. We object most strongly to any suggestion, whether in word, gesture, or deed, by which a person is treated as a commodity subject to manipulation or as a mere means by which others attain their goals. This, indeed, has become a litmus test for acceptable behavior.² Secondly, persons are considered to be irreducible to the community. Any structures or situation which considers only the whole without taking account of the individual and his/her concerns is rejected precisely as depersonalizing. Thirdly and conversely, those who are so individualistic as to be insensitive to the concerns of others are themselves considered impersonal. These exclusions direct our search for the meaning of the human person toward a responsible self which is neither reducible to, nor independent of, the physical and human context in which one abides.

This positive 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, in turn, 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. Indeed, it may not be incorrect to say that a parallel search is the dynamism at the heart of our personal life as well.

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 each of these members, in turn, requires its corresponding dimension and evokes the pair on the level that follows.

ROLE AND INDIVIDUAL

Role

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)<sup>4</sup> its single hole the voice of the wearer was strengthened, concentrated, and made to resound more clearly. Others see the term as a transformation of the Greek term for the mask which symbolized the actor's role.<sup>5</sup> 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.

This etymology is tentative; some would document an early and more rich sense of person in Homeric literature.⁶ There can be no doubt, however, that the term has been used broadly in the above ethical sense of a role played in human actions. Ancient biblical literature described God as not being a respecter of persons, that is, of the roles played by various individuals.⁷ The Stoics thought of this in cosmic terms, seeing the wise person either as writing their role or as interpreting a role determined by the Master. In either case, to be a wise person was to be consistent, to play out one's role in harmony with oneself and with reason as the universal law of nature. From this ethical sense of person as role it was but a short step to a similar legal sense. This generally is a distinct and characteristic relation, although, as Cicero noted, it could be multiple: "Three roles do I sustain . . . my own, that of my opponent, that of the judge."⁸

Far from being archaic,⁹ the understanding of person as the playing of a role seems typical of much modern and American thought. John Dewey, in Reconstruction in Philosophy, characterized the essence of the modern mentality in just these terms: in the case of ancient or classic usage "we are dealing with something constant in existence, physical or metaphysical; in the other [modern] case, with something constant in function and operation."¹⁰ The social and psychological sciences focus upon these roles or functions and in these terms attempt to construct, through operational definitions, their entire conceptual field.

This undergirds much of the progress in the social and behavioral sciences. As the same individual can play multiple roles, even in the same circumstances, studying the person in terms of roles makes it possible to identify specific dimensions of one's life for more precise investigation and to analyze serially the multiple relations which obtain in an interpersonal situation. William James, for example, distinguishes in this manner the self shown to family from that which one shows to professional colleagues or to God. Further, determining to pursue this exclusively on the basis of data which is subject to empirical verification¹¹ has made possible an immense collaborative effort to achieve a scientific understanding of human life.

Though much has been accomplished through understanding the person in terms of roles, there may have been a distant early warning of the limitations of this approach in Auguste Comte's (1798-1857) Cours de philosophie positive. By rejecting psychology as a scientific discipline and reducing all data concerning the person to either biology or sociology he ignored introspection and the corresponding dimensions of the individual's conscious life. The person was not only one who could play a role, but one whose total reality consisted in playing that role.

More recently Gabriel Marcel has pointed up a number of unfortunate consequences which derive from considering the person only in terms of roles or functional relations. First, no account can be then taken of one's proper self-identity. If only "surface" characteristics are considered, while excluding all attention to "depth,"¹² the person is empty; if the person can be analyzed fully in terms of external causes and relations one becomes increasingly devoid of intrinsic value. What is more, lack of personal identity makes it impossible to establish personal relations with others. Even that consistency between, or within, one's roles--which the Stoics as early proponents of this understanding of person considered to be the essence of personal life--is left without foundation. Life would be reduced "in the words of Shakespeare `to a tale told by an idiot'".¹³

The Individual

These difficulties suggest that attention must be directed to another level of meaning if the person is to find the resources required to play its roles. 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 persons as individuals, single and unrelated. 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 reducing violence through resolving conflicts between individuals whose lives happen to have intersected.

In this context it is helpful to note that when Aristotle laid the foundations for the Western understanding of the person he did so in the context of the Greek understanding of the physical universe as a unified, dynamic, quasi life process in which all was included and all were related. Indeed, the term `physical' was derived from the term for growth and the components of this process were seen always with, and in relation to, others. (Similarly, modern physical theory identifies a uniform and all-inclusive pattern of relations such that any physical displacement, no matter how small, affects all other bodies). Within this unified pattern of relations the identification of multiple individuals, far from being destructive of unity, provides the texture required for personal life. Where individuals are differentiated by the moral tenor of their actions which, in turn, make a difference to other persons distinctiveness becomes, not an impediment to, but a principle of, community.¹⁴

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 self-conscious 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. What is distinctive, namely, self-awareness and freedom, will be treated in the following sections.

1. Substance. It was Aristotle who identified substance as the basic component of the physical order; his related insights remain fundamental to understanding the individual as the subject of moral life. His clue to this basic discovery appears in language. Comparing the usage of such terms as "running," and "runner" we find that the first is applied to the second, which, however, is not said, in turn, of anything else.¹⁵ Thus, one may say of Mary that she is running, but one may not say that she is another person, e.g., John. This suggests the need to distinguish things that can be realized only in another (as running is had only in a runner, e.g., in Mary) whence they derive their identity (the running is Mary's and distinct from any running that John might do), from those which have their identity in their own right (e.g., Mary and John). 

A first and basic characteristic of the moral subject, and indeed of any substance, is that it has its identity in its own right rather than through another. Only thus could a human being be responsible for one's action. Without substances with their distinct identities one could envisage only a structure of ideals and values inhabited, as it were, by agents without meaning or value. In this light the task of moral education would be merely to enable one to judge correctly according to progressively higher ideals. This, indeed, would seem to be the implicit context of Kohlberg's focus upon moral dilemmas which omits not only the other dimensions of moral development but this personal identity as well. Aristotle points instead to a world of persons realizing values in their actions. In their complex reality of body, affections and mind they act morally and are the subjects of moral education. 

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 for the real world these individuals must possess some essential determinateness and be of one or another kind or form. The individual, then, is not simply one unit indifferently contrasted to all others; he or she is a being of a definite--in this case a human--kind,¹⁶ relating in a distinctively human manner 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 specific nature of the thing. 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 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. 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 such a musician 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 existence and actions.

2. Subsisting Individual. Something of the greatest importance was bound to take place, therefore, when the mind expanded its range of awareness beyond the nature of things to what Shakespeare was to call the question: "to be or not to be." At that point the mind became able to take explicit account not only of the kind, but of the existence of the individual, by which it is constituted in the order of actual, and hence of acting, beings.

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 as existing. This means not only being in its own right or, as is said, "standing on its own two feet" (sub-sisting), 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 (a) complete, (b) independent, and (c) dynamically open to actions and to new actualization. Since existing or subsisting individuals include not only persons but rocks and trees, these characteristics, though fundamental, still will not be exclusive to the person.

First, a person must be whole or complete. As regards its nature it must have all that is required to be of its distinctive kind (just as by definition a three digit number cannot be made up of but two digits). Hence, if humans are recognized to be by nature both body and mind or body and soul, then the human mind or soul without the body would be neither a subsisting individual nor, by implication, a person for it would lack a complete human nature. This is of special importance in view of the tendency of some to reduce the human person to only the mind, soul, or consciousness or to consider the person to be adequately protected if these alone are cared for. In fact, the inclusion of body in the human person is as central to education as the issue of torture is to human rights. The same is true of the mind or spirit in view of the tendency, described by William James,¹⁸ to reduce the person to "nothing but" the inert by-products of physiology, or to functions of the structure of the production and distribution of goods.

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 oneself and dynamically struggling to achieve one's 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 this individual nature, one's existence is, in turn, unique, and establishes the subject as a being in its own right, independent of all else. This does not imply that the human or other living subject does not need nourishment, or that it was not generated by another: 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 implication of this independence is that, as subsisting, the human person cannot simply be absorbed or assimilated by another. As complete in oneself one cannot be part of another: as 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 called the state, the industrial complex, the consumer society, cult, etc.

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. 

This can be seen at a series of levels. My relation to the chair upon which I sit and the desk upon which I write is not diminished but 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. 

Moving 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: thus, running can be said only of an existing individual, such as Mary, who runs. What is more, actions determine their subject, for it is only by running that Mary herself is constituted precisely as a runner. This will be central to the last 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 identified within the one physical process basically different types of things. Substances are the individual instances of these specific types or natures. This provides the basis for one's consciousness of one's own nature and for relating to others in its terms within the overall pattern of nature(s).

There were limitations to such a project, for in its terms alone one ultimately would be but an instance of one's nature; in the final analysis the goal of a physical being would be 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. It does 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, and 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.

Still more is required, however. The above characteristics, while foundational for a person, are had as well by animals and trees: they too are wholes, independent and active in this world. In addition to what has been said above about substance and subsisting individual, therefore, it is necessary to identify that which is distinctive of the human subsistent and constitutes it finally as personal. This is self-consciousness and freedom.

THE PERSON: A SELF-CONSCIOUS AND FREE SUBJECT

Self-consciousness and will had been central to philosophies of the person in classical times; indeed, at one point Augustine claimed that men were nothing else than will. After Descartes' reformulation of metaphysics in terms of the thinking self, however, the focus upon self-consciousness by John Locke and upon the will by Kant brought the awareness of these distinctive characteristics of the person to a new level of intensity and exclusivity. This constituted a qualitatively new and distinctively modern understanding of the person. It is necessary to see in what these characteristics consist and how they relate to the subsisting individual analyzed above.

Self-Consciousness and Freedom

John Locke undertook to identify the nature of the person within the context of his general effort to provide an understanding which would enable people to cooperate in building a viable political order. This concentration upon the mind is typical of modern thought and of its contribution to our appreciation of the person. By focusing upon knowledge Locke proceeded to elaborate, not only consciousness in terms of the person, but the person in terms of consciousness. He considered personal identity to be a complex notion composed from the many simple ideas which constitute our consciousness. By reflection we perceive that we perceive and thereby are able to be, as it were, present to ourselves and to recognize ourselves as distinct from all other thinking things.²¹ Memory, which is also an act of consciousness, enables us to recognize these acts of consciousness in different times and places. Locke saw the memory, by uniting present acts of awareness with similar past acts, not merely as discovering but as creating personal identity. This binding of myself as past consciousness to myself as present consciousness constitutes the continuing reality of the person. Essentially, it is a private matter revealed directly only to oneself, and only indirectly to other persons.

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 saw his notion of the self as the basis of an ethic for 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 directing one's activities. He sees 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, to be 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 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 with and 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.

There are reasons to believe, however, that, while correct in focusing upon consciousness, he did not push his analysis far enough to integrate the whole person. Leibniz, in his New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, was quick to point out some of these reasons in a detailed response. Centering personal identity in consciousness, Locke distinguished it from the notion of the person as that which could be identified by a body of a particular shape. This led him to admit that it is conceivable that the one consciousness, self or person could exist in different bodies a thousand years remote one from another²⁴ or, conversely, that multiple selves could inhabit the same body.

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 a physical world in whose unity and harmony one's consciousness has no real share, indeed, in relation to which it is defined by contrast.²⁶ Recently, existential phenomenologists have begun to respond to the perverse, desicating effect which this has had even upon consciousness itself, while environmentalists have pointed up the destruction it has wrought upon nature.

This implies a problem for personal identity. 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 by 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 is, however, 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.

Another approach was attempted by Kant whose identification of the salient characteristics of the person has become a standard component for modern sensitivity. Whereas Locke had developed the notion of the person in terms of consciousness predicated upon experience, Kant developed it on the requirements of an ethics based upon will alone. Both the strengths and the weaknesses of this approach to the person lie in his effort to lay for ethics a foundation that is independent of experience. He did so because he considered human knowledge to be essentially limited to the spatial and temporal orders and unable to explain its own presuppositions. Whatever be thought of this, by looking within the self for a new and absolute beginning he led the modern mind to a new awareness of the reality and nature of the person.

For Kant the person is above all free, both in oneself and in relation to others; in no sense is the person to be used by others as a means. From this he concluded that it is essential to avoid any dependence (heteronomy) on anything beyond oneself and, within oneself, on anything other than one's own will. The fundamental thrust of the will is its unconditional command to act lawfully; this must be the sole basis for an ethics worthy of man. In turn, "the only presupposition under which . . . (the categorical imperative) is alone possible . . . is the Idea of freedom.³⁰

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. Kant's self-described goal was 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 is a law-making member of society. This means that the person has, not only value which is to be protected and promoted, but 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.

This "glorious ideal" has been perhaps the major contribution to the formation of the modern understanding of ourselves as persons. At the minimum, it draws a line against what is unacceptable, namely, whatever is contrary to the person as an end-in-him-or-herself, and sets thereby a much needed minimal standard for action. At the maximum, as with most a priori positions, it expresses an ideal for growth by pointing out the direction, and thereby providing orientation, for the development of the person. In Kohlberg's schema of moral development it constitutes the sixth or highest stage, and hence the sense and goal of his whole project--though he notes rightly that this is not an empirically available notion. 

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 must be 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 the 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."

In sum, Locke and Kant have contributed essentially to delineating the nature of the person for the modern mind. Both have pointed up that which distinguishes the person from other subjects. Focusing upon knowledge, Locke showed the person to be an identity of continuing consciousness which is self-aware and "concerned for itself." Focusing upon the will and its freedom, Kant showed the person to be an end-in-itself.

By attending directly to consciousness and freedom, however, both left problems which are similar and 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-awareness and continuing consciousness, as well as its status in the public forum. But, for moral education 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 one is more than a role, a citizen, or a function of state. The second problem regards the way in which the person can attain his or her goal of full self-awareness, freedom, and responsibility, namely, how the person can achieve his or her fulfillment through time and with others.

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 regarding the individual in the first section of this chapter in order to constitute the integral person as a rational and free subject.

The Self-conscious and Free Subject

While it has been said that ancient thinkers had no concept of the person, a very important study by Catherine De Vogel³³ has shown that there was indeed a significant sense of person and of personality among the ancient Greeks and Romans, as well as a search for its conditions and possibilities. It will be helpful to look at this in order to identify some of the cultural resources for understanding the way in which self-consciousness and freedom are rooted in the subject and constitute the person with which moral education is concerned. Above, we saw a certain progression from the Greek philosophical notion of the individual as an instance of a general type to a more ample existential sense of the subject as an independent whole, which nonetheless shares with others in the same specific nature. It is time now to see how this relates to self-consciousness and freedom.

The Greeks had a certain sense for, and even fascination with, individuals in the process of grappling with the challenge to live their freedom. T.B.L. Webster notes that "Homer was particularly interested in them (his heroes) when they took difficult decisions or exhibited characteristics which were not contained in the traditional picture of the fighting man."³⁴ In the final analysis, however, the destiny of his heroes was determined by fate, from which even Zeus could not free them. Hence, an immense project of liberation was needed in order to appreciate adequately the full freedom of the moral agent.

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 relation 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.

These insights of Heraclitus, though among the earliest of the philosophers, were pregnant with a number of themes which correspond to Kant's three postulates for the ethical life: the immortality of the soul, freedom and God. The first of these would be mined by subsequent thinkers in their effort to explore the nature of the person as a physical subject that is characteristically self-conscious and free. As the implications of Heraclitus' insight that the multiple and diverse can constitute a unity only on the basis of something that is one gradually became evident, the personal characteristics of self-consciousness and freedom were bound to the subject with its characteristics of wholeness, independence and interrelatedness. The first step was Plato's structure for integrating the multiple instances of a species by their imitation of, or participation in the idea or archetype of that species.⁴⁰ This, in turn, images still higher and more central ideas, and ultimately the highest idea which is inevitably the Good or the One.

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 one subject which is nonetheless physical.

Over one-thousand years later Thomas Aquinas took this third step, drawing out of Heraclitus' insight its implications for the unity of the person with its full range of physical and mental life. He did not trace the physical to one form or soul and the higher conscious life to another principle existing separately from the body as had the Aristotelian commentators, nor did he affirm two separate souls as did Bonaventure. Rather, Thomas showed that there could be but one principle or soul for the entire person, both mind and body. He did this by drawing out rigorously, under the principle of non-contradiction, the implications of the existence of the subject noted above. One subject could have but one existence--lest it be not one but two. This existence, in turn, could pertain to but one essence or nature--again lest it be and not be of that nature; for the same reason the one essence could be of but one form. Hence, there could be only one formal principle or soul for both the physical and the self-conscious and free dimensions of a person. This rendered obsolete Aristotle's duality of these principles for man and founded the essential and integral humanness of both mind and body in the unity of the one person.⁴²

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 a person's actions are being explicitly repudiated, they cannot be treated as a mere thing.) Thus, 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 an 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, in fact, 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-oneself.

Correlatively, recent thought has made crucial strides toward reintegrating the person into his or her world. The analytic process of identifying the components of the world process initiated by the Greeks was inherently risky, for as analytic any imperfection in the understanding of personal identity would tend toward individualism and distract from the unity of persons and peoples through their grounding 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 paid recently 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 our community and over a long period, conscious acts, even about ourselves, involves participation in that community. To say that our nature is linguistic is to say that it is essentially "with others."

A similar point, but on another level of insight, was developed by Martin Heidegger and laid the basis for the stress among many existential thinkers on the importance of considering the person as being in community. As conscious and intentional, one essentially is not closed within oneself, but open to the world; one's self-realization depends upon and indeed consists in one's being in the world. Therefore it is not possible to think of persons in themselves and then to add some commerce with their surroundings; instead, persons exist and can be conceived only as beings-in-the-world. Here the term `in' expresses more than a merely spatial relation; it adds an element of being acquainted with or being familiar with, of being concerned for, and of sharing. At root this is the properly personal relation.⁴⁹

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 its hopes and its efforts toward self-realization with others must center ultimately upon understanding the moral development of the person through education. 

MORAL AGENT AND MORAL GROWTH

Recent advances in this project are being made by interweaving two main streams of thought regarding the person: one considers the subject as existing in his own right as conscious and free; the other situates this consciousness and freedom in the person as acting in the world with other persons. Together they provide a context for understanding the development of the moral awareness of the person.

The Person as Moral Agent

In Aristotle's project of distinguishing the components of the physical process actions and attributes were found to be able to exist and to be intelligible only in a substance which existed in its own right--there could be no running without a runner. Actions, as distinct from the substantive nature or essence, could appear to be added thereto in a relatively external or "quantitative" manner. Subsequent developments in understanding the subject in terms of existence have provided protection against this externalism. In relation to existence, essence does not merely specify the specific nature or kind of the thing; it is rather the way in which each thing is, the way in which each living being lives. Hence, for a person it implies and calls for the full range of activities of a human being. Indeed, essence is often termed nature precisely as that from which these life acts derive.⁵⁰ These actions, in turn, cannot be mere additions to the person; they are the central determinants of the quality of one's very life. It is not just that one can do more or less, but that by so doing one becomes a more or less kind, more or less loving, or more or less generous person.

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 my self and my world.

Boethius classically defined the person as "an individual substance of a rational nature,"⁵¹ within which Locke focused upon self-consciousness. But conscious nature can be understood on a number of levels. First, it might be seen as a reflection or passive mirroring in man of what takes place around him. This does not constitute new being, but merely understands what is already there. Secondly, if this consciousness is directed to the self it can be called self-knowledge and makes of the subject an object for one's act of knowledge. Thirdly, consciousness can regard one's actions properly as one's own. By concerning the self precisely as the subject of one's own actions, it makes subjective what had been objective in the prior self-knowledge; it is reflexive rather than merely reflective.

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 him or herself, 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 above was seen to characterize all subsistent individuals. Beyond the mirroring of surrounding conditions and of those things that happen to one, beyond even the objective realization of oneself as affected by those events, the person exists reflexively as their subject and as a source of action. As a person one has an inward, interior life of which they alone are 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 can even 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 can 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 personal finally transcends that growth process originally called the physis or the physical, and hence has been considered rightly to be spiritual as well.

This, of course, is not to imply isolation from one's physical and social world; rather it bespeaks in the world a personal center which is self-aware and self-determining. More than objective consciousness of oneself as acting, the inward reflexion at the origin of my action is that according to which I freely determine⁵² and experience myself as the one who acts in freedom. The bond of consciousness with action as deriving 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 finally 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 good or evil 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 me and shape my world. The good or evil which 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. Hence, the person is essentially active and creative.

On the other hand, this activity is marked characteristically 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, it is freely open to any and all goods.

The Person and Moral Growth

In view of this it is time to look more closely into the relation of the person to the good, for it is there that one finds the drama of the self-realization of the person and the development of one's moral life. In one's experience the good is first manifest as the object of desire, namely, as what is sought when absent. This implies that the good is basically what completes a being; it is the "per-fect," understood in its etymological sense as that which is completed or realized through and through. Hence, once the good or perfection is achieved it is no longer desired or sought, but enjoyed. This is reflected in the manner in which each thing, even a stone, retains the being or reality it has and resists reduction to non-being or nothing. The most that we can do is to change or transform a thing into something else; we cannot annihilate it. Similarly, a plant or tree given the right conditions grows to full stature and fruition. Finally, an animal protects its life--fiercely if necessary--and seeks out the food needed for its strength. Food, in turn, as capable of contributing to animal's realization or perfection, is in this regard an auxiliary good or means.

In this manner things as good, that is, as actually realizing some degree of perfection by which they are perfective of others, are the basis for an interlocking set of relations. As these relations are based upon both the actual perfection which 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 thereby can contribute to the perfection of others.

The moral good is a more narrow field; 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 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 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. In order to follow the emergence of the field of concrete moral action, it is important to examine therefore more than 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 their 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 truly make a difference. But the term `value' expresses this good especially as related to wills which actually acknowledge it as a good and as desirable.⁵⁵ Thus, different groups of persons or individuals, and at different periods, have distinct sets of values. They are sensitive to and prize a distinct set of goods or, more likely, establish a distinctive ranking in the degree to which they prize various goods. By so doing they delineate among the limitless order of objective goods a certain pattern of values which, to an extensive degree, mirrors their corporate free choices and constitutes a basic component of their 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. It is in these terms that they interpret their developing relations. Young persons peer out at the world through a lens, as it were, formed by their family and culture and reflecting 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 focuses attention upon certain of the goods involved rather than others. This becomes the basic orienting factor for one's affective and emotional life. Over time it encourages and reinforces certain patterns of action which, in turn, reinforce this pattern of values.

Martin Heidegger describes a process by which the field of moral action is gradually shaped by a subject. It consists in the person's transcending oneself or breaking beyond mere self-concern. In this one projects outward as a being whose very nature is to share with others for whom one cares and is concerned. In this process one constitutes new purposes or goals for the sake of which action is to be undertaken. In relation to these goals certain combinations of possibilities, with their natures and norms take on particular importance and begin thereby to enter into the makeup of one's world of meaning. In this light freedom becomes more than mere spontaneity, more than choice, and more even than self-determination in the sense of causing oneself to act as described above in the present chapter. It shapes--the phenomenologist would say even that it constitutes-my world as the ambit of my human decisions and dynamic action.⁵⁶ This is the making of myself as a person in a community.

To see this it is necessary to look more closely at the dynamic openness and projection which characterize the concrete person--not only in his or her will, but in his or her body and psyche as well. In order to be truly self-determining the person must not merely moderate a bargaining session between these three, but must constitute a new and active dynamism in which all dimensions achieve their properly personal character.⁵⁷

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; generally they are below the level of human consciousness, from which they enjoy 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.

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, which 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.

It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish two directions or dimensions of one's personal transcendence. The first relates to one's world as the object of either one's knowledge or one's will. This might be called horizontal as an activation of a person inasmuch as he or she relates to other things and especially to other persons. Such a relation would be poorly conceived were it thought to be merely an addition to a fully constituted person. On the contrary, the person as such is essentially transcendent, that is, open to others. One requires this interaction with others in order to have a language and all that this implies for the formation of thought, to have a moral code to assist one in the direction of one's will, and above all to have a family and community, and thus the possibility of sharing in the hope and anguish, the love and concern, which gives meaning to life.

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 are not merely known by the mind, but evoke an active response from the psychic dynamisms of the emotions in the context of a 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 true individual and social fulfillment or the contrary.

In this 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 his or 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. As 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.

Personal Convergence of Calues and Virtures. It is possible to trace abstractly a general table of virtues required for particular circumstances in order to help clarify the overall terrain of moral action. As with values, however, such a table would not articulate the particulars of one's own experience nor dictate the next steps in one's project toward personal realization with others in relation to The Good or God. This does not mean, however, that such decisions are arbitrary; conscience makes its moral judgments in terms of real goods and real structures of values and virtues. Nevertheless, through and within the breadth of these categories, it is the person who must decide, and in so doing enrich his or her unique experience of the virtues. No one can act without courage and wisdom, but each exercise of these is distinctive and typically one's own. Progressively they form a personality that facilitates one's exercise of freedom as it becomes more mature and correlatively more unique. This often is expressed simply as `more personal.'

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 the corresponding sets 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.

Though free and hence properly personal, as was seen above, this is done essentially with others. For this reason the harmony sought within oneself for moral development must be mirrored in a corresponding harmony between modes of action and values in the communities and nations in which persons live. (Thus, Aristotle considered his ethics of individual moral action to be an integral part of politics.) If that be true then the moral development of the person as a search for self-fulfillment is most properly the search for that dynamic harmony, both within and without, called peace.

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D.C.

1. An integrated study of the person as moral agent is found in G. McLean, F. Ellrod, D. Schindler and J. Mann, eds., Act and Agent: Philosophical Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development (Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy and The University Press of America, l986), from part of whose concluding chapter the present paper has been drawn.

2. For a psychological reconstruction of the person see Richard Knowles, ed., Psychological Foundations of Moral Education and Character Development: An Integrated Theory of Moral Development (Washington, D.C.: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy and The University Press of America, l986).

3. Adolf Trendelenburg "A Contribution to the History of the Word Person," The Monist, 20 (1910), 336-359. This posthumously published work is now over 100 years old. See also "Persona" in Collected Works of F. Max Muller (London, 1912), vol. X, pp. 32 and 47; and Arthur C. Danto, "Persons" in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1967), VI, 110-114.

4. This was pointed out by Gabius Bassus. See Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae V, 7.

5. Prosepeion. This explanation was given by Forcellini (1688-1769), cf. Tendelenburg, p. 340.

6. C. J. De Vogel, "The Concept of Personality in Greek and Christian Thought," Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, ed. John K. Ryan (Washington, D.C: The Catholic University of America Press, 1963), II, 20-60.

7. "That accepteth not the persons of princes." Job 3 4: 19. See also Deut 10:17; Acts 10:34-35; Rom 2:10-11.

8. Cicero, De Officiis, I, 28 and 31; De Orator. II, 102; and Epictetus, Enchiridion, ch. 17.

9. A. Danto. See n. 2 above.

10. (Boston: Beacon, 1957), p. 61.

11. Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn, and Otto Neurath, "The Scientific World View: The Vienna Manifesto," trans. A. E. Blumberg, in Perspectives in Reality, eds. J. Mann and G. Kreyche (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966), p. 483.

12. Ibid.

13. Gabriel Marcel, The Philosophy of Existence, trans. Manya Harari (New York: Citadel Press, 1956), p. 14.

14. See Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (New York: Harper, 1959); Wilfrid Desan, The Planetary Man (New York: Macmillan, 1961).

15. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics I, 4 73 a 3-b 25.

16. Réné Claix "La statut ontologique du concept de sujet selon le metaphysique d'Aristot. L'aporie de Metaphy. VII (Z) 3," Revue philosophique de Louvain, 59 (61), 29.

17. Metaphysics, VII 4-7.

18. William James, Pragmatism (New York: Meridian Books, 1955), ch. I.

19. See also Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1958), pp. 181ff.

20. Gabriel Pastrama, "Personhood and the Burgeoning of Human Life," Thomist, 41 (1977), 287-290.

21. John Locke An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, ch. 27, n. 11 and 9-10, ed. A. C. Grasser (New York: Dover, 1959), Vol. I, 448-452. The person is "a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself."

22. Essay, n. 17.

23. Ibid. nn. 18 and 26.

24. Ibid. n. 20.

25. Ibid., n. 29.

26. G. W. Leibniz New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, Bk. II, ch. 27, 9, trans. A. G. Langley (Chicago: Open Court, 1916).

27. Locke, Essay, ch. 27, n. 15.

28. Leibniz, New Essays, II, ch. 27, n. 14. This consequence was recognized and accepted by Hume who proceeded to dispense with the notion of substance altogether.

29. New Essays, nn. 20-66.

30. Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, III, trans. Lewis White Beck (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), p. 80.

31. Foundations III, p. 82.

32. Foundations II, pp. 53-59.

33. C. J. De Vogel, 20-60.

34. T.B.L. Webster, Greek Art and Literature, 700-530 B.C. (London, 1959), pp. 24-45 (cited by C. De Vogel, p. 27, fn. 17a).

35. Heraclitus, fns. 2, 8, 51, 112 and 114 (trans. by C. De Vogel).

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).

39. Diog. L. VII 136; Marcus Aurelius IV 14, VI 24.

40. Plato, Republic, 476, 509-511: mimesis.

41. Aristotle, De Anima II, 2 4l2 a 28-29.

42. George F. McLean, "Philosophy and Technology," in Philosophy in a Technological Culture, ed. G. McLean (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1964), pp. 14-15. The same Heraclitean line of reasoning is reflected by structuralist insights regarding the need which structures have for a single coordinating principle. Inasmuch as the structure is continually undergoing transformation and being established on new and broader levels this principle must be beyond any of the contrary characteristics or concepts to be integrated within the structure. It must be unique and comprehensive in order to be able to ground and to integrate them all. Jean Piaget, Structuralism (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), pp. 139-142. Cf. also George F. McLean, Plenitude and Participation (Madras: Univ. of Madras, 1978), pp. 12-15.

43. For a detailed consideration of the first weeks after conception and of the point at which an individual life is clearly present see André E. Helligers, "The Beginnings of Personhood Medical Consideration," The Perkins School of Theology Journal, 27 (1973), 11-15; and C. R. Austin, "The Egg and Fertilization," in Science Journal, 6 [special issue] (1970).

44. Heraclitus, fn. 45.

45. Plato, Republic I 353 c-d; IV 43 d-e, 435 b-c, and 441 e-442d.

46. Republic, VI 609 c. See De Vogel, pp. 33-35.

47. De Vogel, pp. 38-45.

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

49. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), pp. 52-57 and 118; see Joseph J. Kockelmans, Martin Heidegger (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Duquesne Univ. Press, 1965), pp. 24-25 and 56-57.

50. H. Rousseau, "Etre et agir," Revue Thomiste, 54 (1954); Joseph de Finance, Etre et agir dans la philosophie de Saint Thomas (Rome, P.U.G., 1960).

51. Boetius, De duabis naturis et una persona Christi, c. 3.

52. Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), pp. 48-50; "The Person: Subject and Community," Review of Metaphysics, 33 (1979-80), 273-308; and "The Task of Christian Philosophy Today," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 53 (l979), 3-4.

53. Wojtyla, pp. 32-47.

54. This goes beyond Piaget's basic law that actions follow needs and continue only in relation thereto. Jean Piaget, Six Psychological Studies (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), p. 6.

55. Ivor Leclerc, "The Metaphysics of the Good," Review of Metaphysics, 35 (1981), 3-5.

56. Mehta, pp. 90-91.

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

58. Ibid., p. 156.