INTRODUCTION

The general theme of this volume reflects a deep sensibility both to the goals of education and to its present challenge. It is eloquent testimony of deep general concern for human development and lays the basis for real hope.

The particular theme here concerns persons as dynamic subjects and their moral experience. It challenges us to confront two essential dimensions of our heritage: on the one hand, the stability and obligation of a natural law based upon the eternal and, on the other hand, the free and creative dynamism of humankind in fashioning its world. Often these have been understood in such manner as to pit one against the other. The former is seen to bespeak eternal fixity, the latter change and improvisation; the former is built upon what is objective, the latter upon human subjectivity; the former prizes surety, the latter exploration; and the former is expressed as law and obligation, the latter as freedom and spontaneity.¹

In part this reflects the stress upon the freedom of the subject which was characteristic of the Enlightenment and undergirds, not only the founding revolutions of our countries, but the recent and more existential assertion of the person. Unfortunately, in this light efforts to affirm stability, responsibility and obligation in the moral order too often have been interpreted as rejections of the dynamic character of person and hence of personal growth. Conversely, attention to the person and to subjectivity have seemed to some an abandonment of the eternal in man.²

Consequently, in education today we find ourselves before the question which moved John XXIII to convoke Vatican II -- and perhaps even Mihail Gorbachev to write his Perestroika -- namely, how can the newly appreciated dynamic forces of person and of freedom deepen and promote the struggle of the next generation to realize its dignity as image and people of God? This was thematized philosophically by John Paul II, while still Cardinal of Krakow, in the following manner:

The problem of man's subjectivity is today of paramount importance for philosophy. Multiple epistemological tendencies, principles, and orientations wrestle in this field and often give it a diametrically different shape and sense. The philosophy of consciousness seems to suggest that it was the first to discover the human subject. The philosophy of being is ready to demonstrate that, on the contrary, the analysis conducted on the basis of pure consciousness must lead in consequence to its annihilation. It is necessary to find the correct limits, according to which the phenomenological analyses, developed from the principles of the philosophy of consciousness, will begin to work to enrich the realistic image of the person. It is also necessary to establish the basis of such a philosophy of person.³

In this I would underline the term "enrich," for when we attend to the meaning of the new and more dynamic sense of the person for the project of moral education there is danger that our response might be reduced to drawing up a list of mere external additions to classical approaches. This would suppose basic satisfaction with the results of earlier approaches and/or look upon the new sensibilities regarding the person as relatively superficial or merely rhetorical. If, however, the traditional objective order seems no longer to inspire, while the new existential sensibility seems unable to provide a basis for order, then the task seems rather to dislodge both from their too limited preoccupations so that each can be enriched and strengthened by the other. For this we need a new basis upon which to conceive the project of moral education. Where should we look; upon what can we build?

From the present dilemma it appears that an adequate contemporary approach must promote a sense of transcendence. Freedom must be seen as more than spontaneity, informed choice or even self-determination if young people are to escape the raging egoism, self-centeredness and narcissism they have been bequeathed from without and which emerges from within. On the other hand, this transcendence must not be other-worldly for their moral life is their struggle to build their life and their world.

Together these suggest that moral education today should concern the person in its process of gradually shaping relations with others -- whether in home, neighborhood, work-place or world -- according to unity and truth, love and beauty. In direct contrast to egoism, here the real concern is to create a world shaped by values at once personal and communitary as is the life of the Trinity itself.

By focusing in this manner upon the human project as life with others in community, we can hope to break free from the present dilemma of exclusive concentration either upon the self which then degenerates into egoism, capriciousness and narcissism, or upon the law which then comes to be seen as at best unrelated and at worst an impediment, to the human project.

Such a developmental approach does not bracket or diminish prior insights regarding the obligatory character of the moral law or the moral freedom of the person. What it does is challenge education to aid students: (a) to a conjoint concrete discovery of law and freedom in their own experience, (b) to an awareness of the codification over time of such experience as tradition and heritage, and (c) to the development of new and concrete meanings of this tradition in their homes and communities, now and in the future, and (d) to the development of the personal moral capabilities required for their realization.

In order to search out the implications of this for the educational process we need first to distinguish and treat serially two complementary dimensions of personal transcendence. The first concerns our conscious and willed relations to things, and especially to persons. As reaching beyond oneself this might be called horizontal transcendence; it is the realm of values. We must see if approaching moral education in terms of the process of human growth can unite effectively the concerns for objectivity and norms with the subjective elements of passionate concern and creative commitment.

Next, it will be important to assure our ability to act consistently according to our values. This will direct our attention to the process of personal growth or vertical transcendence in order to sort out its multiple dimensions and to clarify the role of virtues for one's proper development and operation.

Together these will lead to the conclusion that the essence of moral growth and hence of moral education consists in bringing into convergence the dynamisms of these two dimensions of personal transcendence, namely the horizontal opening to others in which we develop values, and the vertical growth of our capabilities through the development of virtues.

PERSON AND VALUES: HORIZONTAL TRANSCENDENCE

Freedom and the Good

A philosophical analysis of human action can reveal important dimensions of the person.⁴ The need to act shows that at birth the person, though a subject and independent, is not perfect, self-sufficient or absolute. On the contrary, persons evaluate themselves and their circumstances, become conscious of their needs and possibilities, and assume toward these a dynamic stance of hope and desire. Persons then are essentially active, dynamic and even in a sense creative subjects.

Correspondingly, human activity is experienced as essentially responsible. This implies that, while the particular physical or social goods attract one to act, they do not overpower the person. Whatever their force, the person is able to situate them within a broader commitment to the good, on which basis in principle one can overrule the attractive force of any particular good. When one does choose a good it is the person -- not the good -- that is responsible.

Together these point to the two foundations of personal 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, a person's will is not limited to, and hence by, any particular good or set of goods; its openness to any and all particular goods manifests a basic orientation to goodness itself.

To this analysis in terms of the realities or the being involved, for moral education it is important to add a phenomenological description of the emergence of this reality in one's consciousness. Whence can a young person have concrete access to a sense of being related to goodness itself by which he or she is free from slavery to any particular goals? If this could be uncovered they would have a crucial resource for establishing responsible direction over their actions and interactions with others. Such actions, in turn, would constitute a field over which they have command --indeed a ludic space upon which one is invited to play in the broad aesthetic and creative sense of that term.

I would suggest that this relation to Goodness itself is not only a matter of revelation, but emerges also in and as the personal histories of persons and peoples. As such it forms the base of their cultures. For this let us begin with the history of our own origin and growth.

We depend upon our parents in an obvious manner for physical life and well-being, but even more for the love which suffuses their actions toward us. It is only in this context that in our earliest months we are able to develop the basic interpersonal attitudes of trust and confidence. For infants and young children these are not theoretical propositions; they set the first horizons in terms of which a person responds to others and progressively integrates his or her world.⁵ Throughout life these attitudes continue to make it possible to be truly moral, rather then merely egoistic, defensive or manipulative.

In the development of this basic openness to the good the experience of uncalculating and unmeasured love, as often expressed by grandparents and other family members and special friends, are of crucial importance. Being less preoccupied with the details of a child's life than the parents, they often can express this love more calmly, forcefully and unambiguously. As the child grows, still broader circles of family and friends take on increasing importance by keeping concretely before us dimensions of life which go beyond issues of technical competency or economic success.

For similar reasons the character of the school itself as a social unit, the way students are treated by teachers and administrators, and the standards of personal interaction between students, all must convey this deeper sense. In addition the message of the horizons of the curriculum concerning the dimensions of reality can be either restrictive if time and effort are focused solely upon the development of technical competencies, or expansive if broadly human concerns are introduced through more humanistic content and methods.⁶

The same is true of a person's later experience, including their work and civic environments. All the circumstances of our life convey a sense of its meaning, of the dimensions of the reality in which it is lived, and hence of goodness.

Nor should this be limited merely to the present, for we are born into a history, tradition and culture which bears the cumulative results of the most extended processes of trial and error, of learning what promotes and what destroys life. Perhaps more importantly, this reveals the basic terms in which life can be lived rather than destroyed, that for which we should hope and strive, and the good in terms of which all have their meaning. This sense is conveyed through the language, art, literature and concrete customs of a people. Education must treat this heritage as the precious resource of moral formation.

Above all, this takes place through participation in our religious community whose teaching, stories and rituals, such as those of Holy Week and Easter, express these human horizons, critique all actual realizations, and inspire toward a life that is more rich and generous.

What then should we conclude regarding this sense of goodness which mankind has discovered, in which we have been raised, which gives us dominion over our actions and which enables us to be free and creative? Does it come from God or from man, from eternity or from history? I like the answer of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari of Madras:

Whether the epics and songs of a nation spring from the faith and ideas of the common folk, or whether a nation's faith and ideas are produced by its literature is a question which one is free to answer as one likes. . . . Did clouds rise from the sea or was the sea filled by waters from the sky? All such inquiries take us to the feet of God transcending speech and thought.⁷

The Objective Character of Goods

The work of moral education is to learn how to direct our resulting freedom in relation to the particular goods which constitute our world. Hence, it is important to look more closely, first into the nature of these goods themselves taken objectively, and then into their emergence in our consciousness or subjectivity. It is in the elusive and challenging interplay between these two that the drama of the self-realization and the development of moral life take place.

How can we discover what is meant by "good"? This first appears in our conscious experience as the object of desire, namely, as that which is sought when absent. This implies that the good is basically what completes a being. It is the "per-fect," understood in the etymological sense as that which completes or realizes us through and through. Hence, once achieved it is no longer desired or sought, but enjoyed.

This is reflected at each level of reality. On the mineral level each thing holds onto the being or reality it has and resists losing this. The most that even our greatest technical powers can do is to change or transform one kind of thing into another: just as we cannot create, we cannot annihilate. At the level of living things, given the right conditions, plants grow toward their full stature or fulfillment, i.e., toward their perfection or good. Animals promote their life more actively in seeking the food and shelter needed for their growth and in protecting this, even fiercely when necessary.

When we come to persons the reality of freedom described above if inadequately understood could reduce goods to what is subjectively appreciated. This would leave us in a realm consisting not of realities, but of wishes. Hence, it is important to note the objective character of goods. As actually realizing some degree of perfection in themselves, that is, objectively, and thereby able to contribute to the perfection of others, goods are the basis for an interlocking set of real and determined relations. These relations are based upon both the actual perfection things possess and the potential perfection to which thereby they are really related. Hence, goods -- and, by implication, our values which reflect them -- are not arbitrary or simply a matter of wishful thinking. They bespeak rather one's real fulfillment and the reality required for whatever would contribute thereto. In this ontological 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, concerning only one's free and responsible actions. This shares the objective reality of the ontological good noted above, for it concerns real things and actions. Objectively, that is, on the basis of what they themselves are, they stand in perfective or destructive relation to themselves or others, including the physical universe and our response to God. Many possible patterns of actions are morally right because they really promote the good of those involved. Others, precisely as inconsistent with the real good of persons or things, are objectively disordered or misordered.

Values as the Subjectivity of the Good

However, because this realm of the objectively good relations which are possible is almost numberless whereas our concrete actions can be only relatively few, it becomes necessary to choose. This is not only a choice between the good and the bad in general; in each case we must determine which of the many possible goods we will render concrete. However limited the options, acts have their moral status in essential dependence upon our will as dynamic subjects.

Thus, in order to follow the emergence of the field of concrete moral action, it is important to examine not only the objective character of the goods involved -- whether of persons, actions or things. In addition one must consider these actions in relation to the subject, namely, to the person who, in the context of society and culture, appreciates and values the good of an action, chooses it over its alternatives, and eventually may bring it to actualization.

Here the term `value' is of special note. It was derived from the economic sphere where it meant the amount of a commodity required in order to bring a certain price. This is reflected also in the term `axiology,' the root of which means "weighing as much" or "worth as much." This has objective content, for the good must really "weigh in" or make a real difference.⁸

But the term `value' expresses this good especially as related to a will which actually acknowledges it as a good and responds to it as desirable. Thus, different individuals or groups, or possibly the same but at different periods, may have distinct sets of values as they become sensitive to, and prize, distinct sets of goods. More generally, however, what takes place over time is a subtle shift in the distinctive ranking of the degree to which they prize various goods. By so doing they delineate among the limitless order of objective moral goods a certain pattern of values which, in more stable fashion, mirrors their corporate free choices. This constitutes the basic topology of a culture; as repeatedly reaffirmed through time, it builds a tradition or heritage.

By giving shape to the culture, values constitute the prime pattern and gradation of goods which persons born into that heritage experience from their earliest years. In these terms they interpret and shape the development of their relations with other persons and groups. Young persons peer out at the world through cultural lenses which were formed by their family and ancestors and which reflect the pattern of choices made by their community through its long history -- often in its most trying circumstances. Like a pair of glasses, values do not create the object, but they do reveal and focus attention upon certain goods and patterns of goods rather than upon others.

Thus values become the basic orienting factor for one's affective and emotional life. Over time, they encourage certain patterns of action -- and even of physical growth -- which, in turn, reinforce the pattern of values. Through this process we constitute our universe of moral concern in terms of which we struggle to achieve, mourn our failures, and celebrate our successes.⁹ This is our world of hopes and fears, in terms of which, as Plato wrote in the Laches, our lives have moral meaning and one can properly begin to speak of virtues.

PERSON AND VIRTUES: VERTICAL TRANSCENDENCE

Dimensions of the Person

If the set of values we elaborate is not to remain merely a set of preferences or pious wishes, however, it is necessary to complement them by the development of concrete abilities to act morally. This concerns not only one's will as a disincarnate spirit, but one's body and psyche as well. As truly self-determining, the person is not merely the moderator of a bargaining session between these three, but is the dynamic subject in whom all of these dimensions converge to establish a moral personality.¹⁰ The progressive development of this ability to act through a series of levels might be called one's vertical transcendence and will focus ultimately upon the development of virtues.

On the bodily or somatic level there are such dynamisms as the pumping of blood or the digestion of food. These are basically non-reflective and reactive; they are implemented through the nervous system in response to stimuli. Generally they remain below the level of human consciousness, from which they enjoy a degree of autonomy. Nonetheless, being an integral dimension of the person as a whole, they are implicit in one's conscious choices. I count upon, and calculate for, an increase of adrenaline and blood in moments of challenge; I depend upon a good breakfast to get through an arduous day.

The dynamisms of the psyche, in some contrast to the more reactive character of somatic dynamisms, are based within the person amd are typified by emotivity. They range from some which are more integral to the 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 and play a central role in the proximity one feels to values and to the intensity of one's response. Secondly, they are relatively spontaneous and contribute to the intensity of a personal life.

This, however, does not suffice to make them fully personal, for personal life is lived not only in terms of what happens to me or in me, but above all at a third or free level, where I determine what happens. Indeed, this can range beyond and even against my feelings. As was seen above, personal actions are carried out through a will which, being open and responsive to the Good, is not determined by any particular good or value; hence in the final analysis it is up to the person to determine him- or herself. This means that personal consciousness, not only reflects oneself or upon oneself as an object of knowledge, but is reflexive or self-aware. As Descartes pointed out -- perhaps too strongly -- this manifests that we are not only body but spirit. It is in this precise juncture of body and spirit¹¹ that man images God in this world where his life as moral should be a saving force.

Personal Growth

Moral actions derive from my self as a dynamic subject or person, and not merely from my powers of intellect, will or body. Hence, in deciding to act and acting I determine, not only my actions and their objects in the world, but equally and even primarily myself. This is self-determination -- and hence self-realization and self-fulfillment -- in the strongest sense of the term. Not only are others to be treated as ends in themselves; in acting I myself am an end.

This must be stressed in education. One must learn to take all our actions seriously because, whatever else they do or do not succeed in realizing, the moral quality of our actions as good or evil certainly builds or diminishes us as persons.

In this light it becomes crucial to be able to know and to choose actions which are truly conducive to the realization and fulfillment of persons in community. To do this persons must be able to judge the true value of what is to be chosen, that is the objective nature of these acts and their effect upon both others and the one who acts. This is moral truth; and it includes a judgment concerning whether this act will make the person good in the sense of bringing true fulfillment, or the contrary. Hence, while it is important to note that moral development cannot be reduced to the achievement of new levels of ability to solve moral dilemmas, the ability to judge rightly in moral matters remains nonetheless one of the essential factors of moral growth.

In determining to follow that judgment one overcomes, transcends or goes beyond determination by stimuli and even, in some cases, by culturally ingrained values. Through deliberation and voluntary choice such environing factors must be transformed from physical, psychological or social forces of brute spontaneous repetition into acts of self-awareness, self-possession and self-government. This opens new possibilities for free and creative action in concert with others.

Virtues as Personal Growth

This vertical transcendence enables one to shape not only one's world, but in that process one's self. This can be for good or for ill, depending on the character of the actions: by definition those are morally good which contribute to the development and perfection or fulfillment of oneself as a person and of one's community. The function of conscience, as the person's moral judgment, is to discern this moral good in action.¹²

For the person in action the work of conscience is then not merely a theoretical, but a practical judgment. For this reason a project of cognitive development in relation to moral reasoning is too limited a program of moral education. Beyond knowledge, one's reference to moral truth must constitute also a sense of duty, for actions which are judged truly to be morally good are experienced also as what one ought to do. When these are exercised repeatedly in the process of life, patterns of action develop.

They are habits in the sense of being repeated; they are the modes of activity with which we are familiar and in their exercise -- along with the coordinate bodily and psychic dynamisms they require -- we are practiced. As with a pianist or violinist, with practice comes facility and spontaneity. As a result they constitute not merely the pattern of the basic, continuing and pervasive internal influences which shape our life, but, even more, they give us the ability to do what we choose. For this reason in the unity of mind and body, one's set of virtues has been considered classically to be the basic indicator of what one's life as a whole will add up to -- or even, as is often said, what a person will "amount to."

Moral freedom consists in this ability to follow one's conscience. In the field of moral education some refer to such growth as the development of competencies. As this could be interpreted as mere technique rather than as fully human growth, however, I prefer the more classical term, "virtues." These abilities consist first of dynamisms within the person, but they must be protected and promoted by the physical and social realities outside of man. This is a basic right of the person -- indeed, the basic right -- because only thus can persons and people strive for self-fulfillment. For educators this points correlatively to a basic duty -- perhaps the basic duty -- namely, to assist their students in the development of these abilities, competencies or virtues.

MORAL GROWTH: TOWARDS A COINCIDENCE

OF VALUES AND VIRTUES

It is possible to chart a general set of virtues, each required for particular circumstances -- Part II of the Summa is essentially such. As with values, however, while helpful in clarifying the overall terrain of moral action, such a general list of virtues would not articulate the particulars of one's own experience or be the stuff of one's actual capabilities. Nor would it help sufficiently in sensing the appropriate next steps for a particular person in his or her concrete road toward self-realization in relation to the Good.

This does not imply that such properly personal 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 I who must decide. In so doing I enrich my unique fund of virtues. One cannot act without courage and wisdom, but each exercise of these is distinctive and typically my own. Progressively, act by act, they mold a distinct personality as they facilitate my distinctive exercise of freedom. In this process I become more mature and correlatively more unique: often this is expressed simply by the term: "more personal."

Correlatively, in this process my values come to reflect, not only the general lines of my culture and heritage, but within these what I personally have done with its general set of values. Concretely, I have shaped and refined these through my personal, and hence free, search to realize the good in myself and in my world. Hence, my values reflect both the present circumstances which our forebears could not have experienced, my own free response to these circumstances and the unique specification of my virtues which these entail.

Perhaps then in the final analysis moral or character development as a process of personal maturing consists in bringing into harmony along the vertical pole of transcendence my personal pattern of virtues with my personal set of values. In this manner I achieve a coordinated pattern of personal capabilities for the realization of my unique response to God, All-Good

Finally, though free and hence properly my own, this is not done without others; as was seen above, one's self-realization and self-fulfillment is essentially with others. For this reason, the vertical search for harmony within myself as moral development must be mirrored in a corresponding horizontal search for harmony between modes of action and values in the communities and nations in which we live. 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 one's search for self-fulfillment is no less a search for that dynamic harmony both within and without which is called peace.

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D.C.

1. "Structure and process, substance and accident, matter and energy, permanence and flux, one and many, continuity and descreteness, order and progress, law and liberty, uniformity and growth, tradition and innovation, rational will and impelling desires, proof and discovery, the actual and the possible, are names given to various phases of their conjunction, and the issue of living depends upon the art with which these things are adjusted to each other." John Dewey, Experience and Nature (La Salle: Open Court, 1925), see G. Kreyche and J. Mann, Perspectives on Reality (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1966), p. 379.

2. Cornelio Fabro, God in Exile: Modern Exile, tr. A. Gibson (New York: Paulist, 1968).

3. Karol Wojtyla, "The Task of Christian Philosophy Today," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 53 (1979), 3-4. This was written as the introduction to his "The Person: Subject and Community," Review of Metaphysics, 33 (1979-80), 273-308.

4. This goes beyond the basic law that actions follow needs and continue only in relation thereto found in Jean Piaget, Six Psychological Studies (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), p. 6. See Karol Wojtyla, The Acting Person (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), pp. 48-50.

5. See Richard T. Knowles and George F. McLean, eds., Psychological Foundations of Moral Education and Character Development: An Integrated Theory of Moral Development (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1992), especially ch. X, Richard T. Knowles, "The Acting Person as Moral Agent: Erikson as the Starting Point for an Integrated Psychological Theory of Moral Development," pp. 239-273.

6. See Kevin Ryan, Thomas Lickona and George F. McLean, eds., Character Development in Schools and Beyond (New York: Praeger, 1987).

7. C. Rajagopalachari, Ramayana (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1976), p. 312.

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

9. J. I. Mehta, Martin Heidegger: The Way and the Vision (Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1967), pp. 90-91.

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

11. James Collins, "The Bond of Natural Being," The Review of Metaphysics, 15 (1962), 539-572.

12. Ibid., p. 156. See Joseph J. Kockelmans, Martin Heidegger (Pittsburgh: Duquesne Univ. Press, 1965), 24-25 and 56-57.