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DOI 10.12887/31-2018-2-122-18



Kazimierz KRAJEWSKI – The Integrity of Moral Experience, as seen by Tadeusz Styczeń, and the Idea of Ethics as the First Philosophy


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The article aims to show that a logical conclusion following from Tadeusz Styczeń’s concept of the ‘integrity of moral experience’ is that ethics should be considered as the ‘first philosophy.’ In his works, Styczeń actually worked out two concepts of integral moral experience. In the first of them, characteristic of his early writings, he points to the experience of the categorical duty to affirm a human person on the grounds of the person’s inborn dignity. Styczeń’s second (later) concept of the integrity of moral experience draws in turn on the experience, accomplished in a cognitive act, of the normative power of truth as ultimately revealing the dignity of the cognitive subject and holding him (her) responsible for himself (herself) as a witness to truth and, simultaneously, as one to whom truth has been entrusted.

In his early concept of the integrity of moral experience, Styczeń recognizes that the content of a categorical duty, as well as its binding power, is inextricably connected to the dignity of the human subject at whom the given action is directed. In his later concept of the integrity of moral experience, he in turn holds that the integrity in question is revealed in the fact that the experience of the normative power of truth results in moral self-constitution of a human person (a moral subject). A close connection between anthropology and ethics is the reason why Styczeń describes ethics as ‘normative anthropology.’ A deeper analysis of the experience of the normative power of truth shows, however, that while this experience is the basic one analyzed by ethics, it simultaneously provides experiential basis for epistemology, anthropology, and metaphysics, and thus for the main branches of philosophy. The experience of the normative power of truth demands an epistemological reflection (which points to a close connection between ethics and epistemology), which results in self-constitution of a person as both a witness to truth and one to whom truth has been entrusted (which points to a close connection between ethics and anthropology), at the same time underscoring the actual reality of the being of both the one who makes the cognitive act in question and of what this person confirms with his (her) cognitive act (which points to a close connection between ethics and metaphysics). Therefore the description of ethics as ‘first philosophy’ is well-grounded.

Moreover, ethics discovers the ultimate meaning of human existence in the person’s moral fulfillment, or, in other words, in the person’s affirmation of the truth about him (her). Therefore while—in the epistemological and methodological dimension—ethics must be considered as philosophia prima, it becomes philosophia ultima in the anthropological (‘personological’) order.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Keywords: the integrity of experience, the experience of the duty to affirm a human person, the experience of the normative power of truth, the person’s dignity, a witness to truth and one to whom truth has been entrusted, self-constitution of the person, anthropology of morality, metaphysics of morality, normative anthropology, ethics as philosophia prima, ethics as philosophia ultima

The article is a modified version of the paper delivered during the seminar “Tadeusz Styczeń’s Normative Anthropology,” held by the John Paul II Institute at the Catholic University of Lublin on 14 December 2017.

Contact: John Paul II Institute,
Faculty of Philosophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin,
Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland

E-mail: kkrajewski@kul.lublin.pl

Phone: +48 81 4452317

http://www.kul.pl/dr-kazimierz-krajewski,art_16434.html



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  1. ISSN 0860-8024
  2. e-ISSN 2720-5355
  3. The Republic of Poland Ministry of Science and Higher Education Value: 100.00
  4. Quarterly “Ethos” is indexed by the following databases: EBSCO, CEEOL, Index Copernicus (ICV 2017: 55.26), Philosopher’s Index, ERIH Plus.
  5. DOI Prefix 10.12887