Prawda podstawą etyki Tadeusza Stycznia

Kaziemierz KRAJEWSKI, SDS

Department of Ethics, Institute of Theoretical Philosophy, Faculty of Phi− losophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20−950 Lublin, Poland , Polska

Abstrakt

The article comprises an outline of the ethics Tadeusz Styczeń, SDS, developed in the final period of his philosophical activity. In the ethics in question, which is a version of ethical personalism, the key role belongs to the category of truth. Styczeń discovers an inseparable bond between respect for the truth stated by the subject and the subject’s self−respect. The source of this – so−called veritative – conception of ethics can be traced back, on the one hand, to the historic dilemma experienced by the political prisoners in the Poland of the 1980’s, who were promised freedom by the communist regime on condition that they renounced their views and refrained from any political activity. On the other hand, however, while working on this conception of truth, Styczeń was inspired by the discovery of the normative power of truth, made by Karol Wojtyła in his work The Acting Person, and by his idea that it is the normative power of truth that ultimately shapes human freedom. Thus basis of Tadeusz Styczeń’s ethics is the experience of the normative power of truth, inherent in every cognitive act in which the subject states or denies something. The moment of assertion, always present in such acts, does not merely serve to express a certain state of affairs, as it necessarily comprises the affir− mation on the part of the cognitive subject of the object being cognized. The subject engages his or her freedom, taking the side of the truth in question, to such an extent that if he or she should deny it, they would deny themselves. In this way a human being discovers that he or she must not deny the truth he or she has stated. This discovery is tantamount to the subject realizing the normative di− mension of a cognitive act or, in other words, of its inherently moral dimension. Thus moral valuation (normativeness) comes to light already at the level of a cognitive act. The essence of moral experience is then the process in which the evidence the subject internalizes («self−information») becomes a «self−imperative» or a command, addressed to him or her, to respect the recognized truth. Styczeń expresses this experience by means of his formula: I must not deny («self−impera− tive») what I have stated myself («self−information»). The fundamental norm of his ethics is: Truth demands affirmation for the sake of truth. Truth is the first good a human being encounters and – which Styczeń stresses – it is «through» truth that a human being knows all the objective goods. The experience of truth as such enables a discovery of the truth about who man is. In an act of knowing truth, the human being discovers him− or herself as a witness and depositary to truth, responsible for the truth he or she has stated and in this sense also responsible for him− or herself. Thus a moral subject turns out responsible for the witness and depositary to truth present in him− or herself. This discovery made by the subject is simultaneously a discovery of his or her dignity. A human being respects his or her dignity and thus preserves his or her per− sonal subjectivity on condition that he or she is a witness to the truth he or she has recognized. Self−experience makes it possible – holds Styczeń – to discover, by way of intellectual intuition, the structure of self as self. Through this universal truth about my own self, I grasp the truth about every other self. I can «access» another self only through my own self. If the truth about my own self is the same as the truth about every other self, then I must not do to any other self anything I am not allowed to do to mine. The affirmation of my own self, or self−affirmation – according to Styczeń – becomes a model for the affirmation of every other self. Thus the fundamental principle of ethical personalism: Persona est affirmanda propter seipsam, draws its content and justification from a direct insight into the structure of my own self, which is revealed to me in my cognitive act. The foundation of Styczeń’s ethics is the indissoluble bond between the informative and the normative aspects of a cognitive act. The truth the subject has stated is binding and demands being recognized. This in turn determines the fact that the starting point of ethics is simultaneously the starting point of anthropology. The reverse is certainly true too. Styczeń would express it by means of the Latin phrase: Primum anthropologicum et primum ethicum convertuntur. Therefore «the primary» in the order of duty (ethics) is inseparably bound with «the primary» in the order of being (anthropology). The ethics he so conceived of Styczeń would call normative anthropology. Its basis is, once again, the ex− perience of truth and its normative power.

 

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Słowa kluczowe:

truth, «self−information,» normative power of truth, «self−imperative,» depositary to truth, self, persona est afirmanda propter seipsam, truth−doing, self−transcendence, anthropopraxis, normative anthropology