The Integrity of Moral Experience, as seen by Tadeusz Styczeń, and the Idea of Ethics as the First Philosophy
Kazimierz KRAJEWSKI
John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin , PolandAbstract
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.
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 dignityJohn Paul II Catholic University of Lublin
