Introduzione

The Concept of "Gift" as Hermeneutical Key to the Dignity of the Human Person Damian P. Fedoryka (bio) One of the concepts cutting across confessional, ethnic, and even political lines is the concept of human dignity. In some real sense it is truly "ecumenical." At the same time, the power of this idea is such that it can galvanize individuals, groups, and even nations into conflicts that threaten the very reality of human dignity. This paradoxical nature of the idea is itself grounded in a more or less explicit understanding of what it means to be human and to have the dignity of a person. Our understanding of dignity is built on our understanding and our experience of what it means to be a human person. The issue of human dignity is particularly difficult because there is something in human nature itself that allows two different individuals of the same human nature to have diametrically opposed experiences. We need to consider the kind of experience that allows for what can perhaps be called the "dialectic" that emerges in the conflicting accounts of human dignity. In doing this we will use the concept of the gift as what Pope John Paul II calls the "hermeneutics of the gift."1 We speak of the "experience" of the external world. Thus, we can experience a sunrise or a sunset. The sun presents itself to us as [End Page 49] rising and setting. The experience in question shapes our very language. And then, one day, a discovery occurs: the facts of the case are that the sun neither rises nor sets nor does it move across the sky. It is stationary. It is the observer that is moving. We come to know the facts of the case. And yet, the appearance of the rising and the setting sun does not change. The distinction between fact and experience shapes the consciousness of "modern human beings." Things are one way; they appear in another way. Or, we could say, things are not what they seem. It is the task of the scientist to discover a reality that is hiding behind appearances. And so, we have the expert, the scientist, telling the uninitiated what the world is really like. Love, for the romantic, appears to be one thing, but in reality, we are told, it is an evolutionary mechanism assuring the survival of a gene pool. God, for the religious sentiment, is an omnipotent and benevolent being, but in reality, we are told that sentiment is the product of impotence and imagination. As a result of this bifurcation of experience and so called scientific knowledge, we have a devaluation of "subjective experience" that is subordinated to if not crushed by objective, that is, "scientific" truth. This has its consequences for the experience of one's own dignity. Self affirmation, in the face of what appears an apparently relentless and dehumanizing progress of science and objective truth, almost inevitably brings with it, as a self protective response, a spreading skepticism and relativism. It is as if the affirmation of one's own dignity required the rejection of objective truth, which binds the subject. Thus, outside of the sphere of the strict empirical sciences, we find a proliferation of theories supposedly affirming subjectivity but in fact establishing a subjectivism.2 Frequently heard expressions of this are phrases such as, "The world is what you make of it," or "Existence is a state of mind," or "What is good for you may not be good for me," or finally, "Don't impose your opinions on others." A specific relativism, presenting itself as spiritual and mental pluralism with regard to truth, has emerged side by side with a legitimate cultural pluralism. Human dignity seems to require this. [End Page 50] But the very understanding of human nature and personal dignity itself becomes a casualty of such relativism and pluralism. In an attempt to recover the authentic dignity of the human person, we need to focus on experience of another sort. In this case, we move from the experience of the external world and turn to experience as the specific way in which we have our acts and perform them from "within...

Counterterrorism, Dignity, and the Rule of Law

Syrian Refugees in Brazil: Protection of Human Rights and their Developments

La Bioetica personalista è una riflessione che affronta le questioni etiche riguardanti la vita umana da una prospettiva che riconosce l’essere e la dignità della persona come valori assoluti, e, di conseguenza, pone come primum principium il rispetto incondizionato della loro inviolabilità e la tutela della loro libera espressione, in primis sul versante dei diritti umani.
 Nella prospettiva personalista il bonum, cioè il valore ultimo che misura l’agire morale, viene inteso come promozione dell’essere e della preziosità o dignità della persona in quanto persona.
 Il credente, sia esso un moralista, un filosofo, un bioeticista, o quant’altro, si trova a suo agio quando la sua mente percorre le vie della persona; egli, in altre parole, si sente particolarmente agevolato, similmente al pellegrino che dopo aver battuto sentieri impervi e sconosciuti, ritrova le strade familiari della sua casa.
 Nella dimora della persona, fede e ragione verificano la propria identità e forza, libere da patteggiamenti o da innaturali rinunce ai propri doveri e diritti; una morale personalista intesa come una sintesi organica e rigorosa è un desiderio che ancora si deve realizzare.
 Una Bioetica personalista dovrebbe, ad esempio, concedere maggiore spazio alla domanda propriamente etica, cioè se e perché l’embrione deve essere trattato come un qualsiasi essere umano, anche senza esplicitare il problema ontologico.
 Tre fondamentali ragioni possiamo addurre a fondamento della dimostrazione del primato valoriale della persona. La prima ragione è contenuta nella nota affermazione di S. Tommaso: “persona significat id quod est perfectissimum in tota natura, scilicet subsistens in rationali natura”. La dignità della persona trova qui un sostegno fortemente ontologico: chi è massimamente perfetto non può non essere riconosciuto e rispettato semper et pro semper, in ogni circostanza di tempo e di luogo, cioè in modo assoluto. Nessun valore creato - neanche il superamento di tutte le malattie e sofferenze - può reggere al confronto del valore di ogni singola persona.
 La seconda ragione fondativa è merito di I. Kant ed in fondo può essere interpretata come una applicazione della tesi di Tommaso d’Aquino: l’essere perfettissimum in tota natura resiste a qualsiasi tentativo di abbassarlo alla condizione di semplice strumento. Come dice il filosofo tedesco nel famoso paragrafo dei Fondamenti della metafisica dei costumi, la persona impone l’imperativo categorico di agire in modo da trattare l’umanità, in te e negli altri, sempre come fine e mai soltanto come mezzo.
 Infine, la terza ragione proviene da un brano molto noto, come i due precedenti, anche se poco utilizzato in ambito bioetico, forse per l’evidente contenuto teologico. Ci si riferisce alla definizione antropologica del documento conciliare Gaudium et spes che indica l’uomo come “la sola creatura in terra che Iddio abbia voluto per se stessa”.

The heart of Michael Perry's argument lies in his claim that “every human being is sacred” and, that being the case, it follows that there are “some things that ought never (for example, under any circumstances or conditions) to be done to any human being or some things that ought always (under all conditions) to be done for every human being?” The “foundational” claim is that every human being, because sacred, is owed a certain regard and that this regard, in our time, has taken shape as, and congealed around, the idea of human rights. The dignity of the person, in other words, is a necessary prior assumption from which rights derive. The ontological claim, or to put it in a similar if not identical way, certain anthropological presuppositions, necessarily ground any sustainable human rights argument. It is possible, certainly, to make human rights claims on purely conventional grounds or, in more “Rortyesque” language, as just the way we do things around here. But that claim is not sustainable over time, argues Perry. It follows that “there is no intelligible (much less persuasive) secular version of the conviction that every human being is sacred; the only intelligible versions are religious.”

Religious liberty may be variously defined but in minimal terms it includes the inherent right of a person to worship in public or in private according to one's own understanding or preference, to practice and propagate one's faith, and to change one's religion — all without hindrance or molestation. Although today widely proclaimed as an inalienable right of all persons, full religious liberty is actually a fairly recent right and remains a relatively uncommon achievement in contemporary society. In the final analysis, religious liberty is the basis of all human rights and necessarily antedates the recognition by government of civil liberties as basic human rights. As Pope John Paul II re cently declared in his 1991 World Day of Peace Message,1 The right to religious freedom is not merely one human right among others, 'rather, [it] is the most fundamental, since the dignity of every person has its first source in his essential relationship with God the Creator and Father, in whose image and likeness he was created. . . .' 'Religious freedom, an essential requirement of the dignity of every human person, is a cornerstone of the structure of human rights.'

Gregory of Nisa was one of the most cultivated men of the fourth century. He reflects the advances that had been made concerning the concept of the person and his/her relatioship with nature. In Gregory’s view, the dignity of the human person is grounded on the fact that the person is the image and likeness of God. This is equivalent to stating that the human being has attributes which no one may deprive him/her of; prominent among these is freedom, which is the crowning glory of his/her personal being, as he/she was made in the image of God, who is a-déspotos, that is, has no master. Rejection of slavery, together with firm defense of parrhesia (freedom of speech), is one of the most suitable perspectives for evaluating Gregory’s concept of human nature and the dignity of the person. Gregory discusses this subject in several places. Here we shall confine our survey to the most important ones: Homily IV On Ecclesiastes, the treatise On the origin of man, and the Great catechetical discourse. According to Gregory, freedom was given to human beings so that they could participate in the divine good. Gregory supported his arguments on the thinking insipired by Plato in which virtue is essentially free and voluntary, and so freedom is an attribute of the dignity of the person that cannot be relinquished.

Thomas Aquinas understands providence as the reason of directing things to ends (ratio ordinis rerum in finem), and as the execution of that directing, i.e. governance (gubernatio). Thus, providence is one of the fundamental attributes of the person that reveals the person's perfection and dignity. Providence consists in a free and reasonable directing of oneself and the reality subject to oneself in order to actualize potentialities of oneself and of other beings in the context of the ultimate goal of existence. Human providence joins the providence of the Absolute with regard to the world. In spite of its deficiencies human providence reveals the essential dignity of the human person.

Catholic teaching supports a right not to be coerced religiously based on the metaphysical dignity and freedom of the human person. But how to understand this right? In person-centred terms, as fixed and determined just by the dignity of the person, and as a right not to be coerced religiously by any authority? Or in jurisdiction-centred terms, reflecting the dignity of the person, but qualified and limited depending on the coercive jurisdiction under which a person falls? Does the Church have an authority to coerce religiously that the state lacks — to use punishment to pressure those subject to her jurisdiction, the baptized, into fidelity of belief and practice? This chapter compares the teaching of Trent and Vatican II. It shows that Vatican II does not support the person-centred model, which is anyway inconsistent with dogmatic teaching of Trent and Catholic canon law, which assumes the jurisdiction-centred model.

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Legacy of Boston Personalism

Values are integral part to the process of education. The main aim of education is to development of personality, pursuit of knowledge, preservation of culture, character building etc. It is difficult to achieve these aims without giving importance to values. In order to achieve the aforementioned aims, it is necessary to design curriculum, desirable knowledge attitudes, skills, values to transmit to children. Education in its aims, curriculum, and methods linked with values. Teachers and parents play vital role in value development among children. They act as agents by stimulating, provoking, informing, and sensitizing about the values which are integral part of human life. Teacher and parents constantly try to facilitate values by providing varied experiences to children. It is necessary to make them think what is good and bad? They should be exposed to discussion, dialogues, practical activities, work of art, beauty in nature, in human relationships, actions of moral worth and moral sensibilities. Most of the values children acquire in home and school. To facilitate values teachers and parents can make use stories as tools. Teachers and parents with or without collaboration story reading tasks can be designed and assign those to the learners. Teacher's role is very important in facilitating values among children through sustained and continuous efforts via story reading tasks.Why values in 21st century?Bring desirable changes in children: Education is a means of bringing desirable changes in the way one thinks, feels, and acts in accordance with one's concept of the good life; in this sense education necessarily involves the transmission of values. Value education is not the process of indoctrination of dogmas, exhortation. It is not viable to inculcate set of values which are predetermined. The goal is not to promote passive conformity and blind obedience to whatever values are passed on.Develop thinking skill: To motivate and encourage critical and reflective thinking, to cultivate imagination, rational choice and responsible behavior, to make them think, to reason, to question, to reflect, all these can be facilitated via values.Personality development: For the development of total personality of individual, intellectual, social, emotional, aesthetic, moral and spiritual it is necessary to develop sensitivity to the good, the right and the beautiful.Modify behavior: Value education helps to choose the right values in accordance with the highest ideals of life. Values help children modify their thought and action by internalizing and realizing.Human faculties: Human faculties plays important role in human life. Value education is essential to develop human faculties such as knowing, feeling, doing, to care, to feel appropriate emotions, concern and commitment, exercise the will to do the right thing, educate emotions and strengthen will and to train in mental health.Stability of the social order: Values helps to develop appropriate social behavior, civic rights and duties, encourage socially acceptable behavior, and avoid anti-social activities. They provide the general guidelines for conduct in doing so they facilitate social control. Values are the criteria people use in assessing their daily lives, arranging their priorities, measuring their pleasure and pains, choosing between alternative courses of action.Lead happy and peaceful life: Values helps individual to lead happy and peaceful life. Happiness is the result of good conduct. This in turn helps to lead a peaceful life. One who do not inculcate values in their day to day life, it is difficult to lead happy and peaceful life.Classroom learning tasksValues get transmitted via both the implicit or hidden and planned curriculum. Value education is a highly comprehensive and complex one that involves a wide range and variety of learning experience. All forms of learning cannot be provided through single sources. …

By referring the dignity of the individual to meta-legal categories, considering it as a principle of law that forms an integrated inter-sectoral institution aimed at ensuring the implementation and protection of human rights, the author analyzes the role and place of financial law in the personal dignity concept. Taking into account the peculiarity of the subject matter and methodological basis of the financial and legal industry, the author concludes that the studied branch of law should be considered as a securing legal instrument of generating and implementing personal dignity, its dynamic essence through a unique legal mechanism of redistribution of material resources in the state. Acknowledging the positive binding as the basic legal means of such an instrument, the author analyzes the subjective rights of the individual in financial relations, in particular their property component, in two aspects of financial activity of the state and public legal entities: in the formation and distribution and use of public funds. In order to ensure the realization of the individual-centered spirit of financial law, the author concludes that it is necessary to carry out the doctrinal analysis and legal consolidation of the financial and legal status of the individual, to develop a system of so-called monetary rights of the individual in the process of formation, distribution and use of funds of the state and municipal entities.

Nature is an important means of harmonious development of the child. Vasily Sukhomlinsky noted that “nature has a huge educational factor that leaves its imprint on the entire nature of the pedagogical process.” The development of environmental knowledge in geography lessons using the pedagogical heritage of V.A. Sukhomlinsky is relevant, we focus on the development of environmental knowledge, not ecological culture, we believe that ecology is a narrowly biological science, where the influence of the environment on living organisms and vice versa is considered. And Sukhomlinsky, after all, focused on nature protection. Therefore, it is necessary to develop environmental knowledge in geography lessons. Active communication with nature gives birth and strengthens a child’s priceless quality inherent in human personality, kindness. But how can a child experience the joy of the first discoveries when he enters the strange world around him? How to turn nature into a powerful means of educating humane feelings? And will the student be able to assimilate the connections between phenomena, to realize the dependence between natural objects? It turns out that maybe the easiest way to do this is observation. Children especially like to watch animals. Here noted very subtly A. Sukhomlinsky: it is necessary to develop in a child a careful and caring attitude towards helpless creatures that are so easy to offend, but, having protected them, you will feel kind and strong. V.A. Sukhomlinsky called the lessons journeys to the source of thinking and speech — to the wonderful beauty of nature. He advised to open a window into the world of beauty of the word gradually, so as not to overexert the child’s mind and not bother him.

Technology empowers and enslaves at the same time. Given our proneness to misjudgment and abuse of power, the dangers of technological failure and catastrophe are well known and often discussed. Technological and legislative measures are effective up to a point, but they usually ignore the dignity of the human person that is inalienably related to personal identity, freedom and meaning. So, before we propose new ethical rules we need to make sure they respect the dignity of the human person. The following study chooses the three characteristics of the dignity of the human person as starting points for properly defined ethics. It aims to strengthen ethical awareness and debate in domains where technology becomes confronted with the interests of humanity.

The author’s intention is to draw attention to the biblical morality and personalism of Vatican II. Granted that there are other valid criteria on which to base the objectivity in morality, he wishes to highlight the importance of the dignity of the human person and council’s reference to Christ as the fundamental criteria in the teaching of Vatican II. Objectivity, immutability, and transcendence rest on Christ, the centre of history, and on the dignity of the human person. He points out that other valid perspectives are possible but Vatican II opted for this for several reasons. The reference to Christ expresses the necessary recourse to God and is in the line of the scholastic formula: a Deo, ad Deum, secundum Deum. Revelation brings with it mysteries, truths and norms which claim a response of faith and love, a homage of the intelligence and will that is in keeping with session VI of Trent. The Second Vatican Council considers historic nature in a unique divine vocation. It reaffirms the gratuity of the supernatural but does not use the hypothesis of natura pura. Recourse to the dignity of the human person allows the Council to address itself to all men, since this dignity is based on creation and on the one vocation to salvation. The centre of this dignity is the moral conscience which should act respecting the objective norms of morality. The ideal presented by the Council asks for a moral effort parting from the data provided by faith and from a personalist philosophy. It is not true that personalism necessarily leads to subjectivism. The council has shown it. The person is an objective reality and the path from personalism to the transcendence is consistent with the lines of the fourth way of St Thomas: the participated transcendence of the person is based on the absolute transcendence of God. The Church dialogues with the world conscious that in Christ it possesses the full truth about man, about all men since all are called to salvation. This is what makes it possible for the Church to cooperate with the world, to discover the positive side of progress and at the same time it allows and obliges both the Church and christians to have a critical function. Although granting that christians and non-christians should consider themselves invited to cooperate in common action, it is necessary to note the existence of serious conflicts, ever more frequent in a pluralist society. Human progress is not the same as the Kingdom of God. Sometimes one opposes the other and on this account the christian should adopt a critical attitude with respect to attempted developments contrary to human dignity in view of his commitment to the faith and to the dignity of the human person.