Metaphysical and Cultural Nature of Sacrifice in the Life and Death of E. Stein and S. Weil

Abstract

The article explains the metaphysical, culture-making and creative act sacrificing one’s own life in the name of higher values. At the beginning we discuss the causes of a contemporary cultural crisis and the disap­pearance of metaphysical attitudes. We have formulated a thesis that the revival of metaphysics in contemporary culture can be grounded in the experience of metaphysical qualities that are present in heroic acts of offering one’s own life for another. The next step in our analysis was to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for self-sacrifice, and then, on the examples of E. Stein and S. Weil, we show what the ultimate sacrifice of one’s own life is. Using the method of humanis­tic interpretation, we have reconstructed the descriptive and normative reasons which motivated the two women to their acts of self-sacrifice. And although Weil and Stein do not meet the criteria to be categorized as self-sacrifices, we have found that they indeed were ultimate sacri­fices because they were directed towards the realization of the highest moral and religious ideals. Using the category of “metaphysical quali­ties” developed by the Polish phenomenologist Roman Ingarden, we proposed an interpretation in which the sacrificial act was interpreted as supererogation in which metaphysical qualities such as holiness, sublimity, etc. are phenomenologically present. Such an act also has a cultural-creative dimension, consisting in building a culture and civilization of life in which the value of the existence of another human being is a correlate of a metaphysical desire rather than biological and psychological needs. The thesis is that, contrary to the contemporary crisis in metaphysics and axiology, they are essential and irremovable elements of culture, without which it cannot grow properly.