Speaking Rationally About the Good

Paul Kucharski

doi:10.35765/forphil.2015.2001.03

Abstract

In this paper, I explain and defend Karol Wojtyła’s claim that “if we wish to speak rationally about good and evil, we have to return to the philosophy of being. If we do not set out from such ‘realist’ presuppositions, we end up in a vacuum.” I begin by outlining Wojtyła’s existential understanding of the good, according to which the good for x is found in those ends that complete the being that is lacking in x, or that enhance its existence in keeping with its nature. (Here Wojtyła is drawing from, and building upon, Thomas Aquinas’s account of goodness and being.) Then I explain how Wojtyła moves from an existential understanding of the good to the thesis that “exemplarism is the very heart of the normative order.” Finally, using representative thinkers from both the Continental and Analytic traditions, I defend Wojtyła’s claim that when we divorce goodness from being we end up in a moral vacuum, in a kind of nihilism where the good signifies nothing other than the rationalized articulation of one’s subjective needs, desires, or wishes. In such a state, the only means for resolving moral disagreements is through the consensus of the majority or the forceful rule of the strongest will.

Highlights

Prior to his election to the papacy, Karol Wojtyła devoted his philosophical career to the study of the human person
In addition to its ability to ground a strong conception of moral obligation, Wojtyła thinks that the theory of exemplarism allows us to ground an objective hierarchy of goods (BMN, 78)
Obviously it is outside the scope of this paper to offer a thorough evaluation of such alternatives to Moore’s intuitionism, but I maintain that, like Moore’s intuitionism, they will fall into the kind of moral vacuum spoken of by Wojtyła

Summary

Introduction

Prior to his election to the papacy, Karol Wojtyła devoted his philosophical career to the study of the human person. I will defend Wojtyła’s claim that the rejection of a realist account of the good ends in a kind of moral vacuum, using as examples thinkers from both the Continental and Analytic traditions, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and G.

Results

Conclusion