Love and Responsibility E-Book

Karol Wojtyła

• Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Originally published in Polish in 1960, Love and Responsibility is Karol Wojtyla’s groundbreaking book on human love. In this classic work, Wojtyla explains relationships between persons, especially concerning sexual ethics, in the perspective of the true meaning of love. Grzegorz Ignatik, a native Polish speaker, has translated the 2001 version of the text, which includes revisions made by Pope John Paul II himself of the original 1960 edition, providing helpful notes and defining key terms.

Leseprobe

LOVE ANDRESPONSIBILITY

Karol Wojtyła

Translation, Endnotes, and Forewordby Grzegorz Ignatik

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

John Paul II, Pope, 1920-2005.  [Milosc i odpowiedzialnosc. English]   Love and responsibility / Karol Wojtyla; translation and foreword by GrzegorzIgnatik.        p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references.  ISBN-13: 978-0-8198-4558-0  ISBN-10: 0-8198-4558-2  1. Sex--Religious aspects--Catholic Church. 2. Sexual ethics. 3. Catholic Church--Doctrines. I. Title.  BT708.J6313 2013  241’.66--dc23                                                                2012042267

Scripture references and other quotations are translated from Karol Wojtyła’s (Pope John Paul II’s) own wording of the text as he wrote in Polish.

Cover design by Rosana Usselmann

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

“P” and PAULINE are registered trademarks of the Daughters of St. Paul.

Originally published in Polish as Miłość i odpowiedzialność by Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Lublin, copyright © 2001. First published by Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, Lublin, copyright © 1960.

Commentary and translator’s notes copyright © 2013, Grzegorz Ignatik

Copyright © 2013, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano

Edition copyright © 2013, Daughters of St. Paul

Published by Pauline Books & Media, 50 Saint Pauls Avenue, Boston, MA 02130-3491.

Printed in the U.S.A.

www.pauline.org

Pauline Books & Media is the publishing house of the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation of women religious serving the Church with the communications media.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9                                                                                       18 17 16 15 14 13

To my wife, ChristineG. I.

Contents

Translator’s Foreword

Editors’ Introduction to the Polish Edition (1979)

Author’s Introduction to the First Polish Edition (1960)

Author’s Introduction to the Second Polish Edition (1962)

CHAPTER IThe Person and the Drive

Part One: Analysis of the Verb “to use”

The person as the subject and object of action

The first meaning of the verb “to use”

Love as the opposite of “using”

The second meaning of the verb “to use”

Critique of utilitarianism

The commandment to love and the personalistic norm

Part Two: Interpretation of the Drive

Instinct or drive?

The sexual drive as a property of the individual

The sexual drive and existence

The religious interpretation

The rigoristic interpretation

The “libidinistic” interpretation

Final remarks

CHAPTER IIThe Person and Love

Part One: Metaphysical Analysis of Love

The word “love”

Love as fondness

Love as desire

Love as benevolence

The problem of reciprocity

From sympathy to friendship

Spousal love

Part Two: Psychological Analysis of Love

Impression and emotion

Analysis of sensuality

Affectivity and affective love

The problem of the integration of love

Part Three: Ethical Analysis of Love

Lived-experience and virtue

Affirmation of the value of the person

The belonging of a person to another person

Choice and responsibility

The commitment of freedom

The problem of the education of love

CHAPTER IIIThe Person and Chastity

Part One: Rehabilitation of Chastity

Chastity and resentment

The concupiscence of the flesh

Subjectivism and egoism

The structure of sin

The full sense of chastity

Part Two: Metaphysics of Shame

The phenomenon of sexual shame and its interpretation

The law of absorption of shame by love

The problem of shamelessness

Part Three: Problems of Abstinence

Self-mastery and objectivization

Tenderness and sensuality

CHAPTER IVJustice with Respect to the Creator

Part One: Marriage

Monogamy and indissolubility

The value of the institution

Reproduction and parenthood

Periodic abstinence: The method and interpretation

Part Two: Vocation

The concept of “justice with respect to the Creator”

Virginity and intactness

The problem of vocation

Fatherhood and motherhood

CHAPTER VSexology and Ethics: A Supplementary View

Introductory remarks

The sexual drive

The problem of marriage and intercourse

The problem of conscious motherhood

Sexual psychopathology and ethics

Therapy

APPENDIXOn the Meaning of Spousal Love

1. Spousal love and marriage

2. Spousal love and the human person

3. The “law of the gift” inscribed in the being of the person

4. Spousal love and the “law of the gift”

5. Substantiation of ethical demands for premarital chastity

Translator’s Notes

Index

About the Author

Translator’s Foreword

The main goal of this new English translation of Bishop Karol Wojtyła’s masterpiece Love and Responsibility is to allow the English reader to enter into the thought of Wojtyła in a more profound way so as to encounter the reality he examined, the reality of the human person in the order of love. Being created in and for love, man in his freedom is unintelligible without love. Wojtyła himself wished that this encounter might bring the fruit of transformation and cultivation of the reader (see especially his introduction to the second Polish edition). At the same time, however, this encounter is a meeting with Karol Wojtyła, a loving man or rather a loving father who shares with his children the truth and beauty of the human person and of human nature.

This translation achieves its goal, or at least attempts to do so, by meticulous attention to the original Polish text, which is rendered into English faithfully and clearly. What made this possible is not only that I am a native speaker of Polish but also that most of my higher education has taken place in the United States after emigrating from Poland. In addition, the task of translating Love and Responsibility demanded from me a familiarity with other writings of Karol Wojtyła. This includes the knowledge of philosophical and theological presuppositions and contexts contributing to his thought expressed in this book, and of the philosophical method he used. Due to the philosophical nature of the book and its Polish origin, I provide notes at the end of this English edition.*

The first English publication of then-Cardinal Wojtyła’s article On the Meaning of Spousal Love accompanies this translation (pp. 273ff.). Although published in 1974, some years after the first Polish publication of Love and Responsibility in 1960, the article is a fruit of Wojtyła’s renewed reflection on certain themes presented in the book. This reflection was prompted by a discussion concerning the problems of conjugal morality (see my opening note to the article). That is why this article belongs to the book in an organic way.

Lastly, the Polish edition used as a basis for this translation is the Lublin 2001 publication of the book by Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL. However, in some instances I referred to the second Polish edition of Love and Responsibility from 1962, which was published in Kraków by Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak, and which carried the imprimatur of Archbishop Eugeniusz Kuczkowski. Although my translation is not meant to be a critical edition of the book, in the notes I indicate several noteworthy differences between the 1962 and 2001 editions. There is no doubt that Wojtyła himself introduced the changes. Besides simple deletions from the 1962 edition, the most recent edition contains rewritten or added paragraphs (especially in chapter V) that bear the full weight of Wojtyła’s thought, method, and style. Without stipulating the reasons why he made the changes, I have included the deleted material in my notes because it contributes significantly to a more integral grasp of his intention and word, hence to a deeper encounter with the human person and his love.

I wish to express my sincere thanks to several people for assisting with this translation project. First, I would like to thank Fr. Josef Spindelböck for offering me his always enthusiastic encouragement, his German translation of Love and Responsibility, and his valuable comments concerning my notes and translation. I am particularly grateful to Dr. David L. Schindler for reviewing and discussing my notes with me. I consider his sound advice invaluable. Furthermore, I wish to thank Sr. Marianne Lorraine Trouvé from the Daughters of St. Paul for her editing help, which contributed greatly to the legibility of this translation. My gratitude is also extended to Sr. Bonita Sajnóg from the Congregation of the Sister Servants of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and to my brother, Adam Ignatik, for procuring the indispensable and needed versions of Polish texts used for this project. Finally, I am indebted to Ellen Roderick and Fr. Pietro Rossotti for their translation of the French and Italian quotations respectively.

GRZEGORZ IGNATIK

Reynoldsburg, OhioJune 12, 2012

Editors’ Introduction to the Polish Edition (1979)

This book, which presently finds its way to the hands of the reader, has its history. It appeared for the first time twenty years ago.1 At the present rate of literary and publishing production this signifies a long period, even for the field of philosophy where works age more slowly. Yet, this book also has a long prehistory. This prehistory was written by the experience of many people, which in a way was becoming the experience of the author himself as their pastor and friend co-experiencing (współprzeżywać) their most intimate matters. This experience converged with and in a sense met his own intuition regarding these matters. It provoked reflections and considerations which, over time, gave rise to a need to bear testimony to them. At first, this testimony found its expression in the form of lectures given in 1958–1959 at the Catholic University of Lublin. Then it finally assumed the form of the book Love and Responsibility, published in Lublin by TN KUL (the Academic Society of the Catholic University of Lublin) in 1960.

From that moment, the work started to live its own, independent life. Since then, in a sense, it has been writing its history by itself. Habent sua fata libelli . . . 2 It writes its history for itself and, in a way, also for its author.

This history is mainly a history of an encounter between, on the one hand, the experiences and the testimony expressed in this book and, on the other hand, the conceptions and suggestions which want to appeal to the same source, or at least in the same source they seek their legitimation and validation. How well has Love and Responsibility fared in this confrontation? This question imposes itself in a natural way in reference to this book, which happened to exist in a time so preoccupied by the problems the book deals with. Thus, understandably, the reader also poses this question and expects an answer to it. But answering this question here would discredit the very presupposition of the work. After all, this work was intended as a call to “experience the experience”—something that can be summoned as a testimony of experience and at any moment submitted again to the judgment of experience, as soon as the need to appeal to the very sources and foundations of the validity of our judgments emerges or intensifies anew. So, tolle et lege!3 But above all, vide!4 “Possessing that character, the book,” as the author himself confesses in the Introduction to the Second Edition, “counts on further co-authorship: it counts on the fact that it will be continually created, as it were, by those who will thoroughly—both in theory and in practice—ponder or implement its main formulations.” Hence, being open to every echo of experience that originates from any side, this work at the same time appeals to the reader to let experience speak in its entire scope, both in its breadth and depth.

When we speak of depth here, we mean all that which sometimes does not appear directly and in the foreground as a content of experience, but which, in a hidden way, as it were, belongs to experience in such a manner that it is impossible not to consider it when identifying the contents of experience. For otherwise, some of this content would be diminished, depleted, thereby canceling the authority of the integrally understood experience—experience as the only source of information and the basis for genuine knowledge about anything. Taking this methodological foundation as a basis, Love and Responsibility does not need to be apprehensive about anything that can provide its credentials by experience. Experience that is properly interpreted is not threatened by any further experiences. Truth can only benefit from this confrontation.

The history of Love and Responsibility seen precisely from that perspective manifests a peculiar vitality of this book. Of course, speaking about its “triumphant march” would be a simplification. It is known that the “rediscovery” or “resurrection” of the book was not simply due to the circumstance that its author became the pope. Love and Responsibility has lived and lives not only by the editions that came to be: three Polish (including two in Poland, which is remarkable due to the publishing difficulties!) and a few in foreign languages: French, Italian, and Spanish.* It also lives in a certain way by the editions that were to be published but never have been.

Although, twenty years after its publication, the work does not need a recommendation, it is obvious that it needs, in a sense, to be presented in a new context. What determines this context? Speaking most generally, two complementary “coordinates” determine it.

On the one hand, this context is determined by the discussion about the central problems that Pope Paul VI took up in the encyclical Humanae Vitae. As is known, this discussion—which in its first phase concentrated on the sometimes uncoordinated search for arguments for and against contraception in order to win over supporters in the dispute—over time turned into a methodologically deepened self-reflection. The discussion became centered on the way of substantiating moral norms in the aspect of their rightness.† Hence, from that point on, without fundamentally questioning the rightness of the norms of Humanae Vitae, some discussed the scope of their force. The decision concerning this particular problem was made dependent on resolving the issue between the deontological and the teleological theory of ethical argumentation. A deeper analysis of the object of this dispute, however, manifests a greater complexity of the problems in question and at the same time a possibility—or even a necessity—of an intermediary position, which could surprise the two parties contending with each other. It also manifested that at the basis of a solution that could find full acceptance, there must appear, on the one hand, a genuine anthropology: a theory of the human person, and, on the other hand, a deepened vision of the act itself. It manifested in particular that the moment of the rightness of the act must not become isolated, so that it ends up separated from the fundamental function of the act in the interpersonal relations: the function of expressing* love, that is, of affirming the person due to the dignity proper to him in an inalienable way. It is by all means interesting to look at this whole discussion ten years after the appearance of the encyclical Humanae Vitae from the perspective of the work that preceded it by almost ten years—the work which is completely alien to any atmosphere of animosity, contestation, or contention, the work whose atmosphere is defined completely by one and only one concern: to let the truth of experience express itself fully on the theme of love worthy of the human person.5 But precisely for this very reason there exists a need of situating this work in that context and of presenting it against the background of that context. This very need demands the introduction of the notes, which fulfill the role of a commentary linking the text of Love and Responsibility with the aforementioned context. A commentary of this kind becomes simply indispensable here.

On the other hand, we must not overlook the fact that during these twenty years the author of Love and Responsibility published many articles in which he developed the themes of the book in various directions, in particular in the direction of family ethics and of the philosophy and theology of the body. The need to consider this strictly authorial context seems completely obvious. At first it even suggested an idea of adding an appendix to Love and Responsibility containing the aforementioned publications. However, besides the fact that such an appendix would have greatly increased the size of the book, another reason was brought forward against this idea. Actually, this appendix would have excluded another work of the author, a work of exceptional significance for forming this context. This work is Person and Act (Osoba i czyn), in which the author expressed himself most fully—although in a fundamentally extra-ethical way—on the theme of the human person. There is no need to waste words in order to convince anyone how much the issues covered by that work are related to the problem of responsible love, the main problem of Love and Responsibility. After all, precisely the person in his act and through his act becomes the subject and recipient of this responsible love. The person is an actor of this drama—persona dramatis—in which he himself writes “his truest history,” the history of love or of its negation, and hence of his fulfillment or nonfulfillment. The text of Love and Responsibility would be impoverished in its fundamental framework if it was not at least in some way linked to the text of Person and Act, if it was not presented in the context of Karol Wojtyła’s “treatise on man.” This is the second reason contributing to both the necessity of introducing a commentary and the character of the commentary.

In the notes we placed below the text of Love and Responsibility,6 the reader will find, on the one hand, references to works by the author himself and, on the other hand, references that will present his work as a call to confront the propositions and notions that differ not so much from the author’s work, but rather through it—as if through a medium quo7—from the eloquence of the integral, ethical experience of one person’s love for another person. And love—as is constantly confirmed precisely by experience—is what it is only when it rises to the level of affirmation of the personal dignity of both the subject of love and its recipient in everything whence this dignity proceeds, what it permeates, and in which it is ultimately rooted.

FR. TADEUSZ STYCZEŃ

JERZY GAŁKOWSKI

ADAM RODZIŃSKI

FR. ANDRZEJ SZOSTEK*

Lublin, May 18, 1979

Author’s Introduction to the First Polish Edition (1960)

There exists a view that only married people may speak about marriage, and that only persons who experience (przeżywać) love between a man and a woman may speak about such love.1 This view demands personal and direct experience as the basis for speaking in a given field. Thus, priests, the religious, and celibate persons cannot have anything to say on matters of love and marriage.2 Nevertheless, they often speak and write on those topics. A lack of their own personal experience does not hinder them since they possess a very rich indirect experience proceeding from pastoral work. For in pastoral work they encounter precisely these problems so often and in such a variety of ways and situations that another experience is created, experience that is undoubtedly more indirect and “alien,” but at the same time much more extensive. Indeed, the abundance of facts from this field prompts all the more a general reflection and a search for synthesis.

That is how this book came into being. It is not an exposition of doctrine. Instead, it is above all the fruit of constant confrontation of doctrine with life (and the work of a pastor consists precisely in this). The doctrine—the teaching of the Church—in the field of “sexual” morality is based on the Gospel, whose statements on that topic are both concise and sufficient. One wonders that a system so complete can be built on the basis of so few statements. They apparently concern the cruces of the problem, the decisive points, which determine all the remaining moral principles and norms. It is sufficient to be familiar with texts such as Matthew 5:27–28, Matthew 19:1–13, Mark 10:1–12, Luke 20:27–35, John 8:1–11, 1 Corinthians 7 (the entire chapter), and Ephesians 5:22–33 in order to form quite clear views on the given topic. In this book (which does not constitute an exegetical study) we refer to these most important statements.

Although simply compiling the norms of Catholic ethics regarding “sexual” morality is easy, the need to substantiate these norms arises with every step. For these norms often encounter resistance, perhaps more so in practice than in theory, but a pastor, who above all deals with practice, must seek the reasons for them. For his task is not only to command or to prohibit, but also to substantiate, interpret, and explain. This book was born principally from the need to substantiate the norms of Catholic sexual ethics—and to do so as definitively as possible while appealing to the most elementary and undeniable moral truths and to the most fundamental values or goods. Such a good is the person, and the moral truth most closely connected to the world of persons in particular is the “commandment to love”—for love is the good proper to the world of persons. And therefore the most fundamental grasp of sexual morality is to grasp it on the basis of “love and responsibility”—hence the title of the whole book.

Such a grasp demands a number of analyses. Notwithstanding its synthetic character, the book is strongly analytical. The object of the analysis is at first the person in relation to the sexual drive, then love which grows between a man and a woman on the foundation of this drive, then the virtue of chastity as an unavoidable factor of that love, and finally the issue of marriage and vocation. All these problems are the object of analyses and not of descriptions, for the point is precisely to explicate the rationale to which the rules and norms of the Catholic “sexual” ethics owe their raison d’être.3 This book has a philosophical character throughout, for ethics is (and can only be) a part of philosophy.

Is the book practical and “relevant to real life”? In principle it is, although nowhere does it endeavor to present some ready-made formulas or punctilious prescriptions of conduct.4 It is not casuistic, but attempts to create an integral vision of the problem rather than to provide particular solutions—for all of them in some way are included in this vision. The title of the book is its most proper expression: in reference to the relations that occur among persons of different sex, when we speak of “sexual ethics” we actually think about “love and responsibility.”

The main concept here is the concept of love, to which we devote most analyses—and in a sense even all the analyses contained in this book. For particularly on the basis of the Christian ethics born of the Gospel, a problem exists, which can be described as an “introduction of love into love.”5 In the first instance the word “love” signifies the content of the greatest commandment, whereas in the second instance all that is formed on the basis of the sexual drive between a man and a woman. Proceeding in the opposite direction, one can say that a problem exists of reducing the latter love to the former one, i.e., to the love of which the Gospel speaks.

This is an open problem. The manuals of ethics and of moral theology grasp these two loves somewhat separately: they speak of the former in the treatise on the theological virtues, because love is the greatest of these virtues, whereas they speak of the latter chiefly within the treatise on the cardinal virtue of temperance, since sexual chastity is linked to it. Consequently, what may arise in human consciousness is a certain hiatus, some sense of irreducibility of the latter love to the former one—or in any case an unawareness of the ways in which this can be realized. At the same time, observation of life (and especially pastoral experience) proves that an enormous demand exists for knowing those ways. And the moral teaching of the Gospel seems to create a clear inspiration for it. Both believers and nonbelievers read the Gospel. The former discover in the commandment to love the main bond of the whole supernatural order, but both believers and nonbelievers are able to discover in this commandment an affirmation of some great human good, in which persons can and should share. In this book it is rather on the latter that we place the main emphasis.

It is a common opinion that the problems of “sex” are eo ipso6 above all the problems of the “body.”7 Hence, there arises a tendency to grant competency in that field almost exclusively to physiology and medicine, and secondarily to psychology. It is also supposed that these sciences will by themselves produce ethical norms. This book grasps this problem in a fundamentally different way. Sexual ethics is a domain of the person. Nothing in it can be comprehended without understanding the person, his being, action, and rights. The personal order is the only plane proper to all reflections in the field of sexual ethics. Physiology or medicine can only supplement these reflections. By themselves they do not constitute a full basis for understanding love and responsibility, yet this is precisely the point in the mutual relations between persons of different sex.

Therefore, all the reflections contained in this book possess a personalistic character. Physiological and medical details will be placed in the footnotes.* At this point, I take the opportunity to thank those persons who facilitated my organizing of those details as well as compiling and reviewing a certain number of bibliographical items.

THE AUTHOR

Author’s Introduction to the Second Polish Edition (1962)

The book titled Love and Responsibility, which was first printed in 1960 due to the efforts of Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL, is hereby published the second time by the Znak publishing house. Problems of sexual ethics are the subject of this book, which is therefore addressed to all those interested in these problems either theoretically or practically. At the beginning of the second edition, just as at the beginning of the first one, some explanations are due concerning the genesis of the book as well as its conception and structure. It is also proper to say right away that the book owes its existence to many co-authors. Some of them consciously supported the author in writing the book, helping him in various ways, for which I wish to thank them cordially. Others contributed to its creation unknowingly by providing incentives for writing it. This, however, is linked to the problem of the book’s genesis.

Love and Responsibility came to be on the basis of two sources, which concurrently provided elements for it. In order to understand these sources and the whole mechanism of their cooperation, one must consider the fact that the author of the book is a priest. Yet priests, as well as the religious, are often denied the competency to speak on sexual matters, precisely on the grounds that they do not personally encounter them the way that lay married people do, that they do not possess personal experience in that field. Due to that fact it must be underscored that it is precisely experience—the indirect experience provided by pastoral work—that is one of the two sources of this book. This work so often places the priest or the religious face to face with sexual problems, in so many diverse moments or situations, that quite a specific experience ensues as a result. It is granted that this experience is not personal but “alien” instead, although at the same time it is more extensive than any exclusively personal experience. It must be added at once that this experience differs from the specialized experience of persons—such as physicians—who also encounter sexual problems in the wide sector of various facts. The point of view specifying this experience is different.

Concerning the genesis of the book, the function of experience is not in any case exclusive, or the only one. Precisely due to the state of the author, besides the experience—yet in a sense through the pastoral experience—a second source was at work. That superior source is the Gospel together with its extension, the teaching of the Church. This source fostered reflections, whereas experience provided facts for confrontation with doctrine. The Gospel contains relatively few texts that speak directly about sexual and conjugal ethics, for example Matthew 5:27–28, Matthew 19:1–13, Mark 10:1–12, Luke 20:27–35, John 8:1–11, 1 Corinthians 7 (the entire chapter), and Ephesians 5:22–33, not to mention extremely significant texts in the Old Testament, especially in Genesis.1 All the above mentioned passages organically inhere in the whole of the Gospel and must be read in this whole as in their essential context. Read in this way, they give an incentive for philosophical reflection. After all, it is well known that not only theology, which employed philosophy as a tool of intellectual speculation, came to be on the basis of Revelation. Revelation also provided a powerful impetus for philosophy—it is sufficient only to mention the conception of being that St. Thomas developed. So it seems that in a somewhat similar manner the Gospel provides an impetus for philosophical reflections concerning sexual problems.

These problems pertain to morality, for this is how they appear in the Gospel and in the teaching of the Church. Therefore, philosophical reflections on them must assume the character of a certain study of ethics (or of “an ethical study,” as the subtitle indicates).2 After all, the aspect of morality is most essential in all sexual problems, as indicated indirectly even by sexology. Morality is a separate sphere of human existence, and especially of human action, that is connected with consciousness and free will. Based on consciousness and free will human acts possess a moral value; they are morally good or bad. As a separate sphere of philosophical reflection, ethics is based on the fact of morality in order to seek above all the rationale for moral good and evil. It is not content with a mere presentation of the norms that direct human morality, but attempts to penetrate more profoundly and explain why human acts in conformity with these norms are morally good or otherwise morally bad. In our case, one of the aforementioned sources, namely experience, draws us closer to the facts concerning a living sexual or conjugal morality. The other source, that is, the Gospel, not only provides ready-made norms, rules of conduct in the field of sexual and conjugal morality, but also considerably helps us in finding the proper rationale for these norms. Thanks to this, it enables philosophical reflection—that is, in our case, ethical reflection in particular—on the totality of sexual problems. The subtitle of the book, namely “an ethical study,” is thereby justified.

Reflection based on the above mentioned sources leads to the personalistic grasp of sexual-conjugal problems, which essentially denotes the main conception of the book. This is evident from the very plan of the book, where chapter I is titled “The Person and the Drive,” chapter II “The Person and Love,” and chapter III “The Person and Chastity.” Chapter IV, “Justice with Respect to the Creator,” perhaps more than the others, concerns the religious presuppositions and consequences of personalism in the sector of sexual ethics. Finally, chapter V constitutes only an attempt (quite incomplete at that) to confront that position in ethics with propositions and recommendations of biological and medical sexology. One must admit that throughout the book biology and medicine occupy much less space than psychology—that is also a consequence of the personalistic conception adopted in the book. The person, even in the sexual sphere, is above all characterized by his “psyche.” Nota bene,3 this psychology possesses in the book a philosophical character, although we very often attempt to proceed by way of phenomenological analysis.

Already in the introduction it is difficult to answer the question whether this book is practical and “relevant to real life.” The answer is important with respect to the recipients of the book. So, as in the first edition, in relation to which this edition is modified a little, I would like to emphasize that nowhere does the book endeavor to present some ready-made formulas or punctilious prescriptions of conduct. It is not casuistic, but attempts to create an integral vision of the problem rather than to provide particular solutions, which nonetheless are already in some way included in this integral vision. The title of the book, Love and Responsibility, seems to indicate this sufficiently. At the same time, while possessing that character, the book counts on further co-authorship: it counts on the fact that it will be continually created, as it were, by those who will thoroughly—both in theory and in practice—ponder or implement its main formulations.

THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER I

The Person and the Drive

Part One

Analysis of the Verb “to use”

The person as the subject and object of action

The world in which we live consists of many objects. The word “object” in this case signifies more or less the same as “a being” (byt).1 This is not the proper meaning of this word, for properly speaking an “object” signifies what is posited in relation to some “subject.” The subject is also a being—a being that in some way exists and acts. It can be said accordingly that the world in which we live consists of many subjects. It would even be suitable to speak about subjects before objects. If this order has been reversed here, this was done in order to emphasize from the first words of this book objectivity, and realism together with it. For when we start from the subject, and in particular from man as the subject, then it is easy to treat everything else that is located outside the subject, namely the whole world of objects, in a merely subjective way, that is, inasmuch as this world reaches the subject’s consciousness, lives in it, and embeds itself in it. It must be clearly recognized from the beginning that every subject is at the same time an objective being, that it is an objective something or somebody.*

Man is objectively a “somebody”—and this distinguishes him from the rest of the beings of the visible world, the beings that objectively are always merely “something.” This simple, elementary distinction conceals a deep abyss that divides the world of persons from the world of things. The objective world, to which we belong, consists of persons and things. A thing is customarily considered a being that is deprived not only of reason, but also of life; a thing is an inanimate object. We will hesitate to call an animal or even a plant a thing. However, nobody speaks convincingly about an animal person. Instead, one speaks about animal individuals, regarding them simply as specimens of a given animal species. And such a description suffices. Yet, it is not sufficient to speak of man as an individual of the species Homo sapiens. The word “person” has been coined in order to stress that man cannot be reduced wholly to what is contained in the concept of a “specimen of the species,” but has in himself something more, some particular fullness and perfection of being. To emphasize this fullness and perfection the word “person” must necessarily be used.

The most proximate and the most proper reason for this is the fact that man possesses reason, that he is a rational being, which by no means can be stated about any other being of the visible world, for in none of them do we encounter any trace of conceptual thinking. What issued hence is the well-known definition of Boethius, according to which the person is simply an individual of a rational nature (individua substantia rationalis naturae).2 This distinguishes the person in the whole world of objective beings; this constitutes the person’s distinctness.

The fact that the person is an individual of a rational nature—that is, an individual to whose nature reason belongs—makes the person at the same time the only subject of its kind among the whole world of beings, a subject that differs completely from subjects such as animals, i.e., beings (especially some of them) that are relatively most similar to man with respect to their bodily constitution. Speaking somewhat descriptively, it must be said that the person as a subject differs from even the most perfect animals by his interiority and a specific life, which is concentrated in it, i.e., an interior life. One cannot speak about this life in the case of animals, even though bio-physiological processes, which are similar to man’s and which are related to the constitution that is more or less similar to that of man, take place inside their organisms. On the basis of this constitution a more or less abundant sensual life develops in them—a life whose functions extend far beyond the elementary vegetation of plants and sometimes deceptively resemble the typical functions of human life: cognition (poznanie) and desire (pożądanie), or, speaking somewhat more broadly about the former function, striving (dążenie).

Cognition and desire in man take on a spiritual character, and therefore they contribute to the formation of the true interior life, which does not occur in animals. The interior life is the spiritual life. It focuses on truth and the good. It also deals with a multitude of problems; it seems that the most central of these are the following two: what is the final cause of everything, and how to be good and possess the fullness of the good. The first of these central problems of man’s interior life primarily engages cognition, whereas the other one engages desire, or rather striving. Besides, both of these functions seem to be something more than functions; they are rather some natural orientations of the whole man-being. It is remarkable that precisely through his interiority and interior life man not only is a person, but at the same time mostly through them inheres in the objective world, in the “external” world, where he inheres in the manner proper and characteristic to him. The person is an objective being, which, as a definite subject, most closely contacts the whole (external) world and most thoroughly inheres in it precisely through his interiority and interior life. It must be added that he contacts in this way not only the visible world, but also the invisible one, and above all God. And this is another manifestation of the person’s distinctness in the visible world.

The contact of the person with the objective world, with reality, is not merely “biological” (przyrodniczy), physical, as is the case with all other creations of nature (przyroda), nor only sensual, as is the case with animals.3 The human person, as a distinctly definite subject, establishes contact with other beings precisely through his interiority, whereas the whole “biological” contact, which also belongs to him—for the person possesses a body and even in a sense “is a body”—and the sensual contact in the likeness of animals do not constitute for him the characteristic ways of connecting with the world.4 Although the connection of the human person with the world begins on the “biological” and sensual basis, it is nevertheless formed in the manner proper to man only in the orbit of the interior life. Here appears a moment characteristic of the person: man not only appropriates the content that reaches him from the external world and reacts to it in a spontaneous or even downright mechanical manner, but in all his relation to this world, to reality, he attempts to make his mark, to state his “I”—and he has to act this way since this is demanded by the nature of his being. Man has a fundamentally different nature from animals. His nature includes the power of self-determination based on reflection and manifested in the fact that, while acting, man chooses what he wants to do.* This power is called free will.5

Thanks to the fact that man—a person—possesses free will, he is also a master of himself, sui iuris, as the Latin phrase declares of the person.6 A second characteristic property of the person remains closely linked to this distinctive feature of his. The Latin of philosophers grasped this property in the statement that the person is alteri incommunicabilis—nontransferable, incommunicable.7 The point in this case is not to emphasize that the person is always some unique and unrepeatable being, as this can also be stated about any other being: about an animal, a plant, or a stone. This nontransferability or incommunicability of the person is most closely linked with his interiority, with self-determination, with free will. No one else can will in my stead.8 No one can substitute his act of the will for mine. It happens that sometimes someone wants very much for me to want what he wants. What is then best made manifest is this impassable boundary between him and me, the boundary that is determined precisely by free will. I can not want what he wants me to want—and precisely in this I am incommunicabilis. I am and should be self-reliant in my actions.9 All human interactions are based on this presupposition, and the truth about education (wychowanie) and about culture is reduced to it.10

For man is not only the subject of action, but he also at times is its object.11 At every step acts occur that have the other man as their object. Within the theme of this book, which is sexual morality, we will continually speak precisely about such acts. In relations between persons of different sex, and especially in sexual intercourse, a woman is constantly an object of some action of a man, and a man, an object of a woman’s action. Therefore, first it would be proper to become aware, at least briefly, of who is the one who acts—the subject, and who is the one toward whom the action turns—the object of action. It is already known that both the subject and the object of action are persons. Now, we need to consider well the principles that the action of man must comply with when the object of this action is another human person.*

The first meaning of the verb “to use”

Precisely for this purpose we must thoroughly analyze the verb “to use.” It signifies a certain objective form of action. To use means to employ some object of action as a means to an end, namely to the end for which the acting subject strives. The end is always that for the sake of which we act. The end also suggests the existence of means (by means we understand the objects on which our action centers for the sake of the end we intend to attain). By nature, then, a means is subordinated to an end, and, at the same time, it is also to a certain degree subordinated to the one who acts. It cannot be otherwise, since the one who acts makes use of means for the sake of his end—the very expression suggests a subordinate and, so to speak, “servile” relation of the means with respect to the acting subject: the means serves both the end and the subject.

So, it seems beyond doubt that various things or beings, which are only individuals, that is, specimens of their species, can and should remain in such a relation to man-person. Man in his diverse activity makes use of the whole created world. He takes advantage of its resources for these ends, which he posits himself, because he alone understands them. This attitude of man toward inanimate nature (przyroda), whose riches mean so much to economic life, or toward animate nature (przyroda), whose energy and values man assimilates, in principle does not raise doubts. The only thing that is demanded from the rational human being is that he does not destroy and squander these natural resources, and that he uses them with the moderation that will not impede the personal development of man himself and will guarantee for human societies a just and harmonious coexistence. In particular, concerning the relation to animals—the beings endowed with sensation and sensibility to pain—it is demanded from man that the use of these beings never involves torment or physical torture.*

All these are simple principles that are easily understandable by every normal man. The problem begins when a relation to another man, to another human person is concerned. Is it permissible to treat this person as a means to an end and use him in this manner? The problem posited in this question possesses a very broad scope; it extends over many spheres of human life and interactions. Let us take, for example, such cases as the organization of work in a factory, the relation of a commanding officer to a soldier in an army, or even the relation of parents to a child in a family. Does not the employer use a worker, thus a human person, for the purpose of attaining the ends he chose himself? Does not the commanding officer employ soldiers under his command for conducting certain military objectives, which are intended by him and sometimes known only by him? Do not parents, who alone understand the ends for which they educate their children, treat the children in a sense as means to an end, since the children themselves do not understand those ends and do not consciously strive for them? Yet both a worker and a soldier are adults and fully-mature (pełnowartościowy)12 persons, and a child—even if unborn—cannot be denied personhood in the most objective ontological sense, even though it is true that the child is meant to acquire only gradually many characteristics that determine that personhood in the psychological and ethical senses.13

The same problem will emerge as we delve deeply into the analysis of the whole reciprocal woman-man relation, which is the basis for the reflections in the field of sexual ethics.* We will discover this problem in, so to speak, various layers of our analysis. Does not a woman in sexual intercourse serve for a man as something of a means for him to attain various ends of his, precisely those ends that he seeks to realize in sexual intercourse? Similarly, does not a man serve for a woman as a means of attaining her own ends?

For the time being let us be content with posing questions that implicate a very essential ethical problem—a problem that is not first of all psychological but precisely ethical.† For a person should not be merely a means to an end for another person.* This is excluded due to the very nature of the person, due to what every person simply is. For the person is a subject that is thinking and capable of self-determination—these are two properties that first of all we discover in the interiority of the person. Accordingly then, every person is capable by his nature to define his ends himself.14 When someone else treats a person exclusively as a means to an end, then the person is violated in what belongs to his very essence and at the same time constitutes his natural right. It is clear that it must be demanded from the person, as a thinking individual, that those ends be truly good, for striving for evil ends is contrary to the rational nature of the person.† This also explains the sense of education, both the education of children as well as the reciprocal education of people in general. The point is precisely to seek true ends, that is, true goods as ends of action, and to find and show ways for their realization.

But in this educational activity, especially in the case of educating small children, a person must never be treated as a means to an end. This principle has the most universal scope; no one may use a person as a means to an end: neither any man nor even God the Creator.* Indeed, this is excluded most completely on the part of God, because he, by the very fact of giving a rational and free nature to the person, decided that the person himself will define the ends of action and will not serve as a tool for the ends of others. Therefore, if God intends to direct man to some ends, first and foremost he lets him know these ends, so that man can make them his own and strive for them on his own.15 In this, among others, lies the deepest logic of Revelation: God lets man know the supernatural end, but the decision to strive for this end, its choice, is left to man’s freedom.16 Therefore, God does not save man against his will.

This elementary truth—that the person may not be a means of action as opposed to all other objects of action, which are not persons—is thus the exponent of the natural moral order. Thanks to this truth, this order acquires personalistic properties: the order of nature, which also includes personal beings, must possess such properties. Perhaps it is not irrelevant to add at this point that at the end of the eighteenth century Immanuel Kant formulated this elementary principle of the moral order in the following imperative: “Act in such a way so that the person is never a mere means of your action, but always an end.”17 In light of the previous reflections, this principle should not so much be formulated in the wording Kant gave to it, but rather as follows: “Whenever the person is an object of action in your conduct, remember that you may not treat him merely as a means to an end, as a tool, but [you must] take into account that the person himself has or at least should have his end.”18 The principle thus formulated stands at the basis of every properly comprehended freedom of man, especially freedom of conscience.†

Love as the opposite of “using”

The whole previous reflection on the first meaning of the verb “to use” gives us only a negative solution to the problem of the proper relation to the person. The person may not be either exclusively or first and foremost an object of use, because the role of a blind tool or a means to an end intended by another subject is contrary to the nature of the person.

In turn, when we seek a positive solution to the same problem, then love appears—but only, so to speak, at first glance—as the only distinct opposite of using the person in the role of a means to an end or of a tool of one’s own action. For it is evident that I can strive for the other person to will the same good that I will. Clearly, this other person must recognize this end of mine and acknowledge it as a good; he must make it also his own end. Then, between myself and this other person a particular bond is born: the bond of a common good and a common end, which binds us. This particular bond is not limited to the fact that we strive together for a common good, but unites the acting persons “from within”—and then it constitutes the essential core of every love. In any case, love between persons is unthinkable without some common good, which binds them.* This good precisely is at the same time the end which both of these persons choose. When different persons consciously choose an end together, this makes them equal to each other, thereby excluding a subordination of one person to another. So, both persons (although more than two persons can be bound by a common end) are in a sense uniformly and equally subordinated to that good, which constitutes a common end. When we look at man, then we perceive in him an elementary need for the good, a natural urge and tendency toward it—although this does not yet manifest the capacity to love. In animals we observe manifestations of instinct that are analogically directed. But instinct itself does not yet determine the capacity to love. People, however, possess such a capacity linked to free will. The capacity to love is determined by the fact that man is ready to seek the good consciously with others, to subordinate himself to this good because of others, or to subordinate himself to others because of this good. Only persons can love.

Love in reciprocal relations between people is not something readily available. Love is first of all a principle or an idea, which people must live up to, so to speak, in their conduct if they want—and they should want—to liberate it from a utilitarian, i.e., consumer (Latin consumere—to use up), attitude toward other persons.19 Let us return for a moment to the examples put forward previously. A serious danger of treating the worker merely as a means exists in the employer-worker relationship; this is demonstrated by various faulty ways of organizing labor. If, however, the employer and the worker arrange their whole interaction in such a way that the common good, which they both serve, will be clearly visible in it, then the danger of treating the person as less than what he truly is will be diminished and almost eliminated. For love will gradually eliminate in the conduct of both interested parties a purely utilitarian or consumer attitude toward the person of the worker. Much has been simplified in this example while retaining only the essential core of the issue. The case is similar with the second example regarding the relation of the commanding officer to the soldier. When both of them are bound by a certain basic attitude of love (of course, the point does not concern the very affection of love) evoked by the shared search for the common good, which in this case is the defense or safety of the homeland, this is simply because they both desire the same thing. We cannot speak merely about using the person of the soldier as a blind tool or a means to an end.

This whole reflection* must be applied in turn to the woman-man relationship, which constitutes the basis of sexual ethics. In this relationship as well—and indeed particularly in it—only love is able to exclude the use of one person by another. Love, as has been said, is conditioned by the common relation of persons to the same good that they choose as an end and to which they subordinate themselves. Marriage is one of the most important areas for realizing this principle. For in marriage, two persons, a woman and a man, unite in such a way that they become in a sense “one flesh” (to use the words of the Book of Genesis), that is, so to speak, one common subject of sexual life.20 How can it be ensured that a person does not then become for the other—a woman for a man, and a man for a woman—merely a means to an end, that is, an object used to attain only one’s own end? In order to exclude this possibility, both of them must then have a common end. Concerning marriage, this end is procreation, progeny, the family, and at the same time the whole constantly growing maturity of the relationship between both persons in all the spheres brought by the spousal relationship itself.

This whole objective finality of marriage fundamentally creates the possibility of love, and fundamentally excludes the possibility of treating the person as a means to an end and as an object of use. However, in order for the former possibility to be realized within the framework of the objective finality of marriage, we must consider more attentively the very principle that excludes the possibility of one person treating another person as an object of use in the whole sexual context. The very recognition of the objective finality of marriage does not yet completely solve the problem.

For it seems that the sexual sphere in particular presents many occasions to treat the person—even unknowingly*—as an object of use. In addition, it must be taken into account that the entire sphere of sexual morality is broader than the sphere of conjugal morality alone, and that it encompasses many issues from the area of interaction or even coexistence of men and women. So, within the framework of this interaction or coexistence, all must constantly with all the conscientiousness and with a full sense of responsibility attend to this fundamental good of each and every one—the good that is simply “humanity,” or, in other words, the value of the human person. If we treat this fundamental woman-man relationship as broadly as possible and not only within the boundaries of marriage, then love in this relationship is identified with a particular readiness to subordinate oneself to the good that is “humanity,” or speaking more precisely, the value of the person, despite the whole distinctiveness of sex. In fact, this subordination by all means obliges in marriage itself, and the objective ends of this institution can be realized only in accord with this broadest principle that results from acknowledging the value of the person in the whole expanded sexual context. This context creates an altogether specific sphere of morality—whereas with respect to science, a specific sphere of ethical problems—in reference to both marriage and many other forms of interaction or simply of coexistence concerning persons of different sex.21

The second meaning of the verb “to use”

In order to comprehend these problems in their totality, it is necessary to reflect further on the second meaning that is quite often applied to the verb “to use.” Various emotional-affective moments or states accompany our thinking and acts of the will, i.e., what constitutes the objective structure of human action. They precede the action itself, go hand in hand with it, or finally manifest themselves in the consciousness of man when the action is already complete.* The emotional-affective moments or states themselves are a separate theme, as it were, which weaves and forces itself sometimes with great strength and insistence into the whole objective structure of human acts. An objective act itself would at times be something pale and almost unnoticeable to the consciousness of man if it were not manifested and sharply delineated in that consciousness by variously colored emotional-affective lived-experiences.22 Moreover, these emotional and affective moments or states usually exercise some influence on what determines the objective structure of human acts.

For the time being we shall not analyze this problem in detail, for we shall need to return to it repeatedly throughout the book. At this point, our attention must be directed to one thing only: the emotional-affective moments and states, which mean so much in the whole interior life of man, are in principle colored positively or negatively, as if they contained in themselves a positive or negative interior charge. The positive charge is pleasure, whereas the negative one is pain. Pleasure occurs in various shapes or shades, depending on the emotional-affective lived-experiences to which it is bound: either as sensual satisfaction, as affective contentment, or as a deep and thorough joy. Pain also depends on the character of the emotional-affective lived-experiences evoking it and occurs in various shapes, kinds, or shades: as sensual pain, as affective discontent, or as deep sorrow.

Here we must turn our attention to the particular richness, variety, and intensity of these emotional-affective moments and states occurring when a person of the other sex is an object of action. They then color this action in a specific way and confer on it some exceptional vividness. This pertains especially to some actions that are linked with the reciprocal relations between persons of different sex and with sexual intercourse itself between a woman and a man. And therefore, precisely within the scope of these actions, the second meaning of the verb “to use” is particularly sharply delineated. To use means to experience (przeżywać) pleasure—the pleasure that in various shades is linked to action and to the object of action. It is known that this object of action in the reciprocal relations of a woman and a man and in their sexual intercourse is always a person. And the person becomes a proper source of variously colored pleasure or even delight.