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UNIT 1: HUMAN DIGNITY: ON HUMAN PERSON

LESSON 1 – WHO IS MAN?

WHEEL OF JUSTICE

- provides the framework and the backbone or foundational themes of

the CST (the principles, values and themes drawn from the church’s
exposition of her concern for the plight of the poor, abused, neglected,
lost, least and last by intervening in the temporal or secular affairs with
the gospel and teachings of Jesus for their armor and weapon

Dignity
- the basis and principle of all relations in the society
- combines and hinges all principles and themes from the wheel of
justice

* BASIC THESIS: TO BE HUMAN IS TO BE ETHICAL

- the question WHO IS THE HUMAN PERSON?

- According to Hermann Cohen (probabaly the most important jewish
philosopher of the nineteenth century) – the right approach is treat the
human person as subject and not an object, meaning, acknowledging the
complexity of human life (cannot be boxed)

CATEGORIES

- according to cohen, the medieval philosohers, they are focused on

question of epistemology
- they medievl philosophers define the human being/person by setting
categories or looking for properties, that makes man a man = Essence;
Substance and Accident

Rational soul = Man

Sensient/Sensitive = Animals
Vegetative = Plants
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GOD
ANGELS
DEMONS
MAN
ANIMALS
PLANTS
MINERALS

Man is ate the center – belongs to both Material and Spiritual world,
showing the complexity of the human nature

ENLIGHTENMENT –AGE OF REASON

- everyone is on the race of gaining more knowledge

- man’s rationality is his weapon/power = knowledge is power
- only sin is IGNORANCE
- to have knowledge – to have a better, more secured and a more
peaceful life
- always an advantage to be knowledgeable

COLLAPSE

- ironic consequence of enlightenment (abundance of knowledge)

- instead of having a better, more secured, more peaceful and productive
life due to lavish knowledge, THERE WAS A COLLAPSE which is
unimaginable and unthinkable
- just as we expect that life would be better and more humane,
convenient, efficient for all, loss of million lives and the horrors of war
scourged humankind
- irony: it was initiated by those who are enlightened
- go back to the original question: who is man
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RENEWAL OF PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE

MARTIN BUBER – I THOU

- according to him, when you try to define who is the human person, we
are led to the wrong notion of just coming up with an objective
definition – all the more we become alienated to who the human person
really is because the person becomes less and less THOU or YOU – you
degrade the person – it become an IT and not YOU – just an object of
knowledge and not object of knowledge or experiment
– answering the question who is the human person could not be
answered through logistic statistics, setting parameters or codification
of human behavior

BLAISE PASCAL

– to define something objectively and putting yourself into it as a point

of comparison, it is scary and tremendously fearsome
- the world is an infinite vast universe – situating the human person in
this vast and infinite universe would reduce the human person to
nothingness because he will realize he is just a tiny insignificant speck
of this huge
- but if the human person would connect himself to the
Transcendent/Absolute/Infinite One, he’ll recognize his significance
and the meaning of his life
- He didn't believe in the God of science and philosophy – but he
believes in the God of Abraham, Jacob, Isaac - a personal God

LUDWIG ANDREAS FEUERBACH

- he said we cannot talk about God or transcendence – religion is just an

outward projection of our internal nature
- you don't need to refer to the divine just to be ethical or to know what
should be done or to what to do
- Your concept of God might just be a product of your own imagination,
presumptions, biases and prejudices
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SOREN KIERKEGAARD

- but according to him, if the persons/people’s reference to the

transcendent transform their live, make them better persons, OR
conversion is evident – who are you to judge whether their belief is
genuine or not?
- even if it looks stupid, crazy or ridiculous for you, if it nourishes the
person, there’s veracity in it

DAVID HUME

- you may have reasons to believe that there is transcendent being, not
just presumptions – or believe that there is freedom, or that there is God
- there is also good reason not believe in God and see the obscurity and
loopholes of those proofs, so be it
- if you have reason to believe or not to believe, as long as you have your
basis or reasons, so be it

IMMANUEL KANT

- if we say and believe in the Transcendent One that makes you an

ethical beings – then you must be Ethical in as much as we are obliged
or bounded by these imperatives

3 imperatives of ethics

1. Truth - there is an objective or standard norm - it cannot be it

subjective

2. Freedom – Man should have the capacity to choose between good

and evil that he acclaim. It will be absurd if man’s actions are
predestined by God or that he only acts like a puppet of God. There
will be no ethics if that’s the case.

3. Transformation – there must be a distinction between good and

evil. It will be absurd if both good and are just the same. . There will
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be no ethics if that’s the case. Good is always rewarding and the evil
is always sanctioning.

NIETZCHE

- if there is ethics, what kind of ethics then are we looking for?

- Biblical and Christian ethics are lame because it appears like Ethics for
slaves, for the poor, for the weak, victims, powerless, orphan
- this is a big waste
- why compromise or delay your pursuit of your own excellence just to
lend a hand to weak ones - they would slow you down
- being is about survival that if the weak are known to be weak, it will be
better than they would have not been born at all
- nature selects only the strong and can adapt and the role of human
being is to control himself and win this competition – we are all in a
competition to be the best – only goal in competition – to win and
dominate

- man is capable of making promises and keeping these promises

- man then is capable of entering in a covenant and keeping that
covenant/commitment
- he is capable of making a commitment with God and keep that
commitment

CONCLUSION

In our endeavor to know the Human Person, the Church's social

doctrine strives to indicate the different dimensions of the mystery of
man, who must be approached “in the full truth of his existence, of his
personal being and also of his community and social being,” with special
attention so that the value of the human person may be readily
perceived.