4.1 Three Dimensions of Human Personhood
🇩🇪 Deutsche Version: 4.1 Drei Dimensionen des menschlichen Personseins
We now come to the heart of this chapter. So far we have shown: the human being is a spiritual independent being in the body — a person. This personhood is his first actuality, his underlying being, which makes all capacities and actions possible in the first place.
But that is not all. For this one personhood has an inner depth that unfolds in three dimensions. These three dimensions are not three different things, but three aspects of one and the same reality — like the three dimensions of a three-dimensional body. Take one away, and the whole collapses.
4.1.1 The Basic Idea
Blaise Pascal, the great French thinker of the seventeenth century, once called the human being a “thinking reed”1: fragile as a blade of grass in the wind, and yet greater than the whole universe, because he knows that he is fragile. The universe knows nothing of this.
How can this tension be understood? By recognizing that human personhood is not one-dimensional, but has three dimensions, which build on one another and interpenetrate one another.
4.1.2 Overview of the Three Dimensions
The first dimension is the fundamental spiritual existence as a person. It is what makes the human being a person from the fusion of the germ cells onward — even before he can consciously think, feel, or will. The inalienable dignity of every human being is grounded in this dimension.
The second dimension is conscious, rationally free personhood. It unfolds when the human being awakens to consciousness and begins to live his personhood actively: to think, to will, to feel, to act, to relate to others.
The third dimension is the moral perfecting or degradation of the person. It shows itself in how the human being deals with his freedom: whether he does the good and so perfects himself — or does evil and so damages himself morally.
Important: each higher dimension presupposes the preceding one. But even when the second and third dimensions are not yet unfolded — as with the embryo — the first dimension is already fully there. And with it the whole of personhood, the full dignity, the full right to life.
4.1.3 First Dimension: The Fundamental Spiritual Existence
The first dimension of human personhood is the most fundamental and at the same time the hardest to grasp. It is what makes the human being a person — before anything visible happens. Before the first neuron fires. Before the heart beats for the first time.
What Distinguishes the Human Being from a Stone?
Both consist of matter. Both occupy space. Both exist in time. And yet the difference is immeasurable.
The stone is simply there. It has no interior, no depth, no self. It is a something, not a someone.
The human being, by contrast — even as a tiny embryo — is a someone. He has an interior, even if this interior is not yet consciously experienced. He stands in himself.
This standing-in-oneself, this having-a-ground-of-one’s-own, is what the philosopher Hedwig Conrad-Martius calls the “hypokeimenal pneumatic being”2 — literally translated: the underlying spiritual being.
Why “Spiritual”?
Because what distinguishes the human being from all other earthly beings is his spiritual principle of life. This principle is not measurable, not weighable, not visible under the microscope. But it is no less real for that.
But — and this is decisive for the first dimension — one need not be actually engaged in spiritual activity in order to be a spiritual being. The embryo does not yet recognize that . But it is a being that by its nature is capable of cognition.
What Exactly Does the Spiritual Foundation Consist In?
The spiritual foundation of human personhood has several essentially necessary characteristics:
First: the human person is real. He really exists — not merely as an idea, not merely as a social construction.
Second: the human person stands in himself. He is an independent being, not merely a part or a function of a larger whole.
Third: the human person is unique and indivisible. There is no second Socrates, no second Mary.
Fourth: the human person possesses the possibility of unfolding consciousness as an active disposition.
All these characteristics already belong to the first dimension. They are there as soon as the human being is there.
What Distinguishes a Material Being from a Spiritual Being
A stone bears its existence passively. It has no relation to itself.
Only with the human being does something fundamentally new appear: the human being not only has being — he has a relation to his being. He is not merely there — he knows (or can know) that he is there.
This having-a-relation-to-oneself is what fundamentally distinguishes the human person from all other earthly beings. It is the hallmark of the spiritual mode of existence.
Why This Already Holds for the Embryo
Someone might object: “The embryo has no consciousness yet. So it does not yet have this spiritual foundation.”
This objection confuses the first dimension with the second. The first dimension — the fundamental spiritual existence — is precisely the one that presupposes no actual consciousness. It is there before consciousness awakens.
The embryo possesses the spiritual foundation as an active disposition. Its spiritual principle of life — its soul — already informs its whole body, from the first cell onward. That is why the embryo, from its first moment, is a spiritual independent being in the body — a person.3
The Ontological Dynamism of the Person
It would be a misunderstanding to picture the spiritual being of the person as something rigid and immobile. Quite the opposite is true.
The spiritual being of the person is dynamic. It is a “being-able-to-be-oneself”, as Conrad-Martius puts it.4 The person not only has his being — he is capable of his being. He can unfold, develop, and realize himself.
For the substantiality of the human person cannot be perceived by empirical-inductive means alone. What substantiality designates is rather the dynamic-spiritual, unity-founding ontological understructure that normally consciously bears — and thereby possesses — a rational nature.
Ontological Relationality
One last aspect of the first dimension should be highlighted: already in the first dimension, already in the fundamental spiritual being-there, relatedness to others is co-given. The human being is not first an isolated being that only subsequently enters into relation. He is from the very beginning a being-in-relation.
4.1.4 Second Dimension: Conscious, Free Personhood
The second dimension of human personhood is the one that first comes to mind for most people when they think of “personhood”: the conscious, rational, free experiencing and acting of the human being.
The Transition from the First to the Second Dimension
The second dimension presupposes the first. It builds upon it. It is the unfolding of what was already there in the first dimension as a disposition.
This transition does not happen suddenly. It happens gradually, in a process of maturing and growing. But this process does not produce personhood — it unfolds it. Personhood was already there. Now it shows itself.
What Characterizes the Second Dimension?
The second dimension is marked by several essential characteristics:
Self-consciousness: The human being knows that he exists. He says “I”.
Reason: The human being can know truth. He can judge.
Freedom: The human being can choose. He is not locked into a single pattern of behavior. He can decide: for this or that, for the good or for evil, for truth or lies. This freedom is not merely a choice between options. It is, as Robert Spaemann emphasizes, the capacity for self-determination in the radical sense: in acting, the human being decides at the same time who he is and who he wants to be.5
Intentionality: The human being is able to direct himself consciously toward something. His mind is open to reality.
Responsibility: Because the human being is free, he is also responsible.
Being Master of Oneself
A particularly profound characteristic of the second dimension is being master of oneself. The conscious human being is master of himself. He can rise above his drives. He can say no where everything in him screams yes.
No animal can do any of this in this strict sense. The animal follows its instincts. The human being, by contrast, can take a stance toward his own feelings.
Personal Action and Animal Activity
The human being alone can perform actions in the proper sense. He alone can realize actions personally and first-causally by virtue of his free will. The classical tradition distinguishes between the actus humanus — the conscious, free, personal action — and the actus hominis — an activity that the human being does indeed perform, but which does not proceed from his conscious freedom, such as breathing or the heartbeat.6
The Opening to the Thou
The second dimension is directed not only inward but also outward. The conscious human being can recognize a Thou. He can encounter another human being — not merely as an object, but as a person.
For the human person, the personal self, the personal I of the other becomes visible and experienceable in his body. The human face radiates the metaphysical sublimity and inalienable personal dignity of the human being. Perceiving this axiologically significant reality, however, requires recognizing the other human being as a human person. This holds especially for the unborn human person. “The recognition of selfhood is always an act of freedom”, as Spaemann emphasizes.7
Personhood and Person-Behavior in the Second Dimension
In the second dimension, the relation between personhood and person-behavior shows itself with particular clarity. The human being now exercises person-behavior. This person-behavior is the “second actuality”.
But here, too, the same holds: person-behavior does not constitute personhood. It presupposes it.
The narrowing of the concept of person to the second dimension is the core of the empirical-functionalist understanding of the person — and is therefore to be rejected as inadequate.
Rights and Duties
From the second dimension also arise the rights and duties that the human being possesses as a conscious and free person. The embryo, as a person of the first dimension, has the right to life and to the protection of his dignity. But he has (as yet) no duties, because he cannot (as yet) act consciously and freely.
The conscious human being, by contrast, has both: rights and duties.
4.1.5 Third Dimension: Moral Perfection and Self-Transcendence
The third dimension of human personhood is the dimension of authenticity. It asks: What does the human being make of what he is? Does he live up to his calling?
What Is Meant by “Perfection”
The human being can do more. He can not only be — he can realize his being. And this happens through his free, conscious, responsible action.
When a human being knows and affirms the true, when he does the good, when he loves and gives himself — then he realizes his authenticity. Philosophy calls this the “ontological truth” of the person.
Conversely: when a human being denies the truth, refuses the good — then he misses his ontological truth. He becomes an “ontological lie”.
Moral Values and Disvalues
The third dimension is concerned above all with moral values. What are moral values? They are those values that essentially presuppose the freedom of the person. Justice, honesty, courage, mercy, fidelity — all these are moral values, which arise only where a human being freely chooses them.
The decisive point is: even if a human being loses all qualitative values — if he becomes a criminal — he never loses his ontological value, his inalienable dignity. Only in a qualitative respect can one legitimately speak of someone as “inhuman” (Unmensch) — ontologically, even the worst criminal is still a person with inalienable dignity.
Self-Transcendence
A key concept of the third dimension is self-transcendence. Self-transcendence literally means: surpassing oneself. The human being is capable of going beyond himself. He can open himself — to truth, to the good, to the beautiful, to the other human being.
This self-transcendence is no luxury. It belongs to the essence of the person.
The opposite of self-transcendence is being curved in upon oneself: the constant circling around oneself. The tradition speaks of the curvatio in se ipsum — the curvature into oneself.8
There is no ethics without this fundamental insight. Spaemann writes: “There is no ethics without metaphysics. We saw this already with regard to the necessity of having to view the other as real, as a thing in itself, in order to experience anything like an obligation toward him at all.”9 The experience of this obligation is nothing other than the experience of the reality of the other as a person. And this experience is an experience of reality.
From the readiness for self-transcendence and for the loving affirmation of the other there also arises the responsibility of the human person to answer for his own deeds and his own conscious life. “To responsibility corresponds care, which transcends all instinctual concern related to self-preservation”, as Spaemann emphasizes.10 This responsibility includes the readiness to face the consequences of one’s own actions — even when that is uncomfortable or painful.
Interpersonality and Love
Self-transcendence necessarily leads to interpersonality: to being related to other persons. The human being is not a solitary being. By his essence he is ordered toward community. He needs the Thou in order to become fully himself.
In conjugal love something happens that brings to light the whole depth of human personhood: two persons give themselves to each other — with body and soul, wholly and without reserve.
Forgiveness as an Expression of Personhood
A particularly revealing phenomenon for understanding the third dimension is forgiveness. For in forgiveness all three dimensions of human personhood show themselves in a striking way.
Forgiveness is an interpersonal event. One cannot forgive a table anything. One cannot forgive a stone anything. Forgiveness presupposes that the other can be charged with a conscious, voluntary wrong. And that presupposes personhood.
Forgiveness only ever happens from person to person. No state can forgive in the proper sense. Only a person can forgive another person — because only a person can make the free decision of the will not to answer a wrong suffered with retaliation, but with forgiveness.
Let us ask: Does it make sense for a mother to say to her deceased child: “I forgive you for having died in the womb”? This statement seems senseless, since the unborn human person still lacks the second and third dimensions. For as Spaemann writes: “Forgiveness presupposes […] guilt, and thus freedom of the person, who ‘herself’ — and not some pre-given way of being (Sosein) — is the ground of her determinate acting.”11 But whoever can act freely can also forgive — and can be forgiven.
The Oblivion of the Person
Oblivion of the person occurs when a human person’s personhood is denied or not recognized. It violates the personalistic norm, which commands that every person be affirmed and loved for her own sake.
The oblivion of the person is the deepest evil in the relationship between human beings. For it denies what the other most deeply is: a someone, not a something.
The Ontological Truth of the Person and the Personalistic Norm
Let us summarize the third dimension: it is the dimension in which it becomes manifest whether a human being realizes or misses his authenticity. But even the human being who misses his authenticity remains a person with inalienable dignity.
From all this follows the personalistic norm, which Karol Wojtyła formulated thus: “The person is to be affirmed and loved for her own sake.”12 No human being may be treated merely as a means. No human being may be instrumentalized. Every human being — from the embryo to the dying, from the genius to the severely disabled, from the saint to the criminal — has a claim to be recognized and affirmed as a person.
It belongs, as Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg emphasizes, “to the essence of the human being that he is a being called to love, that he does not have the choice to love or not to love, but only to love or to miss love.”13
See also:
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Fußnoten
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Pascal, Pensées (1670), fragment 347 (Brunschvicg) / 200 (Lafuma): „Le roseau pensant” — the thinking reed. ↩
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Conrad-Martius, Metaphysische Gespräche (Metaphysical Dialogues, 1921), Halle: Niemeyer, 1921. Cf. also eadem, Die „Seele” der Pflanze (The “Soul” of the Plant, 1934), Breslau: Frankes Verlag, 1934. The expression „hypokeimenales pneumatisches Sein” (hypokeimenal pneumatic being) describes the underlying spiritual being of the person. ↩
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On the objection from monozygotic twinning against this thesis, cf. the endnote in section 4.4.3. ↩
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Conrad-Martius, op. cit. The expression „Sich-selber-Können” (being-able-to-be-oneself) designates the dynamic disposition of the person to unfold itself from an inner ground. ↩
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Spaemann, Personen (Persons, 1998), Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1998, cf. p. 217, p. 227. ↩
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Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (1888), Ia-IIae, q. 1, a. 1. ↩
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Spaemann, Personen (Persons, 1998), Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1998, p. 191. German original: „Die Anerkennung von Selbstsein ist immer ein Akt der Freiheit.” ↩
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The expression curvatio in se ipsum goes back to Augustine; Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos (1956), Ps. 56, and its later adoption by Martin Luther. ↩
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Spaemann, Personen (Persons), op. cit., pp. 209ff. On the necessity of metaphysics for ethics. German original: „Es gibt keine Ethik ohne Metaphysik. Wir sahen das bereits hinsichtlich der Notwendigkeit, den Anderen als wirklich, als Ding an sich betrachten zu müssen, um überhaupt so etwas wie eine Verpflichtung ihm gegenüber zu erfahren.” ↩
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Spaemann, Das Natürliche und das Vernünftige: Essays zur Anthropologie (The Natural and the Rational: Essays in Anthropology, 1987), Munich: Piper, 1987, p. 225. German original: „Der Verantwortung entspricht Sorge, die alles triebhafte, auf Selbsterhaltung bezogene Besorgtsein transzendiert.” ↩
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Spaemann, Personen (Persons, 1998), Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1998, p. 248. German original: „Verzeihung setzt […] Schuld voraus, also Freiheit der Person, die ‚selbst’ — und nicht ein ihr vorgegebenes Sosein — Grund ihres bestimmten Handelns ist.” ↩
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Wojtyła, Liebe und Verantwortung (Love and Responsibility, 1979), Munich: Kösel, 1979. Containing the formulation of the personalistic norm: „persona est affirmanda propter se ipsam” — the person is to be affirmed for her own sake. ↩
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Hengstenberg, Philosophische Anthropologie (Philosophical Anthropology, 1957), Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1957, p. 15. German original: „zum Wesen des Menschen, dass er ein zur Liebe berufenes Wesen ist, dass er nicht die Wahl hat, zu lieben oder nicht zu lieben, sondern nur, zu lieben oder die Liebe zu verfehlen.” ↩