Note: The ethical judgments on this page refer exclusively to actions and structural conditions — never to the affected persons. Every person possesses inalienable dignity, regardless of their living circumstances. Cf. Note on ethical judgments (German).
Homelessness is the condition of having no protected living space. It constitutes a serious impairment of the First Dimension of personhood and is a form of structural oblivion of the person on the part of society.
The personal-ontological analysis of homelessness differs essentially from a merely sociological or economic approach. The person is, as a body-soul unity, essentially bodily and thus dependent on a protected space in which the most fundamental conditions of its existence are fulfilled: protection, warmth, privacy, rest. These conditions belong to the First Dimension of personhood, which encompasses the mere being-there as a person. Where they are lacking, the person is threatened in its most elementary mode of existence.
Homelessness is therefore not primarily an economic but a personal-ontological problem: it fails to recognize that every person, as Someone, has a claim to those conditions of life that are necessary for the preservation of its dignity. The Personalist Norm — the person is to be affirmed for its own sake — obliges the community to provide for conditions under which personhood can unfold.
As a practical oblivion of the person, homelessness has a particular structure. It is not necessarily the deed of a single perpetrator, but often the result of structural failures — of a society that does not sufficiently realize the Personalist Norm in its institutional order. This touches on the question of justice and the common good. A just social order must secure the basic conditions of personal existence for all its members.
Homelessness concerns not only the First Dimension: it also makes more difficult, or impossible, the unfolding of the Second Dimension (the realization of personal faculties) and of the Third Dimension (the free turning toward the other in love and self-transcendence). Whoever has no place where they can be lacks the ground from which they can unfold.
The dignity of the homeless person remains, of course, untouched — it is grounded in personhood and not in external circumstances. But precisely for that reason homelessness is a scandal: because the person has dignity, it has a claim that this dignity also be respected in the conditions of life.
Ontological classification
Superordinate concepts: Practical Oblivion of the Person
Ontological relations:
- structurally violates: First Dimension of personhood
- fails to recognize: Personalist Norm at the societal level
- concerns: Common Good, Justice
Chapter assignment: Chapter 5: Oblivion of the Person (German)
Homeland
Homeland is the place of rootedness and belonging. It is the lived space in which the person knows itself sheltered and which co-shapes its identity. Homeland is not a merely geographical concept, but a personal one: it encompasses the relationships, the language, the culture, and the community into which a person is born and into which it has grown. As a subordinate concept of territory, homeland belongs to the spatial dimension of personhood. The loss of homeland through displacement constitutes a serious form of practical oblivion of the person, because it tears the person out of the network of its constitutive relationships.
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: Territory
Dignified Space
A dignified space is a space that promotes the actualization of all three dimensions of personhood: safe with respect to the First Dimension, accessible and open to encounter with respect to the Second Dimension, dignifiedly shaped with respect to the Third Dimension. The concept connects the spatial order with the Personalist Norm: spaces are not value-neutral, but can promote or hinder the unfolding of the person. Homelessness, for instance, constitutes a serious impairment of the First Dimension and a structural form of oblivion of the person. Every human being has a claim to a space that corresponds to its dignity.
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: Territory
Public Space
Public space is the common, freely accessible space of the political community. It forms the spatial condition of political participation and is thereby essential for the actualization of the Third Dimension of personhood. In public space persons encounter one another as citizens, enter into political discourse, and co-shape the commonwealth. As territory, public space stands in tension with the dwelling as the protected private space. A dignified public space must be accessible to all and respect the dignity of every person.
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: Territory
Dwelling
The dwelling is the protected, private space of the person and the family. It is the spatial expression of the right to privacy and forms, as a place, the innermost circle of the living space. In the dwelling the person can come to rest, cultivate its interiority, and, in the shelter of the family, actualize the Second Dimension of personhood. The loss of the dwelling — homelessness — constitutes a serious impairment of the First Dimension and is a structural form of oblivion of the person.
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: Place
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology. Bexten 2017, pp. 261–274 (dimensions of personhood and their impairment by structural oblivion of the person).
Further sources:
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 58, a. 1; q. 61, a. 1—2 (justice and what is owed; distributive justice as a duty of the community).