Responsibility means the person’s standing by her own deeds. It presupposes freedom and reason: only one who recognizes what he is doing and acts freely can be responsible (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 259 ff.). The actus humanus, the conscious, free action, is the proper object of responsibility. For the actus hominis (an involuntary action) the human being bears no moral responsibility. Responsibility further presupposes self-consciousness, the knowledge of oneself as an agent, and interiority, for action proceeds from the interior of the person.
Responsibility belongs to the second dimension of personhood, to person-behavior. Virtue is the disposition that makes responsible action habitual. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle see in virtue the perfection of the agent. Wojtyła analyzes phenomenologically how the person realizes herself in responsible action.
The capacity for responsibility is an expression of the person’s dignity. Dignity, however, is not grounded in the actual capacity for responsibility, but in personhood itself (agere sequitur esse). Even one who can no longer act responsibly — the embryo, the human being with dementia — remains a person. In affirmation and love the person takes responsibility for the other. The personalist norm demands: the person may never be used as a mere means.
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: What Is Human Personhood? (esp. 4.7.4)
Care
The personal turning toward a vulnerable or dependent person. Care is not mere assistance or functional provision, but an act that recognizes and affirms the dignity of the other as a someone — precisely in his vulnerability.
Care and Personhood
Care presupposes the person’s capacity for love: only a being capable of love can turn toward the other in his need. In this, care is essentially an interpersonal relation — it occurs between persons and is related to the second dimension of personhood, in which the person realizes herself as a being in relation.
In contrast to mere nursing or provision — which can also be delegated to functions — genuine care is a personal act: it springs from empathy with the situation of the other and from reverence before his person. The personalist norm requires that care never reduce the other to his neediness, but affirm him as a person for his own sake.
Care and Vulnerability
Care is directed especially toward persons whose personhood is indeed inviolable but whose capacity for self-unfolding may be limited: the embryo, the aged human being, the person with dementia, the homeless person. It is precisely here that the personal-ontological principle shows itself, that dignity does not depend on functional capacity but is grounded in personhood itself (cf. first dimension).
Care for the embryo and the unborn child is a paradigmatic case: the person already exists in the full actuality of her personhood, yet can show no person-behavior. Care here recognizes personhood beyond all visible achievement.
Care and the Common Good
A society that institutionally enables and fosters care serves the common good. Conversely, a society that regards care only as a cost factor or delegates it to technology is in danger of the oblivion of the person. The question whether artificial intelligence can provide care is, from a personal-ontological standpoint, to be answered clearly: AI can take over functions of provision, but not the personal turning-toward that constitutes genuine care — for AI possesses neither capacity for love nor empathy nor conscience.
Care and the Third Dimension
In its deepest form, care is an expression of the third dimension of personhood: moral perfection. Whoever cares for the other realizes self-gift and grows in virtue. Thus care is a form of personal unfolding not only for the one who receives, but also for the one who gives.
Ontological Classification
- Superclass: interpersonal relation
- Presupposes: capacity for love
- Dimension: second dimension (interpersonality), third dimension (moral perfection)
Ontological classification: Superordinate concept: interpersonal relation; subordinate concept: ecological responsibility
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics, III, 1–5 (voluntariness and imputability as conditions of responsibility)
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, I-II, qq. 6–7 (voluntarium and actus humanus)
- Wojtyła, Karol (1969): Osoba i czyn. Kraków (English: The Acting Person, transl. Andrzej Potocki, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979). (Phenomenological analysis of responsible action)