The personalist principle

Abstract

With this article the author wishes to initiate a discussion aimed at the theoretical clarification and penetration of the key notions involved in “personalist” ethics. The article addresses the manner in which the personalist principle is embedded in the reasoning characteristic of the theoretical part of classical ethics. This reasoning consists in considering as good, ethically rational, the free actions by which a man becomes perfectly happy, and in regarding as bad (or at least not good), ethically irrational, the human actions by which he moves away from this end or fails to reach it. Thus integrated, the classical methodology shows itself to be equally valid and fruitful in applied ethics, which aims to identify the kinds of human conduct by which a man lives well in his various existential circumstances. Finally, the author seeks to illustrate this thesis by way of the formulation of the most important and universal ethical principles concerning the content of the ideal order of the good life.