WOJTYLIAN CRITIQUE OF KANTIAN MORALITY AND PROPOSAL OF THE UNCONDITIONAL PERSONALISTIC NORM

The main objective of this inquiry is to examine the reach and influence of the Unconditional Norm throughout Karol Wojtyła’s thinking in order to understand the Wojtylian personalistic norm and to propose it as the basis for all social interactions. To this end, our primary method is obtained from the study of Kant’s Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, which exposes the theory of imperatives and in a special way is able to show, as opposed to utilitarianism, how it is that a person can never be a mere means, but is rather an end in itself. This Kantian concept had a profound impact on Wojtyła, who was also critical of utilitarian ethics and thus found great inspiration in the Kantian proposal. However, Wojtyła goes beyond the Kantian proposal because, although they coincide in many points, Wojtyła felt that the subject of experience was not sufficiently addressed, given that it had an a priori, and therefore insufficient, perspective of the personal self. Wojtyła’s Aristotelian-Thomist education, driven by the discovery of Max Scheler’s phenomenology, gave substance to a very original doctrine in both method and projection.