PHILOSOPHIC LEGACY OF JP2

The following is adapted from an interview with Mexican philosopher Rodrigo Guerra López, regarded as one of the major experts on Karol Wojtyla's thought. In this interview (found at http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=2041), Guerra López speaks about Wojtyla's intellectual legacy.

One of Karol Wojtyla's most original contributions

in the area of morality consists

in the rereading he does of Kant's ethics in several articles

and

in the book Love and Responsibility.

In these texts we are able to appreciate how Wojtyla holds that

there is a concrete and primary categorical imperative

for the conscience of every human being:

The person must be affirmed for himself!

He must never be treated as a mere means!

This idea has been explicitly formulated

in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor.

Another philosophical contribution is the way Wojtyla expresses that

action gives a special moment of knowledge of the truth

in his book entitled Person and Act [The Acting Person].