Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

60 BRIAN V. JOHNSTONEacter of the notion is similar to that later attributed to the “personadequately considered,” by contemporary authors. 37 Thecontent ascribed to “natura humana adequate considerata,” is insome respects similar to, but also different from that accordedto “persona humana adequate considerata.”However, the most important point is not the content itself,but the basis on which the various elements of that content areselected. Brosnahan presents a version of the Suarezian norm,“rational nature” as the basis of his selection of those elementswhich belong to nature adequately considered. But what is theprinciple of selection in choosing those features ascribed to“the person adequately considered?” Selling proposes that thesevarious elements are made available by “phenomenology.” 39 Butthis seems to be a rather vaguely defined kind of phenomenology;it is not clear whether the word, as used here, means whatphilosophers mean when they use the expression. 40 But even ifsuch elements are discovered by phenomenology, on what basisare they selected and ascribed to the person? I do not find, inthe article under consideration, an answer to this question.I propose that we need to restore the teleological notion ofthe person, so that we can meaningfully ask what is the person“for” and so discern what is the good of the person. This Iwould explain in terms of receiving and giving: a person is onewho is teleologically ordered to receiving and giving. Thisnotion gives us a basis for selecting the characteristics of theperson, namely, what is required for one to be a receiver of giftsand a giver of gifts to others. Such a notion, I suggest, providesa framework for selecting the constituent elements of the “person,”a explanation of why they count as values, and a way ofdetermining which values have priority. This, I would argue, isto be preferred to the unstructured phenomenology and rather36Bourke, History , 123.37For example, in Selling, “The Human Person,” 99-107.38Brosnahan’s account is of “rational nature looked at in itself and inits essential relations.” These include a composite, individual nature, asocial nature and a created nature, as a member of a universal order.Prolegomena, 183.39Selling, “The Human Person,” 96.40Cf. Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2000).