Defending Human Dignity: John Paul II and Political Realism.

McDermott, John M.

DEFENDING HUMAN DIGNITY: JOHN PAUL II AND POLITICAL REALISM. By Derek S. Jeffreys. Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2004. Pp. 235. $19.95.

Arguing that Pope John Paul II used many of Max Scheler's insights, Jeffreys defends the pope's political vision against both political realists and idealists. John Paul's personalistic hierarchy of values, supported by moral norms, allowed him to recognize with "realists" mankind's fallen state, without abandoning normative morality in international relations. The intuitive recognition of a value hierarchy let John Paul overcome the impasse between proportionalist (consequentialist) thinkers (whose insistence on a common measure of value justifies the performance of "evil" to realize a greater good) and basic goods theorists (with their incommensurability of goods). Not only is an "ought" given in immediate experience (not dependent upon a previous "is"), but also spiritual values, as indivisible, surpass material values and are not commensurate with them in a calculation of consequences. The value of the free human person has to be acknowledged and respected in all moral political decisions. J. perceptively notes in the pope's own thought the tension between metaphysical (Thomistic) and phenomenological strands, seeing them as complementary.

P.'s first chapter lays the groundwork in the pope's understanding of the human person, emphasizing the individual knowing subject whose freedom is realized in self-gift. Yet he does not adequately recognize the relationality of personhood. The person is originally both "in-himself" (metaphysical emphasis) and "relation" (phenomenological emphasis). This would both ground better "structures of sin" and "rights of nations" through an analogous application of responsibility, and explain the balance between "liberal" interventionist (universal human rights) and "realist" non-interventionist (sovereignty of particular nations) emphases in the pope's thought. Beyond the papal criteria regarding intervention (174), one senses the contemporary need for greater reflection on how respect for personal values influences the final judgment for or against intervention in international politics. J.'s rejection of traditional proportionalism in just war theories (139-45) only complicates the matter. Quantity (matter) and quality (spirit) may be irreducible for human intelligence, but they form the human person; more reflection on universal norms and their individual applications as well as on formal and final causes is required. J.'s is a very fine book on a complex topic.

JOHN M. MCDERMOTT, S.J.

Pontifical College Josephinum, Columbus, Ohio