“[T]he promotion of the realization of the personhood of other persons is always included in the natural telos of every person pursuing the realization of his or her personhood. In other words, an innate part of any person’s quest to achieve the flourishing of his or her personal being is — given the relational nature of personhood — to likewise advance the flourishing of the personal being of other persons. The achievement of the natural human end of flourishing personhood is not like an individual sport in which distinct contenders compete in zero-sum games of elimination. It is like a team sport in which the victory of each player is dependent upon the success of the other players, such that being a member of an excellent athletic squad requires not only excelling as an individual athlete but also doing all one can to foster the athletic accomplishments of one’s teammates. So it is impossible to work to develop one’s personal self without also working to help other persons develop their personhood. Performing the latter is intrinsically a part of achieving the former. For this reason, striving toward the natural human telos involves a profound mutuality and synergy in which interacting persons-moving-toward-their-true-ends necessarily encourage and advance the progress of each other toward their telos.
“The underlying model of the good of personhood is therefore one of gift giving and exchange — that, as opposed to zero-sum competition, conflict, or domination. Persons moving-toward-the-natural-human-telos, as an intrinsic part of that movement, give to other persons the gifts involved in caring about and promoting their distinct personhood. And those other persons do the same in return and to others for the same reasons. Those gifts are not and need not be given out of pure altruism, because the giving of such gifts enhances the personhood of both the receiver and the giver. One may give in part in order to become the person in fullness that is one’s true best end. Self-fullness is thus achieved in part by selflessness. By giving to others in this way, one also receives what is most important: progress toward achieving one’s telos. That is simply the fact of the good concerning human personhood. It is also a fact that mounds of empirical social scientific evidence have been corroborating in recent years.
“Having said that, a crucial clarification is in order. We must not misunderstand the right motivational and dispositional character needed in living to enhance the good of others as an intrinsic part of our personal development. Seeking to develop the personhood of others cannot be instrumentalized into a means/end calculus driven by the purpose of enhancing our personal good. That kind of self-serving calculating turns the other from a person into a means that is useful for our own benefit. That itself is a moral violation of their personhood, to which personalism objects. It automatically spoils the entire life-building process of loving gift giving toward mutual personal flourishing. Virtue ethics, we must remember, are concerned centrally not with rules and duty, but with the kind of persons we are and are becoming, with the formation and living out of good, moral personal character. Counterfeit virtues, instrumentalized morality, and manipulative care for the good of others are inherently self-defeating. One finds real love in a relationship when one truly loves the other for his or her own sake and for the sake of the good of love, not when one only acts as if one loves the other merely because doing so would be good for one-self. Likewise, one reaps psychological and physical benefits of religious faith only when one actually believes in the faith, not when one pretends one believes in order to enjoy its psychological benefits. Similarly, the kind of seeking of the good of the personhood of others that actually does enhance our own personhood is in the end that which we do and would do whether or not it does or will enhance our personhood — primarily, that is, for the good of the other and the goodness of the act of caring for their well-being, period. There is no substitute for the genuine article — in the long run only learned and enacted concern for the genuine welfare of others will enhance our personhood. Stated differently, the development of our personhood is typically an indirect and unintended consequence of helping to develop the personhood of others — not direct and intended. Stated differently yet again, a morality set within an ontology of realism requires that concern for the personhood of others be genuinely real, an authentic fact of reality, not merely an ‘as if’ imitation or appearance of concern for others. And for that to be the case, it cannot be primarily motivated by concern for the good of one’s own personhood. Honoring the personhood of others only in order to enhance our own personhood is like working extremely hard to fall asleep — it doesn’t work. Such things are not achieved instrumentally and directly. Just as we have to stop trying to fall asleep in order to fall asleep, we also have to take our eyes off ourselves and learn sincerely to care for the genuine well-being of others if our attention to others is to actually do us good. As Aristotle noted, a great many virtues are first learned by behaviorally imitating role models of moral maturity and excellence. And people normally begin practices of care for others with their own well-being in mind. But in the end, a virtue is a real virtue only if, when, and because it has become part of the moral character of the person who embodies and lives it.”
— from Christian Smith, What Is a Person? Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up (University of Chicago Press, 2010)
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