Editorial: Personalism and moral psychology: re-humanizing economies and organizations

Akrivou, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2212-6280, Bernacchio, C., Melé, D. and Scalzo, G. (2023) Editorial: Personalism and moral psychology: re-humanizing economies and organizations. Frontiers in Communication: Organisational Psychology, 8. ISSN 2297-900X doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2023.1182356

Abstract/Summary

In late modernity, social and economic responses to ecological, health-related, and societal challenges have focused on the quest for production and profit. In doing so, they have relied on impersonal frameworks that result in environmental damage and consider human beings’ very right to flourishing irrelevant or peripheral. Consideration of the person as the core cata-lyst for creating a more humane and sustainable future therefore remains a crucial task. In light of this, it needs to be asked whether our theoretical understandings of human beings, their action and their potentiality are genuinely fit for the complicated challenges we face. Philosophical personalism has furthered the notion of “person”, which, from this perspective, is much more comprehensive than the usual term “individual.” This philosophy sees the person in his or her wholeness, uniqueness, and dignity and is comprised by several prominent scholars associated with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition often adding significant elements of modern philosophy. They emphasize the human person as a substantive rational and free being, with a corporal, psychological and spiritual unity; someone unique and unrepeatable both because of genetics and personal biography made by free choices. Relevant capacities of the person are having self-possession, which entails personal responsibility, self-governance to order values in making decisions, and self-determination. This special issue is a collection of articles influenced by this tradition with the aim to explore this personalist philosophy applied in the study of moral psychology of the person as moral actor, human action, communication and psychology and the study of organisations and leadership.