Emmanuel Mounier's Personalism, the dignity of the human person and the crisis of values in Mozambican society

Joao Lazaro, Anor Sganzerla

Abstract

In the face of the socio-political and economic crisis that characterised the 20th century, Emmanuel Mounier’s ethics of personalism (1905- 1950) was characterised by resistance to the absorption of the human will in the hands of collectivism in defending the value of the unique- ness of the human person. Mounier adopted such ideas based on the Kantian ethical perspective of treating all human beings as ends in themselves and not merely as means to satisfy other people’s desires and interests. However, although we are in a century in which, through the use of reason, man has achieved many accomplishments for the wellbeing of humanity, he has not been able to solve the greatest chal- lenges posed by the moral crisis that he himself has caused. In most situations, human reason has been and still is used to the disadvantage of other human beings. For these reasons, using a qualitative- hermeneutical approach, through an analysis of the current literature, this article aims to discuss the crisis of moral values in Mozambican so- ciety, within the context of Emmanuel Mounier’s philosophical person- alism.