The Polish Ethos in the Light of History

Abstract

By "ethos" the author means the life-style of a social group as a system of customs marking the indeterministic behaviour of individuals, or, in other words, the priority of a certain value which describes a specific character of moral disposition of a given society or nation. It is not connected then with the authoritatively accepted determinant of morality, even if it is correct as natural law.

The author analyses the attitude of Poles to the whole range of objectivized and moral values. He distinguishes the following values: economic (utile), biological connected with human life (delectabile), aesthetic (pulchrum), theoretical (value of the truth − verum), technical (rectum), political (justum), social (aequum), connected with the dignity of a human being (honestum), religious (sacrum). In this analysis he points to the achievements and also negative phenomena in the attitudes of Poles towards these values. According to the author, this can be observed in the history of Polish society.