Dependency as a Virtue: The Interplay Between the Dignity of the Human Person and the Value of the Common Good

Abstract

The postmodern world upholds autonomy as its greatest value, and thus prioritizes the healthy and independent. This view is flawed insofar as dependency is not equivocal to helplessness, but instead is the virtue of properly ordering one's individual life within broader society and, ultimately, in relation to God himself. Understood properly as a virtue cultivated through particular actions, genuine dependency avoids the vicious extremes of radical individualism and radical helplessness. Instead, it enables man to experience fulfillment through the development of an authentic personality in the context of a “relational subjectivity” that aims towards the common good, yet always respects the dignity of each individual human person.