The Anatomy of Efficacy

Abstract

In Karol Wojtyła’s anthropology, efficacy is an exclusively human property which is both the objective cause of every free act for an individually chosen purpose and, at the same time, the human experience of the act performed. By undertaking an act, the agent feels responsible for its consequences, which not only changes his environment but also himself. Every act enhances human action, but above all it morally perfects or destroys the agent. In Karol Wojtyła’s work, human efficacy is compared with four types of agency, which are the cause of dynamisms: biological, psycho-emotive, skillful, and intellectual–mental. Efficacy is considered a derivative of self-determination and is related to freedom. The essence of complementing transcendence through the integration of all dynamisms in action is also analyzed.