The normative system of Bogusław Wolniewicz (1927–2017) can be subsumed under three categories: (1) pessimism (fatalism, or ‘tychism’ in Wolniewicz’s terms), (2) moral determinism (‘non-meliorism’), (3) conservatism (‘right-hand orientation’). Ad (1) Wolniewicz was pessimistic in two ways: he believed human life to be tragic (fatalism) and was also convinced that most people are guided by bad instincts (dualism). Ad (2) Wolniewicz believed that moral character was biologically determined and immutable. But his strong position on this subject ignores the classical view of Aristotle or the Stoics for whom moral character (or conscience) was acquired by habit and shaped deliberately. Ad (3) I suggest that a good historical example of conservative tendency was Critias of Athens. His famous fragment of the Sisyphus contains the idea of a supremacy of laws over human passions, and reduces religion to a supportive role with respect to ethics and politics. Wolniewicz’s dualism of right-hand and left-hand orientation encourages me to distinguish between a right-wing and a left-wing perception of value. For a leftist, value is intensity of a chosen feature (progressive value), whereas for a rightist, value is an area of freedom between inacceptable extremities (modular value). On these premises I propose a simple model of axiological conflict between left-wing and right-wing citizens.

Bogusław Wolniewicz presented his axiological system in four volumes of Filozofia i wartości (“Philosophy and Values”: 1993, 1998, 2003, 2016). For Wolniewicz, just as for his mentor Henryk Elzenberg, axiology is openly assertive and encompasses a painful confrontation of opposite moral beliefs. Wolniewicz’s vision of the reality is gloom, bitter, dramatic and deeply pessimistic. In history he detects unwelcome contributions of demonic powers (Manichaeism), he also believes that human moral character is genetically given and immutable (determinism), that some people are deprived of conscience (dualism), and that the tendency toward evil cannot be reformed (non-meliorism), human reason is not sufficient for a morally good action (voluntarism), while the so-called free will is no more than a manifestation of instincts (irrationalism). Everyone follows their pleasure (hedonism), but not everyone seeks pleasure in the same actions. In particular, some people take pleasure in cruel and destructive behaviour (demonism), while some others mind their own business (utilitarianism), and rare are those who devote themselves to higher values (perfectionism). Religion is a human invention and it emerges as a natural phenomenon in reaction to the fact of mortality. The institution of the Church should nevertheless be honored even by nonbelievers because it supports conservative values. In contemporary Western civilization a crisis can be observed between the conservative part of society (‘right-handed orientation’) and the liberal one (‘left-handed orientation’). Hateful emotions appear on both sides and are dangerous to Western unity. Conservative orientation is attached to the idea of fate, i.e. irrational power that occasionally turns human life into tragedy (fatalism). Wolniewicz’s vision is close to the theology of St. Augustine (original sin, predestination, radical dualism of good and evil) but without a consolation in hope for immortality.

In the paper I show why we should consider Stoicism as the historical source of St. Thomas’s distinction between ‘conscience’ and ‘synderesis’. I claim that the Stoic terms syntērēsis and syneidēsis became, through the ages, the Thomistic synderesis and conscientia. The Stoic syntērēsis meant ‘self-preservation’, and in all animals this ‘first instinct’ refers to the body. The man is the only creature, which, because of its ‘rational nature’, preserves not necessarily its body but rather its soul, i.e. a system of values. Such preservation of someone’s axiological integrity equals ‘salvation’, and thus assimilates Stoicism to Christianity. In the Stoic system, human values follow ‘the nature’ (or ‘the human nature’ in particular), and in Thomism, they follow ‘synderesis’, or the natural inclination toward the good. In both cases we find a natural instinct that transforms itself into a rational structure of conscience. I also argue that, thanks to the moral phenomena of ‘adaptation’ (oikeiōsis) and ‘advancement’ (teleiōsis), the Stoic ethics is not completely egocentric, but incorporates also social duties.

In the opinion of Bogusław Wolniewicz (1927–2017), Wittgenstein in his Tractatus presented a new metaphysics – a modern ‘metaphysics of facts’, in opposition to the traditional ‘metaphysics of substance’ (Aristotle) or to the ‘metaphysics of things’ (Tadeusz Kotarbiński’s ‘reism’). The new metaphysics describes, just like the old ones did, the structure of the world. First, it refers to the world as a whole, seeing in it an actualization of one of numerous possible worlds. It also refers to the elementary unit of world-structure, which is an ‘atomic fact’ (an independent unit, though at the same time not the simplest one, since it involves further ‘simple objects’). Those concepts of ‘world’, ‘atom’ and ‘possible beings’ make the system of Tractatus ‘metaphysics’, comparable to the Aristotle’s metaphysics of ‘form’ and ‘matter’. In Tractatus, the Aristotelian ‘matter’ turns into ‘simple objects’, while ‘form’ becomes a form of ‘fact’. In this view, the world is conceived as a set of facts and equals a particular choice made from the universe of possible situations. But one element is missing in Wittgenstein’s system, namely, the ‘efficient cause’ responsible for the choice of facts (actualization of possibilities). Leibniz believed there was a ‘sufficient reason’ why a particular choice was made among possible situations and one possible world has become real. This ‘sufficient reason’ finally turned out to be God’s rational will. In Wolniewicz’s late philosophy however, the ‘efficient cause’ is only ‘fate’ or ‘chance’ (τύχη). Fate is therefore the mysterious deus absconditus of Wittgenstein’s metaphysics.

The concept of conscience is analyzed here in two different ways: the systematic and the historical-literary. As to the first, systematic perspective, I distinguish (in part 1) three levels of conscience and on every level I identify two opposite categories (conscience that is ‛individual’ versus ‛collective’; ‛emotional’ versus ‛intellectual’; ‛motivating ex ante’ versus ‛evaluating ex post’). In the second, historical-literary perspective, I analyze two literary cases of fictional characters usually thought of as being guided or affected by conscience. The first case is the ancient Greek tragedy and here I offer (in part 2) a comment on the Sophoclean Antigone and the Euripidean Orestes presenting them both as dramas that contain an exemplary formulation of the phenomenon of conscience. Although Antigone and Orestes express their main principles of action in apparently different words, I suggest (in part 3) the two poetical visions of conscience are equally based upon a highly emotional behavior called pathos by the Greek. Thereby I provide a reason, why ancient philosophers created a new concept of conscience intended as an alternative to the poetical vision of human behavior. The new philosophical concept of conscience was based upon an axiological behavior called ethos. I also coin (in part 4) a concept of the ‛community of conscience’ where I distinguish four ‛aspects of solidarity’ in conscience, namely, somebody’s own self, a group of significant persons, a group of the same moral principles, and a sameness of life. In the end I turn (in part 5) to a historical-literary case in Joseph Conrad’s last novel The Rover (1923), which provoked a lively discussion among Polish authors and seems useful as an illustration of several levels of ‛solidarity of conscience’.

In the article I present a concise view of the conservative image of the world, inspired by the works of Roger Scruton. His vision starts as a moral and political project, but then goes on to turn into a theory of culture, education and aesthetic experience. Although the project was originally intended as devoid of any religious justification, it is possible to see religion as a complement or an equivalent to the conservative attitude, as it is expressed in private life. Religious language can be understood as a useful, personal, symbolic expression of the conservative attitude to life. Scruton also undertook to defend the humane face of philosophy, by which I mean his conviction that philosophy should resist reductive tendencies of natural science, and instead should strive to develop better understanding of the essential works of art and literature known in the Western canon.