Business ethics is a complex issue that has been studied a lot. This paper discusses just one of its aspects and presents the assumptions of ethics of economic activity arising from Christian anthropology. They include respect for the dignity of the human person, taking into consideration the social dimension of human life and the affrmation of man’s integral development. All those are particulars of the general principle that man is the creator, the centre and the goal of the whole life and economic activity. These assumptions are in no way unrealistic and idealized expectations in relation to economic and business activity, they rather prove that the economic sphere of life is not ethically neutral, neither is it inhuman nor antisocial. As a dimension of man’s activity it is subject to a moral assessment. Since all stages of economic activity deal with man, his behaviour and needs, they involve moral implications. Even if in certain circumstances unethical behaviour may lead, though temporarily, to economic success, the economic and moral facets are intertwined. J. Messner was right when he stressed that in one’s striving for economic goals immoral means are at the same time uneconomic. The present fnancial and economic crisis proves his thesis.

This article discusses Benedict the XVI’s charting of the formation and history of Europe around a mission to reign as a sacred duty for the sake of Human Dignity in the light of Edith Stein’s insights into the relationship between community formation and objective values. First, an account of Ratzinger’s understanding of Europe as a concept of political geography is given. Secondly is discussed the mission at the heart of the formation of Europe according to Ratzinger, and how such a mission would, according to Stein, be particularly suited for shaping a people and a continent. The third section discusses Ratzinger’s understanding of Human Dignity in the light of Stein’s understanding of values.

The question of the human person is very important for moral theology because of the possibility of responsible human action. Nevertheless, the old utilitarianism that already comes from the empiricist position of Hume reduces the calculation of costs and benefits to an evaluation of the pleasant/unpleasant of the individual subject. The new utilitarianism takes its inspiration from Bentham and Mill and can be summarized in a threefold injunction: maximizing pleasure, minimizing pain, and expanding the sphere of personal freedom for the greatest number of persons. One of the popular promoters of preference utilitarianism in modern times is the Australian ethicist Peter Singer, whose controversial views attracted much attention not only from the scientific community in the late 1970s. In this paper we will try to show a critique of this position in several figures of philosophical and theological ethics as well as a defence of the importance of the notion of the human person and human dignity for the integral protection of human life from conception to natural death and of anthropocentrism as such in respect for all creation and all of nature.