Here I defend personalistic organicism against questions raised in the immediately preceding articles by five critics. “Personalism” does require distinctions between more and less value, but this need not support human chauvinism. “Organicism” does insist on some degree of subjectivity as necessary for intrinsic value, but also acknowledges objective conditions for real instrumental and inherent value. Theism is an intellectually respectable option, but the universe might equally well lack central administration. “Kalogenesis” takes beauty as the final good, but does not deny the reality of ugliness. Comparisons with Plotinus’s “upward way” are accepted, but comparisons with Kantian apriorism are refused.
