FREEDOM OF THE HUMAN PERSON

REALIZE THAT “ALL ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES”

A. ARISTOTLE (THE POWER OF VOLITION)

 The imperative quality of a judgment of practical intellect is meaningless, apart from will.
Moral acts, which are always particular acts, are in our power and we are responsible for
them. Character or habit is no excuse for immoral conduct.
 For Aristotle, a human being is rational. Reason is a divine characteristic. Humans have the
spark of the divine. If there were no intellect, there would be no will. Reason can legislate,
but only through will can its legislation be turned into action. Our will is an instrument of
free choice.
 The will of humanity is an instrument of free choice.
 Aristotle: Intellectual Freedom (REASON, WILL and ACTION )

B. ST.THOMAS AQUINAS (LOVE IS FREEDOM)

 Of all creatures of God, human beings have the unique power to change themselves and the things
around them for the better. St. Thomas Aquinas considers the human being as a moral agent. Our
spirituality separates us from animals; it delineates moral dimension of our fulfilment in action.
Through our spirituality, we have a conscience.
 The power of change, however, cannot be done by human beings alone, but is achieved through
cooperation with God.
 Aquinas gives a fourfold classification of law: (1) ETERNAL LAW – is the decree of God that
governs all creation.
(2) NATURAL LAW – then, in its ethical sense, applies only to human beings. (3) HUMAN LAW –
human beings, as being rational, have laws that should not only be obeyed but also obeyed
voluntarily and with understanding.
(4) DIVINE LAW – is divided into old (Mosaic) and the new (Christian) that are related as the
immature and imperfect to the perfect and complete.
 St. Thomas wisely and aptly chose and proposed Love rather than Law to bring about the
transformation of humanity.

C. ST.THOMAS AQUINAS (SPIRITUAL FREEDOM)

 St. Thomas Aquinas establishes the existence of God as a first cause. Of all God’s creations, human
beings have the unique power to change themselves and things around them for the better. As
humans we are both material and spiritual. We have a conscience because of our spirituality. God
is Love and Love is our destiny.

D. JEAN PAUL SARTRE (INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM)

 For Sartre, the human person is the desire to be God: the desire to exist as a being which has its
sufficient ground in itself.
 Sartre emphasizes the importance of free individual choice, regardless of the power of other
people to influence and coerce our desires, beliefs, and decisions. To be human, to be conscious, is
to be free to imagine, free to choose, and be responsible for one’s life.

E. THOMAS HOBBES

 THEORY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT – a Law of Nature (lex naturalis) is a precept or general rule
established by reason, by which a person is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or
takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may be best
preserved.

F. JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
  Rousseau is one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the French Enlightenment in
the 18th century. In his book THE SOCIAL CONTRACT, he elaborated his theory of human nature.

INTERSUBJECTIVITY is a term used in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology to represent

the psychological relation between people.

REALIZE THAT INTERSUBJECTIVITY REQUIRES ACCEPTING DIFFERENCES AND NOT TO IMPOSE ON

OTHERS

Though we are part of our society, we are still different individuals living in this society. Each of us will
have different appearances or points of view. Labels could be negative or limiting, you may be called
“impatient,” “whiny” (to complain in an annoying way) or “stubborn.” Nevertheless, we could go beyond
the labels. As humans we are holistic. As humans, we are to be regarded in our totality. Thus, we can
redesign the labels to something new and exciting.

INTERSUBJECTIVITY AS ONTOLOGY: THE SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF THE SELF

Ontology is a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being

 Martin Buber’s and Karol Wojtyla’s views will be used as the main framework in understanding
intersubjectivity. Both philosophers were influenced by their religious background. They believed
in the notion of concrete experience/existence of the human person.
 MARTIN BUBER is a Jewish existentialist philosopher. He was born in Vienna and was brought up
in the Jewish tradition. In his work I and thou, he conceives the human person in his/her
wholeness, totality, concrete existence and relatedness to the world.
 SAINT POPE JOHN PAUL II or KAROL WOJTYLA was born in Wadowice, Poland. He was elected
to the Papacy on October 16, 1978 (264 th pope) and was considered a great pope (88%) during his
lifetime. For Wojtyla, action reveals the nature of the human agent. Participation explains the
essence of the human person. Through participation, the person is able to fulfil one’s self.
 BUBER’S I-THOU philosophy is about the human person as a subject, who is a being different
from things or from objects.

APPRECIATETHETALENTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (PWD) ANDTHOSE FROMTHE

UNDERPRIVILEGED SECTORS OF SOCIETY ANDTHEIR CONTRIBUTIONS

A. ON PWD’S

 The process of suspecting, recognizing, and identifying the handicap for parents with PWD will
include feelings of shock, bewilderment, sorrow, anger, and guilt.

B. ON UNDERPRIVILEGED SECTORS OF SOCIETY

DIMENSIONS OF POVERTY: The notion of poverty is not one-dimensional; rather it is

multidimensional. A number of different concepts and measures of poverty relate to its various
dimensions. Income, Health, Education, Empowerment, Working condition

 The most common measure of the underprivileged is income poverty, which is defined in terms of
consumption of goods and services.

C. ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN

  In 1712, Jean Jacques Rousseau said that women should be educated to please men.
 Mary Wollstinecradt, in Vindication on the Rights of Women (1782), argued that such education
would produce women were mere propagators of fools, she believes that women must be united
to men in wisdom and rationality.

THE HUMAN PERSON IN SOCIETY

COMPARE DIFFERENT FORMS OF SOCIETIES AND INDIVIDUALITIES

A. MEDIEVAL PERIOD (500-1500 CE)

 The way of life in the Middle Ages is called FEUDALISM, which comes from medieval Latin feudum,
meaning property or “possession”.

B. MODERN PERIOD (1500-1800)

 In particular, the title ”modern philosophy” is an attack on and a rejection of the Middle Ages that
occupied the preceding thousand years (Solomon & Higgins 1996). It is an attack on the church
that ruled those ages and dictated its ideas.

C. GLOBALIZATION

 Globalization is not a one-way process, but comprises the multilateral interactions among global
systems, local practices, transnational trends, and personal lifestyles.
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION is a movement in which machines changed people’s way of life as well
as their methods of manufacture.

CHANGE AS A CONDITION OF MODERN LIFE

 This section deals with how human relations are transformed by social systems specifically, on
knowledge, laws, economics, and technology.

A. NEW KNOWLEDGE

 “Know thyself” is the main idea of Socrates of good living. Socrates lived around 469 BC in Greece.
His saying, “Knowledge is virtue; ignorance is vice” is a summation of what he wants to teach
about how human beings should live a good life. Ignorance, as opposite of knowledge, is the source
of evil.

B. POLICY MAKING

 The nominal purpose of the REPUBLIC is to define “justice.” Plato begins by deciding that the
citizens are to be divided into three classes: 1) the common people (artisan class); 2) the soldiers
(warriors); 3) the guardians (rulers).

C. ECONOMIC SPHERE

 The effects of new knowledge have been partially noticeable in the economic sphere. Technical
improvements have made possible a mechanization of labor that has resulted in mass production,
the rapid growth in per capita productivity, and an increasing division of labor.

D. SOCIAL REALM

 Equally important are the changes that have taken place in the social realm.
 MODERNIZATION is seen as part of the universal experience, and in many respects, it is one that
holds great hope for the welfare of humanity.

E. TECHNOLOGY
  The more society is influenced by technology, the more we need to consider the social, ethical and
technological, and scientific aspects of each decision and choice (German 2000).

F. ON (WOMEN’S) FRIENDSHIP

 Women’s friendship has a unique quality that may only exist between women.

TRUE FRIENDS

 True friendships allow each other to be completely themselves. Acceptance and love give women
the courage to try new experience and stretch their wings.
 For Carol, “Knowing and accepting ourselves are important ingredients in establishing
boundaries.” The author believes that whatever path we will tread, our choices should ultimately
be based on our genuine freedom.

HUMAN PERSONS ARE ORIENTED TOWARD THEIR IMPENDING DEATH

RECOGNIZE THE MEANING OF ONE’S LIFE

A. SOCRATES

 Socrates, a great teacher in Athens around 469 BC, believes that knowing oneself is a condition to
solve the present problem (Berversluis 2000).

2 DIFFERENT WAYS OF TEACHING

1. Expository Method – answers the student’s direct or implied questions, fills the void ignorance
with information, proceeds by analogy and illustration, or clears the ground for exposition by
demonstrating that some of the beliefs hitherto held by the student are irreconcilable with other
beliefs or assumptions.

 Ironic Process – a process that serves the learner to seek for knowledge by ridding the mind of
prejudices and then by humbly accepting his ignorance.

2. Socratic Method – well known as “tutorial” is: (1) to assess by questions the character of the
student; and (2) to set him problems, exhort him to reduce each problem to its constituent elements,
and criticize the solutions that he offers.

 Maieutic Process – is employed after the first process has cleared the mind of the learner of the
ignorance, and then draws truth out of learner’s mind.

 HAPPINESS – For Socrates, for a person to be happy, he has to live a virtuous life.
 PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE – means that one does not only know the rules of right living, but one
lives them.
 SOCRATES’ MAJOR ETHICAL CLAIMS: (1) Happiness is impossible without moral virtue; and (2)
unethical actions harm the person who performs them more than people they victimize.

B. PLATO

 CONTEMPLATION – in the mind of Plato means that the mind is in communion with the universal
and eternal ideas, contemplation is very important in the life of humanity because this is only
available means for a mortal human being to free himself from his space-time confinement to
ascend to the heaven of ideas and there commune with immortal, eternal, the infinite, and the
divine truths.
 PLATO’S THEORY OF IMMORTALITY – According to Plato, the body is the source of endless
trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food, and is liable also to diseases, which
 overtake and impede us in the search after true being: it fills us full of love, lusts and fears, and
fancies of all kinds, and endless foolishness.

C. ARISTOTLE

 Aristotle’s account of change calls upon actuality and potentiality (Hare et al. 1991). For Aristotle,
everything in nature seeks to realize itself—to develop its potentialities and finally realize its
actualities.
 ENTELECHY – a Greek word for “to become its essence”, means that nothing happens by chance.
 Aristotle divided everything in the natural world into 2 main categories: NONLIVING THINGS
AND LIVING THINGS.
 For Aristotle, all things are destructible but the UNMOVED MOVER is eternal, immaterial, with
pure actuality or perfection, and with no potentiality.
 According to Aristotle, the most pleasant activity for any living creature is realizing its nature;
therefore, the happiest life for humans is thinking about the Unmoved Mover (Price 2000).

MEANING OF LIFE (WHERE WILL THIS LEAD TO?)

A. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

 THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY, analyzed the art of Athenian tragedy as the product of the Greeks’
deep and non-evasive thinking about the meaning of life in the face of extreme vulnerability.
 Referring to the Greeks, Nietzsche fantasized, “They knew how to live!”. Insofar as “morality”, it
was based on healthy self-assertion, not self-abasement and the renunciation of the instincts.

B. ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

 The essay of Schopenhauer begins with he predicament of the self with its struggles and its
destiny: WHAT AM I? WHAT SHALL I DO WITH MY LIFE? We have to be responsible for own
existence.
 Schopenhauer, as an admirer of Kant, utilized Kant’s distinction between the noumenal and the
phenomenal realms to explain the source of human ignorance.
 The phenomenal world, however, is a world of illusion, according to Schopenhauer. As noumenal,
however, it can neither be experienced nor known.
 Following the Four Noble Truths Of Buddhism, Schopenhauer contends that all of life is suffering.

C. MARTIN HEIDEGGER

 In Heidegger’s analysis, human existence is exhibited in care. CARE is understood in terms of finite
temporality, which reaches with death. DEATH is a possibility that happens; all possibilities are
evaluated in this light, when one lives with a resoluteness, which brings unity and wholeness to
the scattered self.
 3 THREEFOLD STRUCTURE OF CARE
a) POSSIBILITY – Humanity gets projected ahead of itself. Entities that are encountered are
transformed merely as ready-to-hand for serviceability and out of them.
b) FACTICITY – A person is not pure possibility but factical possibility: possibilities open to him at
any time conditioned and limited by circumstances. Heidegger speaks of “throwness’, that is, a
person is thrown into a world and exists in his/her situation.
c) FALLENNESS – Humanity flees from the disclosure of anxiety to lose oneself in absorption with
the instrumental world, or to bury oneself in the anonymous impersonal existence of the mass,
where no one is responsible.
 Anyone who experienced death of loved one seems to be robbed of the possibility of
understanding and analyzing it.
D. JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

 Sartre’s philosophy is considered to be a representative of (aesthetic) existentialism (Falikowski

2004).
 Sartre is famous for him dualism: (a) en-soi (in-itself) – signifies the permeable and dense, silent
and dead. The en-soi is absurd, it only finds meaning only through the human person, the one and
only pour-soi. (b) pour-soi (for-itself) – the word only has meaning according to what the person
gives to it. Compared with the en-soi , a person has a fixed nature.
 Sartre’s existentialism stems from this principle: existence precedes essence.
 Freedom is therefore the very core and the door to authentic existence. Authentic existence is
realized only in deeds that are committed alone, in absolute freedom and responsibility, and
which therefore is the character of true creation.

E. KARL JASPERS

 He was the first German to address the question of guilt: of Germans, of humanity implicated by
the cruelty of the Holocaust. His philosophy places the person’s temporal existence in the face of
the transcendent God, an absolute imperative. Transcendence relates to us through limit-situation
(Grenzsituation).
 Once is involved in limit-situations, a lonely individual has “to go through these alone’.
 Freedom alone opens the door to humanity’s being; what he decides to be rather than being what
circumtances choose to make him.
 Jaspers asked that human beings be loyal to their own faiths without impugning the faith of others.

F. GABRIEL MARCEL

 For Marcel, philosophy has the tension (the essence of drama) and the harmony (that is the
essence of music).

MARCEL’S PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD

a) PRIMARY REFLECTION – this method looks at the world or at any object as a problem, detached
from the self and fragment.

b) SECONDARY REFLECTION – is concrete, individual, heuristic, and open.