Freedom and Moralty

SUMMARY
FREEDOM AND MORALTY

THE CONCEPT OF MORALITY
• Ethics – it deals with the study of values and their justification including the human conduct and the
moral principles that governs it.
• It comes from the root word “ethos” (Greek) which refers to the character of culture.
• Mores (Latin) – are the customs including the customary behavior of a particular group of people.
According to William Sumner, a well-known anthropologist, in his article entitled Folkways our notion of
what is right stems from man’s basic instinct to survive.
When we are exercising freedom in making choices, we are taking control and assuming full responsibility
for the choices that we are making.
Example: Losing the person you love because of your ambition.
“There is no absolute freedom”
Your freedom ends where my freedom begins.
Freedom of the human person from the moral sense of the world, assumes that one is free moral agent.
(Discernment of the good and the bad and the obligation of a particular individual)
Freedom in making choices entails the process of reflection and deliberation.
VALUE EXPERIENCE
 TYPHOONS ARE NOT IMMORAL.
 ANIMALS ARE NOT CAPABLE OF THE ACT OF DELIBERATION OR REFLECTION.
 INSTINCT.
 Values are the result of this process of value experience where you are setting which are your
priorities that you have chosen to pursue.
 ACCORDINNG TO MOTHERSHEAD, “ALL VALUES ARE PRIORITIES WITH RESPECT TO
SOME ASPECT OF HUMAN EXPERIENCE. THIS IS USUALLY EXPRESSED BY SAYING THAT
VALUES ARE IMPERATIVES; THEY MAKE A CLAIM UPON US, WHETHER WE ADMIT THE
CLAIM OR NOT.”
 ACCORDING TO MOTHERSHEAD, “MAKING MORAL JUDGMENTS IS BUDGETING
ACTIONS.”
 A MORAL DECISION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT CLASS OF MORAL JUDGMENTS.
 ONE’S MORAL DECISION REFLECTS HIS OWN CHOICES AS TO WHAT SHOULD BE
INCLUDED OR EXCLUDED IN ONE’S LIFE IN SO FAR AS HE IS IN CONTROL.
 NOT ALL MORAL JUDGMENTS ARE DECISIONS. (MANY OF OUR MORAL JUDGMENTS HAVE
REFERENCE TO OTHER PEOPLE OR GROUPS OF PEOPLE)
 THE CONFUSION OF WHAT ONE OUGHT TO DO AND WHAT ONE WOULD BE INCLINED TO
DO.
 What do I ought to do given this situation? (Intellectual Choice)
 This is the process of giving normative answers as rational moral beings.
 Normative answers are answers about what we ought to do from a moral system that we uphold
and its moral principles.
 What would I be inclined to do, given the situation? (Practical Choice)
 MORAL DILEMMA
APPROACHES TO MORAL REASONING

Deontolofical ethics or deontological reasoning is an ethics base on duty.
Teleological ethics – meaning, end, goal and purpose.
UNDERSTANDING INTERSUBJECTIVITY
 Labels could be negative or limiting. You may be called "impatient", "whiny" or "stubborn".
Nevertheless, we could go beyond the labels, for as emphasized in this book, as humans, we are
holistic.
 As humans, we are regarded to be in our totality. Thus, we can redesign the labels into something
new and exciting.
 They also think that one must not lose the sight of one's self in concrete experience.
 Both refused to regard the human person as a composite of some kind of dimensions, such
animality or rationality.
 Both views of the human person is total, not dual.
 For Wojtyla, the social dimension is represented by "We relation".
 For Buber, the interpersonal is signified by the "I-You relation."
 For Wojtyla, action reveals the nature of the human agent.
 Participation explains the essence of human person. Through participation, the person is able to
fulfill one's self.
 The human person is oriented toward relation and sharing in the communal life for the common
good. As, St. Augustine of Hippo said, "No human being should become an end to him/herself.
We are responsible to our neighbors as we are to our own actions.
AUTHENTIC DIALOGUE
 In Martin Heidegger's essay, he said that the humankind is a conversation.
 Conversation is more than an idle talk but a dialog. This means that humanity is
progressively attuned to communication about Being.
 Language, as one of human possession, creates human world.
 Language is a tool for communication, information and social interaction. However,
language can also be amazement.
 Personal making entails the affirmation of the other as a person who is unique and has a
distinct personality.
TYPES OF SOCIETIES
1. Hunting and gathering societies
• Depends on what nature provides for their subsistence.
Example: Hunt and gather fruits, nuts, roots, and other edible plant based food.
• People in these societies are nomadic.
• These societies are usually small in number and their composition or membership is
fluid.
• Decision-making is thus made by all members of the group.
2. Pastoral Societies
• Domestication and herding of animals.
• Membership in pastoral societies is greater compared to that of hunting and gathering
animals.
• Not as nomadic as those in hunting and gathering societies.
3. Horticultural Societies
• Cultivation of fruits, vegetables, and plants using hand tools.
• People in the horticultural societies also tend to be less nomadic and bigger in
number.
• There is a surplus of food in these societies, they also have a hierarchical social
structure of division of labor.
4. Agricultural Societies
• Cultivation of crops, including corn, wheat, and rice, but this time using a mixture of
human and nonhuman means, specially by using animals and the plow to cultivate
fields.
• A more complex form of hierarchical social structure as social classes (slave and
masters or landowners).
• These societies are usually large (with members sometimes reaching into the
millions).
5. Industrial Societies
• The use of mechanical means (machines and chemical processes) for the production
of goods, instead of human and animal physical power.
• People survive by working in industries that combine science and technology with the
utilization of energy to run machines.
• People in these societies have a greater chance of improving their situation in life.
6. Post Industrial Societies
• Arise from the use of electronic manipulation and transmission of information.
• The primary means of subsistence is doing service-oriented work in the industries, like
finance, healthcare, business or sales, and education.
• These societies as the Information Age.
TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY
 Message board and chat rooms have successfully shattered the barriers of personal
space.
 The absence of dangers and inhibitions sometimes become too much that etiquette is
lost.
 Many people are obsessed with virtual worlds.
 Most virtual worlds are in the context of games where one can choose an avatar, an online
representation of the self.
 Virtual worlds exist like parallel universes where every person lives another life
simultaneously with this life.
 Virtual societies have a huge impact on the lives of people in the technological society.
 The dissatisfaction and frustrations of the human person with bodily limitations drive the
person to prefer a disembodied human relation.
 At the outset, it has to be clarified that the term disembodied subject does not mean that
in the technological society, human persons are no longer living with their bodies.
 Face to face interaction is too stressful and difficult while virtual interactions are easier.
 We put the longest distance in the shortest possible time because the ultimate goal is
nearness.
 According to Heidegger, nearness does not consist in shortness of distance.
 Nearness is one of the main problems that the technological society has really near to
them.
 We are close to many people in terms of space and time, but we are not really near to
them.
 Technology as a means to an end – instrumental definition and understanding of
technology.

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SUMMARY

FREEDOM AND MORALTY

APPROACHES TO MORAL REASONING

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