POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE OF DAVAO DEL SUR

Mac Arthur Highway, Brgy. Kiagot, Digos City

High School Department

INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN

PERSON
Quarter 2 (Week 1)

Lesson 5: Freedom of Human Person

Essential Learning Objectives:

a. To realize the consequences of one’s actions.
b. To show situations that demonstrate freedom of choice
c. To evaluate and exercise prudence in one’s choices

Name:
Lesson 5: The Freedom of the human person

This lesson highlights freedom from the intellectual, political, spiritual, and
economic aspects. To be free is a part of humanity’s authenticity. In one way,
understanding freedom is part of out transcendence. Freedom consists of going
beyond the situations such as physical or economic. For instance, students can be
young and poor, but they can still pursue their dreams of becoming a doctor, teacher,
or a stage actor. As discussed in the last lesson, critical thinking is an important tool
toward freedom and truth.

ACTIVITY 1. Let’s warm up!

What can you say about the pictures below? Have you been in this kind of
situation? What are the things that you considered in making choices?

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5.1 Realize that “All Actions have Consequences”

A. Aristotle “The power of Volition” (the power to make your own choice or
decisions) - The imperative quality of a judgement of practical intellect is
meaningless, apart from will.
• Reasons can legislate, but only through will can its legislation be translated into
actions.
NO INTELLECT = NO WILL
The will of humanity is an instrument of free choice. It is within the power of
everyone to be good or bad, worthy or worthless. This is the borne out by:
✓ Our inner awareness of an aptitude to do right or wrong;
✓ The common testimony of all human beings;
✓ The rewards and punishment of rulers; and
✓ The general employment of praise and blame.

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

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 Figure 5.1 Aristotle Intellectual Freedom
For Aristotle, a human being is rational (based on facts or reason and not by
emotion). Reason is a divine characteristic. Human have the spark of the divine. Our
will is an instrument of free choice. Reason, will and action drives each other.

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 through our
spirituality, we have a conscience weather we choose to be good or evil
becomes our responsibility. A human being, therefore, has a supernatural
transcendental destiny. This means that he can rise above his ordinary being or
St. Thomas Aquinas self to highest being or self.
(1225-1274)
If a human being perseveringly lives a righteous and virtuous life, he
transcends his mortal state of life and soars to an immortal state of life.
Aquinas gives a fourfold classification of law: the eternal law, natural law,
human law, and divine law.

1. Human Law – as being rational have laws that should not only be obeyed
voluntarily and with understanding.
2. Natural Law – applies only to human beings. The principle of the natural is
that good is to be sought after an evil avoided.
3. Divine Law – it deals with interior disposition as well as external acts and it
ensures the final punishment of all evildoings.
4. External Law – is the decree of God that governs all creation. It is, “That
Law which is the Supreme Reason cannot be understood to be otherwise
than unchangeable and eternal.
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.

Figure 5.2 Spiritual Freedom

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 D. Jean Paul Sartre: Individual Freedom

For Sartre, the human person is the desire to be God: The desire to be God: The
desire to exist as a being which has its sufficient ground in itself (En Sui Causa)

Satre’s Existentialism stems from the principle: EXISTENCE PRECEDES

ESSENCE.

1. The person first, exists, encounters himself and surges up in the world then
defines himself afterward the person is nothing else but that what makes of
himself
2. The person is provided with a supreme opportunity to give meaning to one’s
life. In the course of giving meaning to one’s life, one fills the world with
meaning.
3. Freedom is 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, the character of true
Jean Paul Sartre
creation.
(1905-1980) 4. The person is what one has done and is doing.
5. On the other hand, the human person who tries to escape obligations and
strives to be en-soi (i.e., excuses, such as “I was born this way” or “I grew
up in a bad environment”) is acting on bad faith (mauvais foi).

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 hig life or
takes away the means of preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks
it may be best to preserved.
His First Law of Nature state that’s given our desire to get out of the state
of nature, and thereby preserve our lives, hobbes concludes that we should seek
peace, the reasonableness of seeking peace immediately suggests a second law
of nature. The Third Law of nature is that human beings perform their covenant
made. Law = Foundation of Justice
Thomas Hobbes
(1588-1679)
F. Jean- Jacques Rousseau
He is 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.

The “EDSA Revolution” is an example, though an imperfect one, of what

the theory of Social Contract is all about. According to Hobbes and Rousseau, the
state owes its origin to a social contract freely entered into by its members. The
two philosophers differed in their interpretations, Hobbes developed his idea in
favor of absolute monarchy, while Rousseau interpreted the idea terms of absolute
democracy and individualism.
Jean- Jacques Rousseau
(1712-1778)

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5.2 Evaluate and Exercise Prudence in Choices
Careful good judgement that allows someone to avoid danger or risks.
• B.F Skinner maintains that behavior is shaped and maintained by its
consequences.
• Yelon (1996) accepted that behavioral psychology is at fault for having
overanalyzed the words reward and punishment. We might have miscalculated
the effect of the environment in the individual.
• There should be a balance in our relationship with others and the environment.
• Skinner thinks that the problem is to free human beings not from control but
from certain kinds of control, and it can be solved only of we accept the fact that
we depend upon the world around us and we simply change the nature of
dependency.
• Life is full of paradoxes, nobody could nor should control it. We have to be open
to life, learn to accept the live with paradox. Learning with contradiction is not
the same as living contradiction.
• In the spirituality of imperfection, we learn to accept that life, our environment
is both “evil” and “good”. We learn to be flexible and adaptable.
• Indeed, the theory of freedom has negative and positive tasks. Our lives should
not merely control by rewards and punishments.
• According to Yelon, punishment is an educative measure, and as such is a
means to the formation of motives, which are in part to prevent the wrongdoer
from repeating the act and in part to prevent others from committing a similar
act.

5.3 Choices Have Consequences and Some Things are given up while others
are obtained in making choices

• 20th century gave rise to the importance of the individual, the opposite of
medieval thought was God.
• For Ayn Rand, individual mind is the tool for economic progress, since the mind
is important, the sector that molds it should not be controlled by the
government.
• Filipinos look at themselves as holistic from interior dimensions under the
principle of harmony.
• Filipinos loob is the basis of Christian value of sensitivity to the needs of other
and gratitude. It encompassed give and take relationship among Filipinos.
• Utang na loob or debt of gratitude – repaying those who have helped us.
The concept of Rand’s free individual and Filipino’s view of the free human
being may have differences but can be overcome.
• Self- sufficiency (kasarinlan) should recognize human worth and dignity.
• Kagandahang loob, kabutihang loob and kalooban are terms that show
sharing of one’s self to others. Loob puts one in touch with his fellow beings.

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5.3 Show situations that demonstrate freedom of choice and the consequences
of their choices
• According to Rand, individual freedom should be aligned with economic
freedom. The Filipino harmony can be a helping value to the full development
of Filipino if it opens up to embrace the whole Philippine society.
- For instance, the more well-off members of a family share their gains with
their relatives and friends in need.
- Sometimes, beneficiaries of monetary assistance (utang or loan) just use
the money for non-essentials. Where there are more important concerns
that should be prioritized.
- As leader or manager with “magandang kalooban” is not passive but plays
active role in economic development. Leaders should not just focus on the
impact of job performance but treats every individual worker as persons
and not as objects.
- Individualism should be tied with social responsibility and should not be
just “tayo tayo” or “kami kami”. Our own individuality should be interact with
others.
• As individual who are free, Filipinos should recognize their own brand of
uniqueness, instead of copying foreign cultures.
• For Aristotle and Rand, reason and will or volition is part of being human. EDSA
Revolution is one example of social contract as discussed earlier in this lesson.

References:
https://www.slideshare.net/jeromecastelo/the-human-person-in-the-environment-
152689726?next_slideshow=1
https://www.academia.edu/37052521/introduction_to_the_philosophy_of_the_human
_person_grade_11_or_12_introduction_to_the_philosophy_of_the_human_person

Prepared by: JOVY B. GISULTURA, LPT

Instructor

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 POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE OF DAVAO DEL SUR, INC
Mac Arthur Highway, Brgy, Kiagot, Digos City

Name: _________________________________ Grade/Strand: ________________

Write your thoughts regarding these passages of this section.

1. Explain this quote from Ninoy Aquino: “The moment you say no to tyranny,
you are beginning the struggle, the long lonely road to freedom.”
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2. How can Filipino values such as “utang na loob” promote or hinder freedom?
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Discuss the given actions below and brainstorm about the possible consequences.
ACTION CONSEQUENCES

A student studying his or her lesson

A driver observing traffic lights

Athletes practicing in the gym

A person taking illegal drugs

A student practicing conservation of

natural resources