Buzon, Opay, Abella, Santos, Gargallo 2020

Freedom of
Human Person

Philosophy
Philo 2020

Freedom of 1 What is freedom?

Human 2
When can you tell that you are free?

Person 3 Where do we get freedom?

Is the human person always free?

4
Philo June 1, 2021

• Freedom or liberty is a social and political

Freedom concept which has great significance in how
people participate in society.
• The concept of freedom has emerged as an
important philosophical issue in the 18th century
Europe during the age of enlightenment.
• Freedom in a political and social context means
the freedom of an individual from oppression,
compulsion, or coercion from other persons, an
authority figure, or from society itself.
• Freedom also entails the recognition of certain
rights and entitlement of a person.
Philo 2020

All actions have consequences.

Philo 2020

Aristotle The Power of Volition

• The imperative quality of practical intelligence is meaningless, apart from

will.
• Reason can legislate, but only through will can its legislation be translated
into action.
• The task of practical intellect is to guide will by enlightening it.
• If there were no intellect, there would be no will.
Philo 2020

Aristotle The Power of Volition

• 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 borne out by:
• inner awareness of an aptitude to do right or wrong
• common testimony of all human beings
• the rewards and punishment of rulers
• the general employment of praise and blame
Philo 2020

Aristotle Moral Acts

• These are particular acts that are in our power, thus, we are responsible
for them.
• Character or habit is no excuse for immoral conduct.
• The happiness of every human being's soul is in his own hands, to
preserve and develop, or to cast them away.
Philo 2020

Will, action and

reason drives
each other.

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Philo 2020

St. Thomas Aquinas Love is Freedom

• "The Human Being is a Moral Agent"

• Weare both the spiritual and body elements (spiritual and material) and
the unity between these two concepts helps us understand our
complexity.
• Out of all creatures of God, human beings have the unique power to
change themselves and the thing around them for the better.
Philo 2020

St. Thomas Aquinas Love is Freedom

• Hence, 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.
• However, change can not be done alone by humans but only together with God.
This change should promote not just any purely private advantage but the good
of the community.
• Between God and Humans, there is an infinite gap, which God alone can bridge
through with His power.
Four Fold Classification of Law By Aquinas

Natural Law Divine Law

Eternal Law Human Law

Philo 2020

St. Thomas Aquinas Natural Law

• applies only to human beings

• there is inherent in every in every human being an inclination that he shares with
all other beings:
a)desire to conserve human life - if there is a fire, and its burning heat is felt,

there is a tendency to avoid it

b)forbids the contrary
Philo 2020

St. Thomas Aquinas Divine Law

• Also called Revelation.

• law that orders a human being to an end transcending his nature the human
"participation" in the eternal law and is discovered by reason.
• deals with interior disposition as well as external facts and it ensures the final
punishment of all evildoings
• function of theology
Philo 2020

St. Thomas Aquinas External Law

• decree of God that governs all creations.

• "That Law which is the Supreme Reason cannot be understood to be
otherwise than unchangeable and eternal."
Philo 2020

St. Thomas Aquinas Human Law

• Human laws are considered conclusions from the natural law when
they pertain to those matters about which the natural law offers a
clear precept.
Philo 2020

Aristotle St. Thomas

• The purpose of human being • Follows he same line of
t

is to be happy and in order to thinking with Aristotle

be happy, we need to live a • However, he points to a higher
virtuous life form of happiness possible to
• The human beings have to humanity beyond this life, and
develop to the full of their that is the happiness that
powers - rational, moral, everyone seeks but could only
social, emotional and physical be found in God alone.
here on earth.
Philo 2020

St. Thomas Aquinas: • Establishes the existence of God

Spiritual Freedom as a first cause.
• Of all God’s creation, 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
Philo 2020

Jean Paul Sartre Individual Freedom

• Sartre’s philosophy is considered to be a representative of existentialism

(Falikowski 2004)
• 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 (en sui causa)
• There are no guideposts along the road of life.
• The human person builds the road of destiny of his/her choosing.
Philo 2020

Jean Paul Sartre Individual Freedom

• Sartre emphasizes on the importance of free individual choice, regardless of the power of other people to influence and coerce our desires, beliefs, and

decisions.

• T o be human, to be conscious, is to be free to imagine, free to choose, and be responsible for one’s life
Philo 2020

Thomas Hobbes Theory of Social Contract

• A Law of Nature (lex naturalis) – is a percept o r 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 omit that by which he thinks it may be best preserved.
Philo 2020

Thomas Hobbes Theory of Social Contract

Hobbes conclude that in order to preserve our lives

1. We should seek peace (first law of nature)

2. Mutually divest ourselves of certain rights (CONTRACT)

3. That person be willing when others so.

4. To lay down this right to all things

5. And be contented with so much liberty against other people, as he would allow other people against himself
Philo 2020

Thomas Hobbes Law of Nature

1st Law of Nature (Seek peace and follows it)

• the State of Nature is a State of War. Without this first law, the state of nature would exist in perpetuity. This law exists because Man has a great fear of the State of Nature. This ensures that man will attempt to form the Civil Society.
Philo 2020

Thomas Hobbes Law of Nature

2nd Law of Nature (Man will give up his right to un fettered Liberty)

• In Hobbes’ State of Nature, everyone has totally Liberty to rob people, kill people, whatever helps people achieve self-preservation. But to form the Civil Society, we must cede some liberties so that the sovereign can regulate them.
Philo 2020

Thomas Hobbes Law of Nature

2nd Law of Nature (Man will give up his right to unfettered Liberty)
• Contract – mutual transferring of rights. Basis of the notion of moral obligations and duty
• Right to Self-defense or self-preservation – rights that one cannot give up since it is his sole
motive for entering any contract.
• Pursuit of self-preservation – what lead us to form commonwealth or states
• Law of nature – give the conditions for the establishement of society and government
Philo 2020

Thomas Hobbes Law of Nature

3rd Law – Human beings perform their covenant made

• Without this law of nature, covenants are in vain and but empty words;
and the right of all human beings to all things remaining, we are still in the
condition of war.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Social Contract

• 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.
• In Rousseau, a new era of sentimental piety found its beginning.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Social Contract

• The “Edsa Revolution” is an example, though an imperfect one, of what the

theory of Social Contract is all about.
• "The state owes its origin to a social contract freely entered into by its
members." - Hobbes and Rousseau
• Hobbes and Rousseau differed in their interpretations
• Hobbes – developed his idea in favour of absolute monarchy
• Rousseau – interpreted the idea in terms of absolute democracy and
individualism.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The Social Contract

Social Contract
• Is a term that is not an actual historical event, it is rather a philosophical fiction, a
metaphor, and a certain way of looking at a society of voluntary collection of
agreeable individuals.
• The Constitution and the Bill of Rights constituted, as an instance of a social
contract, however is not a metaphor but an actual agreement and actually
“signed” by the people or their representatives (Solomon & Higgins, 1996).
Rousseau and Hobbes: Political Freedom
Evaluate and Exercising
Prudence in Choices
 B.F. Skinner

• The environment selects which issimilar with natural selection.

• Behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences.

• Behavior that operates upon the environment to produce consequences
(operant conditioning) can be studied by arranging environments in which
specific consequences are contingent upon it.
• The second result is practical, the environment can be manipulated.
 Yelon (1996)

• accepted the behavioral psychology is at fault for having overanalysed 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.
• In our dealing with our fellow human beings, there is a strong and obvious
temptation to blame the environment if they do not conform to our
expectations.
 Can an individual be free?

• According to skinner, our struggle for freedom is not due to a will to be free as
for Aristotle or Sartre, but to certain behavioral processes characteristic of the
human organism, the chief effect of which is the avoidance of or escape from
“aversive” features of the environment.
 Can an individual be free?

• The feeling of freedom, according to Skinner becomes an unreliable guide as

soon as would-be controllers turn to non-aversive measures, as they are likely to
do to avoid the problems raised when the controller escapes or attacks. For
example, a skillful parent learns to reward a child for good behavior rather than
punish him for bad. Control becomes necessary in the issue of freedom.
 “Liberty consists in doing what one
desires.” - John Stuart Mill (Adage)

• According to Skinner, when a person wants something, he acts to get it when

the occasion arises. Skinner argues that even though behavior is completely
determined, it is better that a person “feels free” or “believes that he is free.”
 Individual Rights
1.Some are not merely numbers, as support by Hobbes and Rousseau.

2.Human beings have also rights, there should be responsibility.

3. Were upheld in capitalism that is the only one system that can
uphold and protect them.

4.The principle of individual rights represented the extension of

morality into the social system.
 Individualism
1.As support by Rand, is lined in family dependency
-Easterners believe that the individual needs the community and
vice versa.

For Instance, Filipino and Chinese stress the human relationship that
emphasize that the person is not necessarily an independent entity.
 Principle of Harmony

1.Filipinos look at themselves as holistic from interior dimension

-Stress being with others and sensitivity to the needs of others
that inhibits one's personal and individual fulfillment.
2.This encompasses Filipino's humanity, personality, theological,
perspective, and daily experiences.

3.Aspires harmony with others, and nature to be in union with

God.
 Concept of Rand's Free vs Filipino's View of the Free Human Being

1.Individualism, thus, should not be seen as selfishness but an

affirmation of a truly human self that is the supreme value if
human living.
2. To be a free individual is to be responsible not only for one's
self but also for all.

3. The individual becomes a free and creative person who asserts

one's uniqueness.
4. It may have differences but can be overcome.

5.The potential of the Filipino should be able to grow so that he

will be aware of his uniqueness.

6. Children should be brought up to the identity of the members

of the family and simultaneously with that of the nation.

7. Self-sufficiency should recognize human worth and dignity.

 Great Philippine Values

1.It is essentially
interpersonal
2.Such as that relate to persons including, the use of
intermediaries or go betweens, the values of loyalty, hospitality,
fellowship and respecting authority.

3.In short, the Filipino is generally believes in the innate

goodness of the human being.
 Filipino Ethics

1.Has an internal code and sanction than other legalistic moral

philosophies that are rather negative.

2. The Filipino, who stresses duties over rights, has plenty in

common, once again with chinese
3. The Filipino looks at himself as one who feels, wills, thins,
acts, as a total whole as a person, conscious of his freedom
proud of his human dignity and sensitive to the violation of
these two
 Controllability

We cannot change genetic defects by punishment; we can work only through

genetic measures that operate on a much longer time scale. What must be
changed is not the responsibility of autonomous individual but the conditions,
environment, or genetic, of which a person’s behavior is a function.

TIME: 5 Mins
 ?

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 if we accept
the fact that we depend upon the world around us and we simply change
the nature of dependency. Skinner proposed to make the social
environment as free as possible of aversive stimuli, we do not need to
destroy the environment or escape from it. What is needed, according to
Skinner, is to redesign it.
Life is full of paradoxes; nobody could nor should
control it

We have to be open to life, learn to accept and live with

paradoxes. Learning with contradiction is not the same as
living in contradiction. The paradoxes account for the
reasons why life cannot be held still.
Spirituality
of Imperfection
LIFE, our environment, is both
“evil” and “good”
 Recognizing
Life’s Open-Endedness

• We learn to be flexible and adaptable

• Morality is a conditioned response impressed on the child by society (B. F.
Skinner)
• Despite this view, however, creating a static environment, such as controlled
environment, is not applicable in the realities of everyday world (Schouten &
Looren de Jong 2012).
 Negative
and Positive Tasks of the Theory of
Freedom

However, much more important than the question of when

a person is said to be responsible is that of when he himself feels
responsible.
Evidently, not merely that it was he who took the steps
required for its performance; but there must be added awareness that
he did it “independently,” “of his own initiative”
The soul of every individual possesses the power of
learning the truth and living in the society that is in
accordance to its nature.
-Plato
 It is true that we did not choose to be born. It is also true that we
choose, most of us to keep on living. It is not true that everything that
happens to us is like “being struck down by a dreadful disease.” The
treatment and cure of disease – to use an illustration – would never
have begun unless we believed that some things that were did not
have to be, that they could be different, and that we could make them
different. And that we can make different, we are responsible for.
 Choices Have Consequences and Some Things Are Given Up
while Others Are Obtained in
Making Choices

Twentieth century gave rise to the importance of the individuals,

the opposite of medieval thought that was God-centered.

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 Ayn Rand (1996)

Individual mind is the tool for economic progress vis-à-vis • Similar with Aristotle, Rand believes that thinking is
laissez faire capitalism volitional

– the sector that molds it should not be controlled by the – person has the freedom to think or not, though the
government majority belongs to the passive supporters of the status
quo who choose not to think

Cited the right to gain, to keep, to use, and to dispose of

material values
• Rejects collectivism because of – Disposing material values is not just a matter of
its brute force. throwing waste but projecting where to dump wastes
that would not impinge on the rights of others.
 Situations
that demonstrate freedom of choice
and the consequences of their
choices
 1) Homeworks & Activities

• You are given a lot of tasks by your teachers but the deadline is a
month from now.
• Would you rather maximize your time by doing your tasks immediately or do it
when the deadline is close?
• Little by little or all at once?
• "If not now, when?" or "Due tomorrow, do tomorrow"?
• Choosing the former in these questions will create better results.
• Choosing the latter will create half-baked results, as well as lack of
sleep and immense stress.
 2) Choosing your program in college

• After graduating high school, learners are given a choice on what to

pursue in college.
• Follow your heart or follow your parents' wishes?
• Choose something you love or something that makes a lot of money?
• Do you want to take risks or play it safe?
• Choosing the latter in these questions will make you a fortune.
However, it's at the cost of your happiness.
• Choosing the former will make you happy, but at the cost of more risks.
3) Short-term pleasure vs Future
MDM Company June 1, 2021

Summary
What have we learned?
 Freedom In various perspective

• Aristotle
• Intellectual
• St. Thomas Aquinas
• Spiritual
• Jean Paul Sartre
• Political
• Thomas Hobbes
• Economic
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Philo 2020

Freedom is never more than one generation away

from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in
the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected,
and handed on for them to do the same.

Ronald Reagan
Philo 2020

So long as we are brave enough to accept the

consequences of our actions, no one can take away
our freedom of choice.

Mike Norton
MDM Company June 1, 2021

Thank you!

Have a great
day!