FREEDOM OF THE HUMAN PERSON

Introduction

To be free is part of humanity’s authenticity. Understanding freedom is part

of our transcendence.

Example: students can be young and poor, but they can still pursue their dreams of
becoming a doctor etc.

FREEDOM- the absence of necessity (obligation), coercion or constraint in choice

or action.

FREE – Not Physically held by something

WILL – use to express desires, choice, willingness, consent or refusal

REASON- a statement or fact that explains why something is the way it is, why
something does, thinks, or says something or why someone behaves a certain way.

CONSEQUENCES- a result of particular action

VOLITION – The power to make your own choices or decision

IS HUMAN PERSON IS ABSOLUTELY Free?

Types of Ideas about Human Freedom

 The modern world often defines “freedom” as “doing whatever one wants”.
 This kind of “freedom” is more precisely defined as “license” (permit) or “freedom of
indifference” (unconcern) (Pinckaers).
 True freedom is not license. License is unbridled (uncontrolled), excessive (extreme),
undisciplined freedom that abuses true liberty (freedom/ right).
 Freedom of Indifference/ License
The power to choose between contraries. (This
or that)
Has no need for virtue (only for the moment
Is entire from the first moment (feels good only
right now
Moral law, Natural law and any form of
legality is seen as constrictive to freedom
Synonymous with self-assertion (I always get
what I want)
Freedom of Excellence/ True Freedom
The power to act freely with excellence and
perfection.
Recognizes inclination (liking) towards
good.
Resides in the reason and the will
Develops through education and discipline
Virtue and habit are essential
Open to the common good.

1. Determinism – Philosophy – the belief that all events are caused by things
that happened before them and that people have no real ability to make choices or
control what happens.

 Human beings are determined by forces they cannot control.

 Religious determinism – God has the power to do anything, he knows everything

that has happened, is happening, will happen. As a result, since everything is already
seen by God, human beings do not have freedom, they are only doing what they are
programmed to do by God.

Rejected by most religions, but supported by John Calvin (1509-1564). Sometimes

referred to as predestination – the belief that everything that will happen has already
been decided by God or Fate and connate be change.

 Scientific determinism – Sir Isaac Newton was a strong proponent in what could be
called physical determinism. The entire universe is governed by physical laws, such as
gravity, so there is no real freedom. Even human beings, because they are physical in
nature, are without freedom.
 Biological/Genetic Determinism. The law of nature, or genetic makeup controls human
beings.
 Historical, Cultural or Social Determinism – Georg W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) believed
we are neither responsible for nor able to control the period of culture or history into
which we are born, since there is an inevitable force in nature. The character and actions
of an individual are completely determined by current culture and preceding culture.
 Economic/Social Determinism. Karl Marx (1818-1883) The economic class into which
we are born determines in every way human nature.
 Psycholocial Determinism – Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Human beings are
determined, even prior to birth in the womb, by unconscious minds and natural drives
that society’s mores require them to repress. Oeduipus Complex (All sons are in love
with their mothers) or Electra Complex (all daughters are in love with their fathers).

2. Hard Determinism

If you trace all actions back far enough, you can prove that basic
causes of things are never really in human control.

Example, let us say that Mary Smith is born in the 1930’s to a middle-class working
family, during the great depression. Already she has no control over the century or
culture into which she is born, the depression her country is in, her economic class, or
most important, th e genetic makeup inherited from her parents. Let us say that she is
born blind, and that her father is an alcoholic and her mother a child abuser. Let us also
assume that, due to these factors, she endures a miserable childhood that leads to a
miserable adult life.

What might be Mary reaction?

Mary may react, out of anger at her lot, by becoming a criminal, resorting to violence
against both men and women in an attempt to avenge herself for the treatment she
received from her mother and father.
  The problem with this?
 We excuse human choices – we all become victims.
 Mary may in fact lead a blameless life. Many people overcome terrible
childhoods and circumstances to lead outstanding lives.

Hard determinists would answer that regardless of what Mary chose, there is a
circumstantial answer for why she turned out the way she did. She only reacted to
external forces.

3. Soft Determinism/Indeterminists
 Events are largely controlled, but there is still a limited degree of
human freedom.
 Indeterminists argue there is a small amount of freedom and
chance. William James (1842-1910) argues that our feeling of
regret and our strivings for good imply freedom.

“There are instances where we are controlled by external

circumstances, but our response to these circumstances is
within our control”.

However, it is this primary universal experience of freedom that

has been called into question by philosophers, theologians,
psychologists, and even historians.

The Philosopher Stands about Human Freedom

B.F. Skinner, an extremely influential behavioral psychologist from Harvard, is one of those who
questioned the very existence of human freedom. He seems to affirm that man is not free because (a) all
present behavior is controlled by previous behavior and (b) all behavior has motivational causes which
are necessitating causes. In other words, man is not free because he is determined by his historicity.
Jean-Paul Sartre, an existentialist philosopher of the contemporary period. His position seems to be
one of absolute indeterminism or total freedom. He believed that man has no historicity. All he has are
future possibilities the possession of which he absolutely holds. He is not defined and determined; he
defines and determines himself. – “Do nothing, Go Forward”

Abraham Maslow, on the other hand, seems to offer a compromise (in the middle) position. On the one
hand, he agrees that man has historicity which colours his identity and action. On the other hand, he
denies that this historicity impede (hold back) man’s freedom. Rather, it gives man opportunities
wherein he can exercise his freedom. For him, human freedom is a structured (controlled)freedom.

All of us have the ability to question, to hesitate, to achieve a distance from immediate necessity.

Halimbawa, kapag ako’y gutom at may makita akong pagkain, may kakayahan akong pigilan ang sarili
ko na kunin ang pagkaing iyon

• In the distance of self-reflection, I am able to take myself, my environment, my needs, and my

values and say, “Wait a second – I do not have to do that.”
• By the very act of calling something into question I am liberating myself from the chains of
necessity.
• Questioning, therefore, implies that the questioner is free.
• And only when I can possess myself can I give myself to the life-project which I, in my
philosophizing, have formulated.
• Questioning initiates me into the formulation of my own creative project which is my life.

Freedom, then, entails (involve):

a. achieving a distance in reflection from blind necessity.

b. achieving a distance from myself in self-reflection.
c. achieving a possession of myself – self-possession.
d. being able to say something about myself – self-determination
 Although the concept of self-possession is most fundamental to our understanding of
freedom, a discussion from the analytic point of view might be valuable also. Here we try to
understand more fully the meaning of the will. We will try to investigate the nature of
dynamism involved in the act of choosing.

The Will is an intellectual tendency, or a tendency toward an intellectually known good.

• Anything that can be seen as good might be an object of my will.
• It is precisely because a thing or action can be seen as having good aspects that my will goes out
to it or tends toward it.
• It is the “good” quality of the thing by which the will is drawn or moved.
• We might say, then, that the will is naturally determined to seek the good; and if I were ever
presented with an absolute good, my will would certainly be necessitated toward it.

Nevertheless, I also recognize that the objects of my will are always concerned with an
existential, real world in which goods are precisely limited, finite and conditioned. Therefore,
these good things do not necessitate my will.
Moreover, if I am about to take a course of action, it is often evident that a number of possibilities
are presented to me as alternatives. None of them, however, are absolutely good.

Since none of the good things presented to my consciousness are absolutely good, and since
there in fact so many of them that it becomes impossible for me to choose them all,
therefore, I have the freedom to choose which one of them is what I think would be best for
me.
This is our reasoning:
a. the will is the tendency toward an intellectually known good
b. the only object which could necessitate my will would be a good that is unconditional/absolute
c. in many of my choices, however, that goods from which I select are all conditioned, limited and
qualified
d. therefore, freedom of choice can be operative in my behaviour
If we are all naturally directed towards the good, then why is it that some people
choose to do evil things?

We never choose evil; it is precisely the deliberation (thought)upon and selection of

a particular good among the many that moral (ethical/good) failure occurs.

Hence, Socrates was right when he said; “The root of evil is ignorance.”
It’s when we do not know what better good we must choose that we are doomed to be
doing evil things.

Conclusion:
Initially that there are forces which can shape and influence my present and future
behaviour. Nonetheless, there are also data that cannot be ignored which point to
the conclusion that determining “forces” do not totally destroy the ability to take
possession of thyself.

Main proponent: B.F. Skinner – “The hypothesis that man is not free is essential to the
application of the scientific method to the study of human behaviour.”

Man is not free since all his thoughts and actions are determined by his historicity.
For him, man’s behaviour is shaped and determined by external forces and stimuli
whether they be familial or cultural sanction, verbal or non-verbal reinforcement, or
complex systems of reward and punishment
It appears that individuals can be programmed like a machine whose behaviour is
not only predicted, but controlled.
 When reflect upon this, many levels of own experience that construe Skinner’s position:
a. Genetic, biological, and physical structures which influence behaviour.
b. Environmental structures which are part of someone.
c. The external forces and demands which impinge (impose) .

These factors imply that there are levels of experience which can be reduced to historicity,
and therefore can be empirically investigated and even controlled.

Nevertheless, there are levels of experience which cannot be reduced to historicity. These are:

1. Being aware of biological and physical limitations.

2. Can question own environmental structures.
3. Can achieve a distance from external demands and forces.

For Jean-Paul Sartre, the fullest realization of one’s manhood is found in the recognition that one’s
very activity is freedom itself. “I am my freedom.”

For Sartre, existence precedes essence, and not the other way around.

I must exist first before I define myself; not that I am defined even before I existed.

Man’s freedom is overwhelmingly evident to Sartre because man is able to detach himself from the
world by his act of questioning and doubt.

“Hindi ang pagkakaroon ng dahilan ang gumagapos sa iyo upang magkaroon ng malayang desisyon.
Datapwat, ang pagkakaroon mismo ng dahilan ang nagpapahiwatig na ikaw mismo ang may hawak ng
iyong desisyon.”

As Maslow said environment is important in the development of my potentialities as a man, but

environment does not give them to me.

He agrees with Sartre in that man can form his own life project, and yet he nods to Skinner in admitting
the importance of the environment in helping these potentialities become actualized.
Then;

In the exercise of freedom we are definitively and ultimately alone. Nobody is there to decide for us.
We are the only ones who have the possession of our freedom. Being alone in the act of freedom, we
have no one to blame or praise but ourselves.

The exercise of freedom goes with the demand of responsibility.

“I have the ultimate responsibility over my life. Nobody is there to live my life for me”.

“Freedom is both beautiful and terrible. It is a power which hails me, and can destroy me”.

This is the greatest problem with freedom; it is terrible, but if you take it away, you take away my
meaning, my dignity, and my creativity.

A man can know himself. Consequently, he can possess himself and his destiny.

However, this destiny and meaning is directed not only to himself but most importantly to others.