FREEDOM OF THE HUMAN PERSON

FREEDOM is the power to act, speak or think without externally imposed restraints.

ARISTOTLE
Human being can be happy, he must grow intellectually.

For Aristotle, moral acts are in our power and we are responsible for them. Character or habit is no excuse
for immoral conduct.

Volition – is the capacity of conscious choice and decision and intention.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Of all creatures of God, human beings have the unique power to change themselves and things around them
for the better.

A human being, therefore, has a supernatural, transcendental destiny. This means that he can rise above his
ordinary being or self to a highest being or self. This is in line with the idea of St. Thomas that in the plan of God, a
human being has to develop and perfect himself by doing his daily tasks. 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.

The power of change cannot be done by human beings alone, but is achieved through cooperation with
God.

FOURFOLD CLASSIFICATION OF LAW

Eternal Law - is the decree of God that governs all creation.

Divine Law - deals with the interior disposition as well as external acts and it ensures the final punishment of all
evil doings.

Natural Law – is a law that applies only to human being. It is discovered by using reason and choosing between
good and evil.

Human Law – is a law that should not only be obeyed but also obeyed voluntarily and with understanding.

St. Thomas Aquinas accentuate (focus) on freedom of humanity but chooses love in governing humanity’s
life.

JEAN PAUL SARTRE

Sartre’s Principle of Existentialism
1. The person, first, exists, encounter himself and surges up in the world then defines himself afterwards.
2. The person is provided with a supreme opportunity to give meaning to one’s life.
3. Freedom is, therefore, is the very core and the door to authentic existence.
4. The person is what one has done and is doing.
5. The human person who tries to escape obligations is acting on bad faith.

Existentialism - assumes that people are entirely free and responsible for what they make of themselves.

THOMAS HOBBES
He argued that humans are fundamentally predisposed to selfishness and state of nature.

Law of Nature
1. We must seek peace
2. The reasonableness of seeking peace
 3. Human beings perform their agreements made.

The third law of nature is that human beings perform their agreements (covenant) made. Covenant of
mutual trust becomes invalid when there is fear of non-performance on either part, and that in the natural
condition of war this fear is always present.

Hobbes thinks that to end the continuous and self-destructive condition of warfare, humanity founded the
state with its sovereign power of control by means of a mutual consent.

Social Contract is a certain way of looking at a society of voluntary collection of agreeable individuals. It is an
implicit agreement among people that results in the organization of society.

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
- One of the most famous and influential philosophers of the French Enlightenment in the 18 th century

Human beings have to protect themselves from one another, because the nature of human beings is to wage
war against one another, and since by nature, humanity tends toward self-preservation, then it follows that they
have to come to a free mutual agreement to protect themselves.

He believes that a human being is born free and good. But human being becomes bad due to evil influences
of society civilization, learning and progress. Therefore, he lost his original goodness and his primitive tranquility
of spirit.

According to Rousseau in order to restore peace, bring his freedom back, as he returned to his true self, he
saw the necessity and came to form the state through the social contract whereby everyone grants his individual
rights to the general will.

B.F. SKINNER
- We must consider what the environment does to an organism not only before but also after it responds.

Following the saying of John Stuart Mill, “Liberty consists in doing what one desires. “ Skinner states that
when a person wants something, he acts to get it when the occasion arises.

Skinners 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.