ETHICS PRELIM REVIEWER
this world. It is important to study ethics since it
Importance of Ethics
One cannot but notice the different judgments
made on the different actions preferred by
individuals from situations that needed
responses. The fast-changing world offers us
various alternatives as to what would be the
appropriate choice of actions for a simple or
complicated circumstance. The advances in
technologies and science challenge our
traditional beliefs, which have been parts of our
lives and are the guiding codes on how to act
properly as we integrate ourselves in the
society. Also, the economic realities greatly
influence the kind of action one has to consider
before making decisions. The structure of the
society cannot be denied since individuals are
parts of it. Another phenomenon that affects
our actions today is the pluralistic worldviews.
This refers to the belief in two or more
worldviews as being equally valid or acceptable.
Thus the individual or communal perspectives
on certain matters are consideredalong with on
how the people around the world see them.
And lastly, the global communication that
makes the world we are living in a village. The
accessibility of information makes people easily
compare notes whether on an action is right or
wrong. The complications oflife in this new era
sometimes make people disagree on what is
right and wrong, what is to be done or not, or
how things should decide.We cannot avoid
ethical issues in our day-to-day routines. We
need to face them; make decisions and
hopefully act rightly.
We may have our own basis for our actions. But
the world outside of us has also to be
considered. Thus the basic understanding of
moral principles that governs a person's
behavior or the conducting of an activity is
important in equipping ourselves in facing
ethical issues and dilemmas in a more advanced
world of today. Albert Camus once said that a
man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon
seeks to discern what is the best course of
action in any given situation and not like be an
individual whose judgments for his actions is his
satisfaction.
Meaning of Ethics and Morals
Socrates, in Plato’s Republic, said that what we
will be discussing is no small matter, but how
we ought to live. Ethics may not be as
important as the new discoveries of the
contemporary world or may be considered to
some as a subject to discuss that belongs
toantiquity, yet value always shines in every
decision and every act executed. Plato even
reminded us that it is no small matter since
involves how we ought to live our lives not only
in relation to one’s self but most especially to
others.
Once a mother watched her drugged ten-year
child raped, killed and dismembered by her
partner and boyfriend's cousin the day after her
birthday. The mother “liked watching her being
raped” by her partner and did nothing to stop
the attack, even though her daughter begged
for her help.
After reading the story our hearts are raging
with hatred against the rapists and much more
to the mother who enjoyed watching her
daughter being raped, killed and dismembered.
Without a second thought, we would
immediately point our fingers and make
judgments that the things done to the poor
were child morally bad and that the mother was
a heartless individual whose place should not
be in a free society but in a place where outcast
are grieving for their mistakes.
The case of Kitty Genovese was different. She
attacked three times and stabbed several times.
There were thirty-eight people who merely
watched the assaults. It was only later that a
woman had the courage to call the police about
the incident. When the police came, Kitty
Genovese was dead. Only the woman who
called the police testified about the tragedy. We
may now question, why the thirty-eight
witnesses did not make any move to stop the
assailant? They may have their reasons why
they did not lift a finger to help Kitty. Had one of
them immediately made an intervention to stop
the assailant, Kitty could have been saved. As
responsible individuals, where is there moral
responsibility? Were their excuses free them
moral liability? Would they consider their acts
as good since they are also protecting
themselves? These and many other questions
are the why ethics is of no small matter for it
involves our every decision and act.
What is ethics then?
In an article appeared in Issues in Ethics IIE V1
N1 (Fall 1987) it was said that when the
sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked some
businessmen on what was their personal notion
on ethics, coming from different perspectives,
they had a diverse idea of what ethics is.
One emotionally defined Ethics as that which
has to do with what his feelings telling him is
right or wrong. There was a time that
everybody embraced the idea of putting our
trust in our feelings. When we fell something
intense it has to be seen as somethingtruthful
and needs to be considered despite it’s being
imprecise. This should not be kept in our hearts
for they might be significant indications of
something. When one feels guilty it might be a
sign that that individual has done something
wrong. Or when one feels uneasy there might
be something to happen unfavorably. But
experiences tell us that for many times that our
feelings cannot be trusted. A person following
his feeling may end up doing what is wrong.
Feelings sometimes cloud our judgment to do
what is right.
Another respondent equated Ethics with his
religious beliefs. If Ethics is placed only in the
realm of religion and every religion has its own
standard of morality, then the concept of what
right and wrong become relative to every
religious group. Besides, again if we confine
ethics to religion, this would make the
unbelievers are exempted in our judgment of
what is right or wrong.
One businessman claimed that Ethics is the
same as following the Law. Many of us would
subscribe to this claim. Both Ethics andLaw are
guides on how we act in a society. There are
many laws that integrate some ethical canons
that are accepted by the people who are to
follow them. But looking back on our history
and even now, we cannot but disagree with the
idea that Ethics is the same as following the
Law. Before it was right to sell slaves for they
were but just properties of their masters. There
are many laws in the Old Testament of the Bible
that is not relevant to the present days. United
nations even condemn death penalty, which
some countries are still practicing, claiming that
it has no place in the 21st century. Clearly,
these only show that Ethics is not the same as
following the Law. Finally, another respondent
maintained that Ethics is doing the same as to
what is being accepted by the society. Many of
what is accepted by a society are ethical. In fact,
it is the greatest number of the society that
makes the judgment or decision one makes in
determining right and wrong. It was stressed in
The Wrath of Khan (1982) when Spock says,
“Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the
many outweigh the needs of the few.” Jeremy
Bentham took it as gospel by proclaiming that
the greatest happiness of the greatest number
is the foundation of morals and legislation.
However, we know
for a fact that this not true all the time. The Man from Nazareth was rejected by many and even by his
own people when he introduced new teachings foreign from what was accepted during those times.
Same also with what happened to the Italian polymath, Galileo Galilei, who was hated by many when he
contradicted the teaching of the powerful Church that the world was not flat.

The word "ethics" originates from the Greek word ēthos, which means habit, custom, or character. It is
defined as the science of morals (from the Greek hē ēthikētekhnē). It is a branch of philosophy that
deals with how should man ideally acts and relates to the society.

As a philosophical discipline of study, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines Ethics as a science
that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct. In
practice, ethics pursues to settle uncertainties of human morality by defining the nuances of what is
good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime.

Ethics covers the following dilemmas (a) how to carry on with a decent life; (b) our rights and duties; (c)
the language of right and wrong; and (d) moral choices - what is virtuous and evil? Our concepts of
ethics have been derived from religions, philosophies, and cultures. They infuse debates on topics like
abortion, human rights and professional conduct. Morality, on the other hand, is ones’ own personal
sense of what is right or wrong. It is not imposed on anyone, it is what youthink a good and bad person
is. Deigh (2010) defines morality in the sense used in philosophical ethics as standards of right and wise
conduct whose authority in practical thought is determined by reason rather than custom.

In a capsule, Ethics refers to the standards, rules, norms by external sources like the society, profession
or community where an individual resides. It is external by nature since with it is ones social obligation
to follow the standards of a community and within cultural norms. While morality, on the other hand,
refers to the principles or habits with respect to right or wrong conduct. It is internal innature for it
involves the individual belief of what is good or bad. It transcends cultural norms.

Difference between ethics and morality is summarized in the table below.

Approaches to Ethics
Philosophers these days tend to isolate ethical theories into three fields: metaethics, normative ethics,
and applied ethics.

Meta-ethics manages the idea of good and moral judgment. It takes a gander at the starting points and
importance of moral standards.

Normative ethics is involved in the matter of good judgments and the criteria for what is correct or off-
base.

Applied ethics takes a gander at questionable points like war, every living creature's common-sense
entitlement, and the death penalty.

Uses of Ethics
In the event that ethical theories are to be valuable practically speaking, they have to influence the way
individuals carry on. A few savants imagine that morals do this. They contend that if a man understands
that it would be ethically great to accomplish something then it would be unreasonable for that
individual not to do it. Be that as it may, individuals regularly act unreasonably - they take after their 'gut
nature' notwithstanding when their head proposes an alternate game-plan. Be that as it may, morals
provide great devices for pondering good issues.

Ethics can offer a moral chart. Most moral issues get us pretty worked up - think of abortion and
euthanasia for starters. Because these are such emotional issues we often let our hearts do the arguing
while our brains just go with the flow. But there's another way of tackling these issues, and that's where
philosophers can come in - they offer us ethical rules and principles that enable us to take a cooler view
of moral problems. So, ethics provides us with a moral map, a framework that we can use to find our
way through difficult issues.

Morals can identify differences among individuals. Utilizing the system of morals, two individuals who
are contending an ethical issue can regularly find that what they differ is only one specific piece of the
issue and that they comprehensively concede to everything else.

That can remove a considerable measure of warmth from the contention, and in some cases even allude
to a path for them to determine their concern. Yet, some of the time morals doesn't furnish individuals
with the kind of assistance that they truly need.

Ethics doesn't give correct responses. Ethics doesn't generally demonstrate the correct response to
moral issues. In fact, an everincreasing number of individuals feel that for some moral issues there isn't
a solitary right answer - only an arrangement of rules that can be connected to specific cases to give
those included some unmistakable decisions. A few thinkers go further and say that all morals can do is
wipe out disarray and elucidate the issues. From that point onward, it's up to every person to arrive at
their own decisions.

Ethics can give a few answers. Numerous individuals need there to be a solitary right response to moral
inquiries. They discover moral uncertainty difficult to live with in light of the fact that they truly need to
do the 'right' thing, and regardless of whetherthey can't work out what that correct thing is, they like
'someplace' there is one right answer. Be that as it may, regularly there isn't one right answer - there
might be a few right answers or simply some most exceedingly bad answers - and the individual must
pick between them. Forothers, moral vagueness is troublesome on the grounds that it constrains them
to assume liability for their own particular decisions and activities, instead of falling back on helpful
principles and traditions.

Conflict Between Ethics and Morals

One expert case of morals clashing with ethics is crafted by a guard lawyer. An attorney's ethics may
disclose to her that murder is indefensible and that killers ought to be penalized, however, her morals as
an expert legal advisor, expect her to protect her client to the best of her capacities, regardless of
whether she realizes that the client is blameworthy.

Another illustration can be found in the medicinal field. In many parts of the world, a specialist may not
euthanize a patient,even at the patient's demand, according to moral gauges for wellbeing experts.
Nonetheless, a similar specialist may actually have confidence in a patient's entitlement to pass on,
according to the specialist's own particular ethical quality.

Moral and Non-moral Standards

The things we considered morally right and wrong based on the norms we believe could help us develop
our relationship in a society are parts of the standards of morality. These also include the values we
integrate on the things we consider morally good and morally bad. To always respect every human being
is the norm of our moral standards. The reason why we respect every human being, i.e. every human
being has dignity, is the value we put in this act.

These moral standards are absorbed from our environment like our family, friends and the various
communities we are associated with. These standards are dynamic since they will change as we mature
with our experiences and learnings in life. To waste money on material things, for example, maybe an
ordinary thing for you to do when you were younger. This might change later in your life when you
realize that there are more valuable things where your money must be spent on education, charitable
works and the like.

But how do we know that our action is morally good?

When our act genuinely benefits the recipient then it is within the standard or morality. Taking of the
needy, for example, is a good act which normally it would benefit the recipient. Depriving the
disadvantaged of their needs, on the other hand, is an act that would damage more of their unfortunate
situation.

Moral standard is not dependent on a group who may have authority in a certain community. The
Senate cannot change the notion that respecting our parents is a noble act that children are expected to
give to them. There must be reasonable reason/s to rationalize why such an act is not morally good.

Moral obligation is another way to know if our act is within the moral standards. People are not legally
required to give to charities, but they may feel a personal obligation to do so because they believe it is
the right thing to do. Given that one has the capacity to help, he still has the moral obligation to extend
his hands to the needy even if that person belongs to the camp of your rivals.

In appraising moral standards, it is not reliant on the interest of a few. It has to be judged in the interest
of everyone. It has to be applied universally. To kill a person, therefore, cannot be accepted to the
standards of morality since generally, it causes pain to the recipient of the action and accordingly does
not benefit it though it may satisfy the desires of a few.

Lastly, there are particular feelings that we experienced after we have done something good or bad.
After doing charitable works we feel good about ourselves. But when cheat during an examination or in
a relationship, we feel guilty about it. This special feeling of guilty is associated with the standards of
morality. There is something inside of us telling us that what we have done is shameless.

Dilemmas
Definition
You are at your best friend's wedding just an hour before the ceremony is to start.
Earlier that day, you came across definitive proof that your best friend's spouse-
to-be is having an affair with the best man/maid of honor, and you catch them
sneaking out of a room together looking disheveled. If you tell your friend about
the affair, their day will be ruined, but you don't want them to marry a cheater.
What do you do? (Source: Listverse)
There are certain occasions that we are trapped in a situation in which there is a
choice to be made between two or more options, neither of which resolves the
situation in an ethically acceptable fashion. Just like the case above, we are trap
between two choices that are equally good and equally evil. It is not about our
preference since we have to sacrifice one over the other. We are in a perplexing
situation where the choices we have are between equally unsatisfactory
alternatives. In this case, we are in a dilemma.
What is normal to the two surely understood cases is a struggle. For each
situation, an actor sees himself/herself as having moral motivations to do every
one of two choices, however doing the two actions isn't conceivable. Ethicists
have called circumstances like these ethical difficulties or we called moral
dilemmas. The vital highlights of an ethical quandary are these: the agent is
required to do every one of (at least two) actions; the agent can do every one of
the actions, yet the actor can't do both (or all) of the choices. The agent along
these lines appears sentenced to moral disappointment; regardless of what she
does, she will accomplish something incorrectly (or neglect to accomplish
something that she should do).
The Platonic case strikes numerous as too simple to be described as a certified
good situation. For the agent's answer, all things considered, is clear; it is more
critical to shield individuals from hurt than to restore an acquired weapon. What's
more, regardless, the acquired thing can be returned later, when the proprietor
never again represents a danger to others. Accordingly, for this situation, we can
state that the prerequisite to shield others from genuine harm abrogates the
necessity to reimburse one's obligations by restoring an acquired thing when its
proprietor so requests. When one of the clashing necessities supersedes the
other, we don't have a qualified moral dilemma. So notwithstanding the
highlights specified above, keeping in mind the end goal to have a bona fide moral
difficulty it should likewise be valid that neither of the clashing prerequisites is
superseded. Sometimes called ethical paradoxes, these dilemmas invoke an
attempt to refute an ethical system or moral code, or to improve it so as to
resolve the paradox.

Conditions of a Dilemma
Before a situation can be called a dilemma, specifically ethical dilemma, there are
three conditions to be satisfied. The first one is when the agent, the decision-
maker and the doer of the action, has to make the best decision. In making
decisions, there are significant value conflicts among different interests. The
value of family may be in conflict with the value of religion in making a choice.
The second is that alternatives are equally admissible. They have their own valid
reasons why the agent should embrace them. Spending money for the ailing
parent is just acting and likewise also spending it with the education of his
children. The situation demands a decision from the agent which more justifiable
act to be made. And the third is that the decision is made will have consequences
on the stakeholders whether favorable or not. It is like you have your mother on
your one hand and your lover on the other hand. You have to let go one to save
the other. Whatever decision you make, it has consequences not only you but
also to both recipients of the action to be executed.
Types of Moral Dilemmas
There are several types of moral dilemmas, but the most common of them are
categorized into the following:
1) epistemic and ontological dilemmas,
2) self-imposed and world-imposed dilemmas,
3) obligation dilemmas and prohibition dilemmas, and
4) single agent and multi-person dilemmas.

Epistemic moral dilemmas involve situations wherein two or more moral

requirements conflict with each other and that the moral agent hardly knows
which of the conflicting moral requirements takes precedence over the other. In
other words, the moral agent here does not know which option is morally right or
wrong.
Ontological moral dilemmas, on the other hand, involve situations wherein two
or more moral requirements conflict with each other, yet neither of these
conflicting moral requirements overrides each other. This is not to say that the
moral agent does not know which moral requirement is stronger than the other.
The point is that neither of the moral requirements is stronger than the other;
hence, the moral agent can hardly choose between the conflicting moral
requirements.
A self-imposed moral dilemma is caused by the moral agent’s wrongdoings. For
example, David is running for the position of the town mayor. During the
campaign period, he promised the indigenous peoples in his community to
protect their virgin forest just to gain their votes, but at the same time, he seeks
financial support from a mining corporation. Fortunately, David won the
elections, yet he is faced with the dilemma of fulfilling his promised to the
indigenous peoples and at the same time allows the mining corporation to
destroy their forest.
A World-imposed moral dilemma, on the other hand, means that certain events
in the world place the agent in a situation of moral conflict.
Obligation dilemmas are situations in which more than one feasible action is
obligatory, while prohibition dilemmasinvolve cases in which all feasible actions
are forbidden.
Finally, in single agent dilemma, the agent “ought, all things considered, to do A,
ought, all things considered, to do B, and she cannot do both A and B”. In other
words, the moral agent is compelled to act on two or more equally the same
moral options but she cannot choose both. In multi-person dilemma, on the other
hand, “…the situation is such that one agent, P1, ought to do A, a second agent,
P2, ought to do B, and though each agent can do what he ought to do, it is not
possible both for P1 to do A and P2 to do B.”
The multiperson dilemma occurs in situations that involve several persons like a
family, an organization, or a community who is expected to come up with
consensual decision on a moral issue at hand. The multi-person dilemma requires
more than choosing what is right, it also entails that the persons involved reached
a general consensus. In such a manner, the moral obligation to do what is right
becomes more complicated. On the one hand, the integrity of the decision ought
to be defended on moral grounds. On the other hand, the decision must also
prevent the organization from breaking apart”.

Levels of Dilemma
The dilemma at the personal levelis when one, on the subjective level, is
confronted with choices that are equally good and bad. The agent choice does not
affect any organization but only between individuals.
Since organizations are controlled by individuals, the moral guidelines of people in
the business are a vital thought. People may well have an altogether different
arrangement of moral benchmarks from their boss and this can prompt strains.
Factors, for example,peer weight, individual money related position, and financial
status all may impact individual moral models. Administrators and entrepreneurs
ought to know about this to oversee potential clashes.
An organizational dilemma exists within an organization or a particular sector. It
refers to a problem of reconciling inconsistencies between individual needs and
aspirations on the one hand, and the collective purpose of the organization on the
other.
At an organization or corporate level, moral measures are inserted in the
strategies and techniques of the organization and shape an essential
establishment on which business system is manufactured. These approaches get
from the impacts felt at large scale level and thusly help a business to react to
changing weights in the best way. There can be a hole between the organization
strategy on moral principles and the lead of those responsible for maintaining the
business, particularly on the off chance that they are not the immediate
proprietors, which can display a moral test for a few employees.
Systematic/Structural Dilemma refers to the ongoing search for a satisfactory
system. Managers rarely face well-defined problems with clear-cut solutions,
instead, they confront enduring dilemmas like tradeoffs without easy answers.
At a full-scale level, ethics are characterized and impacted by the more extensive
working condition in which the organization exists. Factors, for example, political
weights, monetary conditions, societal demeanors to specific organizations, and
even business control can impact an organization's working gauges and
approaches. Entrepreneurs and supervisors must know about how these weights
influence tasks and connections, and how they may affect on business sectors
locally, broadly and universally.
Morality Defined
Moral Philosophy is an attempt to achieve a systematic understanding of the
nature of morality and what it requires of us, “how we ought to live and why”.

The Role of Reason

Kant’s system of ethics endeavors to get the moral law from reason. Unethical
behavior, as indicated by Kant, includes inconsistency, and is in this way irrational.

This component of Kantian morals has two vital inferences.

The first implication of Kant's utilization of reason to ground morality is that it
gives a reaction to the self-seeker. Vanityholds that we should just to keep our
best interests in mind. Most thinkers dismiss selfishness, however, it is famously
hard to give a sufficient defense for doing as such. Kant's theory gives such a
legitimization: pride is unreasonable, thus can be panned on that ground.
The second implication of Kant's utilization of reason to ground morality is that it
clarifies the extent of morality. Rationality, for Kant, is conclusive of human
nature; it is common among individuals. Every single person, at that point, since it
has the ability to be rational, should be moral. Other creatures, without this
rational aptitude, are not subject to the moral law, and subsequently can't be
weighed by it.
Reason is a capacity that is utilized by man in managing issues.

Moral Reasoning, therefore, is a process by which one thinks about the moral
dilemma in ways that:
 identify (as comprehensively as possible) the morally relevant aspects of the
situation;
 weigh the significance of the morally relevant aspects, giving due importance to
the views of the persons’ concerned of what constitutes benefit and harm;
 identify (as comprehensively as possible) all the possible actions that could be
pursued and their most likely consequences; and
 consider all of the above elements and come to a decision about which action is
 reasoned to be the most ethically justified.

On Impartiality
Each individual’s interests are equally important. Therefore, each must
acknowledge that other person’s welfare is equally important as our own.
Impartiality entails a proscription against arbitrariness in dealing with people.
A conscientious moral agent is someone who is concerned impartially with the
interest of everyone affected by what he or she does. Being impartial is to
carefully sift facts and examines their implications. The agent also accepts
principles of conduct only after scrutinizing them to make sure they are sound;
and he/she is willing to listen to reason even when it means that prior convictions
may have been revised, and who finally, is willing to act on the results of this
deliberation.”

In simply putting the statements above, the nature of morality implies two main
points:
 that moral judgment must be backed up by good reasons;
 morality requires the impartial consideration of each individual’s interest.

Freedom and Responsibility

Ask any person if he wants to be free and he will say yes. But do we

really know what freedom is? And how free are we? First of all, nobody
is completely free to do anything he wants. Freedom is always limited in

various ways.

I may decide that I would like to launch myself into the air, spread my arms and
fly. I may have dreamed of doing so, but my physical body is, and always will be,
incapable of unaided flight. To overcome that limitation, I must resort to
technology.

I may wish to be a famous and highly talented artist, musician or gymnast, but my
freedom is again limited. It may not be physically impossible for me to achieve
these things, but it requires a sustained investment of training in order to develop
natural ability. Therefore, my chances of achieving what I want are limited to the
quality of training that I can acquire.

I may wish to take all the money in a bank, but I am likely to be arrested.

These are some examples of the way that freedom is limited, whether by physical
law, natural ability, or legal and social constraint.

Types of Freedom

Internal Freedom

The first and most basic type of freedom is embodied by the chap in jail. It is of
the greatest personal intimacy and secretiveness, indeed it is the hidden core of
our being and unknowable by others. Some people call this moral freedom. But
this kind of freedom is not in itself moral.

Self Freedom
It is in the sense of learning how to escape the ever-present danger of
enslavement by our own passions and ignorance. It is to practice of self-control,
restraint, and balance to achieve the admired master-slave relationship of the
soul over the body; it is “to find my self.”

External Freedom

This refers to the normal and common freedoms expected in daily life, in most
countries, throughout history. Sometimes called “freedom from...” It implies
immunity from undue interference by authority, especially by government.

Political Freedom

Sometimes called “freedom to...” It has to do with establishing certain rights of

action and limits to government power that help to guarantee the practice of
those rights, examples: the right to speak freely, to associate with people of your
choice, to own property, to worship, etc.

Collective Freedom

Sometimes called “freedom for…” which is based on an ideology of collective

unity that prescribes distinct social and moral values and objectives for all. An
example, which is often under this ideal kind of freedom is when the state
allowed a group to control the production of all basic citizen needs, thus giving
them freedom-from-want.

Spiritual Freedom

In its purest form, this type of freedom comes from striving for a complete
identification with God to arrive at a condition of soul that transcends the
confusion and disharmony of the self and the material world. For this type, strict
control if not denial of the allurements of the body leads to complete freedom of
the spirit.
Freedom of Will

There is an important dimension to freedom that is often forgotten: freedom of will.

Although our freedom may be constrained and our choices limited, at the moment when
we choose, we experience freedom. We understand that we could have made a different
choice. But how free are we really?

If you decide to do something but then give up, are you free? If you find yourself doing
something you know you shouldn’t do, and you know you will regret it later, but still you
cannot stop yourself, are you free? Do you have the freedom to follow your conscience? Do
you have the freedom to forgive someone, or do you sometimes say, “I cannot forgive that
person”? Do you have the freedom to apologize?

True freedom is closely linked to self-control. Only a self-disciplined person can decide to do
something and accomplish it. A person who cannot control his desires is blown all over the
place by impulses, spurious thoughts, and feelings. For example, is an alcoholic free? In one
sense, yes, because no one is forcing him to drink, but in another sense, he is a slave to his
insatiable desire for alcohol. How about a person who wants to give up smoking but
cannot? If we cannot redirect our desires, our will is not free.

A person who has freedom of will is naturally creative. He is always growing, creating and
developing in every dimension. Such freedom can never be taken away.

True freedom is the freedom to follow one’s conscience and maintain one’s personal
integrity. This is freedom of will. It sometimes involves struggle, and it takes a lot of
courage. Yet it leads to more and more of a sense of liberation and fulfillment. The joy of
freedom is not only to be able to choose but to be able to choose well—to choose the right
and the good.

Example: Viktor Frankl - A Free Man Even In Prison

Viktor Frankl was a brilliant psychiatrist who was Jewish. When Adolf Hitler came into
power, he sent Jews to "concentration camps"--camps where Hitler's Nazis murdered,
tortured and starved Jewish people to death. Viktor was sent to Auschwitz--the most
infamous camp of all.

Conditions in the camp were horrible. Yet Frankl observed that even here, prisoners still had
the freedom to choose how they would act in those terrible circumstances: some chose to
be good and kind, some chose to be evil and mean. It was each man's choice and each
man's responsibility.

Frankl said, "Everything can be taken from a man but...the last of the human freedoms - to
choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

When the United States Army liberated the camps in 1945, Viktor Frankl became a free
man. He wrote over 30 books and started a new form of psychotherapy. (Source: Frankl,
Viktor E., Man's Search for Meaning, Washington Square Press, Simon and Schuster, New
York, 1963, p. 104.)

True freedom is not the freedom to do evil and be selfish. That is called license. For
instance, one cannot defend being rude and doing whatever one wants without regard for
others as an expression of true freedom. When we use freedom to make bad choices, the
eventual result is less freedom, less joy. An example might be a person who engages in "free
sex"—meaning that the person has sex with whomever the person wants to, whenever the
person wants to.

This may seem like very liberated and free behavior—but that person will wind up less free
when the consequences of such actions fall. An unwanted pregnancy, a serious infectious
disease—and/or the psychological burden of uncommitted yet bonding relationships—will
sooner or later make that person feel less free and joyful than someone who chose to
behave within the limits of morality.

Freedom of Action

Besides freedom of will, freedom also includes freedom of action. As social and political
freedoms developed, the opportunity for free action was expanded. Often this was due to
the efforts of people who wanted the freedom to worship God in their own way, to hold
beliefs different from those of a powerful majority, to pursue truth and spread that truth
though freedom of speech and the press. Freedom of will and freedom of action should go
hand in hand.

However, when there is freedom but people do not follow their conscience--in other words,
when they use their freedom of will to make the wrong choices-- the result is a crime, social
collapse, and anarchy. A free society in which people have few morals soon collapses. There
cannot be a genuinely free society that is not at the same time a moral society, one made
up of mature and responsible people.
 Freedom and Responsibility

People like freedom because it gives them a sense of mastery over things and
people. They dislike responsibility because it constrains them from satisfying their
desires. Yet they do not understand the relationship between freedom and
responsibility. The two go hand-in-hand. Everyone wants to be free, but there are
times when we are terrified of the responsibility freedom brings. We feel relieved
(or at least part of us does) when someone else takes responsibility and makes a
decision or when circumstances decide for us. In these situations, we try to
escape from freedom. Then, if something goes wrong, we can blame someone
else.

Yet freedom cannot be separated from responsibility. When we are young, we

have little freedom, and thus little responsibility. As we become more responsible,
we gain more freedom and can make more and more of the decisions that affect
our lives. We also need the freedom to make mistakes and to learn from them. If
a person interferes with our responsibility, we feel violated, because it is freedom
and responsibility that make us human. This means, however, that we have not
only the opportunity to make choices but also that we bear the consequences of
our actions, both good and bad. We can choose what we do—we have that
freedom. Yet we cannot choose the consequences of what we do. They are set in
natural and moral law. Therefore, we do well to make responsible choices.

Viktor Frankl once proposed that in addition to the Statue of Liberty on the east
coast, the United States erect a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.

We are answerable not just for the things we do but also for the kind of people
we become. Every thought, word, and deed in our lives shapes our character. We
create our own character through the decisions we make. If we establish the
habit of making the right choices in given situations, we create the foundation for
a good character. Poor choices, on the other hand, lay the groundwork for
developing bad character. In this way, we determine to a great degree our destiny
through the quality of character we develop. As the philosopher, Heraclitus said,
"Character is destiny."

Freedom and Law

Obviously, in many ways, our freedom is limited by laws. Many people think that
since human beings are meant to be free, they should not be restricted by any
laws or norms. However, if everyone could do whatever he pleased without law
and order, the inevitable result would be that the strongest would rule and the
weakest would be oppressed or destroyed. In reality, freedom cannot be
maintained without law. These laws should apply in the same way to everyone,
regardless of who they are. Freedom and equality are thus related.

Freedom exists only within a framework of rules. Imagine playing a game of chess.
Are you free to move the chessmen wherever and however you want? Is it
possible to play a game with no rules? Rules prevent any arbitrary moves by
either player. They establish a common understanding by which everyone plays.

How about society? If there are laws against stealing or murder that apply to
everyone, we all can feel safe. Without such laws, no one is safe, and no one has
the freedom to walk the streets without fear. So the purpose of laws is to protect
people's freedom. A train, as long as it remains on its tracks, can run rapidly or
move slowly, go forward or move backward. In other words, the train has
freedom only insofar as it remains on the tracks. If it is derailed, it will be
damaged and may also cause damage to people and property.

Hence, a human being's conscience and moral law restrict freedom, but they also
work to protect people from going in a self-destructive and evil direction. They do
not restrict or disturb us in the development of our goodness. We are free to be
as good as we can be.
Only by following the way of love and goodness can we become truly free.
Basic Choice and Basic Stance
 Explaining the Fundamental Option

Compiled by Dr. C.
 THE PERSON AND HIS
MORAL CHOICES

Every free human act is performed

by a person and, because it is free,
it belongs to him in a unique way.
In it he expresses and reveals
himself.

It is true to say that a person is

changed by his free acts; by them
he becomes a better or worse
person, and so one's actions
remain in their effects on the
person who performs them.

 person as person
 person as a moral being
 a deeper level where one can and
does know and choose freely, not so
much to do a particular action, but to
be a certain kind of person
 one is confronted by the basic choice
between good and evil

 he is choosing to be a basically good

or a basically evil person
At this deepest level of the person, in the core of
his being, he has

adopted a FUNDAMENTAL MORAL

STANCE or direction or orientation to
reality, to life itself, to people and to God; he
has decided to become a fundamentally
good person or a fundamentally evil one.

It is MORAL because the person chooses to

adopt it in true

knowledge and freedom and remains free to

change it.

 BASIC CHOICE (or fundamental option or

critical response)

 made at the center of the person and with

non-reflexive knowledge and transcendental
or basic freedom and which brings about
the establishment of the person's basic
moral stance
 the cause of one's basic stance
 BASIC STANCE

 that state or condition of the person or self

in which one exists as a basically good or
evil person, as predominantly oriented
towards goodness or evil.
 SPECIFIC CHOICES BASIC CHOICE

choices we do on a daily basis. not so limited

made with explicit awareness and specific object
knowledge and involve some takes place a
exercise of the person's freedom of person, at his de
choice. being, and it con
an agent has reflex (involuntary) VS choice to be and
knowledge and categorical freedom a person
in making such choices, choices one's knowle
which involve selecting between only be non-refle
different categories or kinds of one's freedom tr
options or possibilities that present (i.e., going beyo
themselves to the person choosing all specific ob
made at a relatively superficial or categories and c
peripheral level of the person and be rather than to
do not engage him at the deepest one commits
level of his being person
 ASPECTS OF THE BASIC
CHOICE

 Conscious but not reflexive

• the person is aware of and knows
about his basic choice and stance.
• too personal; they are too much part
of himself as a person, too closely
identified with what he is as a person
• person's awareness of his basic
choice and stance is not explicit and is
not reflected on
 Engaging one's basic freedom
• exercised in the basic choice by and in
which one decides to make oneself a
good or a bad person
• different from Freedom of choice
which is quite familiar and is the
freedom involved in making our
 ordinary daily free decisions and
actions
• also referred to as transcendental
freedom, because it transcends or
goes beyond all particular categories
or classes or objects or values and is
concerned with the person as person
 A process not an act
• a process that over a period
of time unfolds and reaches
its climax in and through a
whole series of individual or
specific choices that the
person makes
 Predominant but not
total
• When a person makes a
basic choice, he thereby
becomes basically or
predominantly good or evil
as a person
• Even the very best people
can do some deliberate evil

 A rare thing

• once one has made a basic

choice and established a
basic stance as a moral
person, one tends to
maintain these and only with
 difficulty, time and effort can
or does one alter them
• basic choices are, thus,
unusual and infrequent high
points or critical moments in
a person's life
 An adult reality
• Only a moral adult can make a basic choice, who has
the ability to make a basic moral choice
 Its religious dimension
• the religious dimension of man’s choices, specific and
basic, needs to be adverted to and explained
• he is not merely choosing a particular moral value or
disvalue, not merely choosing to love or reject a
particular human person or group; he is also and thereby
choosing or rejecting God
 IMPLICATIONS OF THIS
UNDERSTANDING

OF THE BASIC CHOICE

BASIC STANCE- A STATE NOT A

PROCESS

 state of basic goodness or of basic evil;

, the state of
grace or the state of mortal sinfulness
 If one dies in this state, he will in fact
enter the condition or
state which we refer to as heaven or
hell.

 Only a basic choice resulting in a basic

stance for good
merits heaven, and vice versa…
Source:
 William
: PHENOMENOLOGY OF LOVE: THE SELF AND THE OTHER
Cosgrave. (Aug., 1984). Basic Choice and Basic Stance: Explaining the Fundame Summary of
Phenomenology by Love of Manuel Dy

Phenomenology is the study of experience and how we experience. It studies structures of conscious experience as experienced from a
subjective or first-person point of view, along with its "intentionality" (the way an experience is directed toward a certain object in the
world). It then leads to analyses of conditions of the possibility of intentionality, conditions involving motor skills and habits,
background social practices and, often, language.

Experience, in a phenomenological sense, includes everything that we live through or perform. What makes an experience conscious
is a certain awareness one has of the experience while living through or performing it.

What is love?

Foundational Premise: A philosophy of Man without a philosophy of Love is incomplete.

“Without love, you are nothing at all”

What is love? The notion of love has been asked since the time of Plato. Yet the reality of love has not been exhausted. Love is a part
and parcel of man’s life.

A. Misconceptions of Love:

1. Love is equated with romance.

-“Love is a many splendored thing.” – grandeur

 “Love hurts”

 Love is pictured as an act of possessing and on being possessed by another person.

 “You are mine. I am yours and you can do whatever you want to me.”

-“You are who I want you to be’

 Love is synonymous with sex.

• Being physically attracted to him/her and going to bed with him/her. Leads to the idea that friendship is not love and when
to people break up, they would still down for friendship, as if friendship were inferior to love
 Love is blind and lovers do not see

• Love has been equated with admiration.

Erich Fromm, “The art of Loving” – popular notion of love at present is “falling in love"

• Emphasis on being loved rather than loving

 • Emphasis on the object loved rather than on the faculty of loving

• Confusion between the initial state of falling in love and the permanent standing-in-love.
*people mistake the initial feeling of infatuation as love.

 Loneliness and Love

 Experience of love begins from the experience of loneliness.

 Man as man is gifted is with self-consciousness, there comes a point in the stage of man’s life that he comes to an awareness
of his unique self and the possibilities open to him.

 His natural tendency is to seek out his fellow adolescents for understanding and acceptance.

C. Equality in Love

 Uniformity, sameness in actuality.

 Until this will mean oneness in difference, the person will remain lonely amidst a crowd. Loneliness is possible even if one is
immersed in the crowd. In an attempt to conform to the group and hides one’s individuality, his loneliness eventually
expresses itself as an experience of boredom.

Resorts to:

 Drinks and Drugs or any form of heightened sensation.

 Effect: to involve one’s total being in some kind of a trance reminiscent of the primitive man’s ritual and dance.

 Being busy with creative activity

 Keeping on self-occupied with all sorts of activity to divert one’s attention from oneself, but this is only for some time. One
will eventually tire himself out.

Answer to the problem of loneliness: LOVE

 The reaching out to the other person as an other.

 Love is the answer to the problem of loneliness because it is only in love that I find at-onement and still remain myself.

o Love is the union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality, love is an act of power in man, a power
which breaks to the walls which separate man from his fellowmen, which unites him with others.

o Love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separatedness, yet, it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity.

D. Loving Encounter:

 Loneliness ends when one finds or is found by another in what we will call a loving encounter.

 Meeting of persons

 Happens when two persons or more who are free to be themselves choose to share themselves.

 Presupposes an I-thou communication

 Necessitates an appeal => the appeal of the other addressing my subjectivity

 appeal of the other = to be able to see the other’s appeal, I need more than eyes; more than mind – I need an attitude, a heart
that has broken away from self-preoccupation

What is the appeal of the other?

1. Not his corporeal or spiritual attractive qualities since they can only gave rise to enamoredness, a desire to be with the other.

 Once the qualities cease to be attractive, love also ceases.

 Love is more than mere infatuation, more than mere liking such and such qualities of the other.

 The other person is more than his qualities, more than what I can conceptualize of him and love is the experience of this
depth and mystery of the other and the firm will to be for him.

2. Not an explicit request coming from the other.

 The appeal of the other is himself. The other in his otherness is himself the request. The appeal of the other is the call to
participate in his subjectivity, to be with and for him.

 The appeal of the other which is himself enable me to liberate myself from my narrow self.

o Compatibility is not necessarily love. Neither is submission necessarily love.

o Sometimes, refusing the request of the other may be the only way of loving the person in a situation, if satisfying it would bring
harm to the person.

E. Response to the Appeal of the other:

 If the appeal of the other is himself, the appropriate response to that appeal is myself.

 As a subjectivity, the other person is free to give meaning to his life. His appeal then to me means an invitation to will his
subjectivity, to consent, accept, support, and share his freedom.

 His appeal then to me means an invitation to will his subjectivity, to consent, accept, support and share his freedom. Love
means willing the other’s free self-realization, his destiny, his happiness. At times it may mean refusing whatever could
impede or destroy the other’s possibility for self-realization. When I love the other, I am saying “I want you to become what
you want to be, I want you to realize your happiness freely.”

 Love is not only saying it but also doing it. It is effective, it takes actions.

 To love him implies that I will his bodily being, and consequently his world.

 Love is inseparable from care, from labor. To love the other is to labor for that love, to care for his body, his world and his
total well-being.
 Willing the happiness of the other also implies that I have an awareness although vague, of the other’s destiny.

 Love necessitates a personal knowledge of the other.

  If love is not to become domination, it must be balanced by a certain respect, respect for the uniqueness and
otherness of the other. Respect does not mean idolizing the person; it simply means accepting the person as
he is, different from myself.
 Accepting the other is not to be taken in a static sense.

 In such a case, respect also means being patient. Patience is harmonizing my rhythm with his. It requires a lot
of waiting and catching-up, a waiting that is active, ever-ready to answer to the needs of the other, and a
catching up that is spontaneous and natural.

F. Reciprocity of Love

It seems that love is wholly concerned with the other.

G. What is the relationship between love of the other and love of myself?

 In love I offer myself to the other by placing a limitless trust in the other.

 This opening of myself to the other is in the form of defenselessness.

 There is an element of sacrifice in loving the other which is often understood by many as a loss of self. In love I
renounce the motive of promoting myself.
 The pain lies in abandoning my egoism, my self-centeredness.

 But this does not mean loss of myself, on the contrary, in loving the other, I need to love myself, and in
loving the other, I come to fulfill and love myself.
 In loving the other I have to be concerned about myself in order for my love to become authentic.
Since in the loving encounter I am offering myself to the other, the gift of myself must be first of all
valuable to myself.

 Yet this value of myself remains unconfirmed, the joy of being myself a hidden joy.

 In giving myself to the other, I discover my available self.

 There exist in loving the other the desire to be loved in return.

 The primary motive for loving the other is the other himself, the “You”.

 The motive in love is the “you” that is seen not only by the eyes or the mind but more by the heart”.

 Since the “you” is another subjectivity, he is free to reject or accept my offer. This is the risk in
loving, that the other may reject or betray the self I have offered to him.

H. What happens in unreciprocated love?

 Once cannot erase the possibility that the rejection of the beloved could be a test of authentic love.

 But granted that the rejection is final, no doubt that the experience is painful, and it will take time for the
lover to recover himself from the said experience.

 Nevertheless the experience can provide him an opportunity to examine himself.

 It can be an opportunity for self-reparation.

 The experience of being rejected can be an emptying of oneself which would allow room in oneself for
development. Unreciprocated love can still be an enriching experience.
 Indeed the risk and reality of love being unreciprocated proves that “there is no shop in the world that sells
love”

I. Creativity in Love:

 When love is reciprocated, it becomes fruitful.

 There is a distinction between loving the other and knowing him as he is.

 Loving the other is willing the other’s free self-realization, and willing demands a making of the other.

 What is created in love is a being-togetherness, a “we”.

 Concomitant to the creation of the we is the creation of a new world – our world.

J. Union of Love
  The we that is created in love is the union of persons and their worlds.

 The union of persons is not an objective union: when two things are united what results is a composition or
an assimilation: the two elements are no longer distinguishable from each other – they have each lost their
identities.
 The union of love however does not involve the loss of identities. We become more of ourselves by loving each
other. This is the paradox of love, the many in one. The one in many.

K. The Gift of Self

 Love is essentially a gift of self.

 Love is a disinterested giving of myself for the other as other.

 The giving is not a giving up.

 Not the giving of the marketing character

 Not of a virtuous character

 To give myself is to give my will, my ideas, my feelings, my experiences to the other – in short, all that is alive
in me. Love is sharing myself to the other.

L. Why did I choose you and not some particular other?

Because you are lovable. You are lovable because you are you. I see certain value in you and I want to
enhance and be a part of that value.

M. Love is Historical

 Love is historical because the other who is the point at issue in love is a concrete particular
person. Love is not love if it is simply love of humanity in the abstract.
 The concrete other is not an ideal person but a unique being with all his strength and weaknesses.

 To love the other does not mean improving him, although in the course of the relationship it does
happen that the other becomes more of his authentic self.
 To love is to love the other historically.
 Love involves no abstraction. Everything in love is concrete. In contrast, loneliness, the absence
of love, lives among shadows, involves that nothing is real.

N. Equality in Love

 If love is essentially between persons, then it follows that love can only thrive and grow in
freedom. In loving, I do not surrender my liberty and become a slave to the beloved. Love is not a
bondage but a liberation.
 There exist an equality of persons in love, the equality in what they are, as subjects, as freedom,
and not in what they have.

O. Love is total, eternal and sacred

 Man as a person is not a bundle of qualities and functions. As a person, he is indivisible through time
and space.

 Love is a gift of self to the other as self cannot be total.

 The “you” in love is indivisible and thus love is an undivided commitment to the other. It is
offered from the totality of my being to the totality of the other’s being.
 Love is eternal. The gift of myself for the other is not for a limited period of time only. True
friendship can be broken, yet people do not become friends on the understanding that they will
be friends only for a limited time.
 Love implies immortality. In love, we catch a glimpse of eternity. It even conquers death.
 Love is sacred, the persons involved in love are unique, irreplaceable beings and as such
are valuable in themselves.
 The greatest tragedy that could happen to a lover is when his trust is betrayed, when the self that
is entrusted in confidence to the other is disclosed or thrown to the public. When a confidence is
betrayed, something fine and beautiful dies.
  Love is to be practiced rather than talked about.

ntal Option. The Furrow. Vol. 35, No. 8, pp. 508-518

Summary of Phenomenology of Love

by Manuel Dy. For Classroom Purposes only.

Phenomenology of Love

Phenomenology is the study of experience and how we experience. It studies structures of conscious
experience as experienced from a subjective or first-person point of view, along with its "intentionality"
(the way an experience is directed toward a certain object in the world). It then leads to analyses of
conditions of the possibility of intentionality, conditions involving motor skills and habits, background
social practices and, often, language.

Experience, in a phenomenological sense, includes everything that we live through or perform. What
makes an experience conscious is a certain awareness one has of the experience while living through
or performing it.

What is love?

Foundational Premise: A philosophy of Man without a philosophy of Love is incomplete.

“Without love, you are nothing at all”

What is love? The notion of love has been asked since the time of Plato. Yet the reality of love has not
been exhausted. Love is a part and parcel of man’s life.

A. Misconceptions of Love:

1. Love is equated with romance.

-“Love is a many splendored thing.” – grandeur

“Love hurts”

 Love is pictured as an act of possessing and on being possessed by another person.

“You are mine. I am yours and you can do whatever you want to me.”

-“You are who I want you to be’

 Love is synonymous with sex.

 Being physically attracted to him/her and going to bed with him/her. Leads to the idea that
friendship is not love and when to people break up, they would still down for friendship, as if friendship
were inferior to love

 Love is blind and lovers do not see

 Love has been equated with admiration.

Erich Fromm, “The art of Loving” – popular notion of love at present is “falling in love"

• Emphasis on being loved rather than loving

• Emphasis on the object loved rather than on the faculty of loving

• Confusion between the initial state of falling in love and the permanent standing-in-
love. *people mistake the initial feeling of infatuation as love.

 Loneliness and Love

] Experience of love begins from the experience of loneliness.

] Man as man is gifted is with self-consciousness, there comes a point in the stage of man’s life
that he comes to an awareness of his unique self and the possibilities open to him.

] His natural tendency is to seek out his fellow adolescents for understanding and acceptance.
C. Equality in Love

Uniformity, sameness in actuality.

Until this will mean oneness in difference, the person will remain lonely amidst a crowd.
Loneliness is possible even if one is immersed in the crowd. In an attempt to conform to the group and
hides one’s individuality, his loneliness eventually expresses itself as an experience of boredom.

Resorts to:

1. Drinks and Drugs or any form of heightened sensation.

Effect: to involve one’s total being in some kind of a trance reminiscent of the primitive
man’s ritual and dance.

2. Being busy with creative activity

Keeping on self-occupied with all sorts of activity to divert one’s attention from oneself,
but this is only for some time. One will eventually tire himself out.

Answer to the problem of loneliness: LOVE

The reaching out to the other person as an other.

Love is the answer to the problem of loneliness because it is only in love that I find at-
onement and still remain myself.

*Love is the union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality, love is an act
of power in man, a power which breaks to the walls which separate man from his fellowmen, which
unites him with others.

*Love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separatedness, yet, it permits him to be himself,
to retain his integrity.

D. Loving Encounter:

] Loneliness ends when one finds or is found by another in what we will call a loving encounter.

] Meeting of persons

] Happens when two persons or more who are free to be themselves choose to share themselves.

] Presupposes an I-thou communication

] Necessitates an appeal => the appeal of the other addressing my subjectivity

 appeal of the other = to be able to see the other’s appeal, I need more than eyes; more than mind –
I need an attitude, a heart that has broken away from self-preoccupation

] What is the appeal of the other?

 Not his corporeal or spiritual attractive qualities since they can only gave rise to enamoredness, a
desire to be with the other.

 Once the qualities cease to be attractive, love also ceases.

 Love is more than mere infatuation, more than mere liking such and such qualities of the
other.

*The other person is more than his qualities, more than what I can conceptualize of him
and love is the experience of this depth and mystery of the other and the firm will to be for him.

2. Not an explicit request coming from the other.

*The appeal of the other is himself. The other in his otherness is himself the request. The
appeal of the other is the call to participate in his subjectivity, to be with and for him.

*The appeal of the other which is himself enable me to liberate myself from my narrow self.
 +Compatibility is not necessarily love. Neither is submission necessarily love.

+Sometimes, refusing the request of the other may be the only way of loving the person in
a situation, if satisfying it would bring harm to the person.

E. Response to the Appeal of the other:

] If the appeal of the other is himself, the appropriate response to that appeal is myself.

] As a subjectivity, the other person is free to give meaning to his life. His appeal then to me
means an invitation to will his subjectivity, to consent, accept, support, and share his freedom.

] His appeal then to me means an invitation to will his subjectivity, to consent, accept, support
and share his freedom. Love means willing the other’s free self-realization, his destiny, his happiness. At
times it may mean refusing whatever could impede or destroy the other’s possibility for self-realization.
When I love the other, I am saying “I want you to become what you want to be, I want you to realize
your happiness freely.”

] Love is not only saying it but also doing it. It is effective, it takes actions.

] To love him implies that I will his bodily being, and consequently his world.

] Love is inseparable from care, from labor. To love the other is to labor for that love, to care
for his body, his world and his total well-being.

] Willing the happiness of the other also implies that I have an awareness although vague, of the
other’s destiny.

] Love necessitates a personal knowledge of the other.

] If love is not to become domination, it must be balanced by a certain respect, respect for the
uniqueness and otherness of the other. Respect does not mean idolizing the person; it simply
means accepting the person as he is, different from myself.

] Accepting the other is not to be taken in a static sense.

] In such a case, respect also means being patient. Patience is harmonizing my rhythm with his.
It requires a lot of waiting and catching-up, a waiting that is active, ever-ready to answer to the needs of
the other, and a catching up that is spontaneous and natural.

p Reciprocity of Love

It seems that love is wholly concerned with the other.

G. What is the relationship between love of the other and love of myself?

p In love I offer myself to the other by placing a limitless trust in the other.

 This opening of myself to the other is in the form of defenselessness.

 q There is an element of sacrifice in loving the other which is often understood by many as a loss
of self. In love I renounce the motive of promoting myself.

r The pain lies in abandoning my egoism, my self-centeredness.

s But this does not mean loss of myself, on the contrary, in loving the other, I need to love
myself, and in loving the other, I come to fulfill and love myself.

 In loving the other I have to be concerned about myself in order for my love to become
authentic. Since in the loving encounter I am offering myself to the other, the gift of myself must be first
of all valuable to myself.

t Yet this value of myself remains unconfirmed, the joy of being myself a hidden joy.

u In giving myself to the other, I discover my available self.

v There exist in loving the other the desire to be loved in return.

  The primary motive for loving the other is the other himself, the “You”.

 The motive in love is the “you” that is seen not only by the eyes or the mind but more by the

heart”.

 Since the “you” is another subjectivity, he is free to reject or accept my offer. This is the risk in
loving, that the other may reject or betray the self I have offered to him.

3. What happens in unreciprocated love?

] Once cannot erase the possibility that the rejection of the beloved could be a test
of authentic love.

] But granted that the rejection is final, no doubt that the experience is painful, and it will take
time for the lover to recover himself from the said experience.

] Nevertheless the experience can provide him an opportunity to examine himself.

] It can be an opportunity for self-reparation.

] The experience of being rejected can be an emptying of oneself which would allow room
in oneself for development. Unreciprocated love can still be an enriching experience.

] Indeed the risk and reality of love being unreciprocated proves that “there is no shop in the
world that sells love”

p Creativity in Love:

] When love is reciprocated, it becomes fruitful.

] There is a distinction between loving the other and knowing him as he is.

] Loving the other is willing the other’s free self-realization, and willing demands a making of

the other.

] What is created in love is a being-togetherness, a “we” .

] Concomitant to the creation of the we is the creation of a new world – our world.

q Union of Love

] The we that is created in love is the union of persons and their worlds.

] The union of persons is not an objective union: when two things are united what results is a
composition or an assimilation: the two elements are no longer distinguishable from each other –
they have each lost their identities.

] The union of love however does not involve the loss of identities. We become more of
ourselves by loving each other. This is the paradox of love, the many in one. The one in many.
r The Gift of Self

] Love is essentially a gift of self.

] Love is a disinterested giving of myself for the other as other.

] The giving is not a giving up.

] Not the giving of the marketing character

] Not of a virtuous character

] To give myself is to give my will, my ideas, my feelings, my experiences to the other – in short,
all that is alive in me.

] love is sharing myself to the other.

L. Why did I choose you and not some particular other?

Because you are lovable. You are lovable because you are you. I see certain value in you and I want
to enhance and be a part of that value.

M. Love is Historical

] Love is historical because the other who is the point at issue in love is a concrete
particular person. Love is not love if it is simply love of humanity in the abstract.

] The concrete other is not an ideal person but a unique being with all his strength
and weaknesses.

] To love the other does not mean improving him, although in the course of the relationship it
does happen that the other becomes more of his authentic self.

] To love is to love the other historically.

] Love involves no abstraction. Everything in love is concrete. In contrast, loneliness, the

absence of love, lives among shadows, involves that nothing is real.

N. Equality in Love

] If love is essentially between persons, then it follows that love can only thrive and grow
in freedom. In loving, I do not surrender my liberty and become a slave to the beloved. Love is not a
bondage but a liberation.

] There exist an equality of persons in love, the equality in what they are, as subjects, as
freedom, and not in what they have.

O. Love is total, eternal and sacred

] Man as a person is not a bundle of qualities and functions. As a person, he is indivisible

through time and space.

] Love is a gift of self to the other as self cannot be total.

 ] The “you” in love is indivisible and thus love is an undivided commitment to the other. It is
offered from the totality of my being to the totality of the other’s being.

] Love is eternal. The gift of myself for the other is not for a limited period of time only. True
friendship can be broken, yet people do not become friends on the understanding that they will be
friends only for a limited time.

] Love implies immortality. In love, we catch a glimpse of eternity. It even conquers death.

] Love is sacred, the persons involved in love are unique, irreplaceable beings and as such are
valuable in themselves.

] The greatest tragedy that could happen to a lover is when his trust is betrayed, when the self
that is entrusted in confidence to the other is disclosed or thrown to the public. When a confidence is
betrayed, something fine and beautiful dies.

] Love is to be practiced rather than talked about.