Course Code: CORE8

Course Title: INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN

PERSON
Course Type: CORE
Pre-requisite: NONE
Co-requisite: NONE
Quarter: 2nd
Course Topic: FREEDOM OF A HUMAN PERSON
Module: #5 Week: 10-11
Course Subtopic: The Meaning of Freedom
Freedom and Responsibility
Course Description: An initiation to the activity and process of
Philosophical reflection as a search for synoptic
vision of life. Topics to be discussed include the
human experiences of embodiment, being in the
world with others and the environment, freedom,
intersubjectivity, sociality, being unto death.
Course Outcomes (COs) and Relationship to Student Outcomes
Course Outcomes SO
After completing the course, the student must a b c d
be able to:
4. Demonstrate an appreciation for the talents D I R
of persons with disabilities and those from
the underprivileged sectors of society.
* Level: I- Introduced, R- Reinforced, D- Demonstrated

FREEDOM OF A HUMAN PERSON

THE MEANING OF FREEDOM

The human freedom and the human capability to reflect about the
circumstances of our existence are phenomenons that have puzzled
philosophers, anthropologists and other scientists alike, since we can think.

Political Freedom As The Enemy Of A Good

Individual And A Good Society
Plato By: Ulrich Roschitsch (2015)

In Plato's philosophy, humans are not equally well

equipped in terms of their mental capacity to make
morally and practically sound decisions. Plato starts
with the assertion (that sounds logical, even to
modern thinkers) that every human being has a
specified talent and should therefore be assigned to a
specific job. This logically leads him to the conclusion
that there can only be certain people that are capable
of ruling5. According to Plato's statement, not every
citizen, but precisely only those who are fit to ruling,
are capable of leading the society, and thus every

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 individual, towards ―the good‖. But what is the good?
This question is probably too complex to answer in
barely one page, but regarding our main question, we
can work with the following explanation: Plato argues
that there is a fundamentally good principle in the
universe that gives sense and an order to life. He
compares it to the sun that sheds light on the world,
making it possible to see everything that is important

Free Will As A Precondition To Philosophical

Thinking
By: Ulrich Roschitsch (2015)
René Descartes

Contrary to Plato, René Descartes does not see

freedom as the achievement of philosophers, but
rather as the necessary prerequisite to doing
philosophy in the first place. But we will have a look
on the exact comparison in the second part of the
paper. For Descartes, the real question is not what is
―the good‖, but rather whether we can possibly ever
find out about it. In order to find out, whether our
hitherto accumulated knowledge maps on to an
external reality, Descartes starts by clearing his head
off any idea that could be false – he looks for a
foundation to build his philosophy on, by doubting
every idea that is not entirely self-evident.

Freedom As The Need For A Thorough

Philosophical Inquiry
By: Ulrich Roschitsch (2015)

Albert Camus For Albert Camus, as for Plato, there are also two
different ways of interpreting human freedom: There
is the freedom that everybody has to chose between
options, to do/think/refuse/etc. one thing or another,
and then there is the ―Absurd freedom‖21, that is in
his view the only kind of true freedom. What does he
mean by that? By freedom, Camus obviously (again)
refers to the human capability of choosing between
options. But the word absurd has a surprising
meaning here: The absurd (or rather the absurdity of
life) results from the human need to find a meaning
in life and the universe's constant silence facing those
human questions

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 The Nature Of Freedom Of Action And Freedom Of
Will
John Locke
By: Rickless, Samuel (2020)

Locke offers distinctive accounts of action and

forbearance, of will and willing, of voluntary (as
opposed to involuntary) actions and forbearances,
and of freedom (as opposed to necessity). These
positions lead him to dismiss the traditional question
of free will as absurd, but also raise new questions,
such as whether we are (or can be) free in respect of
willing and whether we are free to will what we will,
questions to which he gives divergent answers

The Social Contract Theory

By: Buhanan, Kurt (2016)

Jean Jacques
One finds this thought even more profoundly and
Rousseau
emphatically stated, where Rousseau argues that
entrance into the civil state results in the
transformation of the human being ―from a stupid,
limited animal into an intelligent being and a man.‖[6]
Although in both passages he still considers the
potential for abuse and corruption to be a significant
concern, the exit from the state of nature also
eventuates in the development of the human faculties
and the acquisition of moral liberty, ―which alone
makes man truly master of himself. For to be driven
by appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the law
one has prescribed for oneself is liberty.‖

DETERMINISM: UNDERMINING FREE CHOICES

By: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2020)

Theory that all events, including moral choices, are completely determined by
previously existing causes. Determinism is usually understood to preclude free
will because it entails that humans cannot act otherwise than they do. The
theory holds that the universe is utterly rational because complete knowledge
of any given situation assures that unerring knowledge of its future is also
possible.
Types of determinism according to Philosophy Terms (2016), are:
1. causal determinism (or physical determinism) which is normally
associated with two positions:
- nomological determinism – the claim that all events are
caused by previous events according to rigid laws, such that all
events are, in a sense, inevitable.

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 - neccesitarianism – that there are no real possibilities; the
world could only be as it is.
2. Predeterminism is the idea that all events are pre-determined, not
merely by their immediate causes, but since the beginning of time. This
seems to be implied by causal determinism, since whatever happened at
the beginning of time would determine the chain of cause and effect ever
after.
3. Fatalism is the non-scientific version of predeterminism, claiming that
we all have unavoidable fates, but not ones which are necessarily based
on natural law, allowing for other sources of fate, such as God.
4. Theological determinism this is the idea either that God has
determined our fates, or that God knows what they are, which would also
imply that they cannot be changed.
5. Adequate determinism is probably the operating philosophy of most
scientists today—the idea that although quantum reality is partly non-
deterministic, it is deterministic enough, for all practical purposes,
because the unpredictability averages out at the human scale.

The Act of Making a Choice

By: The Information Philosopher

Robert Nozick in his Philosophical Explanations, 1981, sketched a view of how

free will is possible, how without causal determination of action a person could
have acted differently yet nevertheless does not act at random or arbitrarily.

Making some choices feels like this. There are various reasons for and against
doing each of the alternative actions or courses of action one is considering,
and it seems and feels as if one could do any one of them. In considering the
reasons, mulling them over, one arrives at a view of which reasons are more
important, which ones have more weight. One decides which reasons to act on;
or one may decide to act on none of them but to seek instead a new alternative
since none previously considered was satisfactory.

It is causally undetermined (by prior factors) which of the acts we will decide to
do. It may be causally determined that certain reasons are reasons (in the one
direction or the other), but there is no prior causal determination of the precise
weight each reason will have in competition with others. Thus, we need not
hold that every possible reason is available to every person at every time or
historical period. Historians and anthropologists delineate how certain ideas
and considerations can be outside the purview of some societies, some of
whose reasons would not count as reasons for us. (Yet, there does remain the
question of whether an innovator couldn't have recognized as a reason
something outside the purview of others in his society.) Psychology,
sociobiology, and the various social sciences, on this view, will offer casual
explanations of why something is or is not a reason for a person (in a
situation). They will not always be able to explain why the reasons get the
precise weights they do. Compare the way art historians treat style; not every
style is equally available to every artist in every period, yet within a style

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creative choices are made, and some artistic revolutions introduce new stylistic
possibilities.

It is neither necessary nor appropriate, on this view, to say the person's action
is uncaused. As the person is deciding, mulling over reasons RA which are
reasons for doing act A and over RB which are reasons for doing act B, it is
undetermined which act he will do. In that very situation, he could do A and he
could do B. He decides, let us suppose, to do act A. It then will be true that he
was caused to do act A by (accepting) RA. However, had he decided to do act B,
it then would have been RB that caused him to do B. Whichever he decides
upon, A or B, there will be a cause of his doing it, namely RA or RB . His action
is not (causally) determined, for in that very situation he could have decided
differently; if the history of the world had been replayed up until that point, it
could have continued with a different action. With regard to his action the
person has what has been termed contra-causal freedom—we might better
term it contra-deterministic.

Norzick also suggests the Theory of Values in the act of giving weight:
 Intrinsic value has traditionally been thought to lie at the heart of
ethics. Philosophers use a number of terms to refer to such value. The
intrinsic value of something is said to be the value that that thing has ―in
itself,‖ or ―for its own sake,‖ or ―as such,‖ or ―in its own right.‖
Example: Studying is a good act in itself
 Instrumental value the function and measure of intrinsic that will lead
to.
Example: Studying is a good act in itself Studying will help you
understand the lessons well and it may you earn a high grade.
 Originative value may be newly intrinsic values. Through this third
value, you may have all the three values including originative. His or her
actions can make a great change and different valuable consequences.
Example: Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, was a college dropout. He
chose not to finish study and instead focused on developing computers
and such devices. The choice that Steve made ultimately led to the
invention of Mac computers, iPhones, and iPads.

FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY

By: Freedom & Responsibility Party (2010)

Human beings prosper through cooperation. Compulsion is not cooperation.

People must be free to cooperate. With freedom comes responsibility – to accept
the consequences of our choices, and to respect and protect each other’s'
freedom. Not everyone will respect that responsibility voluntarily. Freedom
without mutual responsibility is the law of the jungle. The role of government is
(with the minimum of coercion, intrusion and cost) to define and enforce the
rules and responsibilities that maximize freedom and cooperation. Much
follows from this. It is just the start and basis of the philosophy. But already
we have introduced some terms, like freedom, that mean different things to

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different people. We will expand on the philosophy through examination of the
meanings of certain key terms.

Property
Property rights are key to freedom and responsibility. They define those things
that individuals should be free to use as they see fit (barring infringements of
other peoples' freedoms and property rights). They define those things whose
use the owner must be responsible for. Property in this sense includes goods,
services, money, land and labour - any entity that is owned. Property rights
include full title and partial rights of use. The uses to which individuals should
be free to put their property include non-use and exchange.
a) Non-use
The non-use of property may serve as valuable a function to the
individual and society as its use. For instance, when prices fall for a
certain good, below the level at which some owners of the good are willing
to exchange it, the withdrawal of some items of the good from the market
will serve to bring supply and demand back into balance. Property
owners should not expect to be subsidised for keeping their property out
of the market, but neither should they expect to be penalized. Policies
that penalize property-owners for keeping their property idle are an
attack on property rights and economically unsound.
b) Voluntary exchange
Voluntary exchange is the fundamental way by which unconnected
individuals cooperate to increase their mutual welfare. A voluntary
exchange occurs where each participant to the transaction values the
other participant's property more highly than the property they are
offering to exchange.
c) Involuntary exchange
If one or more participants to a transaction must be coerced to exchange
their property, the exchange is not voluntary and the transaction has not
resulted in a mutual increase in welfare. The government should
therefore avoid interfering in transactions, other than to provide the
institutional framework and to protect the participants from coercion or
fraud. By intervening to make participants do what they otherwise would
not have done voluntarily, the government destroys the mutual benefit
that is the product of a voluntary exchange.
d) Protection of property rights – the first duty of the state
The main responsibilities of a free state are to protect person, property
and nation from coercion and involuntary appropriation by others. Other
responsibilities, such as the protection of competition and provision of a
social safety net flow from these basic responsibilities.
e) Taxation is appropriation of property
Protection of individual property rights includes minimizing the
appropriations that the state must make to fund the services that it
provides. It is no good knowing that the state has provided such good
security that no one could steal your property, if the state deprives you of
the use of that property through such heavy taxation that you must
dispose of your property in order to pay the tax. All taxation is

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 appropriation of property through coercion by the state, and should be
kept to a minimum. The objective of government policy and fiscal
management should be, in the long-term, to minimize the amount of tax
needed and taken, not to maintain the tax-take at the maximum level at
which economic growth can be maintained. People's property is not a cow
to be milked by the state.
Nation
Nations are the divisions of human population into groupings with a broadly-
shared cultural, historical, constitutional, and linguistic (but not political)
background.
a) Democratic units
They provide a vital function in maximising the chance that a
democratically-elected government will implement policies that will have
the broad support (or at least acquiescence) of the population.
Consequently, it is a mistake to try to subsume nations within supra-
national organizations, where the commonality between the peoples
represented is diminished, and any interventions by the organization
must therefore represent an unsatisfactory compromise between the
various cultures.
b) Differentiation and homogenization
Nations can learn most effectively from each other by pursuing the
policies that reflect the preferences of the majority of their populace, and
comparing the outcomes with the different policies and preferences of
other nations. If they move towards a common view through this process
of experimentation and education, then they may gradually cooperate
more closely on a voluntary basis, perhaps eventually to the extent of
uniting under one government. But the process must be voluntary and
progressive. It must not be forced.

Wealth
Accumulated property. Individual net wealth is the property that an individual
owns minus any debts that they owe. National wealth is the sum of the net
wealth of all citizens and organizations.
a) Money supply and wealth Money is not wealth. Money is a medium of
exchange and a yardstick for valuation. Monetary expansion (inflation)
does not increase wealth. In the short term, it transfers wealth from most
people and organizations to the beneficiaries of monetary expansion
(government, big corporations, and their clients). In the long-term, it
destroys wealth, through its inhibition and distortion of the market.
b) Mercantilism and protectionism If money is not wealth, neither does it
make us richer to try to bring as much money into the country and
prevent as much of it from leaving. We all benefit from each country's
comparative advantages through trade. We must buy other countries'
products in order for them to have the money to buy our products, and
vice versa. Barriers to trade impoverish us all.
c) Human wealth There are many things in human experience that
contribute to the quality of our existence, beyond those things that can
be bought and sold. Like all experience and human valuation, they are

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 psychological, subjective, mutable. Policy has no place in the purely
personal.
d) Natural wealth Something similar can be said for natural wealth. There
is a difference between a natural resource in the ground, and a natural
resource within someone's property, for which there is a demand that
can be met economically. Only the latter can be considered as part of our
wealth, and only where intervention is required to ensure that the
extraction of this resource respects our property rights is this a matter
for policy. This subset of natural wealth is also a subset of property, and
needs no separate consideration from the broader consideration of
property rights.

Capital
Capital is that part of our wealth that is employed in the production of goods.
The definition of certain types of wealth, measured in monetary terms, as
capital is merely an accounting convention, for the purposes of economic
calculation. Capital has no inate properties. It is not a different type of thing to
other types of good or wealth. Something is capital simply by virtue of being
defined as capital.
a) The role of capital in the calculation of economic progress
Capital is depleted in production, whether as an input to the process, or
through wear-and-tear. If the value of the production output is not
sufficient to replace and repair the capital as it is used, we are
consuming our capital and reducing our wealth. If the value of the
production output is more than sufficient to replace and repair the
capital as it is used, the excess income can be spent, saved or invested.
Some of it will contribute to public expenditure through taxation. If the
market is competitive, a sufficient excess will result in a reduction in
costs to consumers. Whichever, we have increased our wealth.
b) Capital must have a monetary value
Capital that cannot, objectively and to a reasonable degree of accuracy,
be quantified in monetary terms is meaningless. The point of capital is to
assist in economic calculation.
c) Capital requires property rights
As the purpose of capital is for use in production of goods, the person
employing the capital must have the right to use it - must have property
rights in it. It is nonsensical to speak of investment in capital, if the
investment does not give the investor the necessary property rights in
that capital.

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 ACTIVITY 5:
Decision Making Scenarios

Instructions: Read the following decision making scenario then write

down your possible action. Use the decision making guide to help you
make decision.

Name: _____________________________ Grade &Section: ________________

Scenario #1
A not-so-popular student has invited you to a sleepover at a birthday
party on Friday night. You have accepted the invitation and are
planning to attend. On Wednesday, you are invited to a boy-girl party
for the same Friday night by one of the most popular students in your
school, someone you have hoped to become friends with. After talking
with your friends, you realize most of them will attend the boy-girl
party. Your parents have told you it is your decision, but that you
should attend the party you responded to first. You really want to be a
part of the popular crowd. What do you do?
______________________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________

Scenario #2
You are eating lunch at the canteen and you notice someone from one
of your classes sitting by themselves. While you like the person
enough, they are out of your peer group. You feel badly they are all
alone, but don’t want to venture too far outside of your comfort zone at
lunch. What do you do?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
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______________________________________________________________________

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 ACTIVITY 5:
Decision Making Scenarios

Instructions: Read the following decision making scenario then write

down your possible action. Use the decision making guide to help you
make decision.

Name: _____________________________ Grade &Section: ________________

Decision Making Guide

______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________

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 ACTIVITY 5:
Decision Making Scenarios

Instructions: Read the following decision making scenario then write

down your possible action. Use the decision making guide to help you
make decision.

Name: _____________________________ Grade &Section: ________________

Decision Making Guide

______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________

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 SELF-ASSESMENT

Encircle
your
Answer

FORM
Read each statement and check ( ) the box that reflects your work today.

Name: Date:
Section:
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1. I found this work interesting.

2. I make a strong effort.
3. I am proud of the results.
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6. I learned something new.
7. I feel ready for the next assignment.
www.ldatschool.ca/executive-function/self-assessment/

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Reference Book:
Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person
 Brenda Corpuz, Diwa Learning System Inc. 2016,
 Jose Romero Joven & Ramonito Canete Perez, Books Atbp.
Publishing Corporation
 Brenda B. Corpuz, BSE, MAEd, Phd et.al. OBE Publishing

Online Reference:
 Roschitsch, Ulrich (2015), The concepts of human freedom and radical
questioning in ...
Retrieved from: www.grin.com › document
 Rickless, Samuel (2020), Locke On Freedom (Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy)
Retrieved from: plato.stanford.edu › entries › locke-freedom
 Buhanan, Kurt (2016), Rousseau and the Nature of Human Freedom |
Humanities ...
Retrieved from: sites.uci.edu › humcoreblog › 2016/11/07 › rousseau-and-
the-nature-...
 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2020), determinism |
Definition, Philosophers, & Facts | Britannica
Retrieved from: www.britannica.com › Philosophy & Religion › Philosophical
Issues
 Philosophy Terms (2016), Determinism: Examples and Definition
Retrieved from: philosophyterms.com › determinism
 The Information Philosopher, Robert Nozick
Retrieved from: informationphilosopher.com › solutions › philosophers ›
nozick
 Freedom & Responsibility Party (2010), Philosophy
freeresp.org.uk › content › philosophy

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