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INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF A HUMAN PERSON

CHAPTER 5: FREEDOM OF THE HUMAN PERSON

FREEDOM
(The ability to choose between two alternatives)
 Intrinsic and essential property of the person
 Power to be what you want to be and the ability to decide and create
yourself
 Rooted in the human person’s self-determination and the exercise of
intellect and free will
 Experienced through the act of making choices.

KINDS OF FREEDOM

1. PHYSICAL FREEDOM
-absence of any physical restraint. Freedom of mobility to go where he or she
wants to go.

2. PSYCHOLOGICAL FREEDOM
-freedom of choice. Freedom to perform actions that he or she considers right
and wise.
-innate and cannot be denied as a person.
Example:
1. Freedom to choose your friends.
2. Freedom to choose your partner.
3. Freedom to choose your course in college.

3. MORAL FREEDOM
-using freedom in a manner that upholds human dignity and goodness.
Example:
1. Doing charitable works.
2. Participating on outreach activities.
3. Being sensitive to the needs of other.

THE NATURE OF HUMAN FREEDOM

1. JEAN PAUL SARTRE (Individual Freedom)
“Man is nothing but what he makes of himself”

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 assumes the idea of radical freedom, that man is condemed to be free

that man has a choice in every aspect of his life.
 For Sartre, the human person builds the road to the destiny of his/her
choosing; he/she is the creator.
2. JOHN MOTHERSHEAD- necessary condition for morality to occur: freedom
and obligation
 FREEDOM- when one is making his choices and is the agent that is taking
full responsibility in planning his life, and in the process, planning and
budgetting his actions for some future outlook or goals.
 OBLIGATION- is construed as one’s duty to himself to exercise this
freedom as a rational moral being.
ELEMENTS OF FREEDOM
1. VOLUNTARINESS
 refers to the ability of a person to act his or her free will and self-
determination.
 decisions are made out of his/her own free will.
 also means that a person may act even if he/she is not required or called
to take action.
 voluntary acts are free acts which can be assigned a corresponding
moral value.
2. RESPONSIBILITY
 refers to the person being accountable for his or her actions and their
consequences.
 Means that freedom requires degree of control from the person who
exercises it (e.g. addiction, impulsive behavior)
 To lose control of oneself diminishes human freedom and dehumanizes
the person.

***Voluntariness and responsibility go hand-in-hand in determining a person’s

freedom.
***Without this two elements, human freedom is diminished, and the person
makes imperfect actions and unwise decisions.

DETERMINISM
 DETERMINISM: UNDERMINING FREE CHOICE
 -determinism- opposes the notion of free will. The world is governed by
(or is under the sway of ) determinism if and only if, given a specified

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way things are at a time, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter
of natural law.

 Determinism has direct implication on human actions.

1. CAUSAL DETERMINISM
-incompatible with the notion of free will because it can undermine free choice
if past events will be revealed as the cause of future actions and not really
chosen by the individual as a free agent.
-It is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in
such a way that any state (of an object or event) is completely determined by
prior states.

2. PHYSICAL DETERMINISM- claims that since the body is physical, every

event involving the body is determined.

3. PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
 Human actions, according to Sigmund Freud, are not free.
 Mind has three levels:
Conscious level- the person’s current awareness.
Pre-conscious level- the memories and stored knowledge that a person is not
aware of but can be brought to the present through remembering.
Unconscious level- fears, motives, sexual desires, wishes, urges, and needs that
determines the human behavior.

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THE NATURE OF CHOICES WE MAKE

The act of making a choice

❑ The concept of weighing the reasons explained that when you are
choosing, the act involves not only weighing the reasons but giving
weight to reasons.
❑ After you have chosen each alternative, you will realize that some
considerations carry more weight than the others. That is why you
choose one alternative and disregard the other.
❑ -an act of choosing involves evaluating the alternatives
❑ Robert Nozick (Philosophical Explanation)- the act of making a choice
involves evaluating the reasons and giving weight to reasons. One
alternative is chosen because the reasons behind such alternative have
more weight than the others.
CHOICES: Freedom comes with great responsiblities.
 It is an absolute understanding that all actions have consequences.
Freedom involves choice.
 Freedom gives you the ability to strive to achieve goal.

VALUE OF CHOICES
 Value of giving weight to reasons

VALUE THEORY
1. Intrinsic Value- is the value it has itself apart from or independent of its
consequences; you choose this alternative by the weight you give to the
alternative because the alternative itself is valuable in its own right.
Ex: choosing between studying and going out with friends.
***these alternatives can be both valuable and independent of the
consequences the alternatives may lead to.

2. Intrumental Value- is the function and measure of the intrinsic value that it
leads to. It may be the sum of the intrinsic values of different things it actually
leads to or some measure of the intrinsic values it might lead to as weighed by
the probabilities such as the expected intrinsic value.
Ex: intrinsic value- studying is a good act in itself

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Instrumental Value- Studying will help you understand the lessons well and it
may help you earn a high grade.
Ex: intrinsic value- studying is a good act in itself
Instrumental Value- Studying will help you understand the lessons well and it
may help you earn a high grade.
(1)The intrinsic worth of the alternative you will choose
(2)The weight of the consequences of the alternative you will choose.

3. Originative Value- introduces new value to the world. It may be newly

intrinsic values or newly instrumental values. Through this third value, you may
have all three kinds of values combined.
Ex: you chose to continue your studies and you were able to graduate from
college, later on, you became a scientist and invented a new tool or gadget.
The originative value is based on the invention which your choice effected.
Ex: you chose to continue your studies and you were able to graduate from
college, later on, you became a scientist and invented a new tool or gadget.
The originative value is based on the invention which your choice effected.
***if an action has no originative value, then it limits humans from inventing
or producing things.

4. Contributory Value
 focuses on the value contribution that a human action effects. Most
humans want their actions to have contributory values.
 The theory that examines how people value or appreciate things.

VALUE OF CHOICES IN RELATION TO FREEDOM

 If human beings have no capacity to choose, then this means it reduce
the value and dignity of man because it shows that man cannot control
the situations around him.
 If human beings are determined, life seems to be futile or even absurd
because they live to simply go with the flow , with what the law of
nature dictates- fatalism- view that one is powerless to do anything than
what he actually wants to do.
 If the person has the capacity to choose then that person can be held
responsible over the consequences of his actions. Hence, the person
becomes prudent with the choices he makes.

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