MAN AS A WOKER

Group 2- Week 3

MAN
It talks about the human race.Most philosophers defined as any human being endowed with reason and
rationality. Able to think, choose, act, and to work.
WORK
 It is an activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.
 The founding entity (existence) of man and society.
 It can be doing what you love, and at the same time, contributes to society. Work can be the reason of your
existence.
 According to the United states Conference of Catholic Bishops,” Work is more than a way to make a living: it
is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation.

MAN AS A WORKER
 According Pope John Paul II, on human work;
Work is one of the characteristics that distinguishes man from other creatures. Only man is capable of work, and
only man works. By working it occupies his existence here on Earth. Thus, work bears a particular mark of a
person operating within a community.
 According to Pope Francis in his post synodal apostolic exhortation titled Amoris Laetitia(The Joy of Love)
said, “it is clear from the very first pages of the Bible that work is an essential part of human dignity; there we
read that “the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it”(Gen, 2:15). May
you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children’s children! (Ps 128:5-
6)”
 Man is presented as laborer who works the Earth, harnesses the forces of nature and produces the bread of
anxious toil (Ps 127:2)

 God purposely put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise(Eden) not for perfection but to symbolize the
significance of work. God instructed them to tame and subdue the earth; to continue to improve, transform,
utilize and cooperate in creation; that is to recreate. God meant for man to use the materials and living things on
earth for the support of man’s existence.
 As Christopher Ryan Maboloc said: ‘Life is conditional in a very deep way by the kind of experience he
encounters in work.’

LABOR
 Labor, itself, defines "work, especially hard physical work." The means of labor are one of three
basic factors of production (Marx, 1967, p. 174), along with human labor and the subject of labor (the
material worked on). The means of labor and the subject of labor compromise the means of production
of society.
 Labor also makes possible the development of society and provides for the sustenance, stability, and
fruitfulness of one’s family.

ANIMAL AND HUMAN LABOR

 ANIMAL LABOR- They produce something that is necessary for themselves and for their young one’s survival.
 HUMAN LABOR- Man does not only work for his physical need but also when free of such needs.

Some of the most influential philosophical systems devote considerable attention to questions concerning who should
work, how they should work, and why. Plato proposed a system of labor specialization, according to which individuals
are assigned to one of three economic strata, based on their inborn abilities: the laboring or mercantile class, a class of
auxiliaries charged with keeping the peace and defending the city, or the ruling class of ‘philosopher-kings’. Such a
division of labor, Plato argued, will ensure that the tasks essential to the city’s flourishing will be performed by those most
capable of performing them.
In proposing that a just society must concern itself with how work is performed and by whom, Plato acknowledged the
centrality of work to social and personal life. Indeed, most adults spend a significant time engaged in work, and many
contemporary societies are arguably “employment-centred”. In such societies, work is the primary source of income and
is ‘normative’ in the sociological sense, i.e., work is expected to be a central feature of day-to-day life, at least for adults.
Arguably then, no phenomenon exerts a greater influence on the quality and conditions of human life than work. Work
thus deserves the same level of philosophical scrutiny as other phenomena central to economic activity (for example,
markets or property) or collective life (the family, for instance).
  MARX’S PHILOSOPHY OF WORK
The economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 of Karl Marx speaks of the independence and interaction
of man and nature achieved in labor. Labor is central to humanist Marx for it is through labor that man becomes
man, and nature becomes nature to man. In his own words,
“The whole of world history is nothing but the creation of man by human labor, and the emergence of nature for
man”.

How do man in different era’s view work?

Prehistoric Era
 They viewed work as an implication of how he views himself being a part of nature.
 It is by appeasing God through rituals and magic.

Ancient Greek and Civilization

 Greeks thought of work as something profane and fitting only to slaves and animals.
 In this era, their ideal activity is to philosophize.
 Reason distinguishes man from other beings like plants and animals.

Medieval Ages
 In this era, the predominance of Christianity affects how they view work. It is maintained that work is a
manifestation of man’s holiness and also man’s falling into sin.

Modern Period
 Man is now able to manipulate nature.
 There is no other value in work for man than becoming his means to realize himself as master of the world and
himself.

Work determines the kind of life we live. As observed, majority of the Filipinos remain poor because they are jobless.
And if they have work, they are underemployed or uncompensated. Naturally, we are swallowed in poverty. What is
ironical in relation to this is the fact that, in Philippine context, the harder the work, the lower the compensation and the
lighter the work the higher the compensation. There are a lot of factors why this situation continues to exist. One
fundamental reason is that the Philippine government is tolerating the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
Thus, minimal intervention by the government of the malpractices by many employers both local and foreign has been
made. The most profound reason of the increasing poverty of the majority of the Filipino people is the unawareness of
their rights including the right to work. This right is irrefutable and therefore has to be observed. Buenaflor has logically
described this when he said:

‘The right to work implies a right to a living wage. If a person has the right to live and can only live by working,
then he must have a right to work and to obtain a just compensation for his work. Consequently, the government has
the duty to provide human persons with jobs in order to assure them of the right to live. In this case, laborers have the
right to strike if they are not given just remunerations for their work.

If only the government would radically insist in delivering its role to provide employment for Filipino citizen,
most likely, Filipinos will look at themselves with dignity. Consequently, they will not dare to gamble themselves in the
foreign world for a better future. Human dignity is inseparable with human labor for in labor one can prove his worth.
Maboloc is his book Philosophy of Man: The Existential Drama has quoted Karl Marx on the importance of work:
‘Human dignity is to be found in human labor. Human labor transforms nature into a meaningful whole. At the
same time, it also transforms man, giving his life meaning and purpose, for through labor man expresses his creativity.

“WORK IS NOBLE AS LONG AS ONE IS NOT ATTACHED TO THE FRUIT’S OF ONE’S LABOR BUT
OFFERS IT TO GOD”