Chapter 5: Lesson 3

Freedom of Choice and the

Consequences
The Act of Making a Choice
 Robert Nozick – renowned American
philosopher explains in his 1981book,
Philosophical Explanations, that
making a choice seems to feel like
there are various reasons for and
against doing each of the alternative
actions or courses of action one is
considering, and it seems, and it
feels as if one could do anyone of
these alternatives.
 Nozick introduced the concept
of weighing the reasons. He
explained that when you are
choosing, the act involves not
only knowing 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 discard the
other.
Nozick’s Theory of Values in the Act of
Giving Weights

 INTRINSIC VALUE
 INSTRUMENTAL VALUE
 ORIGINATIVE VALUE
 CONTRIBUTORY VALUE
INTRINSIC VALUE
Is the value that has in itself apart from or
independent of its consequences. If intrinsic value is
applied to alternatives, you choose this alternative
by the weight you give to the alternative because
the alternative itself is valuable in its own right. For
example, if you will have to choose between
studying and going out with your friends, these
alternatives can be both valuable and independent of
the consequences the alternative may lead to.
Spend time to Study or Spend time
with Friends?
Alternative Acts:
1. Spend time to Study
2. Spend time with Friends

In the given example, your decision to study or go out

with your friends depends on two things: (1) the intrinsic
worth of the alternative you will choose and (2) the
weight of the consequences of the alternative you will
choose.
 Weighing the Course of Action
 Spend time to Study
- Does spending time to study
has intrinsic worth in itself?
- Study is a good habit or
behavior.
 Spend time with Friends
- Does spending time with friends
has intrinsic worth in itself?
- Time with friends is emotional and
social need
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 leads to or some
measure of the intrinsic values it might lead to as
weighed by probabilities such as expected intrinsic
value.
 Weighing the Course of Action

 Spend time to Study  Spend time with Friends

- What intrumental value in - What intrumental value in spending
spending time to study? time with friends?

- May help understand lesson and - Strengthen friendship bonds;

may result to having good grades.
source of emotional relief.
ORIGINATIVE VALUE
Introduces new values 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- intrinsic, instrumental,
and originative. That is why a person with an
originative value can make a difference in this world.
His or her actions can effect change and different
valuable consequences can happen.
 Imagine yourself three or four years from now. You are given the
choice of working in an office or staying in school to finish college.
Whatever you choose from these two alternatives has neither intrinsic
value nor an instrumental value may produce an originative value after
doing an action.
 For example, you chose to continue your studies and you were able to
graduate from college; later, you became a scientist and invented a
new tool or gadget.
CONTRIBUTORY VALUE
Focuses on the value contribution that a
human action effects. Most human beings want their
actions to have contributory values. At the very
least, even if the contributory value is not an original
one, the contributory factor helps in differentiating
the existing case without the factors effected by the
contributory value if it did exist.
A medicine graduate has just passed the medical
exam, and became a doctor. He has the option to
go to America, since there is great need for
medical workers there due to the effect of
pandemic.

Great financial rewards awaits for him, but

instead, he decided to work for the “poorest of
the poor” in the rural communities of the
Philippines because he weighed more on the
“contributory value” of his actions.
The choice between serving your people... and the life of
luxury and wealth.
When you make a choice, the act of choosing is
always intentional or purposeful. It is a free choice
that you made from among the alternatives, and
such choice was based on the weight of the
reasons you put on the choices. In the act of giving
weights to the alternatives, you may find that
some of these alternatives and their reasons may
have more weight or are more important to you, so
you choose that alternative and act on it.
Individual freedom should be aligned
with economic freedom. -- Ayn Rand

 The Filipino “sakop” or harmony can be a

helping value to the full development of the
Filipino if it opens to embrace the whole
Philippine society.
 Filipino “sakop” must begin to raise its members
in a more responsible way and the members
should likewise se take this attempt to raise them
financially and socially seriously so as not to
squander the help bestowed on them. Moreover,
they must come to realize that their personal
worth and digin one’s “kalooban”. If these are
fulfilled, The Filipinos shall not only be better
persons but a better nation with a sound economy
(Andres 1994).