FREEDOM TO MAKE

10.2.1
RESPONSIBLE MORAL
CHOICES
This chapter presents the following key learning points:
• All people desire freedom
• Teenagers become increasingly capable of taking
responsibility for their actions
• There are two questions required for responsible
decision making
• Responsible choices are moral choices
• People can find it difficult to make responsible choices
• Some people deliberately enter into situations that
weaken their ability to make responsible decisions.

All people desire freedom

All people are endowed with free will.
The desire for freedom is one of the most
basic of all human yearnings. From their
earliest years people want freedom and
work at discovering and experiencing
true freedom.

The basic human question

Young people are often very aware of
external limits on their freedom. Parents
and others limit the choices they can
make.

As they grow older, young people grow

more aware of the fact that there are
some limitations on their freedom
that come from within themselves. For
example, selfishness can stop them from
loving others as they should, or fear can
prevent them standing against peer
pressures.

The desire for freedom

is one of the most basic
of all human yearnings.

YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME 1

Teenagers become increasingly
capable of taking responsibility
for their actions
As they mature, teenagers sense that they
are becoming increasingly capable of taking
greater responsibility for their actions. Their
desire grows for greater freedom to make
decisions.

Sometimes teenagers resent that their

parents seem to give them less freedom than
some of their peers. This can lead teenagers
to ask:
• Why can’t I be left completely free to make
my own choices?
• When will others accept that I am capable
of taking full responsibility for my actions?

To answer these questions, it is necessary

to ask another: ‘What makes a choice
responsible?’

In Class Work
What do you think it means to be a ‘responsible person’? (You may find there are
several different ways in which the expression can be used). As a group, write down
a number of characteristics you would expect to find in a person of your own age
who ’behaves responsibly’. As a class, try to create a profile of such a person.

Check the dictionary definition for ‘responsible’ and note the various ways it can
be used.

Journal Activity
List choices that you have made or know that you will have to make this year, for
example, choosing subjects for next year.

Reflect on the processes you used to make these choices. How are the choices you are
making in Year 10 different from those you made in Year 8?

Reflect on how prayer can help you make good decisions. Write a personal prayer you
can use to ask God’s help in your decision making.

2 YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME

There are two
questions
required for
responsible
decision making
Young children
cannot always be held
responsible for their
actions. There are three
reasons why this is so:
• they do not have a
developed sense of
right and wrong
• they do not recognise
how pressure from
others, or their own
emotions affect them
• they are less able to make deliberate choices and are more likely to act on impulse.

For these reasons, children can never be given complete freedom. Teenagers, on the other
hand, can be given greater freedom because their ability to judge the circumstances of their
actions grows as they mature.

Young people can begin to make

responsible decisions by first asking
themselves two questions:
• Have I sufficient relevant knowledge?
• Have I sufficient personal freedom?

Relevant knowledge
The first skill needed to make a responsible choice is the ability to work out whether or
not what seems to be a good thing to say or do is in fact a good thing to say or do. This is
the skill of weighing up the pros and cons, the arguments or reasons for and against.

Often there are at least two alternative possible courses of action. To make a responsible
choice, it is necessary to work out which is the correct alternative.

To do this, the person making the decision needs to learn all that they can about each
alternative. Before making their choice, therefore, they need to ask:

Do I have enough relevant knowledge in order to make a responsible choice?

YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME 3

Sufficient personal freedom
To be responsible, a choice needs to be
made freely, without undue pressure. So
anyone wishing to make a responsible
choice needs to ensure that they are not
being influenced by either internal or
external pressures.

Everyone is vulnerable to internal and

external pressures. Examples of inner
pressures include:
• strong emotions such as fear, desire
or anger
• personal habits such as tendencies
to lie, to take the easy way out, to be
aggressively critical, to be jealous, or Everyone is vulnerable
to follow the crowd
• strong temptations such as to steal, to internal and
to be vengeful, or to be resentful.

External pressures, on the other hand,

external pressures.
include social trends, advertising, peer
pressures and the expectations of others.

Journal Activity
Reflect on an experience you have had of pressure that was positive. Think about what
you chose to do and how things turned out. Where did you feel the pressure coming
from? How did this pressure influence your decision? How did you feel afterwards
about the choice you made?

In a similar way, reflect on an experience of pressure that

was negative.

To make responsible choices, therefore, people need to:

• discover if any pressures are affecting their choices
• appropriately control any emotions, habits or temptations
• prevent themselves from becoming dominated by
external pressures and do everything possible to avoid
them.

YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME

Choices have consequences
A choice is a decision to behave or to not
behave in a certain way.

For example, where a person chooses to take

an unprescribed or an illicit drug, or to drink
alcohol to excess, then he or she is responsible
for any consequences that follow. People
who knowingly take drugs, or drive under the
influence of alcohol, are responsible for any
road accident, damage to property or injury
they cause.

Responsible choices take time

Some choices are easy however, this may not always be the case. A person may be confused
about what is the best option. There can be fears, for example, of upsetting others or going
against their wishes. Inner influences can include habits, strong negative emotions, attitudes,
or other weaknesses. External pressures, such as pressures from some peers and societal
expectations, can also be strong.

Responsible choices, therefore, take time. No one should rush into making decisions, or take
them without due care.

Time is needed to:

• make sure that the options are understood together with their possible consequences
• recognise whether or not there are inner influences or external pressures affecting them.

A choice is a decision to behave or

to not behave in a certain way.

YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME 5

Responsible choices are moral choices
What everyone is really looking for in making choices is long term happiness. People regret
choices that cause unhappiness, even ones where there was initial short term happiness.

People have discovered that there is one key requirement if a choice is to lead to long term
happiness – it must be a morally good choice. A morally good choice is one directed to what is
truly good and conducive to long term happiness.

Choices that are not morally good are called ‘immoral choices’. Sometimes, the harm and
unhappiness that an immoral choice leads to cannot be foreseen at the time. Many people
today carry emotional hurts and may find it difficult to relate fully with others because of
choices they or others may have made a long time ago.

This is not to say that all unhappiness is the result of immoral choices. There are other causes
as well.

People make immoral choices because they are tempted by some short term benefit. Rather
than focussing on their true happiness, they give in to some internal or external pressure.

What everyone is really looking for in making choices is long term happiness.
People have discovered that there is one key requirement if a choice is
to lead to long term happiness – it must be a morally good choice.

6 YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME

People can find it difficult to
make responsible choices
It can be quite difficult and challenging
sometimes to make a responsible choice.
Responsible choices require people to take
all reasonable steps to work out the good or
best option, including working out what is
morally right.

People find it hard at times to make

responsible choices for a variety of reasons.
These include:

Lack of sufficient understanding

People can fail to make responsible choices
because they do not understand the options
sufficiently. They can also rush into decisions
rather than take time to reflect so as to
come to a correct decision.

Lack of adequate information causes people to

become confused, especially about what is right and wrong in practical situations. They may
lack knowledge about the alternatives of moral principles and laws relevant to the decision.

Lack of knowledge is most obvious when people make decisions that lead to damage, harm or
other unforeseen consequences that they did not intend. These kinds of decisions leave people
feeling regretful, embarrassed or even guilty.

Habits of doing wrong

Wrongdoing diminishes human freedom. To do wrong deliberately once, makes it easier to do
wrong deliberately a second time. For example, if a person deliberately lies once, they find it
easier to lie a second and third time. Before long, a bad habit can develop.

The same is true for other wrong doing, such as stealing, thinking of others as ‘sex objects’,
speaking rudely or behaving selfishly. All can become habits that diminish a person’s inner
freedom and weaken their will to do what is good.

Many of the negative things in society today began with the first wrong action of an individual
or group of people. For instance, unrestrained anger may lead to violence or even murder.
Using pornographic material and the lustful thoughts it stirs may lead to rape. Name calling
and bullying may lead to racial discrimination and social injustices.

To grow in freedom, people need to keep striving to do what is good. Doing what is good
grows easier with practice.

YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME 7

Strong emotions
Strong emotions and feelings can arise in daily life situations. If not properly directed, strong
emotions can lead to the kind of thinking that makes responsible choices difficult.

Strong emotions can also cause people to be misled about which is the good or the best
option. People can think that what is wrong is in fact the right thing to do. Many people make
the mistake of thinking that something is right just because ‘it feels right’.

In Class Work
a) Identify a situation from some television show or movie in which a character
made a decision based solely on their feelings rather than considered judgment
about the matter.
Recall and retell the details of the situation including the steps they took in
making their decision.
What other factors should have been taken into account rather than the
character’s feelings?

b) A common saying is, ‘If it feels good, do it.’ Give examples to illustrate why this is
a dangerous principle on which to base good decision making.

Strong emotions can also pressure

people to rush into saying or
doing things they later regret. Journal Activity
They can find it difficult to take
Recall and reflect on times when you have acted
the time needed to think through
solely on your emotions and later regretted what
the alternatives and to ask: ‘What
you did.
is the morally right thing to say or
do in this situation?’

Strong emotions can

also pressure people
to rush into saying
or doing things they
later regret.

8 YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME

Some people deliberately enter into situations that
weaken their ability to make responsible decisions
Some people deliberately enter
into situations that weaken
their ability to make responsible
decisions. Examples include:
• using drugs, which impair
their judgement
• associating with people whose
negative influence is hard to
resist
• joining in activities, or going
into situations, which they
know stir emotions to the
extent that they take over
thoughts and behaviours.

People who place themselves in

situations that they know will
endanger their freedom are still
responsible for the consequences
of their actions. For example,
someone who:
• drives while under the
influence of alcohol, is still People who place themselves in situations
responsible for any accident that they know will endanger their freedom
• goes with peers to commit a
are still responsible for their actions.
crime, shares responsibility
for the crime
• takes drugs, and then kills or
harms another person, is
responsible for the death
or the harm.

Responsible people are honest with themselves about the inner and external pressures
that make it hard for them to behave responsibly. They do everything that they can to avoid
occasions of risk.

People do not need to be free of weaknesses to be responsible. What is necessary is that

people recognise their personal weaknesses honestly and strive to overcome them. They
should try to avoid situations which exploit their weaknesses and lead them to make
irresponsible decisions.

Inadequate moral education

What is genuinely good is also morally right. To make responsible choices, people need to
understand moral principles, and learn how to apply these principles to everyday situations.
This requires moral education. Many people lack the adequate moral education needed to
decide what is good and right in the particular instance.

YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME 9

Other personal pressures
People experience other negative inner pressures. These may include:
• attitudes, such as a sense of superiority over others, cynicism and lack of trust
• habits, such as tending always to say ‘yes’, to be negative, to be critical or to
‘fly off the handle’.

Such inner pressures can make it harder for people to give due thought to a situation before
acting. Responsible people strive to understand the inner pressures they experience and try to
avoid or overcome negative ones. They do not imagine themselves to be perfectly in control of
their lives, but are honest about their personal weaknesses.

Social pressures
Everyone likes to feel accepted by others. This can leave them vulnerable to pressures to
conform to the expectations of others, rather than to make their own independent choices.

There are many social pressures on people today. These can discourage the kind of thinking
needed to work out what really is the good or right thing to do.

There are a variety of factors that are so much a part of ordinary daily life that people can
overlook their influence on them, such as:
• the media and other influences that promote certain social values, attitudes and
expectations that are not necessarily life-giving. These may vary from fashion in clothes
and hairstyles, to ways of speaking and behaving. People can accept the standards of these
influences without thinking about them.
• famous people in entertainment, sport and other areas. People often wish that they could
be more like these celebrities, especially in the ways they dress, speak or behave so as to be
more popular and accepted by others. It is this desire to be accepted that is exploited by
advertisers in using famous people to sell their product.
• negative peer pressures discouraging people from making responsible choices, and
encouraging teenagers and older people to ‘go with the trend’.

The basic human desire

The more people realise that responsible choices lead to long term happiness, the more
prepared they are to accept the challenges involved in making responsible choices. They are
able to ask: ‘How can I find the true inner freedom needed to make such choices?’

Everyone likes to feel accepted by others

10 YEAR 10 | COME FOLLOW ME