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Introduction to the Philosophy of the

Human Person
CO4 – Freedom and Dignity of the Human Person
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Outline
• Freedom
• Political Freedom
• Rights and Prohibitions
• Four Circumstances Affecting Criminal Liability
• Metaphysical Freedom
• Free Will
• Determinism
• Hard Determinism vs. Soft Determinism
• Theological Determinism vs. Physical Determinism
• Argument from Omniscience
• Argument from Omnipotence
• Dignity
• Dignity vs. Pride
• Degradation vs. Humiliation
• Sources of Dignity
• Theological Source
• Ontological Source
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Freedom
Freedom is the power of a sentient being to exercise its will.
Desiring a particular outcome, people bend their thoughts and
their efforts toward realizing it – toward a goal. Their capacity
to work towards their goal is their freedom.
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• Choice - the presence of valid options

• Will - the capacity to make a choice
• Free will - the state of one’s will to be free from external
constraint
• Agency - the capacity to act on one’s will
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Political Freedom

It pertains to the institutional constraints and rights that society

has formalized. It explores the justification, balance, and
consistency of laws in the Constitution, religion, and
communities.
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Metaphysical Freedom
It pertains to a more abstract understanding of freedom, one
that is fundamental to the relationship of human consciousness
to existence. A great deal of argument centers on whether
human agency and will are within personal control, or subject,
completely or partially, to external forces.
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Rights

To put it simply, to have a right to something means to be able

to do this action without expressed permission from others. It
does not necessarily imply whether the action you take is
moral or immoral as far as ethics is concerned.
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Prohibitions
The conflict arises through the existence of governing
agencies, which are institutions in a country which holds the
monopoly on legitimate force as sanctioned by the citizens;
that rights become inversely related to prohibitions. For our
purposes, prohibitions are any law by the government that
restricts action.
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Examples of prohibitions are:

• Laws prohibiting the possession of marijuana
• Laws prohibiting abortion
• Laws prohibiting same-sex marriage
• Laws prohibiting nudity in public places
• Laws prohibiting espionage
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Four Circumstances Affecting

Criminal Liability

• Mitigating Circumstances
• Aggravating Circumstances
• Exempting Circumstances
• Justifying Circumstances
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Mitigating Circumstances
These are factors that lessens the criminal liability of an
individual on account that his will has been unduly
compromised or inhibited prior to committing a crime. The
argument stands that in the event where the individual is
uncompromised, then the action would not have taken place or
would not have been as grave.
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Examples: Article 13 of the Revised

Penal Code
1. When the offender had no intention to commit so grave a wrong as
that committed.
2. When sufficient provocation or threat on the part of the offended
party immediately preceded the act.
3. When the act was committed in the immediate vindication of a grave
offense to the one committing the felony his spouse, ascendants,
descendants, legitimate, natural or adopted brothers or sisters, or
relatives by affinity within the same degrees
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Aggravating Circumstances

These are factors which increase the criminal liability of an

individual on account that he has exercised maximum will
before, in, or after committing the crime. The argument states
that the intent of the individual heightens its severity.
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Examples: Article 14 of the Revised

Penal Code
1. When the crime was committed in contempt of or with insult to
the public authorities.
2. When the crime was committed in consideration of a price,
reward, or promise.
3. When the crime was committed in the nighttime, in an
uninhabited place, or by a band, whenever such circumstances
may facilitate the commission of the offense.
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Exempting Circumstances
These are factors which altogether grants the individual pardon
on account of a severely compromised will to the point of little
to no agency on the matter.
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Examples: Article 12 of the Revised

Penal Code
1. When the offender is an imbecile or an insane person,
unless the latter has acted during a lucid interval.
2. When the offender acts under the compulsion of irresistible
force.
3. When the offender is under 15 years of age (R.A. 9344).
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Justifying Circumstances

These are factors which absolves the individual of criminal

liability when the act is done due to a necessity or lack of
choice. In these cases, no criminal action is recorded or held
against the individual.
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Examples: Article 11 of the Revised

Penal Code
1. Self-defense
2. Avoidance of greater evil or injury
3. Fulfillment of duty or lawful exercise of right or office
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Metaphysical Freedom
The entire issue of metaphysical freedom pertains to the debate
between free will vs. determinism.
Free will refers to the ability to choose otherwise. This
suggests that the individual has complete independent and
autonomous control of his consciousness, free from external
influence.
Determinism, on the other hand, suggests that the individual
has no complete control pertaining to his consciousness.
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Determinism
Determinism can either be Hard Determinism or Soft
Determinism.
The former states that individuals are fully and completely
subject to this external force and that will and agency does not
exist. The latter suggests that external factors do exist but that
the extent of their influence is subject to debate.
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Determinism
It can also be divided into Theological Determinism or
Scientific Determinism.

Theological Determinism presupposes the existence of either

an omniscient or an omnipotent deity, or usually both. There
are two arguments that support theological determinism—the
argument from omniscience and the argument from
omnipotence.
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Theological Determinism
The argument from omniscience suggests a linear timeline of past,
present, and future, in which the deity or god, knows the future of
humanity's present. In the eyes of such an entity, the future has already
happened and implies that we at the present are inevitably living
through the passage of time.

The argument from omnipotence, also known as the “divine plan

argument”, suggests that an omnipotent deity set in motion consciously
set in motion every event that occurred since the creation of the
universe.
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Physical Determinism

Physical determinism is also known as nomological

determinism and scientific determinism. The laws of nature
which have been established in various scientific realms have
elicited strong confidence in predicting phenomena.
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Dignity
Dignity is a socially constructed concept that has man at its
very center. The foundations and basis may differ across time
and countries, but the general ideas remain the same: that there
exists an intrinsic worth to humanity.
Dignity pertains to the worth of one's humanity, not its value.
The difference is that value changes from individual
perception to another, but dignity is fixed and is not subject to
capital and/or market demand.
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In contrast, Pride refers to the value one ascribes to his/her

notion of self-worth, and oftentimes this is subjective. Some
people have more pride than others, but every human's dignity
remains constant across different demographics or time.
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Humiliation pertains to a state of diminished pride in the

social context. There is nothing humiliating in slipping alone
in the bathroom; it is humiliation to slip on a stage in the
middle of a public ceremony.

Degradation pertains to a state of diminished dignity,

regardless whether the context is social or not. Choosing to eat
food from the floor like an animal, regardless others know or
not, is degrading to one's humanity.
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Dignity in Law
Albeit that dignity is an abstract concept, the application of
this to our daily lives is very concrete and very real. It is one of
the few concepts which is constitutionally enshrined in the
Philippines as seen in Article II, Section 11 of the 1987
Constitution.
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Sources of Dignity

1. Theological Source
2. Ontological Source
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Theological Source
In the tradition of the Abrahamic religions, the creation myth involves
the narrative of the origin of man which is the result of the personal
handiwork of God.
This feature of dignity elevates man's status and makes him unique and
justifies an anthropocentric view of the universe. Man's dignity is of the
same nature as God's dignity, which makes it not subject even to one's
own character and moral stature.
This makes dignity, from this foundation, exclusive to humans.
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Ontological Source
According to Immanuel Kant, dignity results from rationality:
the capacity for self-consciousness, that insofar, only humans
have been shown to exhibit.
This means that if an animal, for instance, would develop
consciousness to a degree that it qualifies as sentience, then
that would be given the same level of dignity that man has.
Unlike the theological source, this means that dignity is not
exclusive to Homo sapiens.
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