Freedom of the Human

Person
Lesson Objectives

 
Realize the consequences of one’s action
s
Show situations that demonstrate freedo
m of choice
Key Questions

• How can freedom help human beings reach

transcendence?

• How do human beings exercise their freedom

of choice?
Freedom
• To be free is a part of humanity’s authenticity.
• Understanding freedom is part of humanity’s
transcendence.
• Freedom consists of going beyond situations such as
physical or economic.
Actions Have Consequences
Aristotle
• The imperative quality of a judgment of practical
intellect is meaningless apart from will.
• Practical intellect guides will by enlightening it.
• If there were no intellect, there would be no will.
• Will is an instrument of free choice.
• Moral acts, which are always particular acts, are in
our power and we are responsible for them.
• Human beings are rational and reason is a divine
characteristic, thus, humans have the spark of the
divine.
Actions Have Consequences
St. Thomas Aquinas
• Human beings have the unique power to change
themselves and the things around them for the better.
• Human beings are moral agent: both spiritual and
material.
• Through our spirituality, whether we choose to be
“good” or “evil” becomes our responsibility.
• Human being has a supernatural, transcendental
destiny
• If a human being perseveringly lives a righteous and
virtuous life, he transcends his mortal state of life
and soars to an immortal state of life.
Actions Have Consequences
• The power of change, however, can only be done by
human beings through cooperation with God.
• Perfection by participation means that it is a union of
humanity with God.
• Change should promote not just any purely private
advantage, but the good of the community.
• Fourfold classification of law: the eternal law, natural
law, human law, and divine law.
• The natural law, in its ethical sense, applies only to
human beings.
• The first principle and precept of natural law is that
good is to be sought after and evil avoided.
Actions Have Consequences
• A person should not be judged through his actions
alone but also through his sincerity behind his acts.
• Natural and human laws are concerned with ends
determined simply by humanity’s nature.
• Divine law or revelation is a law ordering humans to
transcend his nature.
 It gives human beings the certitude where human
reason unaided could arrive only at possibilities.
 It deals with interior disposition as well as
external acts
 It ensures the final punishment of all evildoings.
Actions Have Consequences
• Eternal law is the decree of God that governs all
creation.
• It is “that Law which is the Supreme Reason and
cannot be understood to be otherwise than
unchangeable and eternal.”
• For St. Thomas, the purpose of a human being is to
be happy, same as Aristotle, but points to a higher
form of happiness possible to humanity beyond this
life, the perfect happiness that everyone seeks but
could be found only in God.
• St. Thomas wisely and aptly chose and proposed Love
rather than Law to bring about the transformation of
humanity.
Actions Have Consequences
Jean Paul Sartre
• The human person has the desire to be God:
 The desire to exist as a being which has its
sufficient ground in itself (en sui causa).
• The human person builds the road to the destiny of
his/her choosing.
• Sartre’s existentialism stems from the principle
“existence precedes essence.”
 The person, first, exists, encounters himself and
surges up in the world then defines himself
afterward.
 The person is provided with a supreme
opportunity to give meaning to one’s life.
Actions Have Consequences
 Freedom is the very core and the door to
authentic existence.
 The person is what one has done and is doing.
 The human person who tries to escape
obligations and strives to be en-soi (i.e., excuses,
such as “I was born this way” or “I grew up in a
bad environment”) is acting on bad faith
(mauvais foi).
• Sartre emphasizes the importance of free individual
choice, regardless of the power of other people to
influence and coerce our desires, beliefs, and
decisions.
Actions Have Consequences
Thomas Hobbes
• Law of Nature (Lex Naturalis) – a general rule
established by reason that forbids a person to do
that which is destructive of his life or takes away the
means of preserving the same and to omit that by
which he thinks it may be best preserved.
• Hobbes first law of nature is to seek peace which
immediately suggests a second law which is to
divest oneself of certain rights to achieve peace.
• The mutual transferring of rights is called a contract
and is the basis of the notion of moral obligation
and duty.
Actions Have Consequences
• One cannot contract to give up his right to self-
defense or self-preservation since it is his sole
motive for entering any contract.
• The laws of nature give the conditions for the
establishment of society and government.
• These systems are rooted from human nature and
are not God-given laws.
• True agreement has to be reached for a contract to
be valid and binding.
• The third law of nature is that human beings
perform their covenant.
 This law made all covenants valid.
 This is also the foundation of justice.
Actions Have Consequences
• Human beings seek self-preservation and security
but are unable to attain this end in the natural
condition of war unless there is a coercive power, a
single person or an assembly, able to enforce their
observance by sanctions.
• The plurality of individuals should confer all their
power and strength upon one human being or an
assembly of human beings which may reduce all
their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will.
• A commonwealth by institution is established
through the covenant of every member of a
multitude with every other member.
Actions Have Consequences
• A commonwealth by acquisition exists when the
sovereign power has been acquired by force.
• Sovereignty is inalienable. It is affected by neither of
the two commonwealths.
• The subjects are absolved from their duty of
obedience to the sovereign if the latter relinquishes
his sovereignty and if he can no longer protect his
subjects.
• If the sovereign is conquered in war and surrenders
to the victor, his subjects become the subjects of
the latter; If he no longer possesses effective power,
the subjects return to the state of nature, and a new
sovereign can be set up.
Actions Have Consequences
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Human being is born free and good but now is in
chains and has become bad due to the evil influence
of society, civilization, learning, and progress which
resulted to dissension, conflict, fraud, and deceit.
• To restore peace, bring his freedom back, and returned
to his true self, he saw the necessity and came to form
the state through the social contract whereby
everyone grants his individual rights to the general will.
• There must be a common power or government
which the plurality of individuals (citizens) should
confer all their powers and strength (freedom) into
one will (ruler).
Activities
1. Describe the relationship of reason, will, and action
according to Aristotle’s point of view.
2. How can humanity achieve peace according to
Hobbes?
3. In your opinion, what consists ‘free choice’? Cite
examples in the current situation.
4. Watch a video presentation of the EDSA Revolution
then answer the following questions:
a. How can reason be translated into action?
b. What is a social contract and how is it reflected in
the People Power (EDSA Revolution)?