THE FUNDAMENTAL OPTION

&
THE FUNDAMENTAL STANCE
By: Pierre Fransen
At the end of the lesson, the students should be
able to:
Distinguish the fundamental option from
fundamental stance.
Articulate how fundamental option and
fundamental stance are formulated.
Explore the concepts through real life examples
where fundamental option and stance are altered.
 Form a group with three members only.
Share to your group mates your most
heartbreaking experience.
Answer the following questions:
What particular choice you have made which
have changed you entirely?
Do you think you may still go back to your
“old self”?
Every free human act is performed by a
person and, because it is free, it belongs to
him in a unique way.

It is true to say that a person is changed by

his free acts; by these free acts he becomes a
better or worse person.
Given such presumption, there is in the
human person a level that is deeper, more
stable and more enduring than that of one's
individual actions.

At this deep level, which is that of the person

as person rather than as agent doing this or
that specific free action, one is confronted by
the basic choice between good and evil.
A clear distinction arises between choosing
to do what is good or what is evil, and
choosing to be a good or to be a bad person.

At this deepest level of the person, in the

core of his being, he has adopted a
fundamental moral stance or direction or
orientation to reality, to life itself, to people
and to God; has decided to become a
fundamentally good person or a
fundamentally evil one.
We refer to this stance or condition of the
person as fundamental or basic, because it
exists at the deepest level of the person and
affects and shapes his whole being, outlook,
manner of living and individual actions, and
also because it is quite different from any
ordinary daily choice one might make.
The two central concepts here are:
One's basic choice and one's basic stance.
The basic choice (or fundamental option or
critical response) is one made at the centre of
the person and with non-reflexive knowledge
and transcendental or basic freedom and
which brings about the establishment of the
person's basic moral stance.
q The basic choice is, then, the cause of
one's basic stance, thus giving one a
new overall moral orientation or
direction in and to life.
The basic stance itself, on the other hand, is
that state or condition of the person or self in
which one exists as a basically good or evil
person, as predominantly oriented towards
goodness or evil.

It is brought into existence by and only by a

basic choice and consequently, we may say
that this stance has a greater importance than
the basic choice, since the latter is only the
means to the end of establishing it.
Specific or categorical choices, are choices we
do on a daily basis.
These specific choices are made with explicit
awareness and knowledge and involve some
exercise of the person's freedom of choice.
In specific choices, an agent has reflex
(involuntary/instinctive) knowledge and
categorical freedom in making such choices,
choices which involve selecting between
different categories or kinds of options or
possibilities that present themselves to the
person choosing.
These choices are made at a relatively
superficial or peripheral level of the person
and do not engage him at the deepest level of
his being.
One's basic choice, on the other hand, is not so
limited or focused on a specific object.
One's basic choice takes place at the core of the
person, at his deepest level of being, and it concerns
a choice to be and become as a person.
In this deep level of personal being, one's
knowledge is and can only be non-reflexive yet
one's freedom transcendental (i.e., going beyond
all specific objects and categories and choosing to be
rather than to do).
Hence, in making a basic choice one commits
himself as a person.
Hence, one’s basic choice and one's
specific choice are of very different
realities.

The basic choice is irreducible to

specific choices.
q Conscious but not reflexive:
too personal, very much
part of himself; identified to
himself.
q Engaging one's basic
freedom:

Freedom of Choice versus

Basic Freedom
Basic freedom is exercised in the basic choice
by and in which one decides to make oneself
a good or a bad person.

This freedom is also referred to as

transcendental freedom, because it
transcends or goes beyond all particular
categories or classes or objects or values and
is concerned with the person as person.
q A process not an act:
Unfolds over a period of time.
Reaches its climax through a
whole series of individual or
specific choices.
q Predominant but not total:
Experience is again our guide
in asserting that no-one is
completely or irreversibly good
or evil.
q A rare thing:
Thus, once one has made a basic
choice and established a basic
stance as a moral person, one
tends to maintain these and only
with difficulty, time and effort
can or does one alter them.
The reason for this is again to be found
in the nature of the person and his basic
choice and stance.

Their profoundly personal character

makes them this sort of relatively
unchanging reality.
q Basic Choice is an adult reality: Only a
moral adult can make a basic choice.
However, how do we measure
adolescenthood?
As a general rule, basic choices will not
be a feature of chronological
adolescence.
q Basic stance: a state not a process:

This is the state of basic goodness or of

basic evil; in traditional language, the
state of grace or the state of mortal
sinfulness.
If one dies in this state, he will in fact
enter the condition or state which we
refer to as heaven or hell.
Only a basic choice resulting in a basic
stance for good merits heaven, and vice
versa…
Evaluation…
What is your understanding of Basic
Choice (Fundamental Option)?

Do you agree that basic choice is

independent totally of the specific
choices? Support your answers

Cite (3) strong instances where basic

stance could be reversed?