HUMAN FREEDOM

Man as Liberty

SOURCE:
Co, M. (2018). Human Freedom: Man as Liberty. [Powerpoint slides].
 OBJECTIVES:

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able

to:
Define the meaning of freedom from varied
viewpoints.
Point out the distinguishing characteristics of
freedom from its three different types.
Appreciate the notion of freedom in one’s
existence: practical, intellectual, and transcendental.
1. Why are humans the only
moral agents?

2. Is human being free?

3. Is there only 1 type of
freedom?
THE HUMAN FREEDOM

Human freedom is a social concept

that recognizes the dignity of
individuals and is defined here as
negative liberty or the absence of
coercive constraint.
Berlin’s Two Concepts of Liberty
makes the distinction between positive
and negative freedom.

“Negative liberty is the absence of

obstacles, barriers or constraints…
Positive liberty is the possibility of
acting… in such a way as to take
control of one’s life”.
Positive freedom is ‘positive’ in the
sense that individuals will want to be
their own masters.

In Berlin’s words, by virtue of positive

freedom, one will “wish to be a
subject, not an object”.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s notion of
‘true liberty’ may be placed under this
category.

Individuals should pursue an ideal of

‘true liberty’ in which they will be able
to achieve their full human potential
and live virtuously.
True liberty is achieved when individuals
can let go of amour propre (the love of
oneself) and instead become possessed by
amour de soi (the desire for self-
preservation and self-mastery).
Positive freedom therefore is less about
what individuals are forbidden from doing,
and more about what individuals can do to
reach their full human potential.
 JEAN PAUL SARTRE
“ABSOLUTE FREEDOM”

EXISTENCE PRECEDES ESSENCE

Existentialists maintain that we cannot

know anything if not from our subjectivity.
The first and only real thing we know is that
we exist and that we experience everything
subjectively. This leads us into questions of
being.
Sartre rejected the idea that there is a
divine meaning to one’s life or that there
is a purpose for which each individual is
born.

For Sartre, existence precedes essence,

freedom is absolute, and existence is
freedom.
It has been made clear that Sartre does
not believe that any essence or substance
can be attributed to individuals prior to
their existence.

Individuals first of all exist, and there is

no ‘human nature’ which exists outside or
inside beings.
SUBJECT RATHER THAN OBJECT

Humans are not objects to be used by

God or a government or corporation or
society.

Nor we to be "adjusted" or molded into

roles – to be only a waiter or a conductor
or a mother or worker. We must look
deeper than our roles and find ourselves.
NOTION OF CHOICE

FREEDOM is the central and unique

potentiality which constitutes us as human.
Sartre rejects determinism, saying that it is our
choice how we respond to determining
tendencies.

I am my choices. I cannot not choose. If I do not

choose, that is still a choice. If faced with
inevitable circumstances, we still choose how we
are in those circumstances.
RESPONSIBILITY

Each of us is responsible for everything we

do. If we seek advice from others, we
choose our advisor and have some idea of
the course he or she will recommend. "I am
responsible for my very desire of fleeing
responsibilities."
OUR ACTS DEFINE US

“In life, a man commits himself, draws his

own portrait, and there is nothing but that
portrait." Our illusions and imaginings about
ourselves, about what we could have been,
are nothing but self-deception.
A "brave" person is simply someone who
usually acts bravely.

Each act contributes to defining us as we

are, and at any moment we can begin to
act differently and draw a different
portrait of ourselves.

There is always a possibility to change, to

start making a different kind of choice.
THE UNCONSCIOUS IS NOT
TRULY UNCONSCIOUS

At some level I am aware of, and I choose,

what I will allow fully into my consciousness
and what I will not.

Thus I cannot use "the unconscious" as an

excuse for my behavior. Even though I may
not admit it to myself, I am aware and I am
choosing.
Even in self-deception, I know I am the
one deceiving myself, and Freud's so-
called censor must be conscious to
know what to repress.
 WHAT REALITY
OPPOSES SARTRE?
Video on Pre Determinism
 THE THREE POSITIONS OF
FREEDOM

Man is absolutely free. (Sartrean)

Man is absolutely
determined.(Causal, Logical,
Psychological, Physical, and
Theological)
The middle position: Man is situated
(Maurice Merleau Ponty)
 TYPES OF DETERMINISM

Logical determinism maintains that the future is

already fixed as unalterably as the past.

Physical determinism is based on there being

physical laws of nature, many of which have
actually been discovered, and of whose truth we
can reasonably hope to be quite certain, together
with the claim that all other features of the world
are dependent on physical factors.
Theological determinism argues that since God is
omniscient, He knows everything, the future
included.

Psychological determinism maintains that there

are certain psychological laws which we are
beginning to discover, enabling us to predict,
usually on the basis of his experiences in early
infancy, how a man will respond to different
situations throughout his later life.
 OBJECTIONS ON THE
ABSOLUTE DETERMINISM
If the feeling of freedom is rejected, then no basic
experience is trustworthy, which would lead to total
skepticism and inaction.
If the statement “man is absolutely determined” is true,
the statement is also determined, and the opposite “man
is absolutely free” would also be determined, and so
there would be no truth value anymore to the
statement.
If human beings are manipulable like machines, there
would be no problem in making a society just. -M.Dy
 THE SITUATED FREEDOM
MAURICE MERLEU-PONTY

Freedom could never be divorced from the individual's

insertion in a world; (it is interwoven with the field of
existence.
The concept of freedom only made sense in conjunction
with this insertion (man’s beingness in the world).
An individual sustained a psychological and historical
structure; being a subject, man is faced a previously
established situation, an environment and world not of
its own making.
In Merleau-Ponty's philosophy, men faced a
previously constituted world that nevertheless
accommodated free action.

This world acted upon the individual as surely as

he acted upon it, in a perpetual exchange.

For Merleau-Ponty, there was "never

determinism and never absolute choice,"
by the very nature of man's being in the world.
Choices are made in this field of meaning.
OBJECTION TO SARTRE

If freedom is absolute, always and everywhere,

then freedom is impossible and nowhere.

Absolute freedom implies that there would be

no distinction between freedom and
unfreedom.
 GABRIEL MARCEL
FREEDOM

Freedom is related to person.

Existence grows out as an ego (in the

context of having freedom) and grow into
becoming (beingness) a person.
 THE TWO REALMS OF
FREEDOM

The realm of HAVING: The realm of BEING:

freedom is external to pertains to persons;
me;
it does not commune open to others to
with me; commune;
a “problem” apart from
me; this is not a “problem” but a
applicable to ideas, mystery that is part of me;
implying possession (not
open for sharing with applicable also to things: I
others). am my ideas, I am free.
Understanding Freedom
and Responsibility
 TWO MEANINGS OF
RESPONSIBILITY

Accountability:

I am accountable for an action that is free,

whose source is the “I”… I acted on my own; I
decided on my own; I am free from external
constraints.
A person is morally responsible for an injury if:

The person caused the injury or failed to prevent

it when he or she could have or should have
prevented it.

The person did so despite of knowing what he or

she was doing.

The person did so out of his own freewill.

The response-ability:
The response-ability means the ability to give an
account, the ability to justify actions that are truly
responsive to the objective demands of the
situation.
A response that meets the objective demands of
the situation is a response that meets the demand
of justice.
 Greater freedom is NOT just being able
to do what I want to do but being able to
do and wanting to do (wills it) what the
situation objectively obliged me to do.

Source: Dialectical Materialism (Alexander Spirkin, 1983 by Progress Publishers)

 FREEDOM AND JUSTICE

The relationship of these concepts can be

discerned when the network of relationships
with FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS and the
GOODS intended by freedom is given
consideration.

Justice is giving to the other what is due.

If human being is to keep is freedom, he must
assess his real needs with respect to what is
available around his world and the equally real
needs of his fellowman.

What is due to the other is all that he needs to

preserve and enhance his dignity as a human
being.

Man’s dignity redounds to his being and

becoming free.
“Freedom conditions justice and justice is a
condition of freedom” when we realise that
our obligation to give lies only on what we
can give within the limited matrix of
possibilities.

This relationship of freedom and justice is

applicable to society.
 Freedom is not absolute… it is entwined with a
field of human existence in a world of beings and
meanings.

Freedom is a “dialogue” with the world. Outside

of myself, their is no limit for my freedom.
 LEARNING CHECK

Role play the following concepts next

meeting:
3 Positions of Freedom
Freedom and Accountability
Freedom and Justice
Thank you!