Banele Itumeleng Dolamo

28446446

FIL 220

Section A

Question 5

The idea of freedom has been the driving force of innumerable conflicts in human history,
the limits of which are each time challenged, contested, and complicated within the social
and political spheres. It appears easy to know it for what is, through a simple experience of
its opposite or through obstacles to ones desires. It is a cornerstone of social existence and
cohesion, but is there, paradoxically, any contiguity between a particular conceptions of
freedom and authoritarian or paternalistic outcomes?

According to Isaiah Berlin, there are two main concepts of liberty. The first, known as
Negative Freedom, deals with the degree to which a group or an individual can or should be
allowed to do what they desire, without interference from others. This arguably represents
the most fundamental conception of liberty and is deemed negative as it is measured in a
lack of interference and is negotiated by a combination of social cohesion and the degree of
governmental control. The second conception, Berlin outlines as Positive Freedom, which is
[derived] from the wish on the part of the individual to be his own master. While this
conception is significantly more difficult to summarise due to its taxonomic flexibility,
Positive Freedom expresses the wish for self-actualisation and to act in the knowledge that
ones own actions are accordance with ones own will. Known to Honneth as Reflexive
Freedom, it is conceived separate from Negative Freedom as material concerns are
secondary, and rather focuses on a complete emancipation borne by agency, (excepting the
laws of nature and physics).

It is here that the paradoxical complication arises, as the influence of governmental or

interpersonal hegemony can complicate the question of that constitutes a persons free will.
Additianally, a categorical conception of right and wrong could conceivably develop within a
society, leading to an indiscriminate imposition of that conception on any dissenters. If I,
through rational deduction, have discovered how a given individual should ideally live
(regardless of whether they are consciously aware of or necessarily want that ideal), to what
extent can I coerce them or infringe on their Negative Freedoms for their own categorical
benefit?

This rationally derived progression of events can foreseeably lead to a coercive conception of
liberty, complete with authoritarian and paternalistic undertones. Consider, for instance,
the belief in the modesty and subservience of women within Islamic communities. To what
lengths could and should Islamic males go in order to enforce this rule? Or, comparing the
status of women in the Western world, that of legally equal citizens, to those same women,
the question could be phrased as: To what extent can Western authorities infringe on the
rights and beliefs of women in Islamic in order to ultimately provide better living
conditions? The answer, to which the subjective freedom of the individual (rooted in the
recognition of their agency by their fellow citizens) is tied, must undoubtedly found, most
reliably, I would say, through empathetic application of and sensitivity towards the concepts
of freedom underlined herein. (497)

Section B

Question 1

Although post-Nietzschean continental philosophers such as Heidegger have essentially

been viewed as nihilistic moral relativists, largely for not offering any prescriptive moral
framework for responsible engagement with the world, Raffoul instead argues that the
notion of responsibility is not only present in their works, but is central to it as well. He
argues that, as in the case of Derrida, ethical issues remain present in philosophy, despite
being only implicit at times. In fact, Raffoul and many continental philosophers question the
whole conception of philosophy as a source for normative ethics and values, believing
philosophys social and academic role to instead be a deconstruction of ethics themselves,
putting us in a position to construct our own system of ethics. Raffoul in his book The Origins
of Responsibility (Studies in Continental Thought), outlines four of what he calls the
fundamental concepts of the traditional account of responsibility within western
philosophy that need examination and inquiry.

The first of these concepts is outline as the belief that the human being is an agent or
subject while another is here outlined as the reliance on causality. Linked with the
accountability under the presupposition of free will within a subject-based metaphysics, the
concept of responsibility is conceived in terms of a chain of causality. Any given even is
described by Kant as at least partially incumbent on the circumstances of the preceding
moment, to which it therefore owes responsibility. And therefore, through acting upon the
conditions provided by their own free will, an individual is considered accountable for
those very actions. Accountability, then, carries with it the assumption of an actor behind
an action (or the subject-cause), while, according to Raffoul, responsibility traditionally
speaks more towards the capacity of an individual to be accountable. In this light, relegated
to a sort of descriptor of accountability, what it actually means to be responsible is left
largely unexamined, which, Raffoul reports Derrida as saying, is in itself irresponsible as it
precludes the possibility of examining the ethicality of ethics. Continental philosophers
raise the notion that, contrary to the assumptions of traditional philosophical thought as
described above, accountability does not present an ontological bedrock but instead exists
and manifests in the context of a groundless existence, for there is no infinite,
transcendental origin in ethical precepts.

This is closely linked with a third concept, which are as discussed here as the notion that
the subject is a voluntary agent and the assumption that the responsible being is a rational
subject. At this point, Raffoul challenges the ideas of Aristotle and Kant, who, respectively
associate responsibility with the will and free, rational thought of an individual. This is what
Sartres phenomenological ontology is based upon as it is an expression of the intrinsic
reality of ethics, associated with the fundamental responsibility of existence itself, rather
than any ethical imperatives. Raffoul essentially places the ontology as a kind of ethical
bedrock intrinsically tied to and equates ethics with ontology itself. There is therefore no
requirement for sufficient morality or a rational foundation to it that supersedes the
contingency of nature.

For continental philosophers, critiques on western ethical frameworks are therefore, as in

the case of Nietzsches writings in the Genealogy of Morality, more of a critique of certain
conceptualisations of ethics rather than an outright dismissal of them. In his view, modern
western morality finds itself too heavily entrenched in ascetic values and transcendental
conceptions of good and evil that reflect contempt for immanent life. In his conception of
the Overman, Nietzsche calls for a more life-affirming means of evaluation, which reveals a
new way of looking at responsibility. The aim of continental philosophers therefore consists
of separating the notion of causality and free will from that of responsibility in order to
examine its true philosophical source. (628)