Freedom | Kolak and Martin

- being controlled by urges is more subtle | internal coercion less apparent

- being controlled by commands is less subtle | external coercion more apparent

- people do not make their wants, but simply have them

- people act according to their stronger wants

- people do not choose their feelings

- and in turn, those feelings cause us to have certain wants and not-wants

- "you acted freely provided your action was a consequence of your choice"

Human Freedom | Kavanaugh

2.1 Introduction to Freedom

- Freedom: we usually do the things we want to do

- Where do our choices and wants come from?

- if we cause our choosing, then freedom is self cause

- if external causality, we are not free

- Are we free?
 Phenomenological Analysis of Freedom

- Before action, I am aware of both options and limits

- During action, I am aware of its dependence on me

- After action, I am aware that I did it, and that it is now part of me

- Wait a second, I do not have to do that

- our choices become historicity

Skinner | Nonexistent Freedom

- freedom is nonexistent

- man's freedom is determined by their historicity

- all present behavior is explainable by previous behavior

- all behavior is motivated by necessitating causes (internal or external)

- man is ABSOLUTELY PREDETERMINED

- total determinism lie outside the individual, and can be used to predict future actions

- causes are the cause, not ourselves

- historicity

Metaphysical Analysis of Will

- if something is absolutely best, it is not an option, it is automatic to be drawn to that option

Synchronous 1

Forms of Hard/Absolute Determinism

a. Philosophical Determinism | b. Scientific Determinism

- based on Theory of Universal Causation

- all human action and choice has a cause

- moral choice is an illusion

c. Psychological Determinism

- historicity determines man

- Historicity: inborn innate trait | cultural, hereditary, etc

- whatever a person does, there will always be an explanation of a cause, and a prediction of an action | by a

determinist

Skinner

a. Genetic, biological, physical structures influence my behavior and are part of the totality that is my self

b. Environmental (socio-cultural) structures that are part of me and have been influential to my temporal,

social identity

- weakness: waits after the fact before explaining: lagi merong siyang paliwanag, his explanations always

resort to historicity and facticity we have

2.2 Representative Perspectives on Freedom | Sartre

- Absolute Freedom

- negating structure

- neglects influence of structure and facticity

- "existence precedes essence"

- history DOES NOT affect potentialities/future

- man is absolutely free/man is freedom itself

- Kavanaugh says freedom is not tied down to our historicity | we can negate them

Sartre

- Freedom is ABSOLUTE

- two kinds of being

- en soil = in itself = plenitude of being = NON-CONSCIOUS = everything non-conscious that

surrounds us

- for soil = for itself = intentionality of conscsiousness = CONSCIOUSNESS = always negates in

itself = you can consider yourself an object of your consciousness

- since for itself = man treats itself as an object at distance, the self can create and recreate myself at any point in

time

- both negate each other continuously

 Freedom because we have a choice

 - man is able to detach himself from the world

- SINCE MAN is on (not thing ness), it holds itself in question, and is without essence, and can

recreate its essence, and become ABSOLUTELY FREE

- since we are conscious beings and we are conscious of something, separation is existent

- distance is what Sarte focuses on and what makes man absolutely free

- a nothingness (not a thing ness) separates man (for-itself) from itself and from being | and continually

holds its own being in question

- Sarte's Points

a. Freedom means negating outside structure |

b. We are not tied down by historicity | we can question, negate, or accept them to create our

essence

c. we are responsible for our choices |

- since man is conscious, he is separate from everything around him, he can stand apart from these things

(negate), man is a not-thing

- we ARE CONDEMNED TO CREATE AND RECREATE OURSELVES OVER AND OVER AGAIN

EVERY SECOND, I can never be defined BECAUSE I AM A CONSCIOUSNESS

Difficulties

- natural scientific explanations and accounts regarding man

 - to be me | involves the structure of what being me is | I am bound to who I am (this include my historicity)

| very structure of my identity

2.3 Structured Freedom | Freedom and Anxiety

Structured Freedom: Will to Act

Maslow

a. people are thrown into structures which include historicity, environment, cultural, moral, and

academic traditions

b. to be a self, to have a structure | values and demands emerge from me since I can reflect (on

things passed down to me) and question in the course of becoming

- I have a structure for my choices

- total determinism is all about past/historicity/givens that are already there

- total indeterminism is all about future

- man is in between Skinner and Sarte

- man is inserted into historicity, but has potentiality to create himself

- man is neither ABSOLUTELY FREE nor ABSOLUTELY PREDETERMINED

- neither area can be reduced to the other, but both exist quite obviously in our existence | WE

WEIGH THEM AGAINST EACH OTHER

Freedom and Anxiety

a. in exercise of freedom, we are ultimately alone

b. our choices are both single and irrevocable at a time

- we can only make one irreversible choice at each time

c. freedom is ambiguous

- I can create or ruin myself with my choices

- I can opt to be closed OR other-directed | choose to stay within comfort zone OR choose

to be out in the world

- Freedom, guilt, anxiety, tension, responsibility all help compromise total meaning of humanity

- if man is freedom itself, man is ambiguous

- can be guided by fear or courage, can be dynamic or stagnant

Camus | Freedom and Anxiety: The Absurd

- question of choices | why are we doing these things | answers meaning of life | is life worth living

- Absurdity = Pointless

- our lives are ABSURD | A day comes when a man realizes he is thirty

- everything in a self MUST REJECT tomorrow

 - world can destroy the self | comfort zones are ARTIFICIAL | world is meaningless for Camus |

we only have HUMAN meanings | meaningless against the world

- am I really free? is life worth living?

- if only our HUMAN MEANINGS (God, afterlife, true love, money) is CLEAR, then all is saved

- but all is Chaos and is Absurd

- sometimes, choices are scary | alone in decisions, irreversible choices

- in effect, people want to follow orders instead

- we are never at home in the world since we always adjust to nature/people

- it is absurd that we look at the future, when all the future holds is our death

- our frustration is our own life

- Camus' philosophy is against the rebellion of life, should something be difficult, assert oneself

against it, and make meaning of life, until it stops being a punishment

- I will create meaning of life, despite its absurdity, I am the meaning of my life