CIT COLLEGES OF PANIQUI FOUNDATION, INC.

Burgos St. Pob. Norte, Paniqui, Tarlac – Philippines

Senior High School Department
School Year 2021=2022
2nd GRADING PERIOD
INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN PERSON
Lesson 3 CHOICES, CONSEQUENCES, AND TRADE-OFFS

LESSON OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, students are expected to:
a. Define the terms: freedom, choice, and consequence according to both traditional and contemporary theories.
b. Enumerate important situation/s that demonstrate/s their freedom of choice and its corresponding consequences
c. Justify personal experience of freedom as a capacity to make choices appropriate to understanding what authentic
human is. d. Craft an argumentative essay that shows that choices have consequences by integrating their personal
experiences on making choices and being accountable for its outcome
Overview of the Lesson
In this lesson, students ought to understand what human freedom is and demonstrate personal experience on
actualizing the freedom of choice and its relationship with its consequences.
Chunk 1: Definition of Terms; Debates on Freedom and its implications
1. Traditional kinds of Freedom: Negative and Positive
➔ Negative freedom – freedom from
◆ freedom from external “obstacles, barriers or constraints” (Carter, 2016).
◆ X has more negative freedom if there are less hindrances that exist between X and doing whatever X
desires. (B. & K, McKay, 2012).
➔ Positive freedom – “freedom to”
◆ Freedom to act “—or the fact of acting—in such a way as to take control of one's life and realize one's
fundamental purposes” (Carter, 2016).
◆ X can “consciously make his own choices, create his own purpose, and shape his own life; he acts
instead of being acted upon” (B. & K, McKay, 2012).
➔ Negative and Positive Freedom
◆ “They always go together; the one always presupposes the other, even if only one is actually stated
(Solomon & Higgins, 2010, p.224).
◆ . . . it is unthinkable that people would overthrow their government, no matter how intolerable, if
they had no idea, however dim, about what they would do to replace it. And it is unimaginable that the
adolescent would so desperately want to be free from school if he or she had no idea, however vague, of doing
something else instead (Solomon & Higgins, 2010, p.224).
2. Contemporary Debates on Freedom
➔ Determinism vs indeterminism
◆ Determinism
● Determinism haunts the concept of freewill
● “A theory that every event in the universe, including every human action, has its natural
explanatory causes; given certain earlier conditions, then an event will take place necessarily, according
to the laws of nature” (Solomon and Higgins, 2010, p.230).
● Determinist argument: Every event has its explanatory cause. Every human choice or action is
an event. Ergo, every human choice or action has its explanatory cause. Then Every human choice or
action has its explanatory cause. To have explanatory causes is not to be free. Ergo, no human choice or
action is free.
● Argument: “even if I make a choice between A and B, what I choose is already determined by
causes, including those involved in my character and the process of deliberation” (Solomon & Higgins,
2010, p. 229)
◆ Indeterminism
● “is the explicit rejection of determinism, the view that not every event has a cause, and thus
determinism is false.” (Solomon & Higgins, 2010, p. 231).
● Aims to justify the possibility of freedom.
○ Objections to the indeterminist argument:
○ 1. First, even if we suppose that the conclusions of modern physical (“quantum”) theory are
correct (a matter still in dispute among physicists), it is clear that determinism is of importance to us
primarily as a theory of macroscopic bodies (that is, of visible size— people, trees, cars), not subatomic
particles (p. 233).
○ 2. even if there should be such indeterminism, indeterminism is not the same as freedom.
Indeterminism, by suggesting that some events are uncaused, robs us of our freedom, therefore, just as
much as determinism. If we freely choose our actions, our choices themselves are causes. But if an
action is uncaused, our choices themselves are ineffective. The argument against determinism, in any
case, is not yet sufficiently persuasive to allow for the indeterminist’s conclusions (p. 233)
➔ Compatibilism vs Incompatibilism
◆ The philosophical debate between compatibilists and incompatibilists is pressing because of the way it
connects with the notion of moral responsibility (Mandik, 2014, p. 172).
◆ Compatibilism
● holds that the existence of free will is compatible with determinism (Mandik, 2014, p. 177)
● Also known as soft determinism
● Arguments for compatibilism:
○ 1. Even if we accept the determinist thesis, it can be argued, we can still believe in freedom. In
fact, we must believe in freedom because we can never know all the earlier events and conditions that
brought about a particular decision or action, and thus we can never establish that actions are
completely determined (p. 235) (Appeal to ignorance)
○ 2. Even if we accept the determinist thesis, we can still distinguish between those causes that
make a person’s action free and those that make it unfree (p. 236) (Intuition based and folkish) ○ Agent
causation vs Event causation
◆ Incompatibilism
● (1) Existence of freewill and (2) the truth of determinism is not compatible.
○ It is either (1) or (2).
○ (1) is often pushed by libertarianism
○ (2) is affirmed by hard determinism.

PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT EVALUATING AND EXERCISING PRUDENCE IN CHOICES

1. B.F. Skinner – the environment selects which is similar with natural
selection. We must consider what the environment does to an
organism not only before but also after it responds. Behavior is
shaped and maintained by its consequences.
2. Yelon (1996) – accepted that behavioral psychology is at fault of
having overanalyzed the words “reward” and “punishment”. We
must have miscalculated the effect of environment in an individual.
There should be balance in our relationship with others and the
environment.
3. John Stuart Mill – “Liberty consists in doing what one desires.”
4. Schouten & Looren de Jong (2012) – Analogously, in the case of reward, we are concerned with incentive.
5. Plato – The soul of every individual possesses the power of learning the truth and living in a society that is in
accordance to its nature.

We are responsible whether we admit it or not, for what is in our power to do. Most of the time, we cannot be
sure what it is in our power to do until we attempt to do it. In spite of the alleged inevitabilities in personal life and
history, human effort can determine the direction of events and though it cannot determine the conditions that
make human effort possible.
It is true that we did not choose to be born. It is also true that we choose to keep on living. It is not true that
everything that happens to us is like “being struck down by a dreadful disease.”

WHAT IS CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCE?

According to the dictionary, choice is defined as “an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or
more possibilities.” The definition of consequence is “a result or effect of an action or condition.” While both of those
definitions are fairly short and straight to the point, they still leave a lot to talk about when it comes to our lives.

Often, it says that choices have consequences. The big question is, does this assertion stand or hold any essential
truth? Well, narrowly speaking, the correspondence theory of truth is while you are free to make your own decision, you
are not free to control the consequences of your actions.

Every human being is present with free will to make their own decisions. To do something of your own free will,
you do it by choice, but if you allow someone to influence you, then your decision is not free.

While establishing that human beings can think and act freely as a reasonable and moral living being, remember
everything you do come back to you. And the consequences, whether good or bad, will follow you forever, and it also
affects everyone in your path.
The choices you make can shape you to be unique and set a difference between yourself and everyone else.
However, the decisions you make have long-lasting
repercussions on your life.

CONSEQUENCES OF OUR CHOICES

1. INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS – Though human beings
have rights, there should also be responsibility.
Individual rights were upheld in capitalism,
 which is the only system that can uphold and protect them. The principle of individual rights represented the
extension of morality into the social system.
2. INDIVIDUALISM – Individual needs the community and vice versa. The Filipino and Chinese, for instance, the
individual is the captain of his own ship on sea that is not entirely devoid of uncertainties.
3. FILIPINOS EMBRACE FAMILY AND POLITICAL PARTIES – For the Filipinos, one does not only fulfill reasons of the
mind but for the heart and personal involvement as well.
4. KAGANDAHANG LOOB, KABUTIHANG LOOB, and KALOOBAN – are terms that show sharing of one’s self to
others. This is the freedom within loob. Loob puts one in touch with his fellow beings. Great Filipino values, in
fact, are essentially interpersonal. The use of intermediaries or go-betweens, the values of loyalty, hospitality,
pakikisama (camaradedrie), and respect for authority are such values that relate to persons. In short, Filipinos
generally believe in innate goodness of the human being.

The Filipinos’ loob is the basis of Christian value of sensitivity to the needs of others and of gratitude. In
encompasses “give-and-take” relationship among Filipinos. As such, repaying those who have helped us is a
manifestation of utang na loob or debt of gratitude. Loob is similar with other Eastern views that aspires for harmony
(sakop) with others, God, and nature. Loob priorities family, relatives, and even nonkinsmen. It bridges individual
differences and is the common factor among human beings
Filipinos look at themselves as holistic from an interior dimension under the principle of harmony. This encompasses
the Filipinos’ humanity, personality, theological perspective, and daily experiences. It aspires harmony with others and
nature to be in union with God. The Filipinos’ holistic and interior dimensions stress a being-with-others and sensitivity
to the needs of others that inhibit one’s personal and individual fulfillment.
Filipino ethics has an internal code and sanction that other legalistic moral philosophies that are rather negative. The
Filipino who stresses duties over rights, has plenty in common once again with the Chinese or Indians. The Filipino looks
at himself as one who feels, wills, thinks, acts as a total whole – as a “person” conscious of his freedom, proud of human
dignity, and sensitive to the violation of these two.

REALIZING THAT “ALL ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES”

A. Aristotle – THE POWER OF VOLITION

 The imperative quality of a judgement of practical intellect is meaningless apart from will. Reason can
legislate but only through will can its legislation be translated into action. for others, reason is limited to
thoughts that could be realized into actual action and behavior. The task of practical intellect is to guide will by
enlightening it. Will, in the fact, is to be understood wholly in terms of intellect. If there was no intellect, there
would be no will. This is obvious from the way in which will is rationally denominated. Humanity’s capacity to
make choices, also called free will, is an
instrument of free choice. This is within
the power of everyone to be good or
bad, worthy or worthless. This is borne
out of:
 Our inner awareness of an
aptitude is to do right or
wrong;
 The common testimony of all
human beings;
 The reward and punishment
of rulers; and
 The general employment of
praise and blame.
Moral acts are in power and we
are responsible for them. All moral acts
are specific actions done at a particular
time in particular situation with people. Character or habit is no excuse for immoral conduct.
For Aristotle, a human being is rational. Reason is a divine characteristic, that is, God created humans
to reason and are inclined to reason. Humans have the spark of the divine. In other words, humans are made
according to the characteristics of God. Without intellect, there is no will. Though reason rules over will, our
will is an instrument of free choice turning into action.

B. Thomas Aquinas – LOVE IS FREEDOM

Of all creatures of God, human designs have the unique power to change themselves and the things
around them for the better. Humans are the only creatures on Earth endowed with the capacity to reshape
their physical environment and civilization according to their thoughts, plans, and beliefs. All other creatures
on Earth merely follow their natural instinct and maintain their natural place in the world.
Thomas Aquinas considered a human being as a moral agent. We are both spiritual and body element; the
spiritual; and material. The unity between both elements helps us understand our complexity as human
beings. Our spirituality separates us from animals; it delineates the moral dimension of our fulfilment in an
action. Through pour spirituality, we have a conscience. Whether we choose to be “good” or “evil” becomes
or responsibility.
Aquinas wisely and aptly choose and proposed love rather than law to bring about the transformation to
humanity. For love is in consonance with humanity’s
free nature; for law commands and complete. Love
only calls and invites. Aquinas emphasized the
freedom of humanity toward his self-perception and
happiness – his ultimate destiny.

C. Thomas Aquinas’s SPIRITUAL FREEDOM

Thomas Aquinas established the existence of God as a
first cause. Of all God’s creations, human beings have
the unique power to change themselves and things
around them for the better. As humans we are both
material and spiritual. We have a conscience because of our spirituality. God is love and love is our destiny.

D. Jean Paul Sartre – INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM

Sartre’s philosophy is concerned to be a representative of existentialism (Falikowski, 2004) for Sartre, the
human person is the desire to be God: the desire to exist as a being which has its sufficient ground in itself (en
sui causa). There are no guideposts along the road of life. The Human person builds the road to the destiny of
his choosing; he is the creator (Srathern, 1998).
Sartre’s existentialism stems from the principle, “Existence precedes essence.”
 The person, first, exists and encounters himself
and surges up in the world, then defines himself
afterward. The person is nothing else but that
what he makes of himself.
 The person is provided with a supreme
opportunity to give meaning to one’s life. In the
course of giving meaning to one’s life, he fills the
world with meaning.
 Freedom is, therefore, the very core and the door
to authentic existence.
 Authentic existence is realized only in deeds that
are committed alone in absolute freedom and
responsibility and which is therefore, the
character of true creation.
 The person is what one has done and is doing.
 On the other hand, the human person who tries to escape obligations and strives to be en-soi (e.g.,
excuse such as “I was born this way” or “I grew up in a bad environment”) is acting on bad faith
(mauvaise foi).

E. Thomas Hobbes – THEORY OF SOCIAL CONTRACT

Law of nature (lex naturalis) is a percept or general rule established by reason by which a person is
forbidden 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.
Given our desire to get out of the state of nature, and thereby preserve our lives, Hobbes concluded
that we should “seek peace.” This becomes his first law of nature. The reasonableness of seeking peace
immediately suggests a second law of nature, which is the mutually divest ourselves of certain rights (such
as the right to take another person’s life) so as to achieve peace. That a person be willing, when others are,
too (this necessary for peace-building), to lay down this right to all things and be contented with so much
liberty against other people as he would allow other people against himself (Ramos, 2010). The third law
of nature is that human beings perform the covenant they made. Without this law of nature, covenants
are nothing but empty words. With the right of all human beings to all things remaining, we are still in the
condition of war. Further, this law is the fountain of justice. When there has been no covenant, no action
can be adjusted. However, when a covenant has been made, to break is unjust.
Hobbes upheld that human beings seek to self preservation and security; however, they are unable to
attain this end in the natural condition of war. The laws of nature are unable to achieve the desired end by
themselves alone, that is, unless there is coercive power able to enforce their observance by sanctions.
These laws are rational but are contrary to human nature.

F. Jean-Jacques Rousseau – was one of the famous and influential philosophers of the French
Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. In his book The Social Contract, he elaborated his theory of
human nature. In Rousseau, a new era of sentimental piety found its beginning.
According to Rousseau, the state owes its origin to a social contract freely entered into by its members;
the RDSA Revolution is an example, though as imperfect one. While Rousseau interpreted the idea in
terms of absolute democracy and individualism, Hobbes developed his idea in favor of absolute monarchy.
Both Hobbes and Rousseau have one thing in common, that is, they believe that human beings have to
form a community or civil community to protect themselves from one another, because the nature of
human beings is to wage war against one another, and since by nature, humanity tends toward self-
preservation, then it follows that they have to come to a free mutual agreement to protect themselves.