Freedom

Modifiers of Voluntariness
FREEDOM
Freedom

- Our life, our nature, our intellectual

endowments, our temperament or artistic
aptitudes, our free will are given to us. We
have them from birth.
o Thus, Freedom is a characteristic of the human
person in body and in soul, with intellect and
will.
o The whole person freely chooses what is good,
moved by himself.
o It permits him to direct his own acts towards
attaining a given goal that he has chosen for
himself.
o It is rooted in intellect and will
o Through the intellect, the person has the
knowledge of the goal he wishes to achieve.
o With greater knowledge of the goal, the freedom
will be better.
Do birds have freedom in designing their
nests?
- Through the exercise of freedom, we cause
ourselves to become, rather than just be,
- As human beings, we can develop our
personality and become the person we want
to be.

- We become good sons, daughters,

truthful, liars, honest, etc.
Man’s freedom lies in the fact that he has intellect and
will; because he can know the truth and love the good,
he can tend towards attaining the good goal in a free act.

There is a close relationship between freedom (self-

determination towards the good) and love (the actual
tending towards the good). The stronger the person’s
capacity to move himself towards the good (the freer
he/she is), the stronger will be the capacity to love
(actually tend towards the good).

Each time the person freely chooses something he knows

is better even though it may seem less attractive than
something which is worse he is growing in moral
freedom and is acquiring greater strength of character.
DIMENSIONS OF FREEDOM
Four dimensions of freedom have been
distinguished by philosophers:
- fundamental freedom,
- freedom of choice,
- moral freedom and
- social freedom

This is a revision of what you learnt in PA; you

can also find further explanation from the pdf
long notes on freedom.
Freedom and love
The primary form of love consists in:
1. consenting to the attraction of something appearing
as good.
2. the desire of a good not yet possessed (This form
has been called love of concupiscence in classical
philosophy). The component of this form of love can
disintegrate into mere concupiscence impeding higher
forms of love.
3. the love of benevolence also called love of friendship;
though it is applied to other things like the country,
justice, arts, etc., it develops its characteristics
properly in the friendship with other people.
4. The highest form of love consists in self-giving,
making possible at the ethical level of love
something that is impossible at the ontological
level.
- Self-giving is the manifestation of freedom per
excellence - in monogamist marriage, or in a life
dedicated to others, and it is fully realised in the
personal relationship between man and God.
Freedom and ultimate end
What defines a person’s ethical standard is the type
of life she decides freely to live.
- Determining oneself personally towards the
ultimate end is the deepest act of freedom and love,
- It is an act that defines the identity of the person as
a moral subject.
- the type of life chosen defines what a person
considers to be the ultimate end, which means
what the person loves and wills.
- The bodily human condition implies that the
governance of personal life cannot be exercised only
through spiritual acts.
- It happens through a complex interaction of
practical life and reflection, norms, customs, models,
etc.
- Gradual education of tendencies, formation of
moral habits that shape personal identity take place
within this whole complex process. This shows also
the social and cultural dimension of the human
person.
The Exercise of Freedom
a) Responsibility

The fact that the free act belongs to the person who carries
it out means that he is answerable for that act.
Every free act:
1) Is a responsible act
2) Has a moral dimension (good or bad).

The moral value of the act affects the person who does it
because he has let himself be determined by the goodness
or badness through choosing that act.
 An act is attributed to a person because it is a free
act.
- Human freedom is a responsible freedom, the
free man owns his acts, he is responsible for them
because they are his, he did them.
- The sense of responsibility also brings out
the participative meaning of social life – I
can freely produce positive consequences
for the life of others.

IN SUMMARY
b) Obedience:
This is to recognize the authority of various
people or bodies and obey them.
- One follows freely the standards or rules set
by the authority. This is for the good of
everyone and for the harmonious running of
various institutions and bodies
c) Self-control

According to Prof. Isaacs, (2001), self-

control comes from the development of
the will as it involves a personal decision.
- A human person has been created for a
purpose therefore he has to control the
way he/she behaves if he/she has to
achieve that purpose.
Hence one has to regulate the mode of
behavior to be morally upright for achieving
the higher purpose of life.
This means that each individual is taking
responsibility for his own life by making good
use of everything he possesses in the service
of God.
 Vitell et al (2009), defines self-control as
one’s ability to adapt in order to provide a
better fit between oneself and one’s
environment. Therefore, it is the ability to
refrain from acting upon undesirable and
morally questionable behavioral tendencies.
Self-control is in fact the capacity to act
morally by overriding one’s tendencies to
behave badly.
Factors that Hinder Knowledge and Modify the Will
(Affecting freedom)
(Modifiers of Voluntariness)

1) Lack of awareness of lack of full consent

2) Ignorance, affecting knowledge
3) Passion, affecting the consent of the will
4) Moral habits
5) Violence (Force), actual use of physical
compulsion
6) Fear, opposing to the will a contrary wish
7) Mental illness
Factors that Hinder Knowledge and Modify the Will
(Affecting freedom)
(Modifiers of Voluntariness)

1) Lack of awareness or lack of full consent

Awareness or consent is the moral act in
which the person realizes what he is going to
do, or what he is doing, along with the
morality of his action. There can be:
- Full awareness or consent
- Partial awareness or consent
- Absence of awareness or consent – the
person does not realize what he is doing
therefore he is not responsible for his actions.
2) Ignorance
Ignorance implies a lack of knowledge in the person who
ought to have it - here we only take into account the lack of
knowledge of something that is obligatory to know.

There are three types of ignorance:

 Invincible ignorance.
 A person is invincibly ignorant when he does not realize his
state of ignorance so it does not cross his mind that there is
any knowledge to be acquired; or he does realize his
ignorance, but his efforts to obtain the knowledge are of no
avail. Ignorance should be taken relatively to the person: is
the information obtainable by him and in time for the
decision he must make?
 It dominates the conscience so much that it cannot be
overcome with reasonable means. Invincible ignorance
cannot be overcome and destroys voluntariness.
- Vincible ignorance:- The person can overcome the
ignorance but has not taken enough interest to do
so. Vincible ignorance can be overcome and does
not destroy voluntariness; though it lessens
voluntariness. The culpability of vincible ignorance depends on
the amount of effort put forth to dispel it, and the amount of effort
called for depends on the importance of the matter and the
obligation of the agent to possess such knowledge.

- Affected ignorance;- Occurs when the person has

no interest to find out his obligations, try to forget
them with the intention of avoiding them.
Here the person acts in bad faith, and because of
this, affected ignorance has greater moral gravity.
3) The influence of the passions
In human behavior, the person does not only
act with his intellect and will, but his
passions are involved as well – desires,
feelings, emotions, etc.
The perception of any object by the
senses gives rise to a reaction towards it,
which predisposes the will to want or reject
these goods. These movements or reactions
of the senses are known as passions.
 The passions are grouped into:
a) Concupiscible passions, often called
pleasure seeking passions: like- dislike;
attraction- aversion; joy-sorrow

b) Irascible or aggression seeking passions:

hope-despair; courage- fear; anger.
Passion is any strong emotion. Antecedent
passion, arising spontaneously, lessens freedom
and may though rarely, destroy it.
Consequent passion, deliberately aroused or
fostered, does not lessen voluntariness but may
even increase it.

The passions have to be subordinated to the

intellect and will: the will has to direct them to
loving what is really good , and to reject what is
bad or not right for the person.
4) The moral habits
Social conditions may influence the person,
making it easier or more difficult for him to
acquire virtues, but they do not destroy
people’s freedom.
When the person uses his free will, he
has the capacity to counter this influence.
5) Violence (Force)
Violence is usually defined as that which
proceeds from an external principle, and is
resisted by the person who suffers from it.
The internal act of the will can never be forced
because through it, the person intrinsically
moves himself towards the goal that he wants.
Violence affects the commanded acts, which
are provoked against the will of the person;
they cannot be morally imputable to the
subject as they go against his will. The act is
involuntary if we withhold consent.
6) Fear
Fear is a state of soul or an emotional
disturbance caused by the threat of an imminent
danger that is difficult to avoid.
This fear influences freedom and occurs when a
person acts because he wants to avoid an evil
that he fears, if not he would not act. Fear
affects voluntariness only when it is the motive
for acting.
In extreme cases the subject is not responsible
for the act. In mild cases, one is still responsible.
It does not destroy freedom, because of the
contrary wish mingled with our actual will.
7) Mental illness
Mental illness deprives a person of the use
of reason or weakens their will, therefore
moral responsibility is reduced
Further Reading

Debeljuh, pp 110 – 140

Fagothey, pp110 - 111