INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY

OF THE HUMAN PERSON

SOUTH EAST-ASIA INSTITUTE OF TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY
Lesson5:Freedom of the Human Person

What is Freedom?
FREEDOM
 The power or right to act, speak, or
think as one wants without hindrance
or restraint.
 Freedom consists of going beyond

situations such as physical or

economic.
 A. Aristotle
(The Power of Volition)

 Aristotle's definition of power of
volition - 1639499 "Hence intention is
either a desiring intellect or a thinking
desire, and such a principle is a
man,"(24) in other words, man is as
much a thought (intellect) moved
by Volition (and its desires) as he is
a Volition (desire) moved by thought.
 D. Jean Paul Sartre

 Individual Freedom Sartre’s philosophy

is considered to be a representative of
existentialism. 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 suicausa). Sartre’s
existentialism stems for this principle:
existence precedes essence.
 E. Thomas Hobbes :Law of Nature (Lex
Naturalis)

Theory of social contract

 A law of Nature ( Lex Naturalis) is a
percept or general rule established by
reason, by which 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.
 Hobbes defines contract as "the mutual
transferring of right." In the state of nature, everyone has
the right to everything - there are no limits to the
right of natural liberty. The social contract is the
agreement by which individuals mutually transfer their
natural right.
 Leviathan argues for a social contract and rule by an
absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the
brute situation of a state of nature ("the war of all against
all") could only be avoided by strong, undivided
government.
 F. Jean-Jacques Rousseau

 Social Contract (1762) Rousseau argues that laws are

binding only when they are supported by the general
will of the people. His famous idea, 'man is born free,
but he is everywhere in chains' challenged the
traditional order of society.
 The “Edsa Revolution” is an example, though an
imperfect one, of what the theory of Social Contract
is allbout?. According to Hobbes and Rousseau , the
state owes the origin to a social contract freely
entered into by its members.
SOUTH EAST-ASIA INSTITUTE OF TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY

Thank you
INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY
OF THE HUMAN PERSON
SOUTH EAST-ASIA INSTITUTE OF TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY
Evaluate and Exercise Prudence and Choices

B. F. Skinner 
 Was one of the most influential of American psychologists. A

behaviorist, he developed the theory of operant conditioning,

the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, be
they reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or
less likely that the behavior will occur again.
 According to Skinner, our struggle for freedom is not due to

a will to be free as for Aristotle or Sartre, but to certain

behavioral processes characteristic of the human organism,
the chief effect of which is the avoidance for escape from
“aversive” features of the environment.
Yelon (1996)

 Accepted that behavioral

psychology is at fault for having
over analyzed the words
“rewards” and “punishment”. We
might have miscalculated the
effect of the environment in the
individual.
Choices Have Consequences and Some Things are Given Up
while Others are Obtained in Making Choices

 Twentieth century gave rise

to the importance of the
individual, the opposite of
medieval thought that was
God-centered.
 Ayn Rand
 was a Russian-American writer and philosopher. She is
known for her two best-selling novels, The Fountainhead
and Atlas Shrugged, and for developing a philosophical
system she named Objectivism. Born and educated in
Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. 
 Laissez-faire capitalism, according to Ayn Rand, is not just
an ideal but an unknown ideal. Few grasp its meaning,
history, economics, or moral justification. Capitalism,
according to Rand, is the social system in which the
government's only role is to protect individual rights.
Ayn Rand
 Similar with Aristotle, Rand believes that the thinking
is volitional. A person has a freedom to think or not.
Though, for Rand, the Majority belongs to the passive
supporters of the status qou who choose not to think.
 Rand cited the right to gain, to keep, to use, and to
dispose of material values. Most developed countries
have disposed their toxic wastes to developing
countries. Disposing material values, thus, is not just a
matter of throwing waste but projecting where to dump
wastes that would not impinge on the rights of others.
Show Situations that Demonstrate Freedom of Choice and the
Consequences of their Choices.

 The author agrees to Rand’s

views of individual in the
advancement of a person.
According to Rand, individual
freedom should be aligned
with economic freedom.
 “sakop” or harmony can be a helping value to the full development of the
Filipino if it opens up to embrace the whole Philippine Society.
 “kalooban” or “magandangKalooban”- Leaders should not just focus
on the impact of job performance but treats every individual worker as
persons and not as objects. 
 “kasarilihan” (self-Suffiency) –emotionally and intellectually
independent.
 promotes entrepreneurship, which minimize foreign control of Filipinos 
 “tayo-tayo” or “kami-kami” –Our own individuality should interact with
the individuality of others.
 Every Filipino should be given equal chance to cultivate their talents that
inevitably contribute in the development of the society.
 “pakitang Tao”- (Outward Appearance’s sake)
Remembering EDSA!
SOUTH EAST-ASIA INSTITUTE OF TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY

Thank you