Lesson 5
Lesson 5
Lesson 5
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.