Understanding Human Freedom and Choices

Understanding the Human Person's Freedom

• Evaluate and exercise prudence in choices
• Choices have consequences
• Some things are given up while others are gained when making choices

Objectives

• Evaluate and exercise prudence in one's choices
• Realize the consequences and responsibilities of one's actions

The Power of Volition

• Volition is the instrument for decisions, revealing one's power to choose (willingness or unwillingness)
• Without volition, a person is reduced to an automaton.
• Humanity's capacity to make choices is also called free will, an instrument of free choice.
• Quote: "He who has overcome his fears will truly be free." - Aristotle (385-323 BC)

The Power of Volition (cont.)

• Humans have the capacity for good or bad, worthy or worthless actions
• Inner awareness of the aptitude to do right or wrong
• Common testimony of all human beings
• Reward and punishment from rulers (and the community)
• Praise and blame
• Happiness of a person's soul is in their own hands, either preserved and developed or cast away

Love is Freedom

• Humans have an aspiration to be beings, to achieve the highest level of fulfillment and happiness.
• St. Thomas Aquinas believes the will is free.
• The highest manifestation of life is a being governing its own actions. A thing under constant direction of another is somewhat a dead thing.
  • Quote: St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Spiritual Freedom

• For Aquinas, the Good itself is God and knowledge of God is attainable only after death (in the beatific vision)
• In that situation, one will voluntarily choose the Good, but may not do it freely.
• Knowledge of God is a fundamental foundation of freedom.
  • Quote: St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Freedom

• Freedom for St. Thomas is how intellectual beings seek universal goodness.
• It is a condition of the will, arising from our nature in the world in which we inhabit
  • Quote: St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Individual Freedom

• Existence precedes essence—people are born without an essence
• People are responsible for defining their own essence
• Essence is "constituted" through defining one's being through experiences in society and by choices.
• Essence = self-discovery
• One is their liberty; Individuals make their own essence, not determined from birth
  • Quote: Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Individual Freedom (cont.)

• People can change and discover who they are through their consciousness (being for itself)
• Material objects don't have consciousness, and their existence isn't defined by choice (being in itself).
  • Quote: Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Freedom

• “Freedom is not the right to do what you want to do, nor is it to do what you must do, rather it is the right to do what you ought to do.”

• “The worst thing in the world is not sin, it is denying that we are sinners. Sinners who deny that there is sin, deny thereby the remedy of sin, and thus cut themselves off forever from him who came to redeem.”

• “To destroy evil (sin), God would have to destroy our freedom.”

• Freedom to choose: heaven or hell

  • Quote:ulton Sheen (1895-1979)

Freedom is Responsibility

• To be free is to be bound to one's essence

• Freedom is a responsibility to be oneself

• Human acts should be expressed worthily

• People can achieve their potential with freedom of choice; but our path is our own choice.

• Destined by birth but can be challenged

  • Quote: Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)

Some Philosophical Ideas About Freedom

• Freedom is obtained through risking life

• Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves, and maintaining our distance from others

• Freedom is a chance for bettering oneself

  • Quotes: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Albert Camus

Some Philosophical Ideas About Freedom (cont.)

• People demand freedom of speech to make up for limitations in thought
• All people are equal by nature and have a right to freedom
• Freedom is a worthy goal, and is achieved by disregarding things beyond one's control
  • Quotes: Socrates, John Locke, and Epictetus

Citations About Freedom from Different Philosophers

• Every choice has a consequence (unavoidable)

  • Quote: Gary Ryan Blair

• Craving in conscious fear to be saved; but hoping for the patience to win freedom

• Freedom is possible through struggle

  • Quotes: Rabindranath Tagore, Albert Einstein

Citations About Freedom from Different Philosophers (cont.)

• Our lives end when we are silent about things that matter
• Freedom is not worth having without making mistakes
  • Quotes: Martin Luther King Jr, and Mahatma Gandhi

Citations About Freedom from Different Philosophers (cont.)

• Happiness and freedom start with understanding some things are within and out of our control

• Be a free thinker and accept everything as the truth

• Look into hell before speaking of Heaven

  • Quotes: Epictetus, Aristotle, and Bertrand Russell

Love and Freedom

• Love has an element of madness

• Love is an act, not a reaction

• Love is an invitation to share a life with the other (embracing the other's facticity: physical and spiritual)

• Love is not mere sentimentality

• Love makes people better, allowing them to become the best versions of themselves and letting go of potential to realize values within and others

  • Quotes: Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Scheler, and Martin Heidegger

Situations That Demonstrate Freedom of Choice and Consequences

• Recognize, appreciate, acknowledge, respect
• My choices (unique, responsible way of living)
• Individual freedom (being independent and self-development)
• Economic freedom
• Welfare of others
• Value system of freedom
• Be aware of your talents, differences, and capabilities

Freedom is Being Mindful of One's Worth and Others

• Our own individuality (Individual freedom) should interact with others' individuality (Economic freedom)
• Individuals have the chance to develop their talents; contribution to society as a consequence of one's choices

How to Be Free?

• Be prudent (avoid being stupid, discern your ways)
• Express yourself (don't panic in actions, don't fear mistakes)
• Develop the virtue to save from problems

Freedom is a Choice, It is Earned and Protected

• Freedom is a state of mind (free thinking)

This quiz explores the concepts of human freedom, the importance of prudence in decision-making, and the consequences of our choices. It delves into the philosophical understanding of volition as the power to choose and the moral implications associated with it. Analyze your understanding of free will and the responsibilities that come with it.