ENDTERM-PHILO PDF Introduction to Philosophy

INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY END TERM | 3rd Term Since we exercise freedom, we take full responsibility of our actions TOPIC OUTLINE: CM5 - The Human Person and F...

INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY END TERM | 3rd Term Since we exercise freedom, we take full responsibility of our actions TOPIC OUTLINE: CM5 - The Human Person and Freedom JOHN MOTHERSHEAD CM6 - Intersubjectivity Ethics: The Modern Conceptions of the CM7 - The Human Person and the Society Principles of Right Morality = freedom and obligation FREEDOM IN THE CONTEXT OF MORALITY Freedom is assumed when one is making his ETHICS choices and is the agent that is taking full Ethos - character of a culture responsibility for his actions VALUE EXPERIENCE AND MORALITY Deals with the systematic questioning and critical Can animals become moral? examination of the underlying principles of morality. Conduct is a deliberate human action. NORMATIVE ETHICS ➔ It is the result of reflection where the human Meant to answer the question “what is good?” Pertains to certain norms or standards for person is endowed with the capacity to think goodness and badness, rightness or wrongness using his rationality and to weigh the of an act consequences of his actions There is a moral framework where its standards ➔ Apparently, animals are not capable of the act of of morality are based deliberation or reflection META-ETHICS Questions the basis of assumptions proposed in But why are some animals able to solve simple a framework of norms and standards by problems? normative ethics Examines the presuppositions, meanings, and Animals have pre-reflective morality since they are not justifications of ethical concepts, and principles capable of the that humans are able to do wide range of APPLIED ETHICS deliberation, concept construction, and rational and Describes how we apply normative theories to critical thinking specific issues MORALITY All values are priorities with respect to some aspect of Mores human experience. This is usually expressed by saying that values are imperatives; they make a claim upon us The customs including the customary behavior of a particular group of people whether we admit the claim or not. THE ROLE OF SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE EMERGENCE OF MORES A value can become a moral value if they become “Our notion of what is right stems from man’s basic unlimited priorities in their scope of relevance in our life. instinct to survive.” MORAL JUDGEMENTS = MORAL DECISIONS - William Sumner Making moral judgements is budgeting actions A moral decision is the most important class of Sanctions, customs, and habits are formed from moral judgements because it has a reference to society. the judger’s on future Not all moral judgements are moral decisions Sanctions - a threatened penalty for disobeying a law or rule INTELLECTUAL CHOICE AND PRACTICAL CHOICE Customs - a traditional and widely accepted way of Victor Grassian wrote the book entitled, Moral behaving or doing something that is specific to a Reasoning: Ethical Theory and Some particular society, place, or time Contemporary Moral Problems Habits - a settled or regular tendency or practice, He introduced the confusion between “what one especially on that which is hard to give up ought to do and what one would be inclined to do?” FREEDOM IN THE HUMAN CONTEXT JEAN-PAUL SARTRE Man is condemned to be free Man is an unconstrained free moral agent Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself P, Pelicano |1  When the will is fully functioning, freedom is truly “Our quest however, is not the psychological one of exercised because this is also when our reason what an individual would as a matter of fact be inclined to do in a given situation but, rather, the is working to tell us what we ought to do normative one of what he morally ought to do. The This will is responsible for the recognition of the mere fact that an individual might be inclined to act in foundation of morality and the objective basis for a particular way does not show that is the way he it in the form of the practical law which in turn is should act.” the one responsible for the recognition of the law of morality in the form of the categorical - Victor Grassian imperative CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE INTELLECTUAL CHOICE Act only on that maxim, through which you can Answers the question what we ought to do at the same time will that it should become a according to a normative ethical system universal law PRACTICAL CHOICE TELEOLOGICAL ETHICS Deals with how a person will act according to a Teleology = telos = end, goal, or purpose given situation It is mostly based on consequences APPROACHES TO MORAL REASONING “The end justify the means” KANT’S METAPHYSICS UTILITARIANISM Immanuel Kant ➔ Maximization of pleasure and the avoidance of Phenomena - the thing as it appears to an pain in order to promote happiness observer ➔ Happiness is the summum bonum or the Noumena - the thing-in-itself (das Ding an sich). ultimate goal for ulitarianism Though the noumena holds the contests of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man’s “Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote speculative reason can only know phenomena happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of and can never penetrate to the noumenon happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.” ➔ This is called the Principle of Utility or the Greatest Happiness Principle UTILITARIANISM FOR JEREMY BENTHAM Jeremy Bentham had the notion that pleasure is quantifiable Bentham’s Hedonic Calculus: ○ Intensity ○ Duration ○ Certainty ○ Propinquity DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS ○ Fecundity Deontological ethics or deontological reasoning ○ Purity is an ethic based on duty ○ Extent Came from the greek word “Dein” DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN BENTHAM AND MILL This is also called categorical imperative - Mill does not agree with Bentham’s calculus something that we are unconditionally obliged to Mill was more concerned with the quality of do, with no regard to the consequence pleasure rather than the quantity PURE REASON AND PURE INTUITION He also made a distinction between intellectual Pure reason - provides a priori knowledge and physiological pleasure (before experience) ○ Intellectual - relates to the mind Pure intuition of space and time - provide a ○ Physiological - physical body posteriori knowledge (after experience) It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than Merging the two faculties paved way for a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied practical reasoning than a fool satisfied. PRACTICAL REASON THE FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THE VAGUENESS OF Practical reason is responsible for our capacity MORAL CONCEPTS to recognize what is good through the will In order to avoid being mislead by the moral Immanuel Kant called this the goodwill, which he concepts that we may take for granted in a claimed as the only good in-itself, without moral argument, we should keep a critical eye qualification on the use of these vague concepts in order to P, Pelicano | 2  determine their limits of applicability as they We can’t really know if there is a world beyond apply to particular situations our consciousness THE FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THE VALUE-LADEN Consciousness is intentional NATURE OF MANY CONCEPTS WHICH APPEAR BRACKETING VALUE-FREE Phenomenologist suspend their belief so that When we are analyzing moral situations, we things can be studied how they are presented in should examine whether the disagreements are their consciousness based on facts; or whether the disagreement is Bracketing/epoché = suspension of judgements based on a value-laden environment concerning the reality and existence of the world THE UNCRITICAL USE OF EMOTIVE TERMS REDUCTION The are considered emotive because they are Transcedental reduction follows bracketing, emotionally loaded examining a phenomenon to identify its Usually used in propagandas essential elements HASTY GENERALIZATIONS Reducing the experience are meaningful to the A hasty generalization is an attempt to make a transcedental ego, which assigns meaning to universal statement using “all” based only on a them few cases observed SOLIPSISM FAULTY CAUSALITY (POST HOC FALLACY) Latin solus (alone) and ipse (self) In an accepted statement of a causal connection Asserts the self as the only certain reality between A and B, you are making an inference Intersubjective relations: ethical, that A is the cause of the occurrence of B epistemological, and social RATIONALIZATION INTERSUBJECTIVE RELATIONS This is the process of offering justifications or ETHICAL reasons to cover-up or clothe an already arrived I cannot reduce others to my perception of them at decision meant to hide one’s true negative or and I would not like to be reduced to someone destructive motive, to become an acceptable else’s perception of myself course of action Others are also independent conscious subjects like me who I need to consider whenever I make INTERSUBJECTIVITY decisions for my actions MIND AND BODY DUALISM EPISTEMOLOGICAL “I think therefore; I am.” The objectivity of knowledge requires the - Rene Descartes perspective of others The establishment of knowledge is the product Rene Descartes did not prove the existence of of agreement and confirmation of others man when he said “Cogito ergo sum.” Rationality = intersubkective characteristic The “I” in the statement is only the thinker or the SOCIAL knower There is an undeniable existence of meanings For Descartes, the existence of the soul is more shared by a community (Life-world) distinct and clearer than the existence of the Life-World: the existing collective body presuppositions which guide or influence the Although he managed to prove his own body way we perceive and external things in the end, he still did not INTERSUBJECTIVITY: SELF-RECOGNITION discuss anything about the relation of the soul Can you achieve self-consciousness in isolation? and the body - No HUSSERL’S PHENOMENOLOGY Phainomenon + logos = phenomenology What about animals? A study of which that appears Man has a tendency to go beyond that which Only humans can attain full self-consciousness appears The desire to be desired NATURAL ATTITUDE For Hegel, it is only through being recognized by Stereotyping = natural attitude other self-conscious subjects that we can attain We add our prejudice and biases to our full self-consciousness experiencess and we move beyond the things MASTER AND SLAVE as they appear to us The argument that because something is CONSCIOUSNESS popular it is good or the truth Husserl claims that the world is nothing but our conscious experience P, Pelicano | 3  EQUALITY The master does not automatically get I-I Relationship recognition from the slave The I-I relation is basically a speech An equal consciousness = true recognition For this sort of person, the words uttered by WORK another person are simply meaningless and The slave performs the work for the master and have no value the master fails to experience the transformative What results is a monologue effect of work The slave is a master over nature, while the I-It Relationship master is a master only to his slave Open to listening TRUE RECOGNITION: AGAINST DOMINATION AND The I-It relationship fails to have dialogical RECOGNITION relationship We gain an understanding of who we are as a person as we relate with others, treated as I-Thou Relationship persons and not as mere means or objects It is only through I-Thou relationship that The master and slave is evident by domination dialogues takes place and subjugation Inap a dialogue, you will recognize the person RELATIONSHIP OF DOMINATION as another distinct person (an independent Bullying is a relationship of domination and may consciousness) be expressed in different forms such as The other person is not reduced to merely a intimidation, harassment, discrimination, reduction of your own likeness or an object mistreatment, persecution, and many more Genuine conversation requires genuine listening Those who are bullied do not recognize the bully EMPATHY as a person, but simply as an oppressive power Enables one recognize what ofher people are RELATIONSHIP OF POSSESSION going through The essential element of this relationship is in SYMPATHY VS. EMPATHY the possession of another (treated as property) An example is forbidding your special someone SYMPATHY EMPATHY to talk to other people MEDIATED RECOGNITION This is the feeling of This is simply putting Some objects and symbols mediate the desire compassion for someone, yoursein another to be desired without necessarily person’s shoes in order feeling or trying to feel to understand what they INTERSUBJECTIVITY: RECOGNIZING OTHERS what the other person is are feeling. Martin Buber wrote the book Ich Und Du (I and Thou), feeling. which distinguishes between “I-Thou” and “I-It” modes of existence RESPONSIBILITY FORM OF RELATIONSHIPS According to Emmanuel Levinas, once we I-I RELATIONSHIP understand what other people are going There are people whose world revolves through, we compelled to respond to their needs themselves We are obliged to do certain act that would help Even if these people interact with others, they other people are still the protagonist of their own story This is achieved through our “substitution” of The aim for this sort of relationship is to other people’s consciousness transform the other into his or her own likeness I-IT RELATIONSHIP Until you treat everyone as an equal, you have no right The treatment of the other is reduced into the to complain about the treatment you receive from status of an object or tool anyone. Sometimes the other also reduces as an object of observation THE HUMAN PERSON AND THE SOCIETY I-THOU RELATIONSHIP They will not reduce the other into either their THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THE HUMAN PERSON own self or into the status of an object “Man by nature is a political animal.” The foundation of this relationship is a genuine - Aristotle form of conversation: a dialogue DIALOGUE Aristotle meant that human beings are naturally Talking to other people does not immediately directed to form into groups to fulfill their basic qualify as dialogue needs for subsistence P, Pelicano | 4  Societies are formed so that one is able to Men are assigned to herd larger stocks like receive and achieve the actualization of the cattle; while Women are responsible for smaller human potential stocks like goat, and food production This means that societies allows people to live a However, they still need to move from an area to good life another in order to provide their animals with food Usually has 50 to 200 people Production of different goods in this society allowed for trading This paved the way for some families to be richer than others hence, a centralization of wealth and power to richer families occurred This Society also gave way for inequality to occur across generations Society empowers human persons to be moral HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES and practice human virtue This society cultivates and nurtures plans It differs from agrarian/agricultural societies with Can you practice human virtues if you are living alone? regard to technology and land area - No Their mean of cultivating plants are limited to simple A human person by nature is a social creature tools like digging sticks and hoes in a small land Societies have different perceptions and to be understanding of the world and how they relate tilled to human persons Men are responsible for clearing the land to be When one looks into the different types of societies in tilled; while women are responsible for taking the chronology of human societies, one understand how care of the fruits and vegetables social contexts shape people’s consciousness Similarly, trading was also practiced in Horticultural Societies TYPES OF SOCIETIES This enabled some families to be superior than PRE-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES other families as well Refers to the different types of societies that AGRARIAN SOCIETIES emerge before the 18th century or prior to the New materials and methods for cultivating plants Industrial Revolution and animals gave birth to Agrarian Societies Has limited forms of production and also division such as plow and wheel of labor The wheel was used in many fields such as for Communication is also limited due to the Military use, pottery, and for animals restrictions caused by distance and interaction Such inventions further improved the speed of Pre-industrial societies consists of the following: labor and productions with animals being also Hunting and Gathering, Pastoral, Horticultural, utilized for travelling and field use and Agrarian The use of wind power for sailboats, writing, and HUNTING AND GATHERING SOCIETIES numerical notation, metallurgy, weaving came Simplest type of Society into being Survives by hunting and gathering food INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES Men are hunters while women are gatherers This society was a fruit of continued innovations No permanent settlement in agrarian societies Usually has 30 people or less but may have The three factors that gave birth to these larger numbers depending on the environment societies are: but not reaching 100 ○ Advancement in water transportation Mostly egalitarian and decisions are through ○ Further advancement in agricultural consensus techniques and practices PASTORAL SOCIETIES ○ The establishment of the printing press An evolution of the Hunter-Gatherer Society Source of energy comes from coal, petroleum, Discovered that some animals may be tamed natural gas, and electricity. and that In this society, communication was made much easier due to the invention of the telephone P, Pelicano | 5  hese advancements however, paved to the way However, this became ineffective as Labor for wealth and power to be more limited to fewer Union started to rise and challenged the people called Capitalist oppressive capitalists. Meanwhile the masses belonged to the working Intellectuals also started to spread awareness of class the power of their labor where production may The capitalist took advantage of the labor force be impaired without the workers and became oppressive to the working class Awareness, absenteeism and high turnover rate where the people are asked to work for many became hours prevalent. However, these abuses weakened due to the Henry Ford, introduced Fordism rise of Labor Unions that fought for the welfare Emergence of Worker – Consumer of the workers Advertising became aggressive with the focus Due to the swift development of technology, this on consumptions eventually led to the problem of overproduction This led to the consumer society that caused workers to lose jobs SIGN CONSUMPTION POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES Consumption today is changed by adding the Popularized by Daniel Bell element Post-Industrial societies are characterized as of sign value in a commodity knowledge and service-oriented Sign Values are elements added by The service is the protagonist of the manufacturers into post-industrial products via advertising. society. This sector where people provide their Sign Consumption: The consumptions of the specialized knowledge signs and Knowledge is the main capital of the meanings attached to a certain commodity. post-industrial society with means of production Ergo we are what Guy Debord called “the following suit. Society of In order to increase wealth, one must have Spectacle” possession of to an information. EFFECTS OF SIGN CONSUMPTIONS CONSUMER SOCIETY Suppressed critical thinking as images and The 20th century brought about a new type of signs flood one’s visions and thoughts person and culture called the Consumer A Materialistic Lifestyle given that a person is This type of person was a result of the efficiency made to believe that success is manifested in production where the supply of goods exceed through consumption that current demands of the early industrial Discrimination given that one judges and treat societies. people as to what they have. Hence, a culture of consumption was Social relationships and activities are reduced to established economic activities This event can be summarized into three (3) THE SOCIETY OF SPECTACLE parts: Guy Debord argued that society has been ○ The birth of printing press aided inferior reduced to sign or and new products to penetrate the image relations market Debord argued that spectacle are not collection ○ Industrial Revolution drove people to of images, but social relations mediated by towns and cities away from the Agrarian images. areas Human life and relations are not authentic, and ○ Advertising was introduced and that people are focused on having than living encourage people to consume With this, through having one starts appearing While advertising was already present even THROW AWAY SOCIETY before the printing press. The 18th century saw Due to excessive production and consumption this in a printed form ppression, Alienation, and societies are transformed into throw-away impoverishment of the workers played a societies. This is manifested through the significant role following: Workers are expected to work long hours with ○ Throw-away practice in food wages enough for subsistence. consumption: People have food supply For Capitalists, the ideal situation is cheap labor in their home that will last for day, or and high profits even weeks, and sometimes months.This leads to people cooking P, Pelicano | 6  excessively and throwing away what is The practice of selfie is another move towards left. disembodied human relations. ○ Throw-away packaging of products: The invention of monopod aggravated the Most containers of products in the problem of asking the other person of taking market are throw away their picture. This also enable the concept of ○ Proliferation of throw-away products: group selfies Almost all the products in the market are However, the fear of rejection when asking for throw-away products your picture to be taken is much noted than the Throw away culture is a way of life based on the bothering the other. idea of acquiring and disposing of goods and The virtual society and technological devices products quickly through Planned obsolescence thus make human interactions more complex Such practice will result to environmental Due to opportunities to recreate one’s version of pollution, resource depletion, and climate themselves this leads to the complication of the change. question “who am I?” This further leads to a culture of disposability Communications are done without face-to-face TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY embodied interaction VIRTUAL SOCIETY One can fall in love online and break up via text The creation of the internet has changed how message. one interacts with other people Commitment – an important part of human Made people closer relations tends to be overlooked Members of this society is called Netizen or a To commit is to risk Cyber Citizen THE ESSENCE OF TECHNOLOGY The anonymity and the absence of physical “All distance in time and space are shrinking.” contact has contributed to the openness as - Heidegger found in chat rooms and online forums However, the lack of etiquette due to the Heidegger argues that nearness does not absence of danger consist of the proximity or distance Social networking allows people to be Technological Societies have abolished distance connected. of time and space but we as an embodied Compared to chatrooms and message boards, subject are not near to many things social networks are more personal due to the Heidegger does explain what nearness is about contact with other person is a decision which the but suggest that it has relations to how we user makes and the information one is willing to perceive and relate things reveal The essence of technology is a way of thinking Many are obsessed with the virtual world due to that represents nature as something to be the opportunity of giving oneself a chance to harnessed for our use recreate themselves in another world e.g., Heidegger calls this Enframing where thinking avatars or online representation of oneself reduces everything into measurable and These societies try to transcend over the limits calculable forces of a human person’s embodied nature. Technology poses a threat to humans because Virtual Societies enables us to engage in of its ability to influence our perception of the dialogues and not be conscious of how we look world or act in front of another person. The essence of technology can lead to reduction Virtual societies gives us the opportunity to of human persons into calculable objects show people how we want to be seen Distortion of human relationship and even the THE DISEMBODIED SUBJECT understanding of god The dissatisfaction from the limitations of the Enframing and Calculative thinking has become body drives the to prefer a Disembodied human the predominant way of considering our entire relation world People are putting aside bodies and prefer the According to Ellul the first step to addressing use of technology which solves the limitation of this issue is to be aware of it an embodied subject An example is a family while being together are all focused on their phone People now prefer to interact with gadgets This makes human physical interaction more difficult. P, Pelicano | 7