Human Actions vs Acts of Man PDF

HUMAN ACTIONS VS ACTS OF MAN An act that is performed only by a human being and thus is proper to man. Not every act that a human being does is a distinctively human act. Some acts that human beings do are performed also by animals, e.g., vegetative acts and acts of perception and emotion. When a h...

HUMAN ACTIONS VS ACTS OF MAN An act that is performed only by a human being and thus is proper to man. Not every act that a human being does is a distinctively human act. Some acts that human beings do are performed also by animals, e.g., vegetative acts and acts of perception and emotion. When a human being does such acts, they are called acts of man but not human acts. Acts of man are actions shared by humans and other animals while human acts refer to the appropriate actions of human beings. What makes an act performed by a human being distinctively a human act is that it is voluntary, that is, an act in some way under the control or direction of the will, which is proper to man. One can therefore identify the human activity with the voluntary act. A voluntary act continues either by the will - like an act of love or choice - or from another human power that may be motivated by the will, either by an act of intellect or by the sense of reasoning or emotion; even a gesture commanded by the will can be a voluntary act. Aristotle’s Distinction of Voluntary and Involuntary Actions Voluntary Actions - these are acts originating from the individual performing the act using knowledge about the situations of the act. 1. Classifications of Voluntary Actions o Voluntary – actions are performed from will and reason. o Related to Compulsion - it is considered as mixed of voluntary and involuntary. It is more voluntary if the desire and choice has been performed and involuntary if it has considered preferences or alternatives. Example: You are asked to perform a crime and your options are; either you do it and your family survives or you don’t do it but they will be murdered. 2. Involuntary Actions – are acts done under a) force or coercion and b). ignorance where the doer failed to understand the effect and feels sorry on the result. *Classifications of Involuntary Actions  o Under Compulsion – circumstances which are beyond the control of the agent and contributes none to the action. Example: A person was kidnapped, hence impossible to resist. o Through Ignorance of Particular Circumstances. Example: a man steals and ignorant of the law, arrow or gun shot by mistake. HUMAN FREEDOM AND OBLIGATION According to John Mothershead, freedom and obligation are two indispensable conditions for morality to occur. Freedom is understood to be present when one is choosing a course of action, and he or she is taking full responsibility for consequence of his actions. Importantly, this is anchored to the individual’s moral and rational capacity to discern what is right and wrong. In several meta-ethical traditions obligation usually follows or arrives from freedom. Freedom can be said to be present if the human person is free in making choices in the realm of morality – that is, in making choices with regards to determining what is the right thing to do in situations and circumstances in his own life. This can be summarized in our Filipino saying, “Buntot mo, hila mo!” It is taking full responsibility for your actions and being obliged to do so. Hence, an action is not in the full extent of morality if a person does something while his or her freedom and rationality is altered or modified. This event can happen if the person’s environment highly affects his judgement. When was the last time you see yourself escaping from the consequences of your actions? When was the last time you hide from the problems brought about by your irresponsible actions? We have the tendency to blame others for their choice of a course of action. At present times, several marriages – most especially in the Philippines – are being brought to different courts of law to be annulled. What is the main reason for this? Atty. Jim Lopez in one of his books says that most of the marriages which are tried in civil courts are sagas of unending throwing of blame and accusations between two lovers. Which can be simply be solved had one of the parties make himself accountable for a problem which sit between them. INTELLECTUAL CHOICE VS PRACTICAL CHOICE Intellectual Choice – This is a choice which is deliberately selected based on a moral standpoint. Basically, they are normative answers about what we ought to do from a moral system that we uphold and its moral principles. These normative  answers would take into consideration the behavior which the society will accept. For example, when you are to decide in a moral issue, you can try to give intellectual choice as a normative answer. Here you are simply assuming because you are not, as it were, facing that actual moral situation described in the dilemma. In this case, the answers that you are inclined to give are prescriptive in this imaginary and hypothetical situation Practical Choice – a choice which is borne out of psychological and emotional considerations. Unlike the previously discussed type of choice, practical choices are made when confronted with the actual situation, and usually affected by psychological aspect of the person embroiled in the moral situation or dilemma. For instance, psychological and emotional stress and lack of time to deliberate during an actual moral situation may affect a person’s moral decision in that situation. A person may be so engulfed by emotions that he may sometimes fail to make the right choice. Likewise, stress could make a person’s practical choice inconsistent with his intellectual choice. Intersubjectivity in General Philosophy, unlike Theology, does not use primarily biblical texts in its pursuit, though some religious texts are morally worthy to be examples in explaining philosophical ideas like the previous reading we had. The Parable of the Good Samaritan clearly explains the phenomenon of intersubjectivity in the human world. Though it focuses on the Kingdom of God, it still validates the importance of intersubjective relations of man. Intersubjectivity is a coined word from the prefix “inter” which connotes “among and between” and the philosophical term “subject” that is equivalent to a conscious being. Thus, intersubjectivity would mean in the general sense as “sharing of subjective states by two or more individuals.” (Scheff 2006). It is the organic union of the subjective reality and the objective reality of beings. Meaning to say, as a person, we have a personal regard to self but we cannot deny the fact (objective – fact of reality we all share) that we live with others so we also regard them as part of ourselves. We tend to place ourselves in others’ shoes and relate to them in good ways as possible like what is shown in the comic strip below: What Philosophers Say About Intersubjectivity Intersubjectivity is universal. It exists when and where humans exist. It is an undeniable reality which thinkers could not help but discuss. Here are some philosophers who took philosophical inquiry on intersubjectivity:  1. Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.) – one of the main ideas of Confucianism is Ren or “human-heartedness.” It is a virtue central to man that can be found in his sociality or intersubjectivity. In his philosophy, Confucius stresses order and harmony in the world. His aims can be achieved through practical, concrete, particular, and perceptual ways. This means Confucian thinking on intersubjectivity is practical humanism. There is an emphasis on human actions in sociality. He calls every man to love the other through actions, not through thoughts. 2. Martin Buber (1878-1965) – is a Jewish philosopher who introduced the “I-Thou” and “I-It” relationships to embody his philosophy of intersubjectivity. For Buber, we have to treat another person as a subject (a being different from things or objects). Persons are not inanimate objects to be used. They have their own mind and free will, thus, we have to respect others as we respect ourselves. “I” refers to the self and “Thou” or “You” refers to others. This “IThou” relationship is the most meaningful relationship in the realm of humanity. The “I” is the same with the “Thou” and there should be mutual relationship between them. We can only recognize the self in the context of the other. This is a “person-to-person” relationship, “subject- to-subject” relation. We need to accept, respect, be sincere, and have dialogue with the other. 3. Karol Wojtyla (1920-2005) – He is also St. John Paul II but as a philosopher, we use his real name. For Wojtyla, human action is the foundation of our being. But human reality is also about being with others, so our actions are also directed towards others. This form of action is now called “Participation.” In the theory of participation, man has the capacity to share himself to others. This affirms the reality that man acts and exists with others. He is a member of the community of persons, a community of “I-You” or “We.” Since man is a member of this community, his experience with others gives him meaning and allows him to create meaning with others. Human Person and Society Pre-Industrial Societies 1. Tribal Society - the term “tribe” denotes a group of peoples living in a primitive setting under a leader or chief. The term ‘tribal society’ associates it to other meaning such as “primitive society” or “preliterate society.” The word ‘tribe’ has become an important technical term which pertains to a political unit in a certain territory. The term’s use is rooted from Latin which is  associated to the political divisions or orders of the Roman empire. Tribal societies are small in scale; bound to their spatial and temporal range of relations in terms of society, law, and politics; and possess a moral code, cult, and wide range of belief system. The language systems of tribes are unwritten which provides a narrow extent of communication. At the same time, tribal societies show a self-sustaining structure which is absent in the modern society. This is achieved by the close connections that exist between tribal organizations, and by the focusing of a leader or person to multiple roles. Unity and coherence exist in tribal values that are closely related to social groups and are provided with an intensity characteristic of all “closed” systems of thought. Feudal Society - Feudalism refers to the economic, political, and social system that prevailed in Europe from about the ninth to the fifteenth century. Due to the lack of effective centralized government during this period, kings and lords granted land and provided protection to lesser nobles known as vassals. In return, these vassals swore oaths of loyalty and military service to their lords. Peasants known as serfs were bound to the land and were subject to the will of their lords. One social class system or economic form was not realized for Europe over the whole Middle Ages. A new economy after medieval period known as capitalism is still in progress. Medieval world is known for its traditional land economy and military service, and an urban society. These led to a feudal-based social-class system and trade & commerce based on money or capital. For the urban or town environment, merchants, artisans, and customers formed the core of the society. They saw manufacture as the most important business to produce goods for sale and buy in the local market economy. Local products was to have an impact in other areas, such as regional fairs, port cities, and far trade destinations. Industrial society is the one which uses advance technology to drive a massive production industry that will support a large population. For example, the United States is an industrial society because a huge portion of its economy is tied to jobs that involve machine work, like factory farming or auto-assembly plants, that has a combination of machine and human employees to produce goods. The objective of an industrial economy is the fast and efficient manufacturing of standardized products. The same goes if one avails a car, there is a chance that the car was mass produced because it operates similarly to other models, and its parts can be replaced with other parts because they are identical. Post Industrial Society - is marked by a progress from a manufacturing-based to a service- based economy. Post industrialization is most evident in countries and regions that were among the first to experience the Industrial Revolution, such as the United States, western Europe, and Japan. Daniel Bell, an American sociologist, first coined the term ‘post in- dustrial’ in 1973 in his book “The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting,” which describes several features of this kind of society. Post-industrial societies are characterized by: a shift from the production of goods to the production of services; the replacement of manual laborers with technical and professional workers (computer engineers, doctors, and bankers) as the direct production of goods is moved elsewhere; the replacement of practical knowledge with theoretical knowledge; focusing to the theoretical and ethical implications of new technologies, which helps society avoid some of the negative features of introducing new technologies, concerning environment and energy; the development of recent scientific disciplines that involve new forms of information technology, cybernetics, or artificial intelligence to evaluate the theoretic — al and ethical implications of new technologies; an emphasis on the university and polytechnic institutes which produce graduates who innovate and lead the new technologies contributing to a postindustrial society; and the changing values and norms which reflects the influences on the society. In an instance, outsourcing of manufactured goods changes how members of a society see and treat foreigners and immigrants. Also, those individuals previously occupied in the manufacturing sector find themselves with no clearly defined social role. DIGITAL SOCIETY AND THE INFORMATION AGE Digital technologies have wildly affected our interactions and activity in the 21 century. They have significantly changed our way of learning, working st and socializing. In this modern world we rely with the use of modern technology which has led to considering the possible outcome for the society, concerning how we would take part in interaction, and how we can use these digital tools and communication channels. Having our heads of digital society in our minds, we first have to think of the information society ; which are correlated with the progress and development of digital information and communication technologies to the internet at least. Information society plays a vital role with regards to the circulation and control of made-up ideas which affects political, economic, social and cultural aspects. So, what does this mean for the everyday citizen? These informative societies have paved many opportunities reaching bigger audiences like never before. With a wider scale of the world’s demography, primarily Westerners, have access to sources and technologies which enables them to connect with enough activities whether economic, social, political, or educational. We can manipulate the phasing of learning (e.g. free sources) or businesses (e.g. online selling) without a large sum of money used as a capital and we can share our ideas and perspectives to the international audiences as we connect beyond. What do we mean by digital citizenship? Now, one of the main terms in the modern world is the ‘digital citizen’. What does this actually mean? A digital citizen is a person who is knowledgeable and responsible enough to effectively use different social platforms in the internet. They often engage in useful topics and issues that will help build a better society, politics and government. If we will dig deeper, digital citizenship might look simple. We might think that it is just about using the internet safely. However, we also need to consider and understand that this citizenship can get complicated, especially if we are going to criticize and show interest in sensitive topics as we start to become a digital citizen, using digital media to actively participate in society and politics. If we look a little closer at the field of ‘citizenship studies’ this will lead us to a better understanding of what digital society really means. A citizen is defined as an individual character who is viewed as a member of a society while citizenship considers an individual’s behavior in terms of rights, obligations and functions of said citizen. Being a citizen of a state requires tons of obligations and duties such as work, taxation and obedience of laws. On the other hand, citizens also have their rights, it includes civil rights such as freedom of speech and expression, to stand for what we believe in, and rights to a private life; political rights, or the right to vote and social rights to health care and welfare. In this course we will tackle these rights as we look at real definition of what it means to be a citizen in the modern society and how legislation and the government shape our ability to be democratic citizens who can stand for the truth. What does this all mean then in the digital age? We have said that being a digital citizen requires active participation online, not just access and use. In their book “Being Digital Citizens” (2015) Isin and Ruppert suggest that if we constitute ourselves as digital citizens, we have become subjects of power in cyberspace. We are enacting ourselves on the internet, considering and understanding the opportunities presented by this medium, such as anonymity, communication, and influence. In short, we can use digital technologies to engage and participate on many levels in society and political life. The virtual society and the technological devices today are starting to reshape the human person and human interactions and relationships. More and more interactions are done in the virtual world than in the actual world. People are more thrilled to see their virtual selves than their actual selves. They are more themselves online than offline. And this leads one to ask, “Who am I?” in a more complex manner. People seem to start manipulating personalities as they exhibit different behaviors in different worlds. People fall in love in virtual worlds. Someone breaks up with a partner through a text message. Human relations seem to start losing an important element in living – commitment. Virtual worlds and disembodied relations lack commitment. We can always step back and retreat in a virtual world. We can always create a new self when our avatars die or when it has become undesirable. We can always ignore message. Virtual realities remove risks; and because we do not want to risk, we patronize the virtual world. Commitment is hard. To commit is to risk. In the virtual world, one’s anonymity lessens, if not completely removes risks. When we are confronted with real social problems like war and famine, discrimination harassment and corruption; we let the world know that we condemn these evils and express participation in the abolition of these problems. How? By a futile click to like. People in the modern technological society ultimately make no real commitments THE DISEMBODIED SUBJECT The dissatisfaction and frustration of the human person with bodily limitations drive the person to prefer a disembodied human relation. At the outset, it must be clarified that the term disembodied subject does not mean that in the technological society, human persons are no longer living with their bodies. However, in a manner of speaking, people are slowly putting aside their bodies in relating with others because the technological society offers an alternative which apparently resolves human of an embodied subject. Face-to-face interaction is too stressful and difficult while virtual interactions are relatively easier. Consequently, we find many cases where people prefer communicating using virtual world, even if the person involved is someone seen on a regular basis. Moreover, the disembodied interaction among people is aggravated by modern technological devices. The different gadgets that are produced today support disembodied human relations. The scene which the technological society creates is very familiar to us: we see a family, or friends, gathered around a table or in a room, but with very minimal actual embodied human interaction. Everyone is glued to their devices cellphones, tablets, – laptops, or any device and they are all probably interacting with their virtual societies. One is busy with other things other than the persons within the room or in the closest proximity. The kind of human interaction, which was still present just two decades ago, is obviously altered now. And however much we try and remind ourselves to refrain from being alone with our devices while being with others, we always fall back into interacting with our gadgets. We prefer to interact with our phones with the unfinished game that we are playing, with the new music and movies we downloaded, or with our friends who are probably in the situation with other peopl – e as well, but alone with their devices too. Interacting with actual embodied subjects, face- - face, is to becoming more and more difficult today. It is indeed more difficult to relate to other embodied subjects than to relate with things. The practice of selfie is another move towards disembodied human relations. People used to approach other people to take their photos. But the regained popularity of selfie gave people the idea that they do not need the other to take photos. And the invention of the monopod aggravates the condition. The monopod allows us to take group selfies without missing a member of our group. It has solidified the person to take our photos. Maybe we will just disturb the person by asking him to take our photo. But maybe we are more afraid of being rejected than by the idea of bothering the other. The virtual society and the technological devices today are starting to reshape the human person and human interactions and relationships. More and more interactions are done in the virtual world than in the actual world. People are more thrilled to see their virtual selves than their actual selves. They are more themselves online than offline. And this leads one to ask, “Who am I?” in a more complex manner. People seem to start manipulating personalities as they exhibit different behaviors in different worlds. People fall in love in virtual worlds. Someone breaks up with a partner through a text message. Human relations seem to start losing an important element in living commitment. Virtual – worlds and disembodied relations lack commitment. We can always step back and retreat in a virtual world. We can always create a new self when our avatars die or when it has become undesirable. We can always ignore message. Virtual realities remove risks; and because we do not want to risk, we patronize the virtual world. Commitment is hard. To commit is to risk. In the virtual world, one’s anonymity lessens, if not completely removes risks. When we are confronted with real social problems like war and famine, discrimination harassment and corruption; we let the world know that we condemn these evils and express participation in the abolition of these problems. How? By a futile click to like. People in the modern technological society ultimately make no real commitments. (Introduction to Philosophy of the Human Person: Senior High School. (2020) Quezon City: Vibal Group Inc.) Human Person and Death Phenomenological Notion of Death According to Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) in his book Being and Time, death is (a) certain, (b) indefinite, (c) one’s property, (d) non-relational, and (e) not to be outstripped. Death is certain. As part of humanness, we are all born (in Heideggerian sense, we are “thrown”) in the world. The world is governed by time. We, humans, are existing in time, thus, as being thrown in the world, we have beginning and since we are finite beings, we also have end – death. Birth and death are two things we cannot remove from our existence. Whether we like it or not, we will die. Death is indefinite. While death is sure to come, it is however indefinite as to when it will come. Death is impending, meaning to say, it can happen anytime. We do not know exactly when. That is why, we should try to live the best life that we can for we never know the day of our end. Death is one’s property. The death of the person belongs to him. Nobody can experience his death except himself. There can be no proxies or substitutes for a person in experiencing death. Death is non-relational. This means that when we die, we die alone. We have no choice but to face it on our own. Death also removes all our relations to others. In contemplating death, we realize our own individuality and independence from the world. Death is not to be outstripped. Death cannot be taken away from a person. Even the person himself cannot remove the possibility of death in his life. One cannot make himself live forever. Even though we see in fiction movies the idea of immortality, death, in real life is a definite reality which we nothing can be done to be outstripped. Death and Authenticity What does death really mean? Is it just a reminder that human existence has a limitation? We may accept the reality of death as it is, but it also reminds us that we have to value life while we have it. Since we cannot control it, things that remain within our control are those which belong to life. While still alive, we have choices to take. The question now is not focused on death but on how we live in the world. Let us ask ourselves before we die. Did we ever truly live? Authenticity is an idea mostly used in existentialism which means having true and meaningful existence. According to Soren Kierkegaard, we have to avoid the crowd – the majority of the society which we think that should be the pattern of our lives. For example, we see people marrying, therefore, we also have to marry. But authenticity is not like that. We have to freely choose marrying. The intention to marry should not come from the crowd as we usually hear but it should come from our deliberate choice. Another reason why we fail to lead an authentic life is fear. Just because we are afraid of the possible consequences and what others might say, we fail to pursue what we truly want in life. This challenge of authenticity is one of the important messages of death. As we accept death, we realize the value of having a true life – an authentic life!