Module 5

The Nature of
Human Freedom
 01
EXISTENTIALISM
Existentialism
A philosophical movement known for its inquiry on
human existence.

Existentialism is opposed to the idea that man has a

fixed nature. Instead, it asserts that to understand
man's nature, one has to go beyond the claims of
biology, physics, and psychology.

Remember that a human person is characterized as a

consciousness; as a being-for-itself, who has the task of
appropriating a goal because the nothingness reveals
that the being-for-itself is a defieciency.
Existentialism
Aside from the concept of nothingess, freedom is
viewed as something that arises from the self
understanding, accompanied by the mood of
anxiety.

Why anxiety?

In the same context as the notion of nothingness,

the self in threatened and is revealed as vulnerable
because anxiety pulls the being-for-itself from the
projects which it has appropriated itself with
Existentialism

, a German philosopher and

phenomenologist, disclosed that the mood of
anxiety reveals nothing.

Anxiety teaches the being-for-itself that it does not

coincode with all the self-identification it has
immersed itself into.
02
Determinism:
Undermining Free
Choice
Determinism: Undermining Free Choice

Determinism opposes the notion of free will. This

view states that the world is governed by (or is
under the sway of ) determinism if and only if,
given a specified way things are at a time, the way
things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural
law.

This view suggests that a determinate set of

conditions can produce only one possible outcome
given the fixed laws of nature.
Determinism: Undermining Free Choice

Through the principle of Universal Causation,

every physical event falling under the laws of
nature is caused in accordance with these
laws.

Hence, the idea that evey physical events

has a cause logically determines that there
may be an explanation for an event because
it has a necassary cause.
Determinism: Undermining Free Choice

Determinism has a direct implication in human

actions. The human action as an event that was
caused by something implies that free choices is
impossible because the regularity of actions means
that the cause of an action, given a determinate set
of conditions, will result in one possible outcome.

This is the same with choices, as events will imply

that no other choice is possible except for that one
choice a person is determined to choose.
CLASSIFICATION
OF DETERMINISMS
CAUSAL DETERMINISM

Incompatible with the notion of free will because it

undermine free choice if past events will be
revealed as the cause of future actions and not
really chosen by the individual as a free agent.
PHYSICAL DETERMINISM
Claims that since the body is physical, every event
involving the body is determined. According to this
view, given a set of determinate conditions in the
brain and the laws of nature, bodily movements are
causally determined.

The state of the braiin acts immediately before a

decision is made is what makes a person do a
certain act, and that decision is the only possible
outcome at the particular moment when the action
is being done.
03

The Value of
Choices in Relation
to Freedom
The Value of Choices in Relation to Freedom

Freedom involves choice. It is a man's capacity to

do otherwise. As Sartre said, it is through choice
that a man lives an authentic human life.

However, the concept of determinism undercuts

the human action of choosing because an action
always has one possible outcome.
The Value of Choices in Relation to Freedom

Humanity without the capacity to choose is a pawn

to whoever or whatever nature allows to happen.

As implied, when man cannot choose, he tends to

believe that he cannot be made responsible for the
choices he makes because his actions are not from
a deliberate act of choosing but a causal
connection between events beyond his control.
The Value of Choices in Relation to Freedom

If human beings are determined, life seem to be

futile or even absurd, because they live to simply
go with the flow, with what the law of nature
dictates. Whatever action they choose is not really
a choice but is what nature dictates.

Fatalism - a view that states that one is powerless

to do anything than what he actually wants to do.
The Value of Choices in Relation to Freedom

The act of choosing is valuable because it gives the

human person the reason to make deliberate actions out
of motives that reveal his autonomy as an individual.

If a person has the capacity to choose, then that person

can be held responsible over the consequences of his
actions. If the choice lies in his own hands, he would take
considerable time before acting on something because he
knows that if the consequences is not what he intends to
happen, he gets the blame. Hence, the person becomes
prudent with the choices he makes.
04

The Nature of the

Choices We Make
The Act of Making a Choice
The act of making a choice involves evaluating the
reasons and giving weight to reasons. One alternative is
chosen because the reasons behind such alternative have
more weight than the other.

Robert Nozick explains in his 1981 book, Philosophical

Explanations, that making a choice seems to feel like there
are various reasons for and against doing the alternative
actions or courses of actions one is considering, and it
seems and feels like one could do any one of these
alternatives.
The Act of Making a Choice
Nozick introduced the concept of weighing the reasons. He
explained that when you are choosing, the act involves not only
the reasons but giving weight to reasons. After you have
chosen each alternative, you will realize that some
considerations carry more weight than the others.

That is why you choose one alternative and discard the other.
What is interesting in this act of making choices is that the
consideration were not previosly defined. The reasons do not
come with precisely given weights; the decision-making
process is not done to discover such weights but to assign
them.
The Act of Making a Choice
Nozick further suggests a theory of values in the act of giving
weights. These values are intrinsic, instrumental, originative,
and contributory.

INTRINSIC VALUE
- the value it has for itself apart from or independent of its
consequences. If intrinsic value is applied for each alternative,
you choose this alternative by the weight you give to the
alternative because the alternative itsef is valuable for its own
right.
The Act of Making a Choice
INSTRUMENTAL VALUE

- Instrumental is the function and measure of intrinsic value that

it leads to. It may be the sum of intrinsic value of different
things it actually leads to or some measure of the intrinsic
values it might lead to as weighted by probabilities such as the
expected intrinsic values.
The Act of Making a Choice
ORIGINATIVE VALUE

-Introduces new values to the world. It may be may be newly

intrinsic values or newly instrumental values. Through this third
value, you may have all three values combined. That is why a
person with originative value can make a difference in this
world. His or her actions can effect change and different
valuable consequences can happen. However, the originative
value can be denied by causal determination.
The Act of Making a Choice
CONTRIBUTORY VALUE

- Focuses on the value contribution that a human action effects.

Most human beings want their actions to have contributory
values. At the very least, even if the contributory value is not an
original one, the contributory factor helps in differentiating the
existing case without the factors effected by the contributory
value if it did exist.
The Act of Making a Choice
When you make a choice, the act of choosing is intentional or
purposeful. It is a free choice that you made among the
alternatives, and such choice was based on the weight of the
reasons you put on the choices.

In the act of giving weights to the alternatives, you may find

that some of this alternatives and their reasons may have more
weight or are more important to you, so you choose that
alternative and act on it.
The Act of Making a Choice
The reasons you made for those particular alternative
satisfied the requirements you have set and is, therefore,
satisfactory. Though caused, the act is free of causal
determinism because the reasons are an effect of a
deliberate, autonomous decision-making process.
 End of Module

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