PHILOSOPHY OF MAN WITH LOGIC

HANDOUT NO. 3
IV. Man as Liberty
1. Human Freedom as Structured Freedom: Facticity and Transcendence
Human Freedom by John Kavanaugh
Outline:
1. Introduction
a. Universal Experience of Freedom: Man experiences himself as free
b. The Reality of Freedom as an Issue: Is man really free?
c. Some Answers:
i. Total Determinism
ii. Absolute Freedom
iii. Structured Freedom
2. Phenomenological Analysis of Freedom: Examination/Reflection on Important Data
a. Questioning: Freedom as Distance
b. Reflection: Freedom as Self-Possession
3. Metaphysical Analysis of Freedom: Will
4. Three Theories of Human Freedom
a. Total Determinism
b. Absolute Freedom
c. Structured Freedom
5. Freedom and Anxiety
1.

Introduction:
1. Universal Experience of Freedom
- all men and women experience themselves in some way or another as free
- freedom could not be denied on the level of experience
i.

Personal Experience
- our own experience of our own actions/activities are experiences of freedom
- our own actions/activities are experienced as acts of freedom
- it is hard for us to conceive our own actions as if they were not free
- illustration:
- before any act, I am aware that I can or cannot do it.
- I am aware of the different alternatives before me which represent various limited aspects
of what might be good for me here or now or in the long run
- During the placement of the act itself, I am aware of the dependence of the continuation of the
action on me
- After the act is completed,
- I am aware that I did it, caused it; that completed action is mine
- That is mine: something that I can own, that is part of me, an extension of myself, my
creation, my self-project.
- I am aware that I can be blamed or praised for it is my action. Thus my action could be my
accomplishment or my failure
- This awareness brings with it the feeling of well-being, accomplishment, or guilt, failure,
frustrations

ii. Data from Literature, History and Personal Communication

- Present manifold testimony to freedom
- For they would not be possible at least impossible to conceive without freedom.
- Also testify to the ambiguity, terror, deliberation, irrevocability of freedom.
2.
-

The Reality of Human Freedom as an Issue: Is man really free?

we ordinarily and undeniably experience ourselves as free and the data of literature, history, personal
communications tell us that we are free.
Based on these data, we unquestionably accept that this universal experience of freedom provides proof
for the very reality of freedom.
- Because all men and women experience themselves as fee, some claim that this proves beyond
doubt that there is human freedom.
Yet there are those who question the universality of human experience of freedom as providing proof,
evidence for the existence, very reality of human freedom.
- They do not question the universal experience of freedom
- But they argue that this universal experience of freedom does not provide necessarily the proof, the
evidence for the very reality of freedom
- Though we experience ourselves as free, it does not necessarily prove, mean that we are
actually free
- Though we experience ourselves determining our actions, it does not mean necessarily that we
really determine our actions.
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3.
i.

Though we experience ourselves as having alternatives, options, it does mean necessarily that
we have in fact have choices.
- important to make a distinction between doxa/phenomena and aletheia/noumena
In short, the problem is not whether we experience ourselves as free but are we really free.
Some Answers
Total Determinism: B.F. Skinner
- the individual human person actually does not and cannot determine/cause his action, activities,
operation and himself
- his actions, activities, operations are determined/caused by a complex of external forces/stimuli
- there is a complex of forces outside of his control which determines him to act, behave in
particular specific way and in no other way.

ii. Absolute Freedom (Indeterminism): Jean Paul Sartre

- man, and his actions, activities and operations are in no way determined/caused by anything
external, apart from himself
- it is man himself and no other, who is the cause, who determines himself and his actions.
- His actions, and himself are completely his own determination, his responsibility.
iii. Structured Freedom: Abraham Maslow
- Synthesis, a compromise of the two extreme positions
- Man and his actions cannot be reduced simply to the complex of external forces nor man can be
reduced to his own determination alone divorced from any external force.
- Man is both:
- Determined/structured by something external to him (facticity)
- He is inserted into something in which he did not choose, has no choice
- Determining
- He is also his own determinations
- He shapes, molds his own potentialities, his own self, his own actions
- But he does this not outside but within his given determination, structure, his facticity
2.

Phenomenological Analysis of Freedom: Examination/Reflection on Important Data

- Before we understand more deeply, examine and evaluate more critically the different theories of human
freedom, let us first return to examine our experiences of freedom, to the data given in these experiences
- which are very important to consider to come to an adequate understanding of human freedom
- which are undeniable to all whatever his theory of freedom is.
- In describing these experiences and the data given in them, we hope to unfold the structure and meaning
of human freedom and the very reality of freedom.
- Since the experiences of freedom have to do with our activities and operations, what particular actions
and activities we would subject to phenomenological analysis so that the structure and meaning of
human freedom and the very reality of freedom could be unfolded?
- The activity, experience of Questioning
- The activity, experience of Reflection

a.

The Act of Questioning

- a human person can question, can ask questions about the external forces/realities that affect him/her at
the moment (stimuli):
- Environment
- His Past
- Needs and Values
- Whatever ones theory about human freedom, he could not deny this activity, this experience of
questioning
- In fact, his theory is only possible or he comes only to his particular theory because of his ability to
question, to be conscious of the things around him:
- Skinner: questioned the American values of competition and property accumulation
- Sartre: questioned the traditional views of natural law and religious beliefs.
- Because of the persons ability to question, he has the ability to effect a certain distance between the
external forces and himself/his response/activities/operations. In what ways:
1. they (stimuli, external forces) do not blindly affect him
2. they do not immediately affect him
3. they do not necessarily affect him
4. they do not exhaust the complexity of his desire, aspiration, action, who he is
- By questioning,
- the external forces do not enslave him, determine him blindly, necessarily and exhaustively.
- He creates a distance between external forces and himself, thus liberating himself from the chains of
blind, immediate, necessary determination of the external stimuli

b.

The Act of Reflection

- human person does not only have the capacity to question but also to reflect. This could never be denied
by anyone whatever his theory of human freedom is.
- Whatever ones theory about human freedom, he could not deny this activity of, this capacity for
reflection
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In fact, this theory is only possible or he comes only to his particular theory because of his
ability to reflect
To reflect is:
- To see at a distance the stimuli or external forces that affect me (environment, values/needs, past)
- To become aware of myself as affected by these, of myself in relation to these stimuli
- To become aware of who I am, my potentialities/possibilities, what I want to and can (do, and make
of myself).
When I do this (reflect), I attain, achieve:
1. SELF-DISTANCE from myself as one immediately, necessarily and completely affected with the
present stimuli
2. SELF-POSSESSION
- I become aware of who I am as something that I could determine and not simply determined by
external forces
- I become aware of what my potentialities, possibilities might be; potentialities possibilities
which I could realize and determine
- Kilala ang sarili, hawak ang sarili.
3. SELF-DETERMINATION
- I could say something about my response and action to the given stimuli and to the different
possibilities
- It is I who determine, decide my response in relation to stimuli, in relation to the different
possibilities
- Being able to say something about myself, my action

Conclusion to our Phenomenological Analysis of Freedom:

- from our phenomenological analysis of questioning and reflection, the structure and meaning of freedom
is unfolded as:
- FREEDOM FROM:
1. Achieving distance from the blind, immediate necessary determination of the stimuli
2. Achieving a distance from oneself as affected, determined by the stimuli, as having a future
destiny. SELF-DISTANCE
- FREEDOM TO:
3. Self-Possession
4. Self-Determination
3. Metaphysical Analysis of Free Will: Freedom of Choice
Introduction
- our experience of questioning and reflection leads us to the structure and meaning of freedom. Our
analysis of this experience unveils to us that anyone who questions and reflects is free in the sense that
he achieves/attains:
- distance from stimuli
- distance from oneself
- self-possession
- self-determination
- What makes these possible to the human person? What makes him capable of achieving, attaining these
especially when he questions and reflects?
- The answer: he/she has WILL, the capacity, faculty which enables him, which makes him free and
act freely.
- In this section, we will analyze metaphysically the nature and dynamism of the human will
- Metaphysical because the will
- is not something that is given immediately in our experience but that which makes a particular
experience/activity possible, conceivable
- that which we posit to make sense, intelligible certain data of experience
- not a physical reality which is verifiable directly or indirectly by empirical means.
a.

Will as tendency/inclination toward an intellectually known good

- will is distinct from sense-appetite
- sense-appetite:
- an inclination toward what is presented to the senses (object of the senses)
- external senses: five senses
- emotions, feelings, passions
- strongly inclined, as it were, chained down by its object
- Will: an inclination toward the good that is presented to me by my intellect
- The good is perceived by, presented to the intellect
- It is good aspect of an object presented to, perceived by the intellect that attracts the will. E.g.:
good book, good steak, good person, good action
- And the will is only inclined toward the good presented by the intellect
- In short, the only object of the will: Good (which could be perceived alone by the intellect)
- This implies that the will could never tend/incline into something which is perceived by/presented to the
intellect as evil, as not good.
- Though it could incline/tend toward what is actually evil but only in so far as the intellect
perceives/presents it as good (apparent good)
- Thus, the object of the will could never be evil.
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b.

The only object that necessarily and completely determine the will would be the Absolute/Ultimate/Complete
Good
- This means that when an absolute/ultimate good is perceived by the intellect and is presented to the will,
the will inclines/tends toward this good necessarily and completely, i.e. it has no choice, no option, no
alternative but to direct itself to that good totally.
- It forces the will completely, as it were, to move toward it.
- Only this kind of good could force the will.

c.

However, none of the goods perceived, presented by my intellect here and now, in this existential world could
necessarily and completely determine my will.
- the goods perceived, presented by my intellect here and now, in this existential world are:
- limited, finite,
- conditional, interrelated/ordered to other good
- none of them could necessarily and completely determine my will, could not force my will to be
inclined, to tend toward them completely if my intellect perceive them correctly as such (finite,
conditional, relative)
- Thus, I have a choice in relation to these particular goods.
- Nevertheless, they could necessarily and completely determine my will when they are mistakenly
perceived and presented by my intellect as absolute, ultimate, complete good though in themselves they
are not.

d.

Will has freedom of choice in relation to finite and conditional goods

- Though the will is inclined to them because they are good, the will is not necessarily inclined to them.
- The will has choices, options, alternatives; thus it could decide to which it will direct itself, which it
would choose.
- These good are presented to the will as alternatives, possibilities, options and not as a necessity.
- It is very important to perceive them intellectually as conditional and finite good, so that the will would
have a choice, a say on them.

e.

Nevertheless, there are forces/factors other than my will that determines my action, behavior.
- significant and ample data point to the importance of
- environment
- conditioning
- deprivation
- habit
in the formation of choices and projects
- emotion
- natural preferences
- ones own history
- these are undeniable factors which must be weighed, considered with the faculty of the will in the
determination of actions and activities.
- But they do not destroy, negate my free will: my capacity to determine my action myself.

Conclusion to our phenomenological and metaphysical analysis of freedom.

1. Feeling free does not necessarily make us free, does not necessarily mean that we are free
2. Yet, there are levels of human activities and behavior which upon reflective analysis:
- indicate that we are really free
- clarify to us what it means to be really free:
- distance for external stimuli
- self-distance
- self-possession
- self-determination
- point to us that we have the faculty of the will, the inner capacity in us to determine our own action,
behavior, and ourselves though other factors may determine, affect our action, behavior.
4.

Three Theories of Human Freedom

- we will now examine more adequately and evaluate critically the different positions on Human Freedom

a.

Total Determinism: B.F. Skinner

i.

Doctrines/Teachings
1. The causes of human action and behavior lie outside of man
- the individual does not and cannot cause or determine his actions, operations, activities
- but the stimuli: complex of forces outside of him, which do not originate from him.
- This complex of forces consists of:
- Psychic Forces:
- Whole complex of reward and punishment (experience of pain and pleasure), your past
experiences, your upbringing, your childhood experience determine your present and
future actions and operations
- These create or determine necessarily ones needs and values: psychic forces within
- Genetic/Physical/Biological Make-Up
- It is in your genes, your DNA, your genetic make-up
- Characteristics behavior, activities and operations are determined by our genes.
- It is the structure of your
4 brain.

2.

Environment
- The complex present situation you find yourself in:
- Physical
- Economic
- Political
- Social
- Interpersonal
- Historical
The causes or external forces are necessitating.
- this complex of external forces causes one to act in a particular way and in no other way.
- there is no way for me not to act in this particular way nor to act in another way.
- Given with this set of complex of external forces, I necessarily be this and act this way and I
cannot do and be otherwise
- And given the specific set of stimuli, we could know exactly and unfailing how a person will
act or behave.

ii. Critique
1. Positive
a. Power of conditioning to influence or shape our values, needs, behavior and action is not just
mere claim of Skinner but frequently substantiated in both human and infra-human levels.
Various researches confirm that behavior could be manipulated by manipulating the external
forces, the stimuli
b. I have a genetic, biological, and physical structure which influence my behavior. They are part
of me.
c. I have an environmental structures (cultural, historical, societal framework) in which I find
myself and which are part of me.
d. I myself am aware that there are forces and demands outside of me which affect, influence me,
creating my needs and values.
2. Negative
a. Though there are aspects/parts of me which can be understood, explained in terms of external
causes (my facticity), there are other aspects of me, of my experience and other
activities/operations which cannot be reduced, totally and simply determined by this complex of
external forces. What are these?
i. My Consciousness: I can be and am aware of my psychic forces and of the complex of
conditioning that has created it, of my biological, genetic and physical structuring, and the
whole environment that I am in.
ii. I can question them, revolt against them, validate or accept them. In short, I could make my
stance.
iii. I can achieve a distance from these external forces and from the self determined by these
external forces by my reflection and question.
iv. I can do something about them, channel them and even restructure them
b. Some serious difficulties if we accept Total Determinism
i. if total determinism were true, the action of questioning and reflection must be explained
away or ignore
- if explained away, it could only be done in no other way except by questioning and
reflection
- if ignored, it admits its limitation that it could not account or explain them
ii. we cannot assume that all causal motives are necessitating causes.
- determinists claim that with this set of motives, I will unfailingly do this thing alone.
- But experientially, the goods that we confront and the motives we use are precisely
conditional, limited and mixed.
- Motives have to do with goods that we perceive, that we confront
- And the goods that appear to us are precisely conditional, limited and mixed
- Thus, none of them could motivate us necessarily and completely
iii. If true, then all of us must be deluded, deceived by our experience, by our most
fundamental and universal experience of freedom, of being able to have responsibility on
our actions and operations.
- if we are deluded in our most basic and universal experience of freedom, how could
we tell whether all other basic and universal experiences that we have are trustworthy,
could still be trusted.
- This leads to scepticism, and not to science and philosophy as Skinner would
claim.
- If we are deluded in our most basic and universal experience of freedom, what will
happen to those activities, human social structures we have created on the assumption
that we are free: morality, sense of responsibility, judicial system
- If we are not free, this leads to inaction, fatalism; rather to a more positive, proactive outlook in life.
iv. Total Scepticism as a claim is self-contradictory
- If all our actions are conditioned, determined by external forces, then our judgment on
truth and value is also conditioned and determined by external forces.
5

If we judge because we are forced by our environmennt, genes, biochemical

composition and not because of its logic, feasibility, coherence to which we freely
assent, then could we consider our judgment true?
- No, there is no truth-value in our judgment, including the judgment of total
determinism.
Yet, total determinism is making a truth-claim: that in fact we are not free.

iii. Conclusion:
- total determinism as total explanation of all human activities, operations, behavior:
- fails to account certain human activities and operations like questioning and reflection which
could not be reduced to the determining and necessitating external forces
- could not validate its own claim as it ends up self-contradiction
- could not validate the value of scientific investigation
- leads to serious practical difficulties
- but it gives significant evidence that to a significant extent our actions are not simply and totally the
product of or could be accounted simply by our decisions, choices, of our freedom.
b.

Absolute Freedom (Indeterminism): Jean Paul Sartre

i.

Doctrines
1. Man is completely free to determine his own identity, his self-project, his own values and meaning
- My essence does not precede my existence
- self-project, my identity: my essence What I am
- is not something already given in which I have no choice
- is not something already defined, determined that makes me exist, act, operate, in a
particular, determined way.
- rather, my existence precedes my essence
- I define, choose my own identity, my self-project, my essence (what I am) in the decisions,
choices that I make
- I am the one who determines my identity by the choices that I make and the operations and
actions that proceed from this choice.
- I am absolutely the product of my decisions and choices.
2. Man is not tied down or determined by his facticity, his givenness
- Facticity:
- My givenness
- Those things which I have no choice
- External forces: physical/genetic structure, psychic forces, environment
- In themselves, my facticity does not affect or determine me but they affect or determine me
only in term of the meaning and value I attach to them. And they will have meaning and value
to me only in relation to the self-identity, self-project which I am absolutely free to determine.
E.g.:
- Mountains
- in themselves they do not affect me in any way either positively or negatively
- but they affect or determine me when I attach certain value/disvalue or meaning on it
based on my self-project:
- If I want to move out of the village surrounded by mountains, then the mountain
could be an obstacle to me.
- If I want to stay in the the village with its surrounding mountains, then the
mountain is not an obstacle to me.
- Psychic Forces: Passions/Emotions/Needs
- Freedom precedes passion
- Things can be object of passions only in relation to the self-project
- A thing could be threat, dangerous in relation to my self-project
- Even in the face of threat, 2 possible responses in the execution of my self-project:
- Passionate flight
- Rational resistance

ii. Critique
1. Positive:
a. It affirms mans ability to determine his own identity, self-project, by the decisions, choices he
makes
b. It affirms mans ability to question and negate the external forces, seeing these as only affecting
the human person in relation to his self-project that he has freely determined.
2.

Negative:
a. It could not account and deny how structures or the network of external forces, which lie
outside of my choice and have no relation at all with my choice, affect and influence me.
- It denies the proven facts of the influences of my genetic/biological structure, of my
psychological make up and my environment independent of their relations to self-project
which I determine
- I cannot never simply annihilate these influences by my choice
- I am inextricably bound to these structures or givenness or facticity
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b.

c.

These constitute the very structure of my identity as person who exercises my choices, and
realizes my self-project within this given structure.
Freedom and Structure are not contradictory
- Structure, facticity does not annihilate my freedom
- Freedom is not simply annihilating my structure, my facticity nor just an affirmation of
pure spontaneous, unencumbered actions or operations.
- To be a human person is inextricably bound to this structure, facticity
- To be human is to have a givenness, a facticity, structure (something which I have no
choice, already given, determined)
- My past
- My environement
- My physicality among others
- I can authentically exercise my freedom only within this structure, not annihilating
these structures

Structured Freedom: Abraham Maslow

i.

There are two elements of Human Freedom: Facticity and Transcendence

- Facticity
- what is already given, determined, fixed
- with a particular psychological make-up
- with a particular genetic-biochemical make-up
- with a particular environment: family, society, history, etc.
- with a particular structure of being human:
- they are not simply my own choice and decision
- and in some and even large extent I could not change them
- they influence me and have something to do with my identity, decisions/choices, and
action/operations
- Transcendence
- That which is beyond
- That which could not be reduced or identified with what is already given, determined and
fixed
- That which could not be fully categorized, conceptualized; a mystery
- My potentialities, my possibilities, something which is not yet realized, not yet determined
- Activities/abilities which manifest this transcendence
- To question, reflect
- To distance from stimuli and from oneself
- Self-Possession
- Self-Determination
- Will: that which could not be determined by anything else except by itself.

ii. These two elements are not contradictory, do not annihilate one another and are inseparable. They
complement, presuppose and constitute one another
1.

2.

5.

My human potentialities/possibilities arise out of or are contained within my facticity, in my given

structure and not outside or apart from it.
- my true, authentic possibilities which I can realize by my choice, decisions do not come out of
nowhere, nor they are simply the product of my choice, or just pure potentialities.
- They flow from or are contained in my facticity, in my given structure, in what is already
determined; otherwise they cannot be real possibilities.
- A chicken egg is a potential chicken because it is an actual egg, because it is already
determined as an egg.
- If it is not an actual egg, it could have the potency to become a chicken
- A human person is capable of intellectual and volitive activities because he is a human
person.
- A Filipino could vote here in the Philippines because he is in the first place a Filipino
I exercise my freedom within the given structure, my facticity; otherwise I could not be
authentically free, I could not realize my possibilities and potentialities.
- if my authentic possibilities are contained in and arise out of my facticity, then my authentic
possibilities could only be realized within my facticity.
- For me to realize the possibilities outside of my facticity
- is to realize something which is not my real possibilities
- is an exercise of futility
- e.g.:
- If I want to grow in my search for the truth, I must work within the structure and
dynamism of human knowing
- If I want to be a great athlete, I must work within the structure and dynamism of
my body.
- I could only transcend myself if I learn to work within my limits, my facticity, my given
structure.

Freedom and Anxiety

- we have already discussed what authentic7 freedom means:

a.

- distance for external forces

- self-distance
- self-possession
- self-determination
- structured freedom
now let us consider the consequence of human freedom, let us consider whether freedom is good or not.

Freedom can be lonely and terrifying; not an effortless and trouble-free flight
i.

Lonely: in the exercise of freedom, I am definitely and ultimately alone

- I myself, alone, can exercise my freedom
- No one can do it for me
- I myself must create my self-project
- I myself must realize my self-project through my actions, decisions
- I myself, alone, must
- Question and reflect
- Create distance from external stimuli and from myself
- Attain self-possession
- Determine myself, my actions, operations
- Image: long distance race which is quite lonely and exhausting (Camus)
- I alone am accountable for decisions/choices/actions that I make
- No one can take my place and receive the blame or praise for my decisions, choice or actions
- I alone could be condemned for whatever consequences of my decisions.
- Image: alone before the judge, alone in the face of others judgment (Camus)

ii. Terrifying: Freedom is the source of anxiety and ambiguity

- When I exercise my freedom (when I choose, make decisions), I try to bring into realization one of
the many possibilities (in the face of thousands of possibilities I try to into life only a single of
these). And this involves:
- Irrevocable Death
- I damn, condemn or sentence into non-being all other possibilities as they are no longer
possible to me, they can no longer resurrect.
- This involves pain as something dies in me each time I make a choice.
- Ambiguity/Anxiety
- As I try to realize one of the many possibilities in my choice, I could not be certain
- if this possibility will be realized or not
- if the unique/irrepeatable self, my self-project, my unique potentialities will be realized
or if it will ruin myself
- if it will lead to basic openness to others or I will close myself from other
- I could never be hundred percent sure. Why?
- Our universe is never closed-system, pre-determined and predictable.
- Subject also to different series of decisions and choices of myself and others.
- Thus, I am terrified, anxious whether I have made the right decisions or choice, whether the
decisions I have made or I am making will bring about my self-realization, my basicorientation toward others, my happiness.
b.

Since Freedom is a terrible, ambiguous and lonely, many want to give freedom for the sake of security, of
tension-free existence
- one forsakes freedom to be freedom from:
- being alone,
- self-condemnation
- tension
- ambiguity, anxiety
- pain

c.

Yet, if you take away freedom, one takes away the meaning of life, ones dignity and creativity, ones
opportunity to realize himself and find happiness.

2. Fundamental Option and Liberty of Choice

Fundamental Option and Liberty of Choice by Pierre Fransen
Outline
1. Two Levels of Human Freedom
a. Liberty of Choice
b. Fundamental Option
2. Relation between Liberty Choice and Fundamental Option
a. Relation of Liberty of Choice to Fundamental Option
b. Relation of Fundamental Option to Liberty of Choice
3. Crucial Issue in the Relationship between Liberty of Choice and Fundamental Option
1.

Two Levels of Human Freedom

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a.

Liberty of Choice
- ones choices, alternatives, decisions, options with regards to his concrete, particular, specific actions,
activities, operations and behavior
- man;s choice for one action or behavior over another.
- capacity to determine and ones free determination of his own particular, concrete actions, activities,
operations and behavior
- e.g.:
- ones freedom to get up or to sleep
- ones freedom to eat or not to eat;
- ones freedom to eat this kind of food rather than that kind of food
- ones freedom to eat this kind of food in this manner, in this place, at this hour, etc.
2.

Fundamental Option

i.

Freedom of Self-Determination
- I do not only have the capacity to determine my particular actions and behavior
- I do not only have the choice to do this or that or to have this or that
- I have also the capacity:
- To determine myself, the kind of person that I want to be, what I will
- Decision about oneself
- To determine my basic/fundamental direction, orientation or relation to Others, Reality, Good,
Truth.
- Setting ones self or life for or against Others
- Two fundamental Options:
- Open/Yes/Giving/Outward
- To realization of self-project, to the realization of my unique self
- To Others, to the Totality of Reality, to Goodness, and Truth:
- Others, Totality of Reality, Goodness and Truth as the center and goal of ones life rather
than one self.
- Close/No/Taking/Inward
- Content with the already acquired/achieved self-project
- Turning away from, hostile to Others, Goodness, Truth, Totality of Reality
- Opt to be the center to which others must be directed

ii. Totalizing Option/Choice

- Involves, engages, expresses my total project of myself, my identity, myself
- Involves the Totality of Reality.
- Involves the total relation of the total self to the total reality.
iii. Final, Enduring and Definitive Option
- Option that I choose to be irrevocable, to be final
- When I make this option, I do not intend it to be temporary or conditional but I mean to keep it
forever, permanent, and absolute/unconditional.
2.

Relation between Liberty Choice and Fundamental Option

a.

Relation of Liberty of Choice to Fundamental Option

- liberty of choice is intrinsically bound to the fundamental option and should not be separated from
it. Why?
i.

Fundamental option gives direction, meaning and unity to the liberty of choice
- direction:
- gives some purpose, end or goal toward which my action is directed.
- Unity:
- My different concrete choices and actions have unity, are interrelated to one another because of
the common goal, direction, end toward which they are all directed. As it were, they fall in their
proper places in relation to the fundamental option.
- Meaning/Value:
- I could judge which action is good or bad in relation to the fundamental option.
- Gives sense of achieving something in my concrete actions

ii. Fundamental option provides depth to ones liberty of choice

- my action becomes the embodiment (expression and means of realization) of the deepest dimension
of myself:
- my unique self-project, and transcendent identity
- my fundamental direction or relation towards the Totality of Reality, Others, Truth and
Goodness
- they cease to be mere action, activities, and behavior.
2.

Relation of Fundamental Option to Liberty of Choice

i.

Fundamental Option which at first is obscurely conscious (A-Thematic, Transcendental, Pre-Conceptual)

becomes clarified through my concrete actions.
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Each person has his own fundamental option otherwise there will be no direction, meaning, unity
and depth to his actions
Yet at first, one is not clearly, explicitly conscious (at most obscurely conscious) of his fundamental
option
But one could clarify, one could come to an explicit consciousness of his fundamental option that
underlies beneath the series of concrete action he has made by examining, reflecting the very pattern
of his concrete choices and actions
He could either ratify the fundamental option that underlies those actions and decisions or reject and
make a different fundamental option

ii. Fundamental Option is expressed, embodied and realized in time through appropriate action.
- there is no way for the fundamental option to be expressed, embodied and realized except through
appropriate concrete decisions and actions.
- It is the appropriate concrete choices and actions alone that express, embody and realize the
fundamental option
- Thus, non-performance of the appropriate concrete decisions and actions will not only fail to
express, embody and realize the fundamental option, but will kill it. And the non-performance of
the appropriate concrete decisions and actions will not only kill the fundamental action, but will
also radically change or reverse the fundamental option.
3.

Crucial Issue in the Relationship between Liberty of Choice and Fundamental Option
- Crucial Issue: Whether fundamental option can take place in a single, particular action of concrete
choice (liberty of choice).
a.

The Fundamental Option cannot be simply identified with concrete choices

- they are of different levels, different degrees of totality and finality
- not mere sum total of concrete particular choices
- nor can it be identified with the moral quality of the individual concrete choices and acts

b.

The Fundamental Option can be expressed, embodied and realized only in a series of particular appropriate
concrete choices.

c.

But Fundamental Option may be changed, reversed or may become definitive and totalizing in a series of
particular choices and actions

d.

A definitive change of Fundamental Option can take place in a particular choice when this is the culminating
event or climax or summit which has been prepared, preceded by a long series of concrete choices and
action.

3. Freedom as Freedom with, Freedom For

Marcel on Freedom by a student
1.

Freedom: Not in the Category of Having

- freedom is not simply something that we have/possess since
a.

b.
c.
d.
2.

Things that we have are

- outside of ourselves
- distinct from ourselves
- independent of ourselves
- not capable of participation/communion with myself, with my subjectivity
Things that we have can be a common possession
- Others can also own what I have
- Can be taken away from me and owned by others
Things that we have can circumscribed, quantified, exhausted, has limit and finitude
Things that we have can be abused, neglected, ruined and lost without losing/ruining the identity, character
and existence of the owner.

Freedom: in the Category of Being

a.

Freedom is identified with my Being

- Certain identity, communion between myself/subjectivity and my freedom
- It does not lie outside of me
- Not distinct from me
- I am my freedom
- What am I without my freedom? I become nothing.
- I cannot separate myself and my freedom.

b.

Freedom could not be lost without losing myself

- When I lose my freedom, I lose myself, I obliterate my existence as an I, as a person.
- When I betray my freedom, I betray myself.
- When I ruin my freedom, I ruin myself.
- Whey I give up my freedom, I give up myself
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3.

c.

Freedom is mine alone

- I alone could exercise my freedom
- I alone own my freedom
- My freedom could never be owned/possessed and exercised by another

d.

Freedom could not be circumscribed, quantified, exhausted or determined.

- freedom is basic openness,
- transcendence
- indeterminable

Freedom as Affirmation of My Being with, for Others

a. My Being is a Being with, for Others
- To be is to be with others, to be for others
i.

To be is to be with others, to be for others does not mean that:

- I exist first, then I relate with others and I decide to be with others and for the others
- Man has to be with other fellowmen for no other reason that there happens to be fellowmen
- There is an agglomerate of super-added existences, juxtaposition of my existence and others
existence

ii. To be is to be with others, to be for others means that:

- my being/existence is constituted by my being with others, for others
- I could not exist, could not be as an I/person without existing with and for other persons
- The moment that I do not exist with and for others, I do not exist at all - I do not exist as a human
person
- My Being, the I/subjectivity, my personhood is essentially
- An openness
- A participation
the presence of
- A creative belonging
OTHERS (THOU)
- Directed towards
- This is manifested in different activities, modes and dimensions of man
- Even in nature itself: image of light and salt
- In mans physicality: no part of the body exists for itself, it exists in relation to others
-

b.

c.

Human knowledge:
- Sensation/sense knowledge
- The senses are directed toward something/objects other than themselves for there to be
sense experience at all.
- It not just the juxtaposition of senses and their objects but their presence to one another
that constitutes the sense experience
- I is directed toward the others by which it is constituted
- I is only an I in its openness, participation, creative belonging and basic direction toward
the others.
Freedom is the Capacity to Affirm my being with, for others
- By freedom, the human person can:
- Affirm his being with, for others
- His openness to others
- His going beyond himself to the others in truth and defenselessness
- To be present, to be available for the self-realization of the others (disponsible)
- To place the center of his life in another, outside himself
- Deny his being with, for others
- I can withdraw from others
- I close myself from the others, just remain within myself
- Unavailable and uncommitted to the self-realization of others
- To place myself as the center around which all others must revolve
Consequences of the Affirmation and Denial of My Being with, for Others
AFFIRMATION
DENIAL
- affirms his very person, becomes his very
- denies, betrays his being a person, he
person, and realizes his unique selfbecomes less of himself, he ceases to grow
project, his unique identity
as a person and even ceases to be person.
- affirms his freedom, he becomes more
- Denies his very freedom, no longer free,
free, determining of his life.
betrayal of freedom.

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