PHILOSOPHY

• Robert Heinlein: 'I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them. If I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am, morally responsible for everything I do.'
• Freedom/Liberty


  • Social and political concept which has great significance in how people participate in society
  • Freedom of an individual from oppression, compulsion, or coercion from other persons, an authority figure or from society itself
• Aspects of Liberty


  • From person taking control of his or her own life and fulfilling one's potential
  • From external restraint, barriers, and other interferences from other people
• Liberalism


  Upholds the preservation of individual rights and stresses the role of the government protecting these civil liberties
• Libertarianism

  Believes that the individual, not the government, is the best judge in upholding and exercising rights
• Socialism


  Considers freedom as a freedom to acquire economic resources and the ability to work and act according to one's desire
• Types of Rights


  • Natural Rights (innate in the person)
  • Legal Rights (based on society's customs and laws and are enacted by legislation and enforced by government)
• Human agency


  The capacity of a person to act and exert control over his or her behavior
• Expressions of human freedom


  • Free will
  • Free action
• Philosophical models of human freedom

  • Faculties model
  • Hierarchical model
  • Reasons-responsive view
• Constraints on free actions

  • Prohibitions
  • Laws
  • Other social controls imposed
  • Disability/sickness
  • Coercion exerted by another person
  • Weather, poverty, or accidents
• Constraints on free will

  • Manipulation
  • Brainwashing
  • Coercion against one's will
• Determinism


  Philosophical view that every event in the world is brought about by underlying causes or factors
• Moral responsibility


  A person's status of deserving praise and reward, or blame and punishment for an action
• Existentialism and phenomenology


  Major philosophical branches that devote much discussion on the concept of interpersonal relations
• Free will is necessary for the responsible exercise of freedom
• Control and regulation are necessary elements in the responsible exercise of freedom
• Our interactions with other people in society is also an important influence in the proper exercise of freedom
• The individual


  Primarily aware of himself, and it is the egocentric perspective that defines how he/she perceives and relates to reality
• Interpersonal relations (existentialist perspective)


  The "self" being aware of the "other"
• "Other"


  Objects outside of personal experience, often used by philosophers to refer to other individuals apart from the self
• Intersubjectivity

  Relates to the interaction between the self and the other, evident in everyday social interactions, the ability of humans to agree and cooperate, existence of shared or common knowledge and consensus, and in shared emotions such as grief, joy, and love
• Levels of self-interaction


  • Simple awareness of the existence of the other
  • Awareness of the self as being seen by others
  • Awareness of another significant fact (stranger looking at you)
• Human gaze


  Considered a defining characteristic which sets human interaction from the interaction of other species
• Awareness of the self in the other

  An important element in all other aspects of interpersonal interactions
• Seeming


  Our self-presentation, proposed by Martin Buber
• Dialogue

  Happens when a person views another person as important
• Alienation


  The state of isolation that happens when we cease to look at other people as significant and authentic
• Empathy


  One's capacity to understand other people's situation
• Availability


  A mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision
• Ethics of care


  Our responsibility to look at the needs of other people and see how they are doing
• Interpersonal relations (Christianity)


  Considers human relations in the context of community, God's relationship with mankind began with the Creation, and Jesus Christ has redefined God's covenant through His death and resurrection
• Society

  A large, independent, and organized group of people living in the same territory and sharing a common culture and heritage, with interactions often governed by written and unwritten rules that reflect the shared ideas, views, and values of the members
• Types of societies

  • Hunting-and-gathering societies (primitive societies)
  • Agricultural society
  • Industrial society
  • Modern society
  • Virtual society
• Social philosophy


  Focuses on studying society and its influence on the human person, including topics like social ontology, social ethics, democracy, human rights, equality, and justice
• Enlightenment philosophers


  Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau were among the most prominent social theorists who tackled the origins of human society
• Natural state (Hobbes)


  Man in his natural state is governed by his desires and these often lead to conflict with his fellowmen, individuals who establish societies enter into a social contract, and the authority's role is to meet the needs of members of society, ensuring its survival
• Natural state (Locke)


  Man in his natural state as more cooperative and reasonable, and that society is formed through the consent of the individuals that organized it, a concept known as the consent of the governed, members of the society enter a covenant to cooperate and share the burden of upholding the welfare of society
• Natural state (Rousseau)


  Man is cooperative, society is formed through a contract among its members, and the government is empowered to act on behalf of the people
• Influence of society on the person

  Society has a significant influence in almost all aspects of an individual's life, through socialization a person adopts a set of ideals and behavior considered appropriate within his society, and social institutions like the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrate how social roles entail a set of expected behaviors that must be performed by a person