Sunday, March 29, 2009

Are Human Beings Free?

There is not freedom in the world when so much of what we do is caused by forces that we hardly even understand. I agree on what Charon states in pg.110 when he says: "Freedom is an illusion that people are taught". Freedom means control, understanding and choice. Control is the essence of freedom. For example, if it is a family, society, unconsciousness, emotions, impulse, habit, social class, culture that cause what we do or think, or severely limit our choices, then freedom does not exist (pg.113 from Charon text book, Chapter 5)
Freedom involves thinking. To act without thinking is to act without freedom. Also, to act with thinking that is controlled by others is to act without freedom. Without freedom to think, freedom to act is an empty freeedom because action is guided by ideas, values, and norm given to us by others or by the larger society (pg.116). To ilustrate, a child raised in an educated family may pursuit education no only because he or she wants to but, also due to the enviorement he or she grew on. What we see and learned from our parent usually stay with us. Another example: We do not eat because we just want to put something in our mouth, we do eat because our organism, our body feel for it and send some message to our brain that make us act in accordance to it.
About the way upper class institutions function to keep those at the top and keep others out, I do not agree with this. As Human Beings we all have a chance to decide, go and do whatever we want to. Opportunities "should be equal for everybody".
The only new idea that came to me across this reading is: Thinking is an important aspect of human behavior. If I am in control of what I do, then my thinking is central to that control. We can only be free if we can move without being controlled externally or internally, when only we as a person can control ourselves. Difficult to act like but, no imposible either.

No comments:

Post a Comment