Human Nature: Self, Society, and the Search for Meaning
Dimensions of the Person
- Interior: Subject of self-conscious activity.
- Sociability: In continuing relationship to other human beings.
- Openness to the World: Located in the world and in touch with it.
- Thirst for Transcendence: Search for a foundation in religion.
- Life Project: Future projects we want to do.
Socialization Process
- Socio-cultural Components: Society, language, customs, mentality, values.
- Sociopolitical Component: Education, political beliefs, ideological identity.
- Moral and Religious Components: Moral and religious standards.
Ortega y Gasset
Authenticity is the absolute fidelity to what a subject really is; it not only involves individual life but also collective life. Reality has two faces: the world and the self, subjectivity and things, and both ends mutually need each other. Ortega y Gasset expressed this in his statement: “I am myself and my circumstances.”
To live is to understand: We find ourselves in the people around us, the world.
To live is to be in the world: The two ingredients that form life are the world and the self.
Life’s Fate and Freedom
The world we live in is not something we choose. So the fact allows us a degree of ability and, in the same measure, requires us to decide.
Life is futurition: We are more concerned about the future than the present (and it develops as possible).
Freedom
Freedom is the capacity that has been given to humans for the simple reason that they possess intelligence; the ability to reason differentiates us from animals. It is the ability to choose according to guidelines, interests, and personal ends.
Morality
Man, to be intelligent and free, is required to guide their behavior. Our actions are not indifferent; that is, it is not the same to do one thing than another, but we prefer to do what is convenient.
Moral Structure
People have a moral structure that is given by the fact that they are free. (Autonomous ethics, subjective).
Moral Content
The existence of certain property values and norms that serve as a guide for freedom. The moral content brought to people the purpose to be pursued (Heteronomous ethics, objective).
Ethical Positions
- Subjectivism: Philosophers argue that moral autonomy and maintain absolute subjectivist positions: There are no valuable things in themselves nor values in themselves, but all values are created or invented by people.
- Objectivism: Values have an objective existence and are independent of any consideration of the subjects. To rate is to identify values. Within this position, there are upper and lower values.
Ethical Theories
Ethical theories raise a series of demands to live fully as people. In contrast, religions offer us a transcendent meaning to human existence. At times, religion has adopted some ethical content as its own and, conversely, religions have contributed to ethics.
Aristotelian Tradition
The ultimate goal: Happiness. Aristotle considered happiness as the ultimate goal that we propose by nature; that is, we want to be happy. We must choose the proportion of desires that can bring us more happiness. Whoever does so exercises the virtue of prudence.
Prudent Person
A prudent person is one that, in every situation where they have to choose, chooses what is best for the whole of their life. The wise person always intends good ends, unlike one who is skillful. Whoever is wise dominates, applying moral principles and discerning what desires must be satisfied.
The mean: According to Aristotle, courage is a mean between rashness and cowardice. Whoever acts prudently chooses the middle term because that is what virtue is, but not the arithmetic mean; rather, the average is appropriate for each of us.
Acquiring Prudence
- Learn to remember.
- Instruction.
- Be cautious.
- Sharpen the ability to predict the future.
Kantian Tradition
Test Imperative
- Universality: Moral law that all human beings should respect and comply with because it promotes beings that are valuable in themselves (not good for anything else).
- It should protect people who are ends in themselves for having absolute value.
- It must be taken as a standard for a universal law in a kingdom of ends.
Categorical Imperative
- Work only on a maxim such that you may want it to become a universal law.
- Act so you treat humanity, whether in your person or in any other, always as an end at once and never simply as a means.
- Work for a peak-member legislature in a universal kingdom of possible ends.