4E Concepts of libertarianism Flashcards
Give an introduction to libertarianism.
• The belief that humans are completely free to act ∴ morally responsible for their own actions
- Not compelled by forces outside their moral consciousness
• Humans = only free to choose within the constraints of physical natural laws
- E.g. I am not free to fly ∵ of gravity
Who, on the spec, is associated with philosophical libertarianism?
• Jean-Paul Sartre
Who, on the spec, is associated with scientific libertarianism?
• Dr Angela Sirigu
Who, on the spec, is associated with psychological libertarianism?
• Carl Rogers
Explain philosophical libertarianism, with reference to Jean-Paul Sartre.
• “there is no determinism - man is free, man is freedom”
• A person = conscious of their own existence, which allows ppl to have free will
- Able to think about, and consider, possible futures that might come from their actions
• ∴ humans can stand back from their lives and interpret them in diff. ways, which opens up a distance between a person’s consciousness and the physical world, with its potentially determining influences
- He refers to this as “the gap”, which allows humans to have free will
• Freedom can bring pain and anguish ∴ ppl try to avoid the reality of their own freedom
- They create a self-deception - “bad faith”; an attempt to escape pain by pretending that they are not free
- Ppl try to convince themselves that their actions are determined by anything other than themselves
Explain Sartre’s waiter illustration.
• A cafe waiter’s actions = a little too “waiter-esque”
• He = “acting the part” of the waiter, shown through his exaggerated actions
• The role of a waiter determines his every action; he has become an automaton whose essence is to be a waiter
• The way he is acting belies that he is aware that he is not merely a waiter, but is freely deceiving himself - denying his own freedom
• He knows he is free and could give up being a waiter at any time but freely denies this to himself
- ∴ bad faith = paradoxical ∵ when acting in bad faith, the person = aware that they are free
- Partly an existentialist theory: claiming that ppl freely will themselves to be what they are
What does Sartre not deny?
• the inevitable contingencies of human life
- E.g. upbringing, physical characteristics
- These may appear to be a restriction but that is ∵ of what the person has made of them - they are free to revise the choices they have made
What two things does Sartre say that freedom is?
• A gift and a curse
- Gift: person always has freedom of making something out of their circumstances
- Curse: responsibility that a person must shape their lives; with total freedom comes total responsibility; even ppl who do not wish to take resp. e.g. the waiter, are still making a free choice ∴ responsible for actions/inactions
Outline Sirigu’s experiment.
- Electronically jolted the parietal cortex of seven patients undergoing brain surgery while awake
- Each claimed to feel a desire to move their limbs, wiggle fingers, or roll tongues
- Stronger electrical pulses convinced patients that they had done the movements, although they remained motionless
What did Haggard, a neuroscientist at UCL, say about Sirigu’s study?
• Groundbreaking ∵ it pinpoints the part of the brain where volition resides
How do Jirtle and Waterland’s findings link to scientific libertarianism?
• Found that small changes to a mother’s diet could have a dramatic impact on the gene expression of the baby
• Through subsequent study of epigenetic switches, it would appear that humans have control over their genetic legacy
- ∴ “everything we do/eat/drink/smoke affects future generations” (Jirtle)
- “Epigenetic switches introduces the concept of free will into our idea of genetics (Jirtle)
Explain psychological libertarianism, with reference to Carl Rogers.
• Rogers advanced the psychological school of humanism by stressing that the human person is an active, creative, experiencing being who lives in the present and responds freely to current perceptions, relationships, and encounters
• He concedes that a human’s life can, as Behaviourists support, become determined by external conditioning such as: parental, peer, societal pressures
- However, he rejected the permanent deterministic nature of Behaviourism ∵ he believed that humans can achieve free will through the process that he termed “self-actualisation”
What does Rogers’ term, ‘self-actualisation’, mean?
• Acting on your true feelings
All children have their own ideas and thoughts about numerous aspects of life. According to Rogers, for such ideas to flourish, the child needs an environment that provides them with three elements. What are they?
1) Genuineness: child = in an environment where they can freely disclose and explore their own ideas
2) Acceptance: child = given unconditional positive love and regard
3) Empathy: child = understood by ppl
Without Rogers’ three elements, what will happen?
• A healthy, free-willed personality will not develop - much like a plant will not grow w/o sunlight + water
- ∴ when parents, peers, or society disapprove of their freely willed thoughts, the child considers itself to be a rebel and thus thinks their freely willed thoughts/feelings are wrong
- They then reject who they really are, and act in a way that others want them to - e.g. may be homosexual but bury these self-willed feelings
