4E: Libertarianism Flashcards
What is libertarianism?
- the belief that human beings are completely free to act
- we are morally responsible for our own actions; we aren’t compelled to act by forces outside their moral consciousness
What is libertarianism also known as?
Agency Theory
What is the most powerful evidence for libertarianism?
we experience the sensation of making free choices - it feels to us like we are free
Who was Jean-Paul Sartre?
A French philosopher and existentialist
Quote from Sartre about existentialism
“Existence precedes essence”
- We exist without knowing what our function or purpose is
What did Satre see humans as being?
radically free
What is the name of Sartre’s book and what does he say in it?
‘Being and Nothingness’
- says “man is not free to be not free” and “man is condemned to be free”
What do existentialists believe?
There is no fixed human nature/character/essence: we exist first and grow into our essence. Free to define and manifest our essence
Sartre’s libertarian beliefs summed up in a quote
“there is no determinism - man is free, man is freedom”
What is freedom the result of?
no God and self-consciousness
Sartre’s ‘No God’
- Argued God doesn’t exist
- Stated “there is no God, so man must rely upon his own moral insight”
- Because there’s no God, there’s no higher power controlling humanity
- Therefore believed humankind is free because there is no omnipotent and omniscient deity
- Stated humanity has “condemned” to freedom
Sartre’s self conscious
- Argued people can understand they have free will because humanity is ‘pour-soi’ (being for itself), and animals are just ‘en-soi’ (being in itself)
- ‘En soi’ beings are not self conscious, ‘pour soi’ beings are self conscious
- Argued humanity’s self consciousness enables people to think about and consider the different possibly futures that may come about from different actions
- This opens up a distance between a persons self consciousness and the physical world: calls this ‘the gap’
- The ‘gap’ allows people to have free will. Because people have the ability to not just react to what is going on in the physical world
Sartre’s ‘bad faith’
- Also known as ‘mauvaise foi’
- Used reverse psychology to prove people have free will
- Humankind’s freedom is obvious because of the way people try to deny their own freedom
- Sartre argued freedom can bring emotional pain for the individual: people will try to avoid the reality of their own freedom
- Therefore they create a self deception in which they deny their own freedom
- Bad faith is the attempt by people to escape the pain and anguish of life by pretending to themselves that they aren’t free: people convince themselves their attitudes and actions are determined by things outside themselves
- Confines us to conventional ways of living
Sartre’s waiter analogy to illustrate bad faith
- A cafe waiters movements are conversations are too ‘waiter-esque’
- “the waiters voice oozes with an eagerness to please”
- Exaggerated behaviour illustrates that he is ‘play acting’ as a waiter; he has allowed himself to just become an automaton
- Sartre argues the waiter is freely deceiving himself: ultimately aware that he is not merely a waiter
- He saw this as an example of a process he thought we were all guilty of
Why does Sartre think bad faith is paradoxical in nature?
- When acting in bad faith (denying freedom) a person is using their freedom to do this
- Therefore, people (eg the waiter) aren’t determined by their role or circumstances: all people are free to choose who they are and how they live
Sartre believes freedom is a ____ and a _____ for humanity
gift and curse
What is the ‘gift’ of libertarianism?
people have the freedom of making something out of their lives
What is the ‘curse’ of libertarianism?
freedom brings the responsibility that a person must develop their own lives
What is existentialism?
- a philosophy that emphasise individual existence, freedom and choice
- the view that humans define their own meaning in life and try to make rational decisions, despite existing in an irrational universe
- we must embrace existence itself in order to counter the nothingness (no God and no meaning in life)
What did Sartre say in regards to existentialism?
- “At first Man is nothing. Only afterward will he be something”
- “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself”
What did Sartre argue in regards to God’s existence?
- If God exists, man is not free
- If God doesn’t exist, man is free
Who is Angela Sirigu?
A French neuroscientist
What have Sirigu and her team discovered?
- The “parietal cortex” is linked to the decision to move
- When that part of the brian is stimulated, patients wanted to move/felt as if they had moved
How does Sirigu’s discovery connect to libertarianism and free will?
We can choose to activate this part of the brain
Jirtle: “Everything we ___ or _____ can affect our ____ _______ and that of ______ generations”
eat, smoke, gene expression, future
Who was Carl Rogers?
An American humanistic psychologist
What is Rogers’ Hierarchy of Human Needs?
- we have 3 levels of needs
1. basic physical needs
2. psychological needs
3. need for self fulfilment/self actualisation - it is a hierarchy because the higher needs cannot be met while the lower needs are not
What did Rogers believe about the ways that we are constrained and determined?
He believed people can be constrained and determined by external controlling factors (eg parents, peers, society), which can force us into a certain mould
What did Rogers believe about free will and libertarianism?
- He believed we can freely choose to live according to our own desires and values by ‘self actualising’: becoming the person we freely want to be
What does ‘self actualisation’ mean?
trying/becoming the person we freely want to be
What is the ideal self?
Who you want to be
What is the true self?
Who you actually are
What are Rogers’ 5 characteristics of a fully functioning person?
- Open to experience: both positive and negative emotions accepted
- Existential living: in touch with different experiences as they occur in life
- Trust feelings: feelings and instincts are paid attention to and trusted
- Creativity: creative thinking and risk taking are features are a persons life. ability to adjust and change
- Fulfilled life: happy and satirised with life, looking for new experiences
How did Rogers say a person can grow?
An environment that provides genuineness, acceptance and empathy
What did Rogers say is our one basic motive?
the tendency to self actualise
Analogy of flower and self actualisation
- A flower will grow to its full potential with the right conditions
- People will flourish and reach their potential if their environment is good enough
- Unlike a flower, the potential of the individual is unique and we are meant to develop in different ways according to personality
What state did Rogers believe we had to be in to achieve self actualisation?
a state of congruence
What are the three components of the self-concept?
- Self worth: compromises our self image. feelings of this developed in early childhood
- Self image: how we see ourselves. includes influence of our body image on inner personality. affects how we think and behave
- Ideal self: who we would like to be. consists of goals and ambitions in life
What are children’s two basic needs according to Rogers?
- Positive regard from others: parents accept and love them for who they are. person feels free to try things out and make mistakes
- Self worth
What is congruence?
- self image is similar to ideal self
- person can self actualises
- depends on unconditional positive regard
- the closer our self image and ideal self are to each other, the more congruent we are and the higher our sense of self worth
What is incongruence?
- self image is different to ideal self
- self actualisation will be difficult
- we prefer to see ourselves in a way consistent with our self image so may use defence mechanisms like denial or repression to feel less threatens by some of what we consider to be our undesirable feelings
- A person whose self concept is incongruent with their feelings and experience will defend because the truth hurts
Rogers: “The good life is a _______, not a state of _____. It is a _________ not a destination”
process, being, directioj
