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Religious Studies: Ethics > 4E: Libertarianism > Flashcards

4E: Libertarianism Flashcards

1
Q

What is libertarianism?

A
  • 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
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2
Q

What is libertarianism also known as?

A

Agency Theory

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3
Q

What is the most powerful evidence for libertarianism?

A

we experience the sensation of making free choices - it feels to us like we are free

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4
Q

Who was Jean-Paul Sartre?

A

A French philosopher and existentialist

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5
Q

Quote from Sartre about existentialism

A

“Existence precedes essence”
- We exist without knowing what our function or purpose is

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6
Q

What did Satre see humans as being?

A

radically free

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7
Q

What is the name of Sartre’s book and what does he say in it?

A

‘Being and Nothingness’
- says “man is not free to be not free” and “man is condemned to be free”

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8
Q

What do existentialists believe?

A

There is no fixed human nature/character/essence: we exist first and grow into our essence. Free to define and manifest our essence

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9
Q

Sartre’s libertarian beliefs summed up in a quote

A

“there is no determinism - man is free, man is freedom”

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10
Q

What is freedom the result of?

A

no God and self-consciousness

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11
Q

Sartre’s ‘No God’

A
  • 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
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12
Q

Sartre’s self conscious

A
  • 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
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13
Q

Sartre’s ‘bad faith’

A
  • 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
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14
Q

Sartre’s waiter analogy to illustrate bad faith

A
  • 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
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15
Q

Why does Sartre think bad faith is paradoxical in nature?

A
  • 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
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16
Q

Sartre believes freedom is a ____ and a _____ for humanity

A

gift and curse

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17
Q

What is the ‘gift’ of libertarianism?

A

people have the freedom of making something out of their lives

18
Q

What is the ‘curse’ of libertarianism?

A

freedom brings the responsibility that a person must develop their own lives

19
Q

What is existentialism?

A
  • 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)
20
Q

What did Sartre say in regards to existentialism?

A
  • “At first Man is nothing. Only afterward will he be something”
  • “Man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself”
21
Q

What did Sartre argue in regards to God’s existence?

A
  • If God exists, man is not free
  • If God doesn’t exist, man is free
22
Q

Who is Angela Sirigu?

A

A French neuroscientist

23
Q

What have Sirigu and her team discovered?

A
  • 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
24
Q

How does Sirigu’s discovery connect to libertarianism and free will?

A

We can choose to activate this part of the brain

25
Q

Jirtle: “Everything we ___ or _____ can affect our ____ _______ and that of ______ generations”

A

eat, smoke, gene expression, future

26
Q

Who was Carl Rogers?

A

An American humanistic psychologist

27
Q

What is Rogers’ Hierarchy of Human Needs?

A
  • 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
28
Q

What did Rogers believe about the ways that we are constrained and determined?

A

He believed people can be constrained and determined by external controlling factors (eg parents, peers, society), which can force us into a certain mould

29
Q

What did Rogers believe about free will and libertarianism?

A
  • 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
30
Q

What does ‘self actualisation’ mean?

A

trying/becoming the person we freely want to be

31
Q

What is the ideal self?

A

Who you want to be

32
Q

What is the true self?

A

Who you actually are

33
Q

What are Rogers’ 5 characteristics of a fully functioning person?

A
  1. Open to experience: both positive and negative emotions accepted
  2. Existential living: in touch with different experiences as they occur in life
  3. Trust feelings: feelings and instincts are paid attention to and trusted
  4. Creativity: creative thinking and risk taking are features are a persons life. ability to adjust and change
  5. Fulfilled life: happy and satirised with life, looking for new experiences
34
Q

How did Rogers say a person can grow?

A

An environment that provides genuineness, acceptance and empathy

35
Q

What did Rogers say is our one basic motive?

A

the tendency to self actualise

36
Q

Analogy of flower and self actualisation

A
  • 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
37
Q

What state did Rogers believe we had to be in to achieve self actualisation?

A

a state of congruence

38
Q

What are the three components of the self-concept?

A
  1. Self worth: compromises our self image. feelings of this developed in early childhood
  2. Self image: how we see ourselves. includes influence of our body image on inner personality. affects how we think and behave
  3. Ideal self: who we would like to be. consists of goals and ambitions in life
39
Q

What are children’s two basic needs according to Rogers?

A
  1. Positive regard from others: parents accept and love them for who they are. person feels free to try things out and make mistakes
  2. Self worth
40
Q

What is congruence?

A
  • 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
41
Q

What is incongruence?

A
  • 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
42
Q

Rogers: “The good life is a _______, not a state of _____. It is a _________ not a destination”

A

process, being, directioj

Religious Studies: Ethics (23 decks)

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