4E: Libertarianism

Question 1

What is libertarianism?

Answer 1

• 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

Question 2

What is libertarianism also known as?

Answer 2

Agency Theory

Question 3

What is the most powerful evidence for libertarianism?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Who was Jean-Paul Sartre?

Answer 4

A French philosopher and existentialist

Question 5

Quote from Sartre about existentialism

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What did Satre see humans as being?

Answer 6

radically free

Question 7

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

Answer 7

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

Question 8

What do existentialists believe?

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Sartre’s libertarian beliefs summed up in a quote

Answer 9

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

Question 10

What is freedom the result of?

Answer 10

no God and self-consciousness

Question 11

Sartre’s ‘No God’

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

Sartre’s self conscious

Answer 12

• 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

Question 13

Sartre’s ‘bad faith’

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

Sartre’s waiter analogy to illustrate bad faith

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

Why does Sartre think bad faith is paradoxical in nature?

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

Sartre believes freedom is a ____ and a _____ for humanity

Answer 16

gift and curse

Question 17

What is the ‘gift’ of libertarianism?

Answer 17

people have the freedom of making something out of their lives

Question 18

What is the ‘curse’ of libertarianism?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

What is existentialism?

Answer 19

• 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)

Question 20

What did Sartre say in regards to existentialism?

Answer 20

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

Question 21

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

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Who is Angela Sirigu?

Answer 22

A French neuroscientist

Question 23

What have Sirigu and her team discovered?

Answer 23

• 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

Question 24

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

Answer 24

We can choose to activate this part of the brain

Question 25

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

Answer 25

eat, smoke, gene expression, future

Question 26

Who was Carl Rogers?

Answer 26

An American humanistic psychologist

Question 27

What is Rogers’ Hierarchy of Human Needs?

Answer 27

- 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

Question 28

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

Answer 28

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

Question 29

What did Rogers believe about free will and libertarianism?

Answer 29

- 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

Question 30

What does ‘self actualisation’ mean?

Answer 30

trying/becoming the person we freely want to be

Question 31

What is the ideal self?

Answer 31

Who you want to be

Question 32

What is the true self?

Answer 32

Who you actually are

Question 33

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

Answer 33

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

Question 34

How did Rogers say a person can grow?

Answer 34

An environment that provides genuineness, acceptance and empathy

Question 35

What did Rogers say is our one basic motive?

Answer 35

the tendency to self actualise

Question 36

Analogy of flower and self actualisation

Answer 36

- 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

Question 37

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

Answer 37

a state of congruence

Question 38

What are the three components of the self-concept?

Answer 38

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

Question 39

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

Answer 39

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

Question 40

What is congruence?

Answer 40

- 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

Question 41

What is incongruence?

Answer 41

- 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

Question 42

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

Answer 42

process, being, directioj