Moral Action, Character, and Freedom: A Deep Dive
Moral Action
No Legal Person
People inevitably act. We imagine different possibilities among which we are forced to choose, and we justify our choice if we want to behave as rational beings. Imagining possibilities, having to choose between them, and justifying the choice are three aspects of the moral structure of persons. This means that there is no such thing as an amoral being. One acts amorally when acting automatically, therefore, one is not master of their actions nor responsible for them, as in the case of animals.
The Forging of Character
We are born with a temperament, a set of passions that are difficult to modify. We also have a mood, even though character is both natural and given socially. But we also acquire a new character, choosing the properties that we believe best suit us. Therefore, according to Zubiri and Aranguren, we have two types of properties: one by nature and others by appropriation. As humans are a moral reality, we necessarily appropriate properties. To own a new property, it is necessary to repeat acts in the same direction, so that we acquire certain behavioral habits. If they predispose us to act well, they are called virtues; if they predispose us to do evil, they are called vices. Can habits be considered virtues and vices? To answer this question, we must resort to moral conscience.
Moral Conscience
Conscience means the ability to realize something. Moral conscience realizes that the capacity of lifestyles, values, or principles are more humanizing, morally better than others. Thus, it is, first, the ability to grasp the principles by which we morally distinguish between good and bad. To make decisions, we must move from general principles to specific trials on a given situation, and make practical judgments taking into account general principles and details of the situation. Understanding the best way requires a moral principle. Trying to implement it is one thing, but acting is to follow the trial of neglecting the conscience. This fulfills the function of:
Autocriticism
We praise some actions as a judge and disapprove of others. The latter are punished in case of remorse. We speak of responsibility only when we mean free and conscious beings, who had the capacity to choose and the necessary moral knowledge to be masters of their actions.
Freedom and Determinism
External and Internal Freedom
External Freedom
This consists in nobody stopping us from acting as we see fit, to the extent permitted by law and the customs of one’s own country. Freedom is such that a person loses it when they are put in jail. External freedom can be more or less extensive, depending on the legal and political framework of a society.
Internal Freedom
This consists in the ability to decide for oneself on the issues that affect us: the freedom of wanting one thing or the other, the so-called freedom of will. For example, the decision to sleep is up to each one. If there were no internal freedom, it would be meaningless to demand political freedom. Internal freedom is a moral freedom, that is, the ability to lead one’s own life according to one’s own criteria.
Determinism and Internal Freedom
If internal freedom is the power of the will to act in one way or another without being determined by something outside it, it must be capable of launching a series of causes without the measure that starts the series having a cause, and then the act would not be free. Since ancient times, the phenomenon of freedom has led to an aporia, a dead end between the following attitudes:
- Deterministic: The conviction that nothing happens without a cause. This is a deterministic attitude if it intends to also causally explain human conduct.
- Free: The spontaneous conscience that we have on occasions to act freely, even though we are conditioned to act in one way or another.
Conditioning and Determination
Being conditioned is totally different from being determined. Being conditioned means that you do not have absolute and total freedom, but you retain enough freedom to make you responsible for your own actions. Being determined means absolutely denying the possibility of freedom to behave. Human freedom is conditioned by the social environment and education, by the economic situation and the politics in which we live, so we are not absolutely free. But these factors do not prevent us from taking the initiative to act with freedom, except in exceptional cases.