Freedom and Responsibility (part 2)

In the first article, I’ve shown how human freedom is possible.  Human freedom comes from man’s act of willing or volition.  This part of the article will elaborate the relationship existing between freedom and responsibility.  No one can talk of freedom without talking of responsibility.  Responsibility is inherently one with human freedom.  If we talk of human freedom outside the sphere of responsibility, we talk of it as non-sense. 

Jean Paul Sartre seems to suggest that the sphere of human freedom is over and beyond the sphere of responsibility.  He argues that man is absolutely free.  Based on his analysis of man as consciousness-for-itself (pour soi), he is able to establish that human freedom is absolute.  Nothing restricts human freedom even his past or his immediate environment.  If his history or environment haunts his freedom, he can deny it by intending his consciousness to negate it.  Pour soi (in layman’s term, thinking) has the power to negate if man intends to do so.  Man as pour soi intends to negate everything on his way.  He is as if no body, no history, and no environment.  He is pure thinking or consciousness, whence comes his absolute freedom.  But it’s hard to convince our sane mind to agree the idea that we can think –if we intend to do so, as if we have no body, no past, and no environment.  In consequence, we are not “somebody.”

It’s undeniably true that the word “freedom” entails a condition where there are no restrictions of one’s overt or covert actions.  This further entails that this sort of freedom is a freedom “without obstacles” –thus, absolute.  Human reality, however, will never brood this sort of freedom.  In reality, man is an embodied subject.  Sartrean freedom is only possible in the context of Cartesian concept of man as composite of res extensa and res cogitans (extended thing and thinking thing).  For Rene Descartes, man has dual nature, namely: body and mind.  There is a clear distinction between body and mind.  Body is distinct and separate from the mind.  And the very essence of man is that he is a thinking being.  Descartes does not suggest that man can exist without the body.  Rather, man’s body is simply an instrument (or extension) of the power of the mind.  Along this line of thought, we are able to arrive at the conclusion like Sartre that man as essentially a “thinking being” can attain freedom in absolute sense.  In other words, man’s thinking power is immense, powerful, unlimited, and so on.  Name all the absolutes; that’s the power of the mind!

However, this Cartesian dualism encounters major setbacks, which his predecessors incessantly attack.  One setback in Cartesian dualism is the emphasis on man as “essentially thinking substance,” which results in giving importance to man’s thinking power more than his very existence.  Gabriel Marcel is one of the philosophers who attacks Cartesianism.  For Marcel, there is no sense to talk of man as composed of body and mind.  Though these two entities are distinct but they are inseparable.  Inseparability of body and mind, however, still does not suffice to describe their relation.  Using secondary reflection, Marcel arrives at the point that, “I/Subject does not merely own the body,” but “I am my body.”  The “I” is closely identified with the body; the body is one with the “I” or the subject.  Their relationship is one of a sort of “incarnation” –thus, embodiment.  The “I” or subject is embodied.  In the end, Marcel makes his point clear in saying that the relationship of mind and body lies between the spheres of “having” and “being.”

On this basis, human freedom is somehow conditioned by one’s embodiment.  Thus, freedom cannot be absolute.  Although the power of the mind is limitless but it works only within the bounds of his embodiment.  In other words, although the power of the mind is structure-less but it will become structured because of man’s body.  At this point, I am going to embark the idea of “structured freedom,” which is closely related to responsibility.

“Great power comes great responsibility,” Spiderman said.  To paraphrase it, “great freedom comes great responsibility.”  This is my contention that freedom is inseparably one with responsibility.  To exercise one’s freedom is to oversee its corresponding responsibility.  Sartrean freedom doesn’t give any room for one to have responsibility.  For Sartre, the exercise of freedom is absolute.  Thus, the one who exercises absolute freedom is never answerable to the consequences of his actions. 

In conclusion, human freedom is not an illusion nor is absolute.  Human freedom is structured because of one’s embodiment.  It is always inseparably one with responsibility.