Truth and Freedom

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Truth and Freedom
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What do they have in common?

• What is Freedom?

• What is Truth?

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What is truth?

• Todays crisis of truth

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Deaf couple want deaf child! (BBC 10/3/08)

• New fertility legislation will make it illegal to
  use embryos with a known genetic abnormality in
  IVF treatment when ones without the same defect
  are available.
• For a long time, the debate about the genetic
  testing of embryos has focused on whether we
  should stop people creating the "perfect" person
  blonde, blue-eyed, with athletic prowess and a
  high IQ.
• The Nazi spectre of eugenics has frequently been
  invoked.
• Now a deaf couple have turned this on its head
  far from wanting a flawless child they actively
  want a baby which suffers the same hearing
  difficulties as they themselves.

• The couple have become icons in a deaf movement
  which sees this impairment not as a disability
  but as the key to a rich culture which has its
  own language, history and traditions a world
  deaf parents would naturally want to share with
  any offspring.
• Moreover, they argue that to prefer a hearing
  embryo over a deaf one is tantamount to
  discrimination.
• But to others - both those who can hear and those
  who cannot - deliberately bringing a child with a
  disability into the world when one without could
  be born verges on the morally repugnant.

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Culture
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Ethical illusions
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• Cloning
• Free market
• Private property
• Divorce, etc

• Artificial reproduction
• Stop feeding comatose

MARKET BODY WORK SEX LIFE FREEDOM
ETHICS HUMAN DIGNITY
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Application

• The tip is visible the bottom is not
• The tip is supported by the submerged part and
  depends on it

• Particular issues in ethics are more patent and
  appear to be more popular
• This particular issues depend on more basic and
  more important issues although they are not so
  popular

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good soil
bad soil
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Culture

• Soils
• The same seed will grow differently in different
  soils
• Good soils will bring the plant to its full
  potential
• In bad soils the plant will have to be constantly
  watered and taken care of

• Cultures
• The same value will flourish differently in
  different cultures
• Some cultures will favor some values in favor of
  others
• All cultures have some positive values worth
  cultivating
• All cultures need some kind of purification

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Filter illusions
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Cultures filter

• Yesterday
• Slavery is OK!
• Women are to serve men

• Today
• Which ones?
• Relativism
• There is nothing absolute
• Subjectivism
• There is nothing objective

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Yesterday and Today

• Yesterday
• Rules ruled
• Authority is right until proven wrong
• Traditions are respected
• Objectivity was the point of reference
• Arranged marriages ok

• Today
• Me, Myself, and I ruled absolutely
• Authority is questioned until proven right
• Traditions are a thing of the past
• Subjectivity is the point of reference It is up
  to you
• I have to choose, to be happy

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True lies

• Our culture
• Subjective ethics
• I decide what is good for me
• Reaction to totalitarianism Someone decides
• Dualistic anthropology
• I have my body

• Corrective vision
• Objective ethics
• What is good for me depends on my nature
  hopefully I learn to decide what is really good
  for me
• Integrated anthropology
• I am my body

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Our cultural age

• Centered around I

• The surrounding circumstances are persevered as
  inconvenient impositions from outside
• Stress of freedom as capacity to choose I am
  allow to do what I want as long as I dont hurt
  anybody
• Authority and Tradition are questioned or not
  taken into account

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Ethics in our age

• In the fields of ethics, right or wrong are
  decided in terms of reference to the I
• It is up to the individual agent as opposed to
  objective right or wrong
• At the subjective level it is reduced to the
  intention
• At the objective level it is reduced to external
  effects

• 3 factors decide what is right and what is wrong
• Intention
• Consent
• Effects

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Effects

• This has proven dramatic specially within the
  context of sexual ethics
• Masturbation
• Pre-marital sex
• Casual sex
• Homosexuality
• Protected sex
• Prostitution

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Even if she loved it, something is wrong with her
foot!
Culture needs constant purification
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Our culture

• Culture is the wire through which the electricity
  of the gospel runs
• All cultures have some truths that help the
  gospel to grow
• All cultures act as a lenses that helps us
  appreciate Gods plan
• All cultures need purification
• All cultures act as a filter that distorts our
  vision of reality
• Only by discovering the color of the filter we
  can have a TRUE vision

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Freedom
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Magisterium on freedom

• At the root of these negative phenomena there
  frequently lies a corruption of the idea and the
  experience of freedom. (Familiaris Consortio, 6)
• Veritatis Splendor (31-39) abuse of freedom and
  lost of link with truth

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The Parable of the Piano

• How do we learn to play the piano?
• Some given talent
• Lots of acquired practice
• Result
• It becomes a part of the person
• Enables the person to play many compositions or
  even to improvise skillfully
• Creates a new dimension with its own set of needs
  and satisfactions
• Conclusion 2 freedoms
• freedom to press keys
• freedom to play

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Application to freedom of choice

• Piano
• 1st freedom is the freedom to press keys at will
• I can bang any key i choose
• It is easy, I only need to press, I feel free and
  good
• Number of keys matters, the more keys I have, the
  more freedom to choose
• there is no right or wrong pressing of key, it is
  all up to me

• Real life
• 1st freedom is freedom of choice
• I want to be free among options
• it is easy, only need to have choice, I feel free
  and good
• Number of choices matters
• the more choices I have the more free I think I
  am
• consumeristic market strives to offer more
  choices
• entertainment industry fights the ghost of
  boredom
• right or wrong depends on me, or trends

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Application to conquered freedom

• Piano
• 2nd freedom is freedom to play
• it is hard to conquer it
• it depends on discipline to acquire habits
• it becomes a second nature
• I conquered freedom that was not previously
  offered to me freedom to play beautiful music
• Mistakes are easy to make wrong key, right key
  at wrong time...
• How I learn to press keys will determine how good
  or bad pianist I am

• Real life
• 2nd freedom is conquered freedom
• It is hard to conquer it
• it needs training and discipline to acquire
  attitudes and virtues
• It becomes a second nature
• I may become more free I have changed
• It is a moral freedom
• wrong choices do matter
• Different choices will make me become a better or
  worse person (a drug addict or a mature person)

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Application to real life

• We are the piano
• Freedom to choose options and freedom to make of
  your life a beautiful symphony
• My mental, social, economic or psychological
  conditions are not obstacles, but conditions
• If I can ask myself what do I do with my life, it
  is for a purpose
• A life with no discovery of destiny becomes a
  burden with no meaning
• There is right and wrong,
• because there is a destiny that fulfils us and a
  failure that frustrates us

• Piano
• Freedom to press keys or freedom to play
  beautiful music
• The condition of the piano is not the enemy but
  just the condition
• The piano is in the room for the purpose of
  playing it
• A piano with no purpose is an inconvenience
• There is bad music and good music
• Fulfilling the purpose of the piano makes the
  piano worth it

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1 person, 2 freedoms

• Freedom of choice
• it is necessary, but not absolute. It is a means
  to a purpose.
• Mistakenly associated with happiness
• It is static
• and depends of choices given to the person

• Conquered freedom
• it is the purpose of the freedom of choice
• True source of mature happiness
• It progresses or regresses according to choices
  made
• It depends on the persons attitudes and
  dispositions

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What does it mean to learn to play the piano?

• To choose right choices
• Choices are movements of the will (not external
  actions)
• They change us but building up inclinations
• There are right and wrong inclinations
• A person inclined to do good is a good person,
  has an easy life, and is a happy person

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Is this blindness affecting us? There is a sudden
thirst for more keys to press

• Divorces the Right to choose other options
• Commitment phobia
• Right to die
• Right to a child
• Right to change my body
• Truth intolerance
• Compassion live and let live

• Boredom more entertainment

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Connecting cultural dogmas and ideas of freedom

• Absolute autonomy
• Right to die, child
• Being and qualities
• The self becomes the origin of everything
• Cogito ergo sum
• If it is not conscious you can kill it (abortion
  euthanasia, etc)
• Body
• New-manichaeism me (res cogitans vs. res
  estensa)
• Agent self (soul)
• The body is for me to use it
• Acts
• Consent, intention, result
• Loss of link between freedom and truth Object of
  the act is irrelevant
• Nothing is wrong in itself (relativism). The
  person can give a right meaning to killing
• The good purpose can turn any act into a good act

• Relative autonomy
• Accept death, child
• Being and qualities
• God and being are the origin of everything
• Sum (persona) ergo cogito
• If it is a human, you cannot kill it
• Body
• Hypostatic union of body and soul
• Agent body soul
• I am my body
• Acts link to truth (reality)
• Different kinds of behavior have a purpose
  independent of the agent (the purpose of fishing
  is to catch fish, no matter who is fishing)
• If that purpose is wrong, the act is
  intrinsically wrong killing even with a good
  intention is wrong
• The end does not justify the means

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Truth
Freedom
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Scripture on freedom

• You will learn the truth, and the truth will
  free you (Jn 832)

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What to bring home

• Todays culture lies to us about freedom and
  happiness
• Obsessed with the subjective experience, forgets
  about the objective reality
• Looking at freedom through this filter reduces
  REAL freedom to freedom of choice
• We are fooled into believing that choices
  happiness
• We forget that freedom is freedom to become a
  better, happier person
• Freedom is our capacity to become better by
  choosing the right choices or otherwise
• Better people are freer even when they have less
  choices

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Exercise

• How would you reply to the deaf couple who want
  their children to be deaf?