
Freedom and the principles of morality
Author(s) -
T Zagorka Golubovic
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
filozofija i društvo
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.116
H-Index - 1
eISSN - 2334-8577
pISSN - 0353-5738
DOI - 10.2298/fid0321097g
Subject(s) - morality , consciousness , alienation , subject (documents) , humanity , epistemology , natural (archaeology) , philosophy , environmental ethics , sociology , law , political science , history , computer science , theology , archaeology , library science
Freedom as an authentic and willed process, characteristic of man as a human rational being, enables the individual to act in accordance with the principles of morality, since the individual can choose between good and evil (between two possibilities), and in this way to get out of the sphere of the given to which the rest of the living world is limited. We should recall the forgotten Marx and his famous text on the essential difference between the animal world and humanity as a genus: "The animal is immediately united with its vital activity. It does not differ from it. It is vital activity. Man makes his own vital activity the subject of his will and consciousness. He has conscious vital activity. This is not a determination with which he merges immediately. Conscious vital activity distinguishes man directly from animal vital activity. It is exactly in this way alone that he is a generic being. Or a conscious being, i.e. his own life is a subject for him precisely because he is a generic being. It is only for this reason that his activity is free activity..." (K. Marx, "Alienation", Early Works). In other words, while animals live just the life of their species and cannot choose anything else, since the choice has been made by the fact of their belonging to a species, man can choose the world in which to live, overcoming in this way the natural givens. Here lies the core of the anthropological explanation of the principle of morality, inconceivable without man's ability to be an authentic free being