Understanding Human Components: Freedom, Mood, and Character

Elements of Human Life

There are two types of elements that compose our lives: materials that build us as people and tasks that guide us toward good moral character.

The Liberty

We are not determined to give a single answer or to choose because we are free. Liberty constitutes human beings; in principle, we are open to intelligently create a world of possibilities and choose from among those we consider best. We make ourselves somewhat as we want, but freedom is not this; rather, it is responding as we want to what happens to us.

The Mood

Our freedom is conditioned by the spirit in which we act and the social situation in which we find ourselves. A person's mood is their fundamental sense of existence, the vitality with which they confront reality. We have a unified and intelligent emotional last, not elected, but given to us by nature: the mood.

Character

We can be free to forge a character. People are born with a spirit, and we create it into a second nature. Aristotle said life is about acquiring moral values, virtues, actions, and rules.

Strengths and Moral Life

The moral life has a goal: being a person in fullness, which requires achieving corresponding habits. Habits lead us to good virtues, moving us away from vices. Virtue is a predisposition to work well, gained through exercise.

Attitudes Gained Through Action

Actions, like virtues, are learned and relatively fixed dispositions that guide our conduct. Actions, like virtues, are expressions of deeper aspects of a person, composed of:

• Intelligence and reason (cognitive compounds/convictions and beliefs)
• Affective (feelings)
• Behavioral

They are difficult but possible. Virtue and action are key to the moral life because we usually act according to the predispositions we have acquired.

Referents: Values

The way our lives are shaped depends on values. These are qualities of things or people. Values are very important in defining our identity. The composition has an emotional value (feeling), intellectual (reasoning), and experiential (incorporated into our private life).

Value Types

Moral values are of two types:

1. Those we can add to our private life with effort, such as honesty, self-respect, commitment, and personal qualities that people possess or actions of persons. These must be elected by people to possess them.
2. Universal values that any person intends to live by in the fullest sense.

Rules

Formulating an order or command is essential for living together. Rules allow us to assume how others act and to conduct our own values in agreement with others. Types include religious, juridical, social, and moral rules. The difference depends on how they are sent. All rules point to some value, whether social, religious, or moral.