GROUP 3

ALEX - XABIER - JON - GORKA

 Project

1. Find a philosophical definition of freedom and state your opinion and give reasons.

Freedom of action is the property of being free from constraints, especially from external constraints on our actions, but also from internal constraints such as physical disabilities or addictions. Political freedoms, such as the right to speak, to assemble, and the limits to government constraints on associations and organizations such as media and religions, are examples of external freedom.

- In our opinion this definition of freedom is right, but we disagree because addictions are addictions until you give up with them and you do whatever you want. At the same time addictions sometimes don’t let you get rid of them so they don’t let you be free. Everything depends on how addicted you are and how much willpower you have.

2. What do you understand by “fear of freedom”?

What we understand is that when you give too much freedom to people it is like when you watch Spiderman and they say that a big power entails a big responsibility,

so big freedom entails big responsibility and you have fear of it.

3. Find quotations of famous people about freedom.

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

-       Martin Luther King

                               

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”

-       John F.Kennedy

4. What is freedom for you? Write your point of view.

We think freedom is a kind of lifestyle in which you can do whatever you want. For example you can create a company, to act politically in society, to live in any country, etc. But all people can´t have this lifestyle, for example African people were considered a lower ethnia.

5. Is our society free nowadays? Find examples of countries where people are not free.

We think our society isn´t free, because the laws which we have to accept, for example; we can´t kill people, we can´t steal, etc. For example in Siria they kill people just because they don’t agree with them.

6. Try to support your ideas with a piece of news or an article you find in the web.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/oct/26/refugees-on-slovenia-croatia-border-drone-video-footage

In this article we can see Sirian people trying to pass to Europe, but they can pass a only from a few places, an example is Croatian small cities, and increasingly more cities can´t pass to Europe.

                       

PROJECT ON FREEDOM - GROUP 2

AINTZANE - GAIZKA G. - ANDER - IÑIGO

Freedom

Definition: Freedom starts with a principle of self-control. In a free society, each and every person has legal control of their own body and mind. It refers specifically to equal empowerment. In other words, a free society is one with an equal distribution of legal rights and in which each and every person has as much legal rights as possible.

We agree with this definition of freedom because the more limitations you have the less free you are. But we also think that freedom obviously cannot include the legal right to limit other people’s freedom because that would be illogical.

The fear of freedom means that more choices doesn’t mean more freedom. So, when we get out of our “fishbowl” we think that we are going to feel better because we are going to choose our own decisions. Instead, it isn’t like that, because when we get out, we feel fear of everything because if we choose the wrong choice it will be our fault and we get shocked.

Freedom is the possibility of doing whatever you want, whenever you want and do it in the way you want if and when it’s inside your principles. As Barry Schwartz said, everyone needs a fishbowl, but in my opinion that fishbowl is our principles, so all of us have got different fishbowls, and when we break the fishbowl and we have to go to another one, it’s obvious we are going to be afraid of what to do.

Also, having a lot of choices doesn’t make us free. The thing that makes us free is to know what to choose.

There are different points of view about freedom; for example, Luis Antonio de Villena said “It’s amazing seeing how when the theoretical freedom goes up, the practical freedom goes down”. There are more famous quotations; Bill O’ Brian said “People think they are freedom when they don’t care about external thoughts, but they don’t know that they are overwhelmed of a wore fact; they only have one thought”. Other famous quotation is “Free people let other persons to be free” but the person who said that was unknown.

Saudi Arabia

The freedom of women in Saudi Arabia is null. Here we have seven things that women cannot do in this country:

Leave home alone

Saudi women must leave home accompanied always by a man of the family, whether for shopping or to visit the doctor.

Drive

Officially women do not have prohibited drive, but in practice they cannot do it because not allowed by the highest religious authority.

Bring clothes or makeup that shows its beauty

The majority of women in Saudi Arabia wear abaya, a garment that hides them the body completely. In the country there is also the religious police, which controls the feminine garment and tends to be very strict, and they can be fined a woman for simply show a toe.

Compete in certain sports

Saudi sportswomen participated for the first time at an Olympic Games in 2012 in London, where two women from the Arab country competed in the tests of judo and athletics. It was a historical fact that has not repeated since then. However, Riad has pledged to send to any athlete to the games in Rio de Janeiro.

Interact with men

In Saudi Arabia, virtually all public spaces are segregated by sex. The majority of public buildings has an entry for men and another for women.

Test the clothes shopping

Women should buy clothes and try it at home. Only the abaya in some luxury shops testers can be removed.

Use a hotel gym

Virtually none of the hotels in the country allows the entry of women in the gym.

A part from the women issue, when journalists do not make as they told the Government of Saudi Arabia, they are sentenced to lashes and is allowed to crucify people.

Article

Spain puts 'gag' on freedom of expression as senate passes security law

Despite a global outcry, Spanish legislation, expected to be ratified next month, lays out strict guidelines on demonstrations that come with steep fines

The Spanish senate has voted to push forward with controversial changes to the country’s public security laws, cracking down on Spaniards’ rights of freedom of assembly and expression despite opposition from activists and human rights groups.

Recent years have seen millions of Spaniards take to the streets to voice their dissatisfaction with the rightwing People’s party government, protesting against crippling austerity measures and attempts to roll back the country’s abortion laws. Now the government has hit back with legislation, dubbed the “gag law” by critics, that seeks to limit protests by laying out strict guidelines on when and where they can take place and penalizing offenders with steep fines.

The legislation includes fines of up to 600 euros for failing to notify authorities about demonstrations in public areas, even in the case of peaceful protests. Once approved, marches that veer from the approved itineraries could face fines of up to 600 euros.

The fines climb to 30,000 euros for protests that result in “serious disturbances of public safety” near parliament and Spain’s regional government buildings. Unauthorized protests that take place near key infrastructure, such as transportation hubs, nuclear power plants, refineries and telecommunications installations could result in fines of up to 600,000 euros.

Personal opinion

I think that having freedom for what you want to do is something that everybody should have, above all if what you want is to protest peacefully, because everyone has the right to be heard and the freedom of expression.

Removing these rights means that society in this country is being controlled by the government, and it’s a signal of corruption. This violates The Human Rights, and creates something like a dictatorship.

STUDENTS' PROJECTS GROUP 1

After working with the materials about freedom; free will, determinism, and reflecting about the PARADOX OF CHOICE, the students were asked to prepare a presentation on the following: 

PROJECT

Make a presentation on the concept of freedom and state:

1-      Find a philosophical definition of freedom; state your opinion and give reasons

2-      What do you understand by “fear of freedom”?

3-      Find quotations of famous people about freedom.

4-      What is freedom for you? Explain your point of view.

5-      Is our society free nowadays? Find examples of countries where people are not free and say why.

6-    Try to support your ideas with a piece of news or an article you find in the web. You may use links to newspapers, web pages, youtube, etc. 

ANE E. - ANE M.J. - MAITANE - LEIRE

FREEDOM

PHILOSOPHICAL OPINION OF FREEDOM:  

• The power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without autonomy; self-determination.
• Freedom is not the right to do as you please, but the liberty to do as you ought.

OUR OPINION:

We agree with both definitions, because people think freedom is to do what they want, but aside that, is also the power of choosing what you think is better for you.

The meaning of freedom can change in some ways, depending on the person and his religion, culture, lifestyle…

FEAR OF FREEDOM

• When people say they feel fear of freedom means they aren’t able to be independent and they need to be under the command of someone.

When you give someone the power of choosing what they want, having a lot of different choices, they can have or feel fear of freedom. They usually think that the choice they have made isn’t the best option, and they will be less satisfied that if they would only have an option.

QUOTATIONS

Pope John Paul II said: Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.

George Orwell, a British critic, said: Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Robert Green Ingersoll, who was a political leader, said that What light is to the eyes, what air is to the lungs, what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.

This one is not a direct quotation of freedom, but talks about the liberty of the man, so we have thought it is interesting because we can say things indirectly with the same meaning of saying it directly, but causing other reactions to the receptors.

Asa Philip Randolph, who was a leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, said this: Freedom is never given, it is won

We think he said that because being the leader of the Africans rights movement, he fought a lot to gain the equality with the Americans.

George Washington, the first President of the United States, defined liberty with a metaphor: Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher of the Illustration, said that free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.

This was a man who prompted the national sovereignty, so he was always advising people to take the right decision because they were going to be the ones with the political power.

(Ane E. and Maitane)

What is freedom?

Freedom is the right and capacity of people to determine their own actions,             in a community.

What is freedom for you?

Here to understand what freedom is for the people we have chosen a video in which each person says what freedom is for them.

Is our society free nowadays?

In the place where we live, Spain, there is freedom but this is not so in other countries.

For example;  in Arabia they aren´t free because their religion doesn´t accept it.

Some rules of Arabian religion for girls are:

women, when they get married, lose their rights and their surname disappears.

They have to wear a burka, because they are girls and is their obligation. In contrast, the men don’t have to wear this clothes.

They can´t study, they should stay at home.

Now, we are going to talk about the clothes in general that girls wear:

Niqab: This covers all the face except the eyes.

Hijab: This covers the hair and neck.

Burka: This covers all the body and it has like a window to see.

Chador: This clothes is weared by the married women. It covers the body except the face.

Dupatta: It covers the hair and the shoulders.

Finally to support these ideas we have looked for a piece of news which gives an example of exploitation of workers. They work long hours  and they don't earn much money. So the exploited workers have put in the labels of the clothes that they have made a message of auxilios , to people know what is happening in Primark factories.