Introduction to Philosophy

Content:
Freedom of the human person
Content standard:
The learner understands the human persons freedom
Performance standard:
The learner shows situations that demonstrate freedom of choice and the
consequences of choices
Learning competency:
5.1 Realize that all actions have consequences.
Codes:
PPT11/12-IIa-5.1
I.
Specific objectives
1. Distinguish actions to consequences.
2. Realize and notice that the actions of man have consequences.
3. Reflect on the actions and consequences that the characters have done in the
film.
4. Manifest the sense of responsibility towards the action taken place of man.
II.
Content
A. Subject matter: Freedom of the human person
a. Film Viewing: Emperors Club
B. Concepts/ topics: Actions, consequences and responsibilities, Freedom and
the Dignity of the Human Person
C. Reference: 2014 Opus Angelorum, Inc.
Opus Sanctorum Angelorum 164 Apollo Rd. SE Carrollton, OH
D. Materials: LCD, Laptop, White board, Marker, Pictures
III.
Teaching Methodologies
a. Preparatory activities (prayer, checking of attendance)
b. Review
c. Motivation/ Activity
Processing of the film Emperors Club
Analysis
Guide questions:
1. Who are the main characters of the film?
2. Describe each role.
3. What is the story all about?
4. Does the film make sense or appeal to you?
5. What is the meaning of the picture to you?

6. What learnings you acquire from the film?

7. Was the film gives meaning to humans actions and consequences? Why?
Abstraction:
The teacher will discuss this freedom, truth, interior freedom like actions and
consequences
Freedom and Truth
But is this freedom? Is this total independence from God and ethics and law the fount
of human happiness? Does this contribute to the dignity of man and his ultimate
fulfillment? Pope John Paul II stated, "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in
having the right to do what we ought." Man's right to freedom, and first of all, to freedom
of religion and conscience, is based on truth, the truth about God and the truth about
man. Man was created by God and was made for God. He is by very nature free
because he is a spiritual being, endowed by his Creator with intellect and free will. He
has a spiritual, transcendent vocation to enter into an eternal friendship with God.
Created in the image and likeness of God, he was set above the animals in that he has
the capacity to freely choose to serve his Lord and God, and enter into communion of
love with Him. Hence, his freedom does not come from the Statenor can it be taken
away by the State. It comes to him as a human person created in the image of God. As
St. Augustine discovered after having abused his human freedom for many years, man's
very happiness consists in obeying God and the natural law in his heart, his conscience.
"Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in
Thee" (Confessions, I, 1). We are only truly free when we are free to make decisions
that orientate our lives towards fulfilling God's will, directing all our actions towards our
true destiny in life, eternal happiness with God.
But from the beginning man has turned away and sought independence from the law
of God. The tempter seduced him with a longing for "freedom": "No, you will not die [if
you disobey God], but you will be like God", determining for yourself what is good and
evil! Relativism. Our will has been enslaved so that it no longer can pursue the good
and the true, but wants only to seek and gratify the "self" with all the deceptive and
ethereal goods of this world. Since the first fall, all sin and disobedience and infidelity
have been rooted in this lure of "freedom", to be a god to oneself. He stole from us the
freedom of the sons of God and made us slaves, first to sin and ultimately to himself.

God, on the other hand, does not seek slaves, but sons who cling to Him freely out of
love
Interior freedom and joyful obedience out of love
Some might object, if we have to obey rules or laws, even if it is God's law, we are not
free. We are slaves. But is a woman a slave of her husband for serving him and doing
all sorts of things for him, conforming herself to his will out of love, or vice versa? No,
where there is love, there is freedom, there is mutual self-giving and service. In the
same way, it is our privilege to serve God as beloved children. This great and infinite
God has taken us as sons! We want to do His will out of love and find our joy and
happiness in doing His will, in giving ourselves to Him out of love.
We have been created by God and are ordered to God. Our happiness can therefore
only be found in walking towards God and being united with Him. The Son of God also
became "obedient, and obedient unto death, death on a Cross" out of love for the
Father. Through this same Cross, Jesus freed us from slavery to sin and self and the
devil. He freed our will from this servitude in which we find neither peace nor lasting
happiness, that we might run with joy to meet our Father. After every good, deep and
sincere Confession, we feel the joy of this renewed freedom from sin, and in our
gratitude, we want nothing other than to do the will of God, to remain one with Him. This
is not subservience or slavery, but the fulfillment of our inmost longing and of the
deepest desire rooted in our very being: the desire for union with God.

Application
What actions and consequences that you have done in your life that impedes
your freedom? How did you go about that actions and consequences?
Assessment/ Evaluation
In your understanding on the lesson, how do you define freedom, actions,
consequences and responsibilities? Cite examples in your life that you have
experienced freedom and consequences of your actions.
Assignment
Read the next lesson and prepare for the graded recitation next meeting.
List down the freedom that human exercised or obtained

Prepared by
MARK ANTHONY F. CATUBAY
Batangas City
THE EMPERORS CLUB (2002)
PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES: Moral virtue, Machiavellian ethics
CHARACTERS: William Hundert (Kevin Kline; classics teacher), Sedgewick Bell
(disruptive student), Senator Bell (Sedgewicks father), Elizabeth (married teacher),
James Ellerby (student in competition), Deepak Mehta (student in competition), Martin
Blythe (student bumped out of competition)
OTHER FILMS BY DIRECTOR MICHAEL HOFFMAN: Soapdish (1991), Restoration
(1995), One Fine Day (1996), A Midsummer Nights Dream (1999)
SYNOPSIS: The Emperors Club is based on the short story "The Palace Thief" by
Ethan Canin. Set in the 1970s, William Hundert is a classics teacher at St. Benedictus
School for Boys, and he uses his subject matter as a means for instilling moral
character on his students. His class becomes disrupted by a new student, Sedgewick
Bell, son of an influential U.S. Senator, who lures other students into breaking school
rules. William sees Sedgewicks potential, but swayed by Sedgewicks charisma, he
bends the rules to allow him to compete in the Mr. Julius Caesar contest a trivia
game of the Roman world. William sees Sedgewick cheating; he doesnt expose him,
but thwarts his victory. Twenty years later, Sedgewick is a business tycoon and offers to
make a sizeable donation to Benedictus School if William hosts a rematch of the Mr.
Julius Caesar contest, with the original contestants. Once again William sees
Sedgewick cheating and thwarts his victory. Deleted scenes from the film portray
William as more morally ambiguous and Sedgewick as more Machiavellian; Sedgewick
also succeeds in his run for the Senate.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 1. William states However much we stumble, it is a
teachers burden to always hope that with learning a boys character might be changed,
and so the destiny of a man. In a documentary on the film, Roberta Ann Johnson
(author of Whistleblowing: When it Works and Why) states the following: This film
asks us to examine the classroom as a very important piece of American society, one
that might affect the future Enrons, and the future Worldcoms. This asks us to look at
the classroom as a place where character is built. In the same documentary, director
Michael Hoffman states, Theres been initiated a kind of national debate about ethics,
how we teach them, if teaching them is even possible. How do we mold someones
character? Is it too late for classes to build moral character at either the high school or
college level? If not, how might character-building best be incorporated into the

classroom

experience?

2. The film stresses the importance of classics in teaching virtues. Speaking with
Senator Bell, William states The Greeks and the Romans provided a model of
democracy which, I dont need to tell you, the framers of our own constitution used as
their inspiration. But more to the point, when the boys read Plato, Aristotle, Cicero,
Julius Caesar even, theyre put in direct contact with men who in their own age
exemplified the highest standards of statesmanship, of civic virtue, character,
conviction. In a documentary on the film, Roberta Ann Johnson states The William
Hunderts of the world remind us of the core values of ancient Greece and Rome,
remind us of virtue and civic responsibility. They remind us of that in the classroom, and
that alone makes them worth knowing and worth having in society. We dont teach the
classics much in high schools or colleges. Have we lost an important tool for teaching
virtue?
3. William quotes Aristophanes: Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be
educated, drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever. Does any of this seem
correct?
4. The movie highlights several virtues, including courage, discipline, honesty, justice.
What
does
William
do
to
teach
these
virtues?
5. One theme in virtue theory concerns whether there some virtues are more important
than the others, and might even underpin all virtuous conduct. Does any particular virtue
hold
this
place
in
the
movies?
6. William is a morally flawed character himself, who, lured by Sedgewicks charisma,
bends the rules to help Sedgewick. As Ethan Canin states it in a documentary on the
film, William is a moralist in the story who makes a slip, and one slip leads to the next
and it is a slippery slope. What feature of Williams character set him on this course?
7. What techniques does William use when attempting to mold Sedgewicks character?
8. In the directors commentary, Michael Hoffman states that William lacked a
pragmatist gift for dealing with reality and was completely naive in the ways of
realpolitik.
Is
that
a
character
flaw
in
William?
9. William and his married colleague Elizabeth are romantically attracted to each other
(the original short story does not have this component). In a scene deleted from the film,
William and Elizabeth are cradling each other on Williams porch swing, suggesting that
theyre having an affair. In the final version of the film, the extent of their relationship is
ambiguous. If the scene was left it, would this have made William a bad man on balance

and
even
a
hypocrite?
10. The school Headmaster encourages William to ignore the fact that Sedgewick was
cheating largely because of the financial benefit that the school receives through

Sedgewicks father. As one of the actors states it in a documentary on the film, A

practical decision might not appear to be the best choice from an ethics perspective, but
may be necessary. Theres realpolitik and then theres romantic politics. Was the
Headmaster
correct
in
letting
the
issue
go?
11. William states that we cant really know who we are if we dont know what happened
before we were born. This parallels the view of virtue theorist Alasdair MacIntyre who
argued that virtues arise within the contexts of specific social traditions. The KKK is
steeped in tradition, but clearly is one which teaches the worst vices, not virtues. Which
histories or traditions might best foster virtues in our present society?
12. The film explores a tension between traditional moral virtues and Machiavellian
ethics (i.e., compromising moral convictions for some overriding interest). At the close of
the film William confronts the grown Sedgewick: All of us, at some point, are forced to
look at ourselves in the mirror and see who we really are. When that day comes for you,
Sedgewick, you will be confronted with a life lived without virtue, with principle, and for
that I pity you. Sedgewick responds: Who out there gives a s**t about your principles
and your virtues? I mean, look at you. What do you have to show for yourself? I live in
the real world where people do what they need to do to get what they want. If its lying
and if its cheating, then so be it. As producer Andrew Karsch states the conflict in a
documentary on the film, Do we want to live a good life, and examined life, or do we
want to be successful at any cost? Does the film resolve this tension?
13. The moral indiscretions in the film seem comparatively minor Hardwick bending
the rules to help Sedgewick , and Sedgewick cheating in a competition. The filmmakers,
though, construe these as life-defining character traits. Is this an overreaction?