IB Philosophy 1.6 Freedom Key Definitions

Authenticity is the quality of living in accordance with one’s own genuine self, values, and commitments rather than conforming to external pressures, social conventions, or the expectations of others. In existentialist philosophy (Heidegger, Sartre, Kierkegaard), authenticity involves confronting the anxiety of radical freedom and taking full responsibility for one’s choices and identity.

Compatibilism is the philosophical position that determinism and free will are compatible. Free will, on this view, requires not the ability to have done otherwise in a strict causal sense, but the ability to act in accordance with one's own reasons and rational deliberation, unimpeded by external constraint.

Determinism is the thesis that every event in the universe is necessitated by prior causes together with the laws of nature, so that given the complete state of the world at any moment, every subsequent state is uniquely determined.

Existential angst (also called anguish or anxiety) is a profound feeling of dread that arises from awareness of one's own radical freedom, the absence of a predetermined essence, and the inescapable responsibility for creating oneself through one's choices.

a philosophical movement associated with Sartre and de Beauvoir holding that human existence precedes essence, meaning individuals are radically free to define themselves through their choices and actions. Fanon engages critically with existentialism, arguing that racial categorization imposed by colonialism constrains the colonized person's freedom in ways that abstract existentialist frameworks fail to capture.

Incompatibilism holds that free will and causal determinism cannot both be true, so that if every event is necessitated by prior causes then no one ever genuinely could have acted otherwise. The position encompasses both hard determinism, which accepts determinism and denies free will, and libertarian free will, which preserves agency by denying that the physical world is fully determined.

Libertarian free will (in the metaphysical sense, not the political sense) is the view that human beings possess a genuine capacity to choose between alternatives, that at least some actions are not determined by prior causes, and that this indeterminacy is essential for genuine moral responsibility.

Social conditioning is the process by which social structures, institutions, and power relations shape an individual's beliefs, desires, and sense of identity, often without the individual's conscious awareness or consent.

Socialization is the broader process by which individuals learn and internalize the values, norms, and practices of their society, enabling them to function as members of a social group. Socialization can be empowering or constraining depending on its content and context.

For Taylor, soft relativism is the widespread modern belief that each person's values and choices are equally valid simply because they are freely chosen, making it illegitimate to criticize another person's lifestyle or moral commitments on any substantive grounds.