Introduction to

Philosophy of the
Human Person
Quarter 2 – Module 3:
Human Person and Society

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 What I Need to Know

Men -- by their nature – are political animals. This ancient saying of Aristotle has never lose its appeal. Perhaps the reason is that despite
the long course it traversed in the history, it still capsulizes one of the essential elements of human nature – human’s endowed innateness to
gather themselves and create a community where they share their commonalities and fix differences.

In this module, learners will understand how individuals form societies and, in turn, how does society transform them. Importantly, learners will
be able to explain how human relations are transformed by social systems.

This module was designed and written with you in mind. It is here to help you master the different philosophical concepts of about human
freedom, and thereafter examine the its relationship with responsibility. The scope of this module permits it to be used in many different learning
situations. The language used recognizes the diverse vocabulary level of students. The lessons are arranged to follow the standard sequence of
the course. But the order in which you read them can be changed to correspond with the textbook you are now using.

After going through this module, you are expected to:

1. identify the different types of society;

2. differentiate their qualities;
3. explain digital society and digital citizenship;
4. identify the effects of being a member of digital society.

What I Know
Learning Task No 1. Before delving into the discussion, learners must fill out the table below about the things they have learned from
society and their contributions to it:

What’s In

Learning Task 1: Essay. Read the following situations below and answer the questions thereafter. In answering the questions try to appreciate
the situations using the social norms you remember.

Situation Number 1: A Very good friend of yours visits you and your family in your house. Your mother who was
delighted by her presence cooks her best dish for your friend. Your friend loved the whole lunch that she kept
complementing your mother for being such a good cook. At the end of her visit, she expresses her gratitude to the
whole family. Before she leaves, she approaches your mother and asks, “how much do I pay you for the lunch you
cooked for me? (Ariely, 2010)

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 Situation Number 2: You are going through a very rough time. You feel so down that you need some one to talk to, you send a text
message to your friend asking her if she could come over to make you feel better. Your friend gives you a call then tells you she will
be there in 20 minutes. You are so happy to see her; you gave her a big hug and then pour your heart out. After crying to her for 30
minutes, she gives comforting piece of advice. You finally say that you feel so much better. Your friend then says, “That’s g ood to
know, now that we’re done, could we settle my expenses for this – 20 pesos for the phone call, 35 pesos for the tricycle ride going
here, 20 pesos for the tissue paper your drew from my pocket and 500 pesos for the time I lost to working productivity because I
had to come here. Thanks!”

Questions:

1. Is there something wrong with the friend’s response to your mother’s hospitality?
2. Is there something problematic about your friend asking for payment for her loving presence?
3. What makes these two reactions awkward for you?
4. By making a reference to the society where you belong, what is your initial response upon reading the situations?

What’s New
Learning Task 3: Picture Analysis: Learners must analyze the pictures below by answering the questions following each of them. In this
instance, learners must presume the prevailing thinking and even priorities during those times and guess what makes them transformed.

What is It

a. Pre-Industrial Societies
a.Tribal Society - the term “tribe” denotes a group of peoples living in a primitive setting under a leader or chief. The term
‘tribal society’ associates it to other meaning such as “primitive society” or “preliterate society.” The word ‘tribe’ has become
an important technical term which pertains to a political unit in a certain territory. The term’s use is rooted from Latin
which is associated to the political divisions or orders of the Roman empire. Tribal societies are small in scale; bound to
their spatial and temporal range of relations in terms of society, law, and politics; and possess a moral code, cult, and
wide range of belief system. The language systems of tribes are unwritten which provides a narrow extent of
communication. At the same time, tribal societies show a self-sustaining structure which is absent in the modern society.
This is achieved by the close connections that exist between tribal organizations, and by the focusing of a leader or person
to multiple roles. Unity and coherence exist in tribal values that are closely related to social groups and are provided with
an intensity characteristic of all “closed” systems of thought.
b.Feudal Society - Feudalism refers to the economic, political, and social system that prevailed in Europe from about the
ninth to the fifteenth century. Due to the lack of effective centralized government during this period, kings and lords
granted land and provided protection to lesser nobles known as vassals. In return, these vassals swore oaths of loyalty
and military service to their lords. Peasants known as serfs were bound to the land and were subject to the will of their
lords. One social class system or economic form was not realized for Europe over the whole Middle Ages. A new economy
after medieval period known as capitalism is still in progress. Medieval world is known for its traditional land economy
and military service, and an urban society. These led to a feudal-based social-class system and trade & commerce based
on money or capital. For the urban or town environment, merchants, artisans, and customers formed the core of the
society. They saw manufacture as the most important business to produce goods for sale and buy in the local market
economy. Local products was to have an impact in other areas, such as regional fairs, port cities, and far trade destinations.

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 b. Industrial society is the one which uses advance technology to drive a masssive production industry that will support
a large population. For example, the United States is an industrial society because a huge portion of its economy is tied
to jobs that involve machine work, like factory farming or auto-assembly plants, that has a combination of machine and
human employees to produce goods. The objective of an industrial economy is the fast and efficient manufacturing of
standardized products. The same goes if one avails a car, there is a chance that the car was mass produced because it
operates similarly to other models, and its parts can be replaced with other parts because they are identical.
c. Post Industrial Society - is marked by a progress from a manufacturing-based to a service-based economy. Post
industrialization is most evident in countries and regions that were among the first to experience the Industrial Revolution,
such as the United States, western Europe, and Japan. Daniel Bell, an American sociologist, first coined the term ‘post-
industrial’ in 1973 in his book “The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting,” which describes
several features of this kind of society. Post-industrial societies are characterized by:
a. a shift from the production of goods to the production of services;
b. the replacement of manual laborers with technical and professional workers (computer engineers, doctors, and
bankers) as the direct production of goods is moved elsewhere;
c. the replacement of practical knowledge with theoretical knowledge;
d. focusing to the theoretical and ethical implications of new technologies, which helps society avoid some of the
negative features of introducing new technologies, concerning environment and energy;
e. the development of recent scientific disciplines—that involve new forms of information technology, cybernetics,
or artificial intelligence—to evaluate the theoretical and ethical implications of new technologies;
f.
an emphasis on the university and polytechnic institutes which produce graduates who innovate and lead the
new technologies contributing to a postindustrial society; and
g. the changing values and norms which reflects the influences on the society. In an instance, outsourcing of
manufactured goods changes how members of a society see and treat foreigners and immigrants. Also, those
individuals previously occupied in the manufacturing sector find themselves with no clearly defined social role.
DIGITAL SOCIETY AND THE INFORMATION AGE

Digital technologies have wildly affected our interactions and activity in the 21 st century. They have significantly changed our way of
learning, working and socializing. In this modern world we rely with the use of modern technology which has led to considering the possible
outcome for the society, concerning how we would take part in interaction, and how we can use these digital tools and communication channels.

Having our heads of digital society in our minds, we first have to think of the information society; which are correlated with the progress
and development of digital information and communication technologies to the internet at least. Information society plays a vital role with regards
to the circulation and control of made-up ideas which affects political, economic, social and cultural aspects. So, what does this mean for the
everyday citizen?

These informative societies have paved many opportunities reaching bigger audiences like never before. With a wider scale of the world’s
demography, primarily Westerners, have access to sources and technologies which enables them to connect with enough activities whether
economic, social, political, or educational. We can manipulate the phasing of learning (e.g. free sources) or businesses (e.g. online selling) without
a large sum of money used as a capital and we can share our ideas and perspectives to the international audiences as we connect beyond.

What do we mean by digital citizenship?

Now, one of the main terms in the modern world is the ‘digital citizen’. What does this actually mean? A digital citizen is a person who
is knowledgeable and responsible enough to effectively use different social platforms in the internet. They often engage in useful topics and issues
that will help build a better society, politics and government. If we will dig deeper, digital citizenship might look simple. We might think that it is
just about using the internet safely. However, we also need to consider and understand that this citizenship can get complicated, especially if we
are going to criticize and show interest in sensitive topics as we start to become a digital citizen, using digital media to actively participate in
society and politics.

If we look a little closer at the field of ‘citizenship studies’ this will lead us to a better understanding of what digital society really means.
A citizen is defined as an individual character who is viewed as a member of a society while citizenship considers an individual’s behavior in
terms of rights, obligations and functions of said citizen. Being a citizen of a state requires tons of obligations and duties such as work, taxation
and obedience of laws. On the other hand, citizens also have their rights, it includes civil rights such as freedom of speech and expression, to
stand for what we believe in, and rights to a private life; political rights, or the right to vote and social rights to health care and welfare. In this
course we will tackle these rights as we look at real definition of what it means to be a citizen in the modern society and how legislation and the
government shape our ability to be democratic citizens who can stand for the truth.

What does this all mean then in the digital age?

We have said that being a digital citizen requires active participation online, not just access and use. In their book “Being Digital
Citizens” (2015) Isin and Ruppert suggest that if we constitute ourselves as digital citizens, we have become subjects of power in cyberspace. We
are enacting ourselves on the internet, considering and understanding the opportunities presented by this medium, such as anonymity,
communication, and influence. In short, we can use digital technologies to engage and participate on many levels in society and political life.

The virtual society and the technological devices today are starting to reshape the human person and human interactions and
relationships. More and more interactions are done in the virtual world than in the actual world. People are more thrilled to see their virtual
selves than their actual selves. They are more themselves online than offline. And this leads one to ask, “Who am I?” in a more complex manner.
People seem to start manipulating personalities as they exhibit different behaviors in different worlds. People fall in love in virtual worlds. Someone
breaks up with a partner through a text message. Human relations seem to start losing an important element in living – commitment. Virtual
worlds and disembodied relations lack commitment. We can always step back and retreat in a virtual world. We can always create a new self
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when our avatars die or when it has become undesirable. We can always ignore message. Virtual realities remove risks; and because we do not
want to risk, we patronize the virtual world. Commitment is hard. To commit is to risk. In the virtual world, one’s anonymity lessens, if not
completely removes risks. When we are confronted with real social problems like war and famine, discrimination harassment and corruption; we
let the world know that we condemn these evils and express participation in the abolition of these problems. How? By a futile click to like. People
in the modern technological society ultimately make no real commitments

THE DISEMBODIED SUBJECT

The dissatisfaction and frustration of the human person with bodily limitations drive the person to prefer a disembodied human relation.
At the outset, it must be clarified that the term disembodied subject does not mean that in the technological society, human persons are no
longer living with their bodies. However, in a manner of speaking, people are slowly putting aside their bodies in relating with others because the
technological society offers an alternative which apparently resolves human of an embodied subject. Faceto-face interaction is too stressful and
difficult while virtual interactions are relatively easier. Consequently, we find many cases where people prefer communicating using virtual world,
even if the person involved is someone seen on a regular basis. Moreover, the disembodied interaction among people is aggravated by modern
technological devices. The different gadgets that are produced today support disembodied human relations. The scene which the technological
society creates is very familiar to us: we see a family, or friends, gathered around a table or in a room, but with very minimal actual embodied
human interaction. Everyone is glued to their devices – cellphones, tablets, laptops, or any device and they are all probably interacting with their
virtual societies. One is busy with other things other than the persons within the room or in the closest proximity. The kind of human interaction,
which was still present just two decades ago, is obviously altered now. And however much we try and remind ourselves to refrain from being
alone with our devices while being with others, we always fall back into interacting with our gadgets. We prefer to interact with our phones with
the unfinished game that we are playing, with the new music and movies we downloaded, or with our friends who are probably in the situation
– with other people as well, but alone with their devices too. Interacting with actual embodied subjects, face-to-face, is becoming more and more
difficult today. It is indeed more difficult to relate to other embodied subjects than to relate with things.

The practice of selfie is another move towards disembodied human relations. People used to approach other people to take their photos.
But the regained popularity of selfie gave people the idea that they do not need the other to take photos. And the invention of the monopod
aggravates the condition. The monopod allows us to take group selfies without missing a member of our group. It has solidified the person to
take our photos. Maybe we will just disturb the person by asking him to take our photo. But maybe we are more afraid of being rejected than by
the idea of bothering the other.

The virtual society and the technological devices today are starting to reshape the human person and human interactions and
relationships. More and more interactions are done in the virtual world than in the actual world. People are more thrilled to see their virtual
selves than their actual selves. They are more themselves online than offline. And this leads one to ask, “Who am I?”
in a more complex manner. People seem to start manipulating personalities as they exhibit different behaviors in different worlds. People fall in
love in virtual worlds. Someone breaks up with a partner through a text message. Human relations seem to start losing an important element in
living – commitment. Virtual worlds and disembodied relations lack commitment. We can always step back and retreat in a virtual world. We
can always create a new self when our avatars die or when it has become undesirable. We can always ignore message. Virtual realities remove
risks; and because we do not want to risk, we patronize the virtual world. Commitment is hard. To commit is to risk. In the virtual world, one’s
anonymity lessens, if not completely removes risks. When we are confronted with real social problems like war and famine, discrimination
harassment and corruption; we let the world know that we condemn these evils and express participation in the abolition of these problems.
How? By a futile click to like. People in the modern technological society ultimately make no real commitments. (Introduction to Philosophy of the
Human Person: Senior High School. (2020) Quezon City: Vibal Group Inc.)

What’s More

Learning Task 4: Using an overlapping Venn diagram, learners must analyze all the differences and similarities of the 3 major historic
societies. Use the rubrics as guide for answering.

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 What I Have Learned
Learning Task 5: After reading the concept of digital society and digital citizenship, learners must answer the following questions below:
1. What are the distinct features of digital society which make it significantly different from the previous societies?
_________________________________________________________________
2. In your own understanding, how does digital society form?
_________________________________________________________________
3. Do you think, what are the things digital society can offer compared to the previous type of society?
_________________________________________________________________
4. How post-industrial society and digital society connected to each other?
_________________________________________________________________
5. What are the possible positive and negative effects of being citizen of digital society?
_________________________________________________________________
What I Can Do

Learning Task No. 6: Essay.

1. Compare and contrast our time to the 70s and 80s in terms of the following:
a. What are the advantages and disadvantages of living in a postindustrial/technological society?
b. What are the advantages and disadvantages of living in BEFORE post-industrial/technological society?
c. What are the differences of social relationships between those living 70s-80s and to our contemporary era?
d. Concept of love and friendship

2. Is it better to go back to the tribal and feudalistic forms of society where the sense of community is stronger? Explain your
answer.
3. Applying everything you learned about digital society and citizenship as well as with the disembodied subject, do you think
an examined life can be compatible with these societies?

Assessment

True or False. Write the word True if the statement is correct and write the word False if the statement conveys otherwise.
Write your answer on a separate sheet of paper.

1. Human societies remain the same.

2. Tribal societies have an established property right.
3. Post-industrial societies focus on development of mass production.
4. Virtual society relatively provides a new world for us.
5. The virtual society and the technological devices today are starting to reshape the human person and human interactions and
relationships.
6. Virtual worlds and disembodied relations promote commitment.
7. One of the features of industrial society is that it emphasizes on the importance of universities and polytechnic institutes
which produce graduates who innovate and lead the new technologies contributing to a postindustrial society.
8. Feudal society has its historical roots from Asia Minor.
9. The language systems of tribes are well-written which provides a vast extent of communication.
10. Human society continuously develop as humans develops themselves.

Additional Activities
Learning Task No. 8: Reflection. Write a short essay on how social contexts surrounding a person can contribute to his or her
upbringing, beliefs and overall quality of life. Take sample from your personal experience.