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Humans and Transcendence

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Viktor Frankl wrote, “Dostoevsky said once, ‘There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.’ These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behaviors in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be los. It is this spiritual freedom-which cannot be taken away-that makes life meaningful and purposeful” (Frankl 33). When we ask, “What does it mean to be human?” We are tossed into an historical discourse that takes the faculty of reason and the endless search for happiness as points of departure for defining a human being. Philosophers including Aristotle, Kant, and Nietzsche each addressed these questions, and despite their specific differences seemed to arrive at a similar conclusion: that the definition of humanness involves the will to reason. Viktor Frankl seems to meld these various propositions into an internal expression based on internal and conscientious freedom. For Frankl, spiritual freedom itself defines a meaningful life. This includes the ability to find solace in the remembrance of the past within the presence of ungodly conditions, and an undying belief in the power of love. Yet for the purposes of this paper, a human is defined by the ability to will individual happiness through the avenue of reason, in whatever way it manifests for each person based on their moral values. In Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant formulates that individual freedom can be attained through moral law which is given over to humans a priori through reason. Acting in accordance with the supreme moral principle is freeing because it releases individuals from the causes of emotion which are not predicated on free will. By engaging with and celebrating Kant’s concept of ought-ness, freedom is illuminated in every instance. For our lives are not determined by individual or momentary external circumstances,

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