Philosophy

Essay by thea_jaraCollege, UndergraduateA+, March 2014

download word file, 9 pages 0.0

I have always looked at human labor from an economic point of view and that is Humans work to make profit. After reading and analyzing the paper written by Mr. Manuel Dy about the Philosophical Implications of Labor, I've realized that humans work not merely to make profit but it is more than that. His discussion is in line with what Pope John Paul II said in his encyclical Laborem Exercens: "The sources of the dignity of work are to be sought primarily in the subjective dimensions, not in the objective one." He enumerated and discussed about the historical value of work. As we all know during the primitive times, man values the gods and would always want to appease with them that is why Primitive man works to keep himself alive but more than that he works in order to offer sacrifices to the gods and works as part of sacred nature.

As for the Greeks they look down upon work and for them the true man is the free man, free from the servitude of nature. They look upon work as fitting only for the slaves and the animals probably because Greece as an ancient Empire was built upon a slave economy. While the "theocentric" world-view of the Middle Ages made Medieval man look at work in the light of God's creation and for them work is an imitation of God, a participation in His creative act. For them work is a noble duty insofar as it reflects man as a creature of God and a member of the Christian community. God had created this world and man is the caretaker of His creation. Whereas St. Thomas regards work as good for man because it cultivates the virtue of the industriousness, controlling his unruly passions and overcoming...