Philosophy of Relationship
Florentino T. Timbreza, Ph.D.
De La Salle University
Christ the King Mission Seminary
Introduction
One perceptive writer once said: “If you want to be cured of your illness, consult a medical doctor; if you want to unburden yourself, be enlightened and be relieved of your personal problem, seek the help of a guidance counselor; but, if you want to get more confused and disturbed about the nature of life, talk to a philosopher.”
This anecdote immediately came to mind when Fr. Bernard asked me to give the Keynote Speech in this Convention of distinguished and respectable counselors of the Philippines. My instant reaction then, of course, was: “Father, why me, what would you expect a philosopher to tell our well-trained and seasoned counselors? It should be the other way around; the counselor should instead give the counsel and guidance to the philosopher, insofar as it’s he who is more confused and perplexed about life.”
Fr. Bernard has assured me, however, that it would be all right because counselors, professionally trained as such, are very interested to find out the reasons why philosophers are intellectually confused and disturbed. He told me to share my thoughts on relationships from a philosophical-sociological perspective.
And so, being a very obliging penitent, I have accepted Fr. Bernard’s invitation as penance for whatever acts of omission I may have had in my conjugal relationship:
I do hope I will measure up to your expectations and that, after my discourse, all of us will be enlightened rather than be more confused and disturbed about the topic.
We shall deal with the philosophy of relationship in the following order: (1) the nature of relationship – wherein its value in all life situations will be pointed out; (2) morality in relationship – where it shall be stressed that without morality, no social unit or human relationship can long endure; (3) ethical principles – where it will be shown that the necessity and observance of ethical precepts (be they written or unwritten) will guarantee a lifelong relationship; and (4) the conclusion – where we shall draw relevant implications of our discourse to the theme of this seminar.
Nature of Relationship
Everyone to begin with, is conceived within a relationship and born out of a relationship – a human relationship, particularly the relationship between husband and wife, between male and female. It goes without saying then that relationship begins in conception, insofar as no one can ever exist without conjugal relationship. And following conception, one is born again out of a marital relationship.
(The exception, of course, is the case of a test tube baby that is fertilized in vitro without the benefit of orgasm, hence, strictly speaking, outside of any form of relationship.)
Then at birth a ramification of various relationships will begin: a newborn baby is a child in relation to its parents and vice versa: a boy is a brother in relation to his sister or a brother and vice-versa; a daughter is a cousin in relation to her uncle’s or auntie’s children and vice versa; one is a playmate in relation to other players, a classmate in relation to other pupils or students, a co-worker in relation to fellow workers, a girlfriend in relation to a boyfriend.
Then the cycle of relationship begins anew: a male is a bridegroom in relation to his bride; a wife in relation to her husband, a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law in relation to their parents-in-law, and so forth and so on.
This fact alone confirms that in everything we are, there is contained a relationship to our fellowmen, and this relationship can nowhere be thought away from life. A college instructor or university professor who delivers his lectures, a student who recites in class, an employee who works in an office, a mother who prepares the meal for her family, a husband or wife who attends to the psychological needs of his/her spouse, a jeepney or bus driver who drives his passengers to their destinations, a physician who treats his patient, and a priest who offers the spiritual needs of his parishioners – are all doing things for others, and for this reason their activity is essentially relational.
We, therefore, call “relational” everything that is concerned with fellowship, the togetherness of human beings. And the invitation to this relational, reciprocal engagement of personalities happens more readily between parents and their children, between teachers and students, between teachers among teachers themselves, between lawyers and their clients, between doctors and nurses, between physicians and patients, between employers and employees, between two friends, and even between counselors and their clients.
The foregoing fact of relational existence means that human life is not the possession of an individual taken by and for himself. Man is not just a collection of separate individuals that come together in accidental groupings in order to satisfy their common needs: money, fame, education, or perhaps, popularity or social recognition.
Man is essentially a community, “a community of persons in relation,” and he exists meaningfully only insofar as genuine community or togetherness is not a dream but a concrete reality. He is essentially with others, and he can become truly himself only if he recognizes that others also exist and allows their existence to influence his life and actions. Man, in short, is being-with-others.
In other words, life, society, and the world relate us existentially to one another. We are living a shared life in a shared society within a shared world. In this dimension of a common life in a common world, we realize that human life is more meaningful and worth living only in the presence of others, with the help of others, in communion with others, and for the benefit of others. Furthermore, over and above all this, being with others is the focal point of human values. We enter into the human realm of values through our interaction with our fellowmen. Through this encounter the world becomes meaningful and accessible to us. If only for this reason, togetherness or being-with-others is a conditio sine qua non for any form of a genuinely human life, for life becomes more fully human only in the presence of others.
It is through others that the world becomes intelligible to us. Thus, we need other people not only because we all find access to the constituted world of values through our encounter with them, but also especially because the encounter with others is a value in itself, that is, a polarizing point of our world of values.
For instance, we do not only need the services of others but we need these others themselves. This is precisely because we are first and foremost one another’s fulfillment in life. Without the other, another person who takes account of me and for whom my free response means a value, I cannot meaningfully live.
The humanist principle of authentic relationship states: “I can be myself only in your presence. But if I need you in order to be myself, you likewise need me. Each of us holds each ‘personhood’ as a gift from the other, so that to betray the other is always to betray oneself.”
Relational existence or being-with-others, then, is the fundamental value of our being truly human, and within this “with-ness” or togetherness all other values can assert themselves. Put differently, within the context of being-together we can unfold new dimensions of human meanings. For instance, man’s triumph in space travel is not the ingenuity of a single individual alone, just as a sophisticated efflorescence of information technology is not the monopoly of only one person.
The teacher or educator believes in his profession but also needs the appreciation of others (in fact, he is who he is relation to his students). A person of authority needs to be affirmed by others in order to be able to believe in himself. And people who find no appreciation at all during their lifetime usually suffer greatly from the neglect of their fellowmen, and their lives often end in tragedies.
This shows that while man seeks many values he can find these values meaningful only in his being-together-with his fellowmen. Shared joy becomes a double joy; shared sorrow and suffering become more bearable through the other’s participation, just as shared responsibility makes itself more interesting and enjoyable.
And life becomes more attractive, worth living, and worth sharing, for a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, when they find each other in mutual love and respect. Their togetherness is not merely another super-added joy but a new light that illuminates all values in the world.
Clearly enough, the richest and highest of everything we find in the world is the other human being. And love as well as sincere regard for each other is the soil in which the other and I can grow. This love for one another however, is never a finished fact; it is always a continuing task of everyone in all relationships as well as in all communities.
And in every community, school community or world community, men are usually situated in a state of trial, suspicion, and alienation. Disunity, indifference, and despair are only too possible. It is precisely in relation to this possible situation of despair, to this temptation of disunity, that we can define love for each other as the act by which this temptation can be actively overcome. In a genuine relationship with our fellowmen, we fill each other’s life with existential meaning and fulfillment. On the other hand, when our relationship degenerates, we regard one another as usable goods. Man will then be reduced to the level of usefulness.
And when we use one another as means and instruments for our own advancements and popularity, we reduce ourselves into mere objects and things, rather than responsible persons with human dignity. It is in this context that we can appreciate the value of morality in any given relationship. For without morality no human relationship will last long.
Morality and Relationship
Being gifted with the power of reason, man alone has sense of right and wrong; hence, only man has morality. Morality makes a human being act as a human being and its lack of it makes an animal act as an animal. It is in this context that morality is considered as a blessing as well as a curse to an individual; a blessing, insofar as a human being alone is moral and so one ought to behave or act morally; a curse, because if one fails to act morally, one becomes less human and even worse than a beast that has no morality.
This truism must have prompted John Stuart Mill to say: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.” The point here is that a human being has a sense of propriety, which a pig does not have. A fool enjoys being foolish and asinine while a Socrates exalts a decent life that is worth living. The big difference makes a person rational and moral.
Filipinos aptly put it thus: “Madali ang maging tao, pero mahirap ang magpakatao” (“It’s easy to be born a man, but it is hard to be truly human”). For, to become truly human is to be moral, and so a person who loses his morality also loses his humanity.
Now, the immeasurable value of morality finds itself in human relationships, insofar as the human being is a social individual who lives with other individuals. Hence, without morality no social unit or human relationship can ever survive or long endure.
We can better appreciate this point with illustrations. In a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, for instance, the boy as a male relates with the girl as a female. In the family, an individual member lives, eats, plays, and sleeps with the other family members. In the school, an individual is a student who plays, studies, and makes friends with other students. In the state, an individual is a citizen who exists, lives, works, and associates with fellow citizen.
These basic human relationships bring with them certain obligations or duties and rights which are necessary not only to maintain harmonious and well-ordered relations between sweethearts, among the family members, the students, and citizens but also for their own survival.
Such obligations and rights, be they written or unwritten, constitutes morality, a group’s or community’s code of behavior, or in some ways, its system of values by which the members are supposed to behave or ought to treat themselves and relate to one another. This system of values is sometimes referred to as a group morality or ethics, without which the group as such will perish.
A reflection on the aforesaid relationships will reveal the preeminence of morality in every relational situation. The boyfriend ought to respect the girlfriend’s rights and the latter should likewise regard her boyfriend’s rights not only as human beings with dignity and freedom but also as sweethearts along with certain precepts of do’s and don’t’s. It is thus their duty to respect each other’s rights.
Any deliberate infraction of one’s duty to respect the other’s rights in the context of the relationship will definitely destroy the love affair itself; hence, it will just die a natural death, so to speak. On the contrary, the mutual observance of each other’s duties and mutual respect for each other’s rights will be an affirmation of the moral value of the relationship. And it is for this reason alone that the relationship will last.
Likewise, in the family, the father-daughter relationship is characterized by the duty-right correlates, hence a very important moral value to reckon with. It is the father’s moral duty to respect his daughter’s rights not only as a human being, but most of all, as a daughter, the flesh of his flesh and the bone of his bone. In like manner, the daughter is morally obliged to respect her father’s rights as a father. Any violation of this mutual duty to respect one’s one’s own rights between them will give rise to the much-talked-about heinous crime of the day, namely, incestuous rape.
The same holds true for a husband-wife relationship in which both have the mutual obligation to respect each other’s rights in order to preserve a happy, orderly, and lasting family relations. Any breach or violation of one’s duty to the other in the conjugal relationship will cause the loss of one’s trust in, and respect for, the other, thereby resulting in a shattered family or a broken home. (And it is said that the worst failure is family failure and the most painful misfortune is the one that results from a broken home.)
We can also extend this to other relationships, such as employer-employee, teacher-student, priest-parishioner, manager-secretary, doctor-nurse, dentist-client, lawyer-client, and physician-patient relationships. Here the observance and fulfillment of the duty-right correlates is the basis of justice and propriety in the relationship, whereas its violation will result in injustice.
Thus morality is deemed to be necessary and important in every relationship, for unless the respective duties and rights in the relationship are observed, the conduct of service or medical treatment in a physician-patient relationship, for instance, would just be mechanical and perfunctory, and at times, unfair and even inhuman as in the case of medical malpractice.
If only for this reason, moral philosophers or ethicists have conceived of ethical principles, which serve as moral guidelines in our dealings with others. If followed and observed, these precepts would humanize the relational dimension of any given relationships. For our purpose, let us consult two moral philosophers for their wisdom and guidance: Immanuel Kant, a brilliant German thinker and Martin Buber, an equally famous German philosopher of dialogue.
First, we shall reflect on Kant’s Principle of Justice: “Always act so as to treat humanity, either yourself or others, as an end and never as only a means.”
According to Kant, every every individual must be counted as a being of equal value. Bawat tao ay may dignidad. Irrespective of one’s gender, race, creed, social or financial status, no one should be discriminated against. Rationality, in Kant’s view, confers upon every person an intrinsic worth and human dignity. Every human being, therefore, because he/she is a rational creature, has an inherent value and dignity, which is not determined by one’s profession or station in life, upbringing, material possessions, or financial capability.
In this light, to treat others as an end means to respect their rights and regard them as fellow human beings with dignity and freedom (and that makes our act morally good and just). To treat others as a means, on the other hand, is to use them for one’s own personal interest, to degrade them and violate their rights, and to take advantage of their innocence or helplessness (which makes it morally bad and unjust). This, for Kant, is the essence of justice.
Put in the context of a husband-wife relationship, they treat each other as ends whenever they fulfill their duties to each other and respect each other’s rights with love and understanding. Whereas they treat each other as a means whenever their conjugal rights are violated; whenever they are remiss in their connubial duties, and their relationship is tainted with distrust, lying, suspicion, fear, treachery, and betrayal; in which case, they are simply using each other for one’s personal benefits at the expense of an authentic relationship.
All cases in which one acts inhumanly against another person are ways in which others are treated as only a means, hence, for Kant, they are morally wrong. Underpaying and short-changing one’s employees, taking advantage of their ignorance, cheating them in their benefits, not paying their salaries on time, maltreating one’s house maids, executing torture and brutality, and besmirching another person’s reputation for personal gain are all illustrations of using others as a means for our own selfish ends.
We can readily perceive here the risks involved in any given relationship whenever people use each other as only a means rather than as an end. In such a situation, the relationship ceases to be a value in itself; instead, it becomes an instrument for people in relation to use each other for one’s own interest. Inevitably, critical problems will threaten the relationship, which counselors are well aware of.
Martin Buber defines two types of relationships: I-it and I-thou. The “I-it” relationship describes a person’s relationship with things, objects, or an “it”; hence, an “I-it” or man-object, or subject-object relationship. This kind of relationship is determined by our attitude to what is other than ourselves.
For instance, my relationship with my books, computer, car, eyeglasses, shoes, clothes, and other possessions typify the “It-it,” man-thing, or subject-object relationships. Insofar as these things are my possessions or personal properties, I can use, misuse, overuse, and manipulate them the way I want for my own purposes or ends.
The “I-thou” relationship, on the other hand, delineates our relationship with other persons, like ourselves, other “I’s,” thou’s,” or you’s; hence, “I-thou”, or “I-I”, subject–subject, person-person relationships. Insofar as the other person is a fellow human being, a thou, or someone with dignity and a moral quality of his/her own, I cannot manipulate or use him/her without degrading or dehumanizing him/her at the same time. For persons, like myself, are not things or objects, which are usable and “manipulable” or “tamperable” by other persons.
According to Buber, in an “I-thou” relationship, man finds himself an I in relation to another I. For instance, the Thou (or the other I) and I are inseperable. I do realize myself better in my response to the other, a you, i.e., another person. And the world acquires a different and richer meaning for me because of the other I. For only the other’s response makes me be. In and through our being-related-to-each-other, we realize and fulfill ourselves together. We acquire selfhood.
In Filipino thought, we can say
The relationship brings me closer to myself and enriches my whole being. I become better aware of myself, my value or self-esteem, and my responsibility, not only to myself, but to the others as well. We actualize ourselves mutually in the relationship – by being reciprocally related to each other – in such a way that the other is himself (herself) in relation to myself, just as I am myself precisely in relation to him (her).
Now, the husband-wife, physician-patient, teacher-student, parents-children (mother-son, father-daughter), boyfriend-girlfriend, lawyer-client, employer-employee, manager-secretary, priest-parishioner, and friend-friend relationships exemplify an “I-thou” or person-person relationship, inasmuch as both parties in relation are persons, both are “I’s” or human beings. This type of relationship is a moral experience because persons can respond; that is they are responsible. Unlike things or objects, they can say “yes” or “no”, and they can make decisions. In short, they have duties and rights, especially the right to say “yes” or “no” in response to any course of action such as, for instance, the right to self-determination, the right to be themselves, the right to choose to be a “you” rather than an “it” or object.
If and when the duty-right correlates in a given relationship (e.g., husband-wife, or physician-patient, etc.) are not observed, where one does not respect but violates the rights of the other in the context of the relationship, one would just be treating the other as an “it” or a mere “thing”, rather than as an “I” or another fellow human being.
In such a situation, the other loses his/her selfhood or self-esteem and is reduced to the level of things that can be used, misused, and overused for one’s own ends. This, for Buber, is the worst kind of dehumanization or degradation of a fellow human being, which is otherwise known as “man’s inhumanity to man.”
Thus, any act of betrayal, treachery, cheating, dishonesty, infidelity, exploitation, oppression, and sexploitation committed by a person against another in a given relationship best exemplifies Buber’s “I-it” relationship in which the other is treated as an “it” or a “thing” rather than as a person.
It should be clear by now that Buber’s insight finds parallelisms in Kant’s principle of justice. The “I-thou” relationship corresponds to the act of treating the other as an end (as a human being with dignity and freedom), while the “I-it” relationship is essentially related to the act of treating the other as only a means (violating his/her rights and encroaching upon one’s autonomy or self-determination).
We can infer three kinds of relationship from our discourse, wherein we can situate or put into context the twofold ethical principles that we have discussed above, namely: (1) the relationship of utility or benefit; (2) the relationship of pleasure, and (3) the relationship of goodness.
The relationship of utility or profit is one that is based on the personal benefit that one can profit from the relationship. The relationship is used as an instrument of profit, hence the name. And the relationship will last as long as the reason for its being exists; that is, as long as the relationship remains profitable for both parties in relation. In other words, a relationship based on utility or profit is dissolved as soon as the advantage comes to an end, for in it there is no love for the person, but only a love of profit. Parties in this relationship do not delight in one another except to gain something thereby.
The relationship of pleasure, as the term suggests, is the relationship of pleasure-seekers. Likewise, this relationship endures as long as the people in relation derive pleasure from it. The relationship is also taken as a means for one’s ulterior motive. And the parties in relation regard each other as objects of pleasure, and they remain attractive and desirable to each other for as long as one stays as sweet and pleasing to the other.
On the other hand, the relationship of goodness is based on the good intention of good persons for the good of each other in the relationship. Thus, the relationship is regarded as a value in itself in which the parties wish the good of each other for each other’s sake. The relationship is based on virtue or goodness, and as long as the persons’ goodness to each other remains, their relationship will last, insofar as goodness is a permanent quality (unlike profit, power, and pleasure, which are only temporary).
In the context of Kant’s principle of justice, partners in the relationship of profit surreptitiously use each other only as a means rather than as an end. The relationship degenerates to the level of usefulness where they regard each other as usable gadgets, spare parts, or commodities. And when we use one another as means and instruments for our own advancement and popularity, we reduce ourselves into mere things or objects, rather than responsible persons with human dignity.
Likewise, this is what actually happens in an “I-it” relationship, according to Martin Buber, where the parties in both the relationships of profit and of pleasure treat each other as “its”, “objects” and “things” that can be used, abused, misused, and overused for one’s own pleasure and advantage.
We can at once see here the risks and critical issues that undermine a genuine human relationship. If and when persons in relations (husband-wife, boyfriend-girlfriend, parent-child, teacher-student, doctor-patient, boss-secretary, employer-employee, etc) deal with one another as objects or robots, things, or merchandise to be used and abused, to be taken advantage of, degraded, humiliated, and manipulated for one’s own selfish motives, then the relationship becomes inhuman and critical problems will inevitably arise.
This confirms once again the value of morality in relationships. Unless the duty-right correlates are observed, no authentic relationship will last long. For whenever parties in relation no longer respect each other’s rights, then they cease to regard each other as persons and simply become means or instruments for each other’s use and advantage. This is the common cause of the risks and problems of human relationships.
A relationship based on goodness, on the other hand, best illustrates Kant’s concept of justice in which the parties in relation regard each other as ends with all due respect to each other’s rights and dignity as human beings. It also embodies Martin Buber’s concept of an “I-thou” relationship wherein we regard ourselves as fellow humans, respecting each other’s rights and dignity.
In this kind of relationship, we affirm and confirm each other’s presence and individuality by giving recognition to, and regard for, what-we-really-are. We become aware of the value of one to the other. We become fully human, fully ourselves. We enrich our whole being in and through the relationship. We attain mutual self-understanding and self-fulfillment.
Thus a relationship of goodness makes common life in a common world more meaningful, more humane, and more worth living. It makes us realize that human existence is not only an existence through the others, but an existence for one another as well. In short, through a relationship of goodness we discover that “without other human beings we are nothing and life has no meaning at all.”
And so, to the advocates of the relationship of profit, power, and pleasure, let this be said: Wealth and power come and go, and sex weakens over the years and finally vanishes in time. Whereas the sense of self-fulfillment that one derives from a relationship of goodness will last for a lifetime.
To conclude, let me share with you the brilliant words of Martin Buber:
Trust, trust in the world because this human being exists – that is the most inward achievement of the relation in education. Because this human being exists, meaninglessness, however hard pressed you are by it, cannot be the real truth. Because this human being exists, in the darkness, the light lies hidden in fear, salvation, and in the callousness of one’s fellowmen the Great Love.
Manalig ka’t magtiwala sa daigdig sapagkat nariyan ang iyong
kapwa-Filipino – ‘yan ang natatanging katuparan ng pakikipag-ugnayan
sa larangan ng edukasyon. Sapagkat nariyan ang iyong kapwa-Filipino,
kahit naghihikahos ka man, ang kawalang-kabuluhan ng buhay ay hindi
kailanman magiging isang katotohanan. Sapagkat ang iyong kapwa-Filipino, sa lingid ng pusikit na karimlan ay may napipintong liwanag, sa tingib ng pangamba’y may kaligtasan, at sa gitna ng kawalang-pakiramdam ng ibang mga tao maghahari pa rin ang Dakilang Pag-ibig.
Maraming salamat po sa inyong pakikinig, Mabuhay ang mahusay at magaling na pamunuan ng PACERS, Mabuhay tayong lahat! Magandang hapon!
