Formation of the philosophy of the volunteer movement as a theoretical basis for a special understanding of freedom

Abstract

Freedom appears as the good will and free choice of a citizen when he reveals himself as a volunteer. In addition, volunteering is always aimed at the common good and is an important and responsible work, despite the fact that it cannot be forced. It is time to understand that volunteering is not dedicated to secondary or secondary social affairs, such as caring for sick street animals or environmental movements, but concerns the very meaning of social life as a sincere desire to do good for others and care for the creation of the common good – regardless of mercantile interest and selfish motives. Volunteering shows that the most important things in interacting with other people cannot be measured by money or the demands of power. The entire history of philosophy adds important meanings to the understanding of specific freedom as it ultimately manifests itself in the volunteer movement. The philosophy of the volunteer movement is a practical philosophy of freedom. Philosophical rethinking of research on human freedom as a citizen and as a participant in other social relations, which has been carried out in the history of philosophy since ancient times, should be carried out. In this article, only the main ideas that are significant for the philosophy of the volunteer movement today and which were formulated in different periods by the classics of philosophical thought in the world and in Ukraine are marked with dotted lines. In antiquity, the conceptualizations of freedom by Socrates and his followers, as well as representatives of Epicureanism and Stoicism, in the Middle Ages – by Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, later – by Martin Luther and Erasmus of Rotterdam, in modern times – the concepts of civil liberties by Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau are important and others, the connection between freedom and consciousness is important in the philosophy of German idealism, the institutional principles of freedom are revealed in the philosophy of liberalism and pragmatism, modern political philosophy reveals the connection between individual freedom and its role in the development of communities. The study of freedom has played an important role in the development of Ukrainian philosophy since at least Hryhoriy Skovoroda. Modern researchers have devoted research to the subject of volunteering in the fields of psychology, social work, political science, and other social and humanitarian sciences, while philosophical studies of freedom from the point of view of analyzing the volunteer movement are just beginning.