Meta-Ethics #2

I think that moral sense is more natural and culture. There are certain morals that are completely universal - such as the idea of pain being evil and pleasure being good - due to biological factors that apply to everyone. However, depending on the culture you are a part of, moral sense can be very different. For example, certain cultures think that it is morally wrong for woman to show their hair, and other cultures think it is morally right. This can be also seen through examples such as eating meat and wearing certain types of clothing/acting a certain way. These culturally morals are generally formed through the lense of religion, and therefore differ depending on each culture's beliefs. Because there ar both univeral and relative morals in the world, I think that moral sense is both subjective and objective. Choosing only one would limit the amount of different cultural beliefs we have in the world, and would disregard the biological factors that connect us.

Meta-Ethics #1

I think that moral principles do exist - but that to be completely universal they must be vague and pertain to all of humanity. In general I think moral principles that are universal is the idea that pain is evil and pleasure is good. This is true to everyone, despite culture or circumstance, because of biological factors that make us responsive to pain in a negative way and pleasure in a positive way. I think that this is the only kind of universal moral principle that exists - any other kind of moral principle will end up being specific to a certain culture or group of circumstances. For example, in one culture certain cultural things such as eating certain types of meat are deemed moral good, but in other cultures eating meat is deemed morally wrong. Additionally, if someone is considered a bad person, killing them would be deemed morally right, but if someone is consider a good person, killing them would be deemed morally wrong. This is an example of how circumstances can affect moral principles

Ethics Reflection

The ethical philosophy that most deeply resonated with me was probably virtue ethics. This is because it aligns most closely with the kind of ethics that I have been taught my whole life and am most familiar with. I believe that if something is not moral, it is not morally right. Virtue ethics states that everything that you do must be virtuous, and morally good. I think that this makes sense, and is the most simple theory for me to be able to follow. I agreed with the example discussed in the presentation, where they said that if someone had scratched your car and you couldn't hear them, would you still curse them out? I agreed that I wouldn't curse them out, because even though they couldn't hear, it was still rude and was not virtuous. I think that everyone should strive to be the best person that they can be -- even when they know that nobody is watching. To me this seems like the most simplistic way of governign your behavior and your ethics.

Singer's Ethics Response

What I found interesting about Singer's ethics was it's relation to utilitarianism. He follows the general ideology that an action is either right or wrong depending on how much respective pleasure of pain they produce. Although his idea of ethics can be considered somewhat controlversial, I agree with his sentiment. I think the conclusions he comes to are questionable, I agree with the way he got there. Singer also emphasizes the difference between an ethical case being subjective and individual - I think that this makes a lot of sense. When a group of people are arguing about a hard case, everyone's perspective is going to be different, and their individual opinions will reflect that. Therefore there is going to be a difference between a subjective observation of a hard case and someone's individual opinion. Singer also discusses whether or not eating meat is ethical. In my opinion, I think that it is ethical because by using the ultilitarian method of addition and subtraction of pain and pleasure, the pain of the meat being produced is outweight but the pleasure that meat brings to people, and it's importance to providing nutrition and helping with starvation.

Techne Update!

In the weeks after I originally posted about my techne, I changed my mind about what I wanted it to be. It was originally to become better with technologoy, but I quickly hit a wall with that idea because it is a very difficult thing to practice. I wasn't sure how to practice my skills with technology without having specific instruction or some kind of specific goal in mind, which I didn't have. Therefore, I changed my techne to something easier for me to physically practice -- working out. The specific goal of my techne was to improve my physical strength by going to the gym at least four times a week for one hour. This specific goal made practicing my techne much easier for me, because I was able to take it one day at a time and I felt less overwhelmed. I have been practicing this techne for the past few months, and I have seen lots of improvement. I am a lot stronger than I was before, and I feel that I have gained arrete through frequently practicing my techne. I can understand why a techne is important to feeling peaceful and confident in yourself. Having a goal in mind to bring yourself peace is very effective -- especially if it is something you can easily enjoy doing! I feel very accomplished and improved because of my schedule with working out.

The Hardest Choice I've Ever Made

The hardest choice i've ever had to make was deciding which colleges to apply to. This was a difficult choice for me to make because I felt like there were so many possible options, and was afraid to make the right choice. With the presence of so many options that were not technically good or evil, I became very indecisive. This choice did not cary a lot of moral weight. Hoqever, I think it that the choice I made could effect morals because it would cause either pleasure or pain for me and people in my life. This is because the cost of said college could cause less pleasure for my parents and me in the future. Additionally, if I applied to colleges where I wouldn't be happy, that could harm my own pleasure in the future. Thinking about it under the utilitarian system would have helped be make this decision because it is a more simple way of thinking about things -- whether they cause pleasure or pain instead of good or evil. Therefore with every college that I was considering applying to, I could use the addition of pleasure and subtracting of pain to decide which decision would be the most moral choice. This system would be better for me that Kant's

Unexpected Merits!

In today's debates, I was especially surprised by the unexpected weakness of the Republic, as demonstrated in our team's closing statement. It was revealed that the Republic is more evil than it seems - hiding behind their platonic analogies and class separation - instead enforcing eugenics and child kidnapping in a way that promotes an absolute absence of human happiness. In comparison to a tyranny, it was argued that a republic is more oppresive and soul-crushing in it's absolute power. It occured to me that I had never considered this to be true, mostly because of the semantic relations with the word tyranny being mostly negative, and republic being more positive. With this in mind, it was difficult to grasp that the republic could be more oppresive than a tyranny. With these news definitions in mind, I realized that under these conditions I would prefer to live under a tyranny rather than a republic. An unexpected merit that was revealed during today's debates was the argument that a timarchy could produce more stability than a republic because the people who are considered competent are not forced to act in the role of a guardian, but are instead willing to possess their power.