Final Post--Blogging

I think that the blogging assignments were a great addition to this class. It made is so that I had to sit down and really think about things, and get deeper with it. If I were to only have to do the quizzes, I dont think that I would have thought as hard about the things that we read and learned in class. I didnt think that I would enjoy this assignement in the beginning, but I really came to like it a lot and actually have enjoyed sitting down and writing them every so often. I honestly cant think of anything that you could do to improve this assignemtn, I feel like it was pretty flawless as is. I think it connects, to what we did in class, just because like I said befire it makes you have to think deeper and think about the different sides of things .

Extending Ethics Authors

Do you agree with Homers choice to work in the same field practicing the same views as Larch even though they do not share the same values on the topic of their practice?

I thought that the John Irving article was interesting. I personally am pro-life. I do also kind of believe in circumstances though. In some circumstances, like the one reffered to in "The Cider house Rules" where the girl is a victim of incest and rape, I do agree that she should have a choice, but I dont agree with killing a fetus, so I am not really on either side 100% I guess. That is a really though one for me. I think personally if it were me I would still carry the baby, whether or not I was going to keep the baby. But maybe I wouldnt want to if I were actually in the situation. If it is bad for the mothers health to be pregnant and she is, then I first of all think that she should have been more careful and taken more procautions to not get pregnant, but if it does happen, then in that circumstance, I would agree that aborting the bbaby is the right option. Like Drs sometimes say, there might be a choice between you being healthy and losing the baby, or losing both you and the baby. I think that Mills theory kind of can relate to that. He believes in doing the thing that will bring the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people, so to back that up, you could say that it would bring the greatest happiness to have the mother live, rather than losing both the mother and the baby. I thought it was interesting that even though Homer belieed that a fetus has a soul that he would want to continue to practice the way that Dr Larch had been. I personally would not have done that. I would have refused and done something else with my knowledge rather than do something I was completely against just to make a living for myself.

Do you think it was ethically appropriate for Dr. Frankenstein to go find parts of human bodies and take them from people who had passed away and create a whole new life from those parts?

This is a tough question for me. Right of the back, without even thinking about it I would say no. I dont think it was. I grew up learning to respect those that had passed away, they are taken care of kindly and carefully and the buried and not bothered again. Also, I think it is gross. But, if I take a little time to think about it, then I guess it is kind of cool. Most of us live our lives hoping that we can become something, and that wee will be remembered when we have passed on. So it would be kind of cool to be able to be a part of something like that. I mean, it was a huge thing for Dr. Frankenstein to be able to build a moving and working being from the parts of other beings who had passed away. If you think about it, it is kind of like organ donation also. The parts of one being were used to benefit another person. But also, ethically thats not good.. because it was like organ fraud... these people did not give their permission for someone to come along and take their body parts off of them to use for someone else. They may have wanted to stay fully assembled...

I think that both of these topics are so broad that you could argue them either way for a long long time and never be able to come up with a right or a wrong. I really liked the ways that these authors talked about and portrayed these topics though. In fairly clear and descriptive ways that explained both sides of the topic.

Free Topic

This semester I have actually really enjoyed all of the topics that we talked about. I didnt think i would like this class at all, especially at seven in the morning..Hah! But I actually have! The topic that has stuck with me the most though is reasoning. I did my first paper on reasoning, which made me think about it even more than just what I did in class, and it has just really stuck. I had never thought about how I make decisons and why I make them the way that I do, and ever since we went over that topic I tend to think about Mill's theory of creating the greatest amount of happiness for the greatesst number of people. I always try to do that in my life, I am very much a people pleaser. I think I have always just done that subconsiously though. I never actually thought about it, just did it. But now I tend to think about it more. I do things to please the most people possible. At the same time as that though, I tend to tolerate people. I do things for people because they dont do it when I want them to have it done, or they dont do it good enough for what I want, so instead of asking them to fix it I will just start over, or take over and do it myself. This comes from me being a very punctual person, I always have things done on time if not 20 minutes early, and I always do them as good as I can. 

I am still working on figuring out all the legistics of my debate presentation. I have my topic picked, Inclusion classes for special education students rather than self contained classes. And I am debating for that. I have made a list of all the pros and cons of that and started thinking of ways to debate each thing on my list, and then adding to my list as I research and find other things and as I think of things also. I am also asking questions to the special education and general education teachers that I work with to get their opinions of what they think I should do. 

To prepare for the rest of the semester, I think I need to just keep doing what I have been doing. I feel like I have been doing really well in this course so far and if I just keep up with the readings and coming to class then I will be prepared to take the final, do my debate, and just do well in the rest of the assignments this semester. 

What am I learning? I honestly hate this question. I feel like I am honestly just learning how to think. How to think about things from different points of view and to not be biased about things. Or that if I am biased, it is okay to still think about things from a different point of view, so I can at least try to understand or see what someone else sees about something that we may or may not agree on. So I guess in a way maybe I am learning toleration? I just thought of that. In this class we learn to think of things from different perspectives, and when you tolerate someone thats kind of what you have to do. In the toleration unit someone said, or it was found in the book, I cant remember which... "Toleration is a virtue to behave in a way to be able to co-exist with people or things that you find to believe or do things that are against what you believe to be right." In order to do this, I think that you have to do what I said above, think about things and try to see them from some one else's point of view.

Working

First of all, I know that I am doing this post late and that I will likely not be recieving any credit for it, but I wanted to get it done for you anyways. I had a lot harder of a time with this unit that I have had with other units. It was harder for me to process and understand, so I will do my best on this post to answer the questions well, but we will see how it goes. 

In a communist political structure people dont have a lot of hope because in the end they dont really get in anything in return for what they do. For me, I work really hard for my money, but so much of it always goes to paying taxes. I dont have a problem helping someone, but I dont want to be compelled to do it. Especially becuase some of the people I am being compelled to help are people who refuse to help themselves. Sometimes this makes doing the extra mile at work seem fruitless. 

In our jobs we have to make sure things are done right, not just becuase it is our job because it effects other peoples lives. Anexample is my dad, he sterilizes surgry equiptment and if he doesnt do his job right, someone could actually die, because of his lack of attention or effort to his work. Knowing that when he does his job the right it can actually have a positive impact on a patients recovery, he says that is very satisfying to him to have an influence on being able to be a part of someone coming to the hospital for a surgery to get better. Your job can make you stop and think about how you behave and how your personal choices, not just your work choices impact other peoples lives good and bad. 

Alright, so in Smith, he talked about how we do the work that we do to help ourselves, not really to help others, but because we are helping ourselves we are helping others. And if we are all helping ourselves, then the world will go around, because it all goes around in a circle and makes things work in the world. When everyone is doing their part, then you dont have to try to worry about something or someone elses job or responsibilities that will take away from the focus of your own. So everyone doing their own job the right way helps everyone else to do their jobs the right way. I think this relates a lot to the social contract articles we read recently. In Rousseau it talked about how "Man is born free, yet is always in chains", to paraphrase. I think that these two articles/topics relate in that a man is born free to do their own work and worry about only themselves. But, they are in chains to know that they need to do their part and other people need to do their part, or else someone is going to have to pick up the slack somewhere and not everyone is going to be free anymore. So if you dont do your own work efficiently then someone, whether it be you or someone else will be enslaved to do the unfinished work.

Love

 What is love? Apply principles from the care/love unit (as well as others if you choose) to address this question and the role love plays in societies.

I think that love is having compassion for a person that you dont have for anyone else in the same way. Every person you love, you love differently. You want them to succeed and do well in their life, and you feel for them if they do not. When you love someone, you are kind to them, and you are selfless when you are with them or even just in thinking about them. You treat them the same or better than how you would want to be treated by another person who you hope feels love for you. 

Mo Tzu mentions that if you treat someone like you love them, even if you dont, you can eventually gain a love for them. Which i completely agree with. I dont know my dad's girl friends kids very well, so i wouldnt say that I love them at this point. But because it is possible that they will be family one day, I treat them as if I love them, I care about them, I am nice to them, I try to treat them as good as I possibley can, and I already can tell that I am gaining a sort of love for them. It is different than the love I have for my siblings or my dad, but it is a type of love. 

In another example, I love my best friend. Again, different than the love I have for my brothers and parents, but I have a love for her. Where I want what is best for her and I am always kind to her, or a least try to be 

There are people in my life that I would say I do not love. Not even a little. I would describe it moe as a serious hate. But, if I were to decide to treat them like I loved them rather than hating them I may eventually be able to feel differently about them. 

it is not possible for us to love everyone. People are all different and we can not all be the same and think that others want the same things as us. Because that is not true. 

On that note though, you dont necessarily have to LOVE someone to be nice to them, have some sort of care for them, or be self less towards them. So even though those are all qualities of love, they could also be qualities of toleration too. But that could be a whole other debate.  

Blog 3 Flourishing

In my own life, I think that to flourish you do need to be making good and moral decisions. It is important for any person, religious or not, to have some sort of rules for themselves. Whether they are spoken rules or unspoken rules. I also believe that every does have these to some extent whether they really realize it or not. Would you help a lost little kid find their parents? Would you call the cops if you saw someone getting really hurt by another person (or other things)? So, not necessarily things that you would automatically go, oh yeah that is my moral choice and good descison. Thinking about it, I feel like (back to the last unit) that follows Kants theory a little bit. You just do it because it is right, you dont have a question about it.

Now Ive got myself really thinking differently than I originally was when I started writing this post. I feel like in my life, how I would judge if I were flourishing would be if I was doing things that were good and right, and cause as much happiness as possible for the most people. But not only doing things because they would do that. But at least trying to do it. I like how Kupperman talked about having character and that to have character is to make good decisions and to make a habit out of making those decisions. That is exactly the way I want to live my life, in a habit of good decisions. 

I think the virtue theory fits into this by when you are trying to make a good decision, because you want the most people to be happy, you have to find a median between the two extremes of what you could do sometimes in order to have the "right" decision and the "greatest amount of happiness" all at the same time. 

Reasoning

All of theses texts talk about how your reasoning should be what creates happiness. The difference between how they say this is that Kant says that truth is always what will make people the happiest in the long run, Mill says that when you are reasoning between truth and a lie, go with the one that will bring the greatest happiness in the moment. Nietzsche says that we cant really even come to know truth, you just do what makes you happiest, and it may or may not be true, but you wont ever actually know, because life is so absurd that we will never actually come to know truth. Because of the way of his thinking, he puts Kant and Mill into the same category of believing that there even is a truth. 

Both consequentialism and deontology are about what a person chooses to do. Whether they choose to do it because it is their duty, they feel the need to do it. Or they do it because of the consequences of doing or not doing something. I think that a lot of people mostly follow consequentialism, while at the same time, thinking they are following deontology. They feel it their duty to do something or to not do it, and let some one else take the duty of doing it, but at the same time they wont want to do something without a reward (consequence), so they will find excuses within themselves to make them believe that something really isn't their duty, if there isn't a good reward for them at the end, then they will not want to believe it is their duty. (Hopefully that makes at least half as much sense as it does in my own head...)

Like I previously mentioned above, Nietzche argues- a great example of anti theory- against Kant and Mill, that there is no truth, so there should be no reason to argue against or for it. The world is way too absurd for a person to ever be able to find out a real truth. What one person believes to be true may not be what another person believes to be true, so  how could either of those actually be true.

I have had many instences in my life where reasoning has impacted me. I think one of the biggest examples though is this: 
I have scoliosis and a majority of doctors say, oh we will brace it for as long as possible to maybe help it stop getting worse, and then when that doesnt work, because it usually doesnt, we will do surgery and put big metal rods all the way up and down both sides of your spine. 'Truthfully' this is the only option that you have.  Then, I go to another doctor who does not believe in bracing or surgery, the consequences of that are not right (bracing doesnt work, surgery puts you on disabilty the rest of your life and may not work either). He believes that the right thing to do is alternative chiropractic treatments. After research of the consequences of both of these doctors 'truths' I come to believe that the chiropractic truth is truth for me. As I visit other doctors who hear about my treatment decisions, they reason that there is no way this could work, you cant reverse scoliosis, blah blah blah... (at least thats what i hear). But for them, the consequence of me going to a chiropractor rather than letting them do surgery or make me a brace is that they dont get the money, so how could that be the right truth, if someone else is 'winning' that isnt them. So in this example, it is along the lines of Mills theory of reasoning and truth.