The Limit of Morality Revisited

How do we determine the right course of action? How do we distinguish between right and wrong? Are there instances where it is right to do something that is inherently wrong, or must one always act in a way that considers the nature of the act itself? When trying to decide what the morally correct action is for a particular scenario or moral dilemma, these are the questions that one usually has to attempt to answer in order to justify his or her actions in the moral sphere. If one subscribes to consequentialism, then the locus of ethical action lies in the outcome or consequences of one’s actions and regardless of what the specific act is that must be performed, or the feelings of the actor regarding carrying out such an action, the greatest good for the greatest number must ultimately prevail. In deontology, the locus of ethical action lies in the act itself, and regardless of whatever the circumstances of that particular situation may be, the act must be good in and of itself, in spite of the potentially harmful or undesirable consequences that might result from such an action. Finally, in virtue ethics, the locus of ethical action lies in the actor or agent, and one must cultivate oneself and habituate one’s nature so that one is most likely to act in the correct moral manner for any given situation. While each of these three schools offer fairly equally compelling ways to determine action on a small scale, when applied to larger sectors such as foreign aid deontology and virtue ethics appear to fall short, but this does not necessarily mean that they should be cast aside. When trying to determine the best course of action on a large scale, one must act in accordance with consequentialism, but should still keep the principles of deontology and virtue ethics in view.

Great Video I thought I'd share

This isn't really related to the class, but I saw this and I thought it was too good to not share.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mVh75ylAUXY#!

The Importance of the Paritcular in Third World Development

As we have observed throughout our philosophic careers, the duality of general vs. particular is a highly abstactable concept that applies across all fields of intellectual endeavor due to it's importance in the organization of knowledge. We see also that it applies in Easterly's duality of planners vs. searchers; planners being individuals who focus on big, "utopian" efforts of top down development and therefore emphasizing the general; and searchers being individuals who focus on local small scale, endogenous economic activties, who therefore emphasize the particular. Easterly rightly emphasizes an appreciation of the particular in this circumstance, citing various statistics about the overall failure of huge projects. However, being a total hippie who meditates and loves the "general" in every sense of the word, (particular/general, body/soul, material/immaterial, business/household, utility/idealism), I still believe that have, not the practices, but ideals of general utopia and welfare is right(especially by my duality list). pce and love guys. Tune in, but don't drop out....or maybe if thats your cup of tea.

Why are we burdened?

The book seems to indicate that we don't really know how to fix the problems in the third world.  If this is the case, why are we still sending aid?  I'm not against helping people that are less fortunate, but Easterly's thesis seems to be that not only is our aid not really helping, but it sometimes even hurts, which means that I find it hard to support wasting money on such efforts as there are no positive results.

Nature AND Nurture

In The Moral Animal, Wright’s position, seems to be that, while we may perceive that we have complete and total control over our behavioral tendencies and our choice of action in any given situation, we actually are responding to our biology. In essence, our actions can be boiled down to chemical reactions. While Wright’s ideas are certainly logical and well-supported within the scientific community, there is one major problem that I have with his findings. If we are merely at the mercy of our biology, then responsibility and morality become irrelevant, and in a sense so do we. Instead of excusing ourselves on account of our nature, I think that we should take into account the information that Wright reveals to us and learn recognize the genetic components of our nature and habituate ourselves to act in a way that is accordance with our moral ideals. Nature and nurture should not be in conflict, or mutually exclusive, but rather should work together to determine how we live our lives.

The Animal Inside

Can one always know the right thing to do in any given situation? Does it all rest upon the human actor or the action?  Is it a combination of both?  The problem with Wright's work as stated by many of you is that it lends itself to a sort of moral relativism while seemingly pushing humanity out of the equation.  It is from our sense of right and wrong that we judge the actions of others or even the character of other actors.  However, if one thing is wrong in one area and right in another country/tribe/what have you, where is the right and where is the wrong?  How does one fit humanity into this picture of "the moral animal"?  It is a constant regeneration of the question of how to be moral in every situation juxtaposed with the mess we find ourselves in: humans giving in to baser instincts and desires, acting out of only self-interestedness, and humans also acting for the good of the whole, for others rather than self and the list may go on.  It is a journey in what it means to be human as well as live the way we do each day, making decisions based on instinct or principle or even gut feeling.  It is fighting with the animal we know ourselves to be, the beast that hides in darkness ready to devour its prey.  There is a dark side to human nature that lets us know there is more to "being human" that what we had once thought.  It may be in the darkest instance we find the real answers to our quest of morality and the limits it may hold.

The Limit of Morality

I've been thinking a lot about whether or not there is a limit to morality and I have come to the conclusion that there is, and that this limitation has to do with the human instinct. The limit of morality then become the ethical theory's lack of ability to prevail when one has to act with a sort of reflex or gut reaction due to the circumstance of one's situation. All of the theories that we studied thus far seemed to rely heavily on deliberation, which is not something that we always have the time or the necessary resources to carry out. I think that in Virtue Ethics, this limitation is somewhat surmountable because in teaching yourself to act virtuously, you increase the likelihood of your gut reaction being a virtuous one. However, in Consequentialism and Deontology, I think that this is a necessary feature because there does not seem to be ay gray area to accommodate the circumstances of one;s situation. In Consequentialism, regardless of the act or actor, the greater good must prevail. Likewise, in Deontology, the act must be good, regardless of the harm that may result. The implications of my judgment are that in order to ensure that we act in the best way possible in a ny given situation, and are therefore the best, most flourishing version of ourselves that we could possibly hope to be, we must have our morality and ethical code internalized to the extent that it because instinctual to act in an ethically an morally correct manner.

The Most Effective Ethical Theory?

While I do not think that one specific theory encompasses all of moral action and offers "the answer" so to speak, I think that Virtue Ethics and Autonomy offer the strongest solutions because they focus on the actor, the freedom to act, and our responsibilities as a result of this freedom. Out of these two theories, I believe that Virtue Ethics is the stronger. Virtue Ethics basically makes the claim that instead of focusing on the act itself or the consequences of the action, you have to look at the person acting and what his or her motivations may have been for acting in that certain manner. Virtue Ethics offers the view that in order to truly flourish and thrive as a human being, you have to cultivate your sense of virtue until it becomes almost like a habit because acting in a way that is not virtuous leads to fleeting happiness that ultimately leaves us unfulfilled and unhappy as human beings. When we train ourselves to act virtuously, then we are working on overcoming the base parts of ourselves that cause us pain and suffering, and we are also increasing our chances of acting in the best way possible in any given future moral dilemma. If we were to rely on consequentialism, then there would be instances where we would have to take ourselves out of the picture, or act in a way that should seem morally wrong to us, in order to benefit the maximum amount of people, or cause the greatest amount of happiness. If we were to act deontologically, then while our acts may be inherently morally right, they may not be the best for the given situation. Virtue Ethics, because it focuses on the agent/actor instead of the action, best serves to accommodate the situations and circumstances surrounding a moral action.

Ever right to kill?

I thought about this the other day and thought about previous discussions regarding deontological rules of morality.  I was trying to figure out if someone who believes it's never right to kill can possibly make an exception.  If a rapist or murderer is wearing full body armor on everything except his head and neck, can you justify killing him to stop him?  This is assuming the person in the position is a trained marksman who can't get to the  person in the act of the crime by foot (he's on top of a building or something to that effect).  

What's not in the genes?

Wright writes his book in the context of most human action being a result of genetic evolution over the course of billions of years.  One can use this logic to state that human action is a result of genetic imperative.  What would Wright say about suicide?  Would he say suicide is simply a way of weak members of the herd not getting in the gene pool (i.e. people who kill themselves because of genetically inherited depression), a way for people who lack adaptive capabilities to create offspring (i.e. people who kill themselves because they lose their job) or is suicide an exemption from the rule that our actions are for our genes' interests?  (Our genes don't feel pain as we do, so we couldn't say an end to our suffering is an end to theirs as well.)

Ants Marching, Anshu

I'd like to devote this blog post to, not so much the text, but a possible future the text implicitly points to. In one area, the author refers to ants and how one ant is willing to sacrifice itself for the benefit of the whole. In a sense, these little ants are true Buddhas, utterly desire less. Its interesting to Imagine(john lennon) a world where humans would be willing to give up their personal pleasures for the happiness of others. It's true selfish desire has it's purpose, namely competition. However, humanity has the potential for, and here is the kicker, proactive selfless development versus reactive selfish development. Personally, I aspire to the ideal that one should push oneself because it's just right, and not because reactive necessity forces our minds or bodies to do work. We are evolutionarily designed to work only when competing and relax when there is no need. But, there is a disjunction between evolution and self aware evolution. We have the ability to be proactive, and actively take evolution into our own hands. I point to Thoreau, or the Buddha. Their actions influenced billions, and will continue to do so. Similarly, our actions will absolutely do the same. If you proactively push your mind, body, and morality to extremes simply for the sake of doing so, these actions will influence mankind for millenia to come. Perhaps because of your efforts, your children will be that much smarter, and then they will be able to get into that college, and then meet that girl of their dreams, and then have many smart grandchildren who go on to help the world, who have more children who are super moral and become MLK's and Ghandis and start social revolutions because the world is not fair, and not living up to it's potential. A ripple in a pond. That what we all are. Let's try and make the ripple count.

Natural Selection of the Mind?

As we begin reading Robert Wright's book, The Moral Animal, I would like to pose a philosophical question that was prompted in Chapter 1 which is entitled "Darwin Comes of Age." When we usually talk about survival of the fittest through means of natural selection, we usually talk about the selection of the fittest genes being passed to the next generation. However, according to Wright, "if the theory of natural selection is correct, then essentially everything about the human mind should [similarly to genes] be intelligible in these terms. The basic ways we feel about each other, the basic kinds of things we think about each other and say about each other, are with us today by virtue of their past contribution to genetic sequence" (pg. 28). Therefore, if natural selection of more "fit" genes are passed on to future generations, which are intended to perfect the human race, can this process also be true of the mind, even if there is some debate as to whether it is tangibly found in the brain? Could natural selection be used to perfect the human mind, in short? What would the implications of creating the most perfect mind imaginable with respect to human nature and more specifically, the way in which humans act toward one another with respect to morality?

Regarding "Fellow-Feeling"

Adam Smith writes that we naturally take pleasure and pain from the pleasure and pain from others. He says this only works when the spectator raises their level of sympathy and the person principally concerned lowers their feeling.  However, I think there are certain situations where neither person would have to change there feelings for a connection to be made. For example, if I am talking with Amanda (who is afraid of needles) about going to the doctor and getting my blood drawn, I would not have to lower my feelings and she would not have to raise her sympathy, because we would have the same level of pain about the situation. So, I find it persuasive to say that not every situation would require a person to raise or lower their feelings.

Buddhism

In the video we watched in class, the monk Thich Nhat Hanh said regarding this concept that “Our suffering comes from our wrong perceptions…when you remove wrong perceptions, you remove the suffering…ideas like being and non-being, birth and death, coming and going are wrong ideas…ultimate reality is free from birth, from death, from coming and going, from being and non-being.” Our concept of individuality, according to the Buddhist tradition, is a wrong perception that only contributes to our suffering. If we want to eliminate this suffering, then we have to eliminate the wrong perceptions, or views, in our lives. Once we are able to accomplish this, then we are able to see how everything is connected to everything else; how there is no separation, no individualization, everything, in essence, just is. While this idea may seem like removing oneself from the picture, so to speak, and this leading to removing one’s values and aspirations from the picture as well,this is not necessarily the case. If we are acting in accordance with the Buddhist tradition we are not removing ourselves entirely from the picture, but rather, we are getting rid of the concept of ourselves as individuals, as separate entities from the world and from those things that surround us in our daily lives. Our values and aspirations still come across through the ways that we choose to act; however, we must choose to be cognizant of the fact that these ideas should not be merely limited to ourselves, but should be able to be applied universally.

Smith

in section 2 ch. 1 paragraph 9, Smith says "the man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit.  He fulfills, however  all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing.  We may often fulfill all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing."  Which would you say is better: the man who does this bare minimum of social justice, caring only for himself and following the laws, or a man that tries to do good but always does more harm than good?  Do motives matter more than actions?

Back to the World of Existentialism...

In his work, "Existentialism is a Humanism," Sartre adamantly states, "there is no reality except in action...Man is nothing else than his plan; he exists only to the extent that he fulfills himself; he is, therefore, nothing else than the ensemble of his acts, nothing else than his life" (pg. 654). Do you agree with Sartre? Are we humans only determined by our acts and not by our thoughts or feelings? Sartre seems to place a great deal of emphasis on physical action, as suggested by this quote, but perhaps this is a misinterpretation? However, if this is not a misinterpretation, what would Satre say of some one who had felt that he should be a world-class musician but found that he could not perform on par with other world-class musicians and was a mediocre musician at best? That is, would he think that he was not reaching his full potential and was falling short of achieving the greatness he was capable of achieving? If a person is really the sums of his actions, it would seem to follow that any action that is taken or not taken to achieve one's end would not constitute a full life, in the eyes of Sartre. Aside from the quote, I do have one other question left with regard to Sartre's piece, "Existentialism is Humanism": Sartre seems to place a heavy emphasis on the suffering of man. In fact, he calls man "anguish" because he is thrown quite literally into a world where he has to endure not only his suffering but others' suffering as well. If indeed the world is full of suffering and man is really anguish encapsulated in flesh and bones, why does any of this matter considering existentialists do not believe in an after life? In other words, if there is no hope for an after life, then why would an existentialist claim to feel such suffering for his fellow man if he knows that all is futile and will end in its time? Why not make the most of what life has to offer with as much pleasure as possible?

The Four-Fold Path: Can it help us to find meaning?

The teachings of Buddhism are centralized around the Four Noble Truths, namely;

1) Life is suffering. It is suffering because we go through pain that is caused by various factors; pain, disease, old age, etc.
2) Suffering is caused by our cravings and aversions. That means we want/expect people to conform to our expectations and we are disappointed when they don't.
3) It is possible to overcome suffering and be happy. This can be done by being content with what we have and trying to control our "cravings" of materialistic things that don't necessarily matter.
4) Suffering can come to an end by following the Noble 8-fold path to happiness. This includes constantly being aware of our actions and introspecting them daily in order to re-evaluate how we should lead our lives.

I believe that these four truths can lead one to find meaning in one's life because while suffering is inevitable, it is possible to still find happiness amidst all the pain if we learn to introspect our actions on a daily basis. I think that's what brings us happiness - introspection. If we are able to evaluate our actions and our short-comings, we can detach or pull away from things that have the potential to bring us pain and anguish. I'm not saying that it can be eliminated, but in order to attain the highest form of happiness that even Aristotle talks about, this might be a possible route to attain it. If we're able to eliminate our expectations, there is no room for disappointment.

Moral Responsibility

Sartre believes that we are responsible for all of our actions, and I agree with this notion to an extent. I don't think that any individual has the full capacity to comprehend or formulate all of the possible outcomes of their actions, but I still feel as though we must understand that those actions would not have taken place without us. It may seem strange, but everything we do does have some impact on the world in some way.

How free are we in Sartre's eyes?

Sartre writes that people exist first and they the shape themselves based on the choices they make and the actions they take. While I do agree that we are in control of who we are and our decisions, I wonder exactly how free we are in making choices. For example, most people identify as either male or female. It is very rare, if at all, that someone decides they are neither male nor female but a new gender, for which they create a new name. So do we really have unlimited freedom? Sartre goes on to say that when creating ourselves, we are acting for all of humanity. So, Sartre might answer my question by saying that those who first divided gender into male and female simply laid a path for everyone to follow.

Loss of Self in Buddhism

I believe that there is something beneficial in the Buddhist teaching that in removing fear of death (or non-being) that humans can then be free to attain ultimate happiness.  I also understand the idea of removing conventional, distracting perceptions that only hinder this path towards happiness.  However to me it kind of seems like in believing one's self just another object in eternalism (or the wave-like cycle of birth and death or manifestation) one loses a sense of SELF.  Why then act with any moral principles?  In the deepest life of mediation why do people feel compelled to love others as beings if they are merely temporary manifestations of life?

Devil's Advocate here

Looking at Voltaire's "The Good Brhamin". Why not be a pig satisfied rather than a man dissatisfied? Some would say because of the greater capacity, the greater quality of the human. But then why, again? What of this capacity? I believe it is true that a human being has a higher quality, a greater capacity for, um, stuff (read experience, consciousness, being, living). Truth be told, we don't really know because we can't have direct knowledge, direct experience of a pig's. We can infer what it must be like, but we don't really know. However what the Brahmin is saying is this higher capacity which comes with dissatisfaction outweighs the lower capacity which is filled with satisfaction. One final thing. What if the satisfaction in the pig were of the greatest kind possible to the pig and the dissatisfaction in the man was also to the highest degree, in all respects?

Meaning applied to Moral Principles

In Frankls reading, we noted that the conception of meaning is in a different arena from moral theory. It is an entirely different line of inquiry. Whereas as moral principles dictate certain intentions and actions one should take in relation to self and society, the quest for meaning transcends the whole debate and purely focuses on the more subjective dimension of self inquiry. More simply, we can quibble about moral theory all day, but, when it comes to the search for meaning, a man must define such matters for himself and, relative to moral theory, such definitions are less easily judged. So, looking at Frankl's stuff on camp life, we find that some people looking to the future for meaning(consequences), others look to virtuous behavior or their duty to their fellow man, while still others just hang out and think about how they'd like some cake(that's me).

 Thank you very much, I'd like to dedicate this writing to Michelle Branch and her song All You Wanted for helping me write yet another blog about depressing stuff.

How Do We Make Our Own Meaning?

In class today, well yesterday, Dr. Thomas posed the question: "What conditions are necessary to make a meaningful life?" And I've come to the conclusion that there are at least two conditions that are necessary: First, we as individuals, must be rational or clear-thinking individuals and second, we must not only possess knowledge about ourselves, but nature and the external world itself. So, the ability to think and the ability to have understanding are necessary to make our own meaning of life.

What Encompases Morality

In class Thursday we embarked on a very heated discussion about what would be the conditions that would support or undermine morality. As the conversation progressed, many opinions and views were thrown around in regards to individual moral actions and collective moral actions. Now I have pondered the different components of this discussion since then and have come to the conclusion that an action can be deemed moral or immoral depending upon whether or not an individual's life can be positively promoted in any aspect. For example, why would lying be amoral? In regards to the context I just specified, it would be amoral because the individual who is being lied to has been "compromised." At some point when the truth is revealed, the individual that was lied to will be forced to think about that situation and ponder the effects that the lie caused. Now some people may believe that lying may promote positive results by either protecting the person from the truth or keeping them from some form of harm, i.e. psychological or emotional. However, we can all admit that whenever we finally encounter the truth about a situation, we immediately wonder "what if." This "what if" that we begin to contemplate only hurts us because it distracts us from focusing on the present and future. The past is the past, and what happened during it cannot be changed. But when people reflect on the past, we must all admit that it hinders our future. Therefore, lying should be deemed as immoral.

In regards to the "trolling" example that was discussed, I firmly believe that trolling is immoral because it does not positively promote someone's life. Choosing to partake in actions that promote anger or frustration from an individual is wrong. Why should someone feel as though it is acceptable to control the emotions of another simply because "they wanted to?" Being angry has never made the angry individual happy. Harboring anger for an extended amount of time, or for even a few minutes diminishes a person's morality and mental psyche because a person's rationale is always compromised when emotions become involved. For those people who think that trolling is simply a harmless action, I'm sure I'll meet opposition, and I'm sure that I will become a victim of trolling. But for those against trolling I hope that my position on morality is plausible.

The Last Question about Absurdism

Below is Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question."  Reading Camus' piece regarding absurdism and man giving meaning to his own life without any external meaning made me think of this piece.  Is it possible that man may give so much meaning to himself that others can feel that meaning as well?  Can one man give meaning to others?  Is it possible for one to conceive of something and then create it as a powerful external entity, more powerful than the creator of the idea?  It is comforting to believe there is a higher power above whether there truly is one or not; it is conceivable, through constant struggle and innovation, to advance technologically to such a level as to either become gods or to create a god.  Even if we live in an absurd universe, is it possible to create a meaning for ourselves so great that it changes the universe from an unfeeling uncaring emptiness to a cognitive, all powerful, and loving God?



 The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five-dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

     Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
     Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough. So Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share in the glory that was Multivac's.
     For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.
     But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.
     The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.
     Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public functions, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.
     They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.
     "It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."
     Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.
     "Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."
     "That's not forever."
     "All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Ten billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"
     Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Ten billion years isn't forever."
     "Well, it will last our time, won't it?"
     "So would the coal and uranium."
     "All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do that on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me.
     "I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."
     "Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up, "It did all right."
     "Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for ten billion years, but then what?" Lupow pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."
     There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.
     Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"
     "I'm not thinking."
     "Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."
     "I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."
     "Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last ten billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."
     "I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.
     "The hell you do."
     "I know as much as you do."
     "Then you know everything's got to run down someday."
     "All right. Who says they won't?"
     "You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'
     It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.
     "Never."
     "Why not? Someday."
     "Never."
     "Ask Multivac."
     "You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."
     Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?
     Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
     Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
     Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
     "No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
     By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten the incident.

---

     Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright shining disk, the size of a marble, centered on the viewing-screen.
     "That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.
     The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of insideoutness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've --"
     "Quiet, children." said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"
     "What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.
     Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspatial jumps.
     Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship. Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for ''automatic computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.
     Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."
     "Why, for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great-grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded." Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."
     "I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.
     Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."
     "I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.
     It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors, had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.
     Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetarv AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.
     "So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."
     "Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.
     "What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.
     "Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"
     "Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"
     "The stars are the power-units. dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."
     Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."
     "Now look what you've done," whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.
     "How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back,
     "Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."
     "Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
     Jerrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."
     He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."
     Jerrodd cupped the strip or thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."
     Jerrodine said, "And now, children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."
     Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
     He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.

---

     VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder in being so concerned about the matter?"
     MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."
     Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.
     "Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."
     "I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."
     VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."
     "A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --
     VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."
     "Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problem of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."
     "Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."
     "Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"
     "Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"
     "I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this GaIaxy is filled, we'll have filled another in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known universe. Then what?"
     VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."
     "A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."
     "Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."
     "Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in a geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."
     "We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."
     "Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.
     "There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."
     VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.
     "I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."
     He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.
     MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of submesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.
     MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"
     VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."
     "Why not?"
     "We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."
     "Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.
     The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
     VJ-23X said, "See!"
     The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.

---

     Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity. --But a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.
     Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.
     Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
     "I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"
     "I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"
     "We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"
     "We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"
     "True. Since all Galaxies are the same."
     "Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."
     Zee Prime said, "On which one?"
     "I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."
     "Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."
     Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.
     Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"
     The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor led through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.
     Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.
     "But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.
     "Most of it," had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."
     Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.
     The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.
     A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."
     But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Lee Prime stifled his disappointment.
     Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?"
     The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF"
     "Did the men upon it die?" asked Lee Prime, startled and without thinking.
     The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TlME."
     "Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.
     Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"
     "The stars are dying. The original star is dead."
     "They must all die. Why not?"
     "But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."
     "It will take billions of years."
     "I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"
     Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."
     And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
     Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a Galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.
     Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.

---

     Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.
     Man said, "The Universe is dying."
     Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.
     New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.
     Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."
     "But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase forever to the maximum."
     Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."
     The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and nature no longer had meaning in any terms that Man could comprehend.
     "Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be reversed?"
     The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
     Man said, "Collect additional data."
     The Cosmic AC said, 'I WILL DO S0. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TlMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.
     "Will there come a time," said Man, 'when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"
     The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."
     Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"
     The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
     "Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.
     The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."
     Man said, "We shall wait."

---

     The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
     One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.
     Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.
     Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"
     AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."
     Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace.

---

     Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer [technician] ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
     All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
     All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
     But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
     A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
     And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
     But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.
     For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
     The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
     And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
     And there was light --

Modified Ethical Egoism

After reading Ayn Rand's "In Defense of Ethical Egoism" it became clear to me that although she does make a fairly compelling argument, in order to truly achieve happiness and flourishing one would have to make some alterations to her style of egoism. I agree with Rand that too often we deny ourselves what would give us pleasure because we believe that what is the correct moral action is doing whatever everyone else wants instead of considering our own wishes. I also agree with Rand that "By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man-every man-is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose" (535). However, with this statement, Rand sets up a contradiction. If everyone acts merely in their own interests, then not everyone truly be an end in themselves because others will exploit them and use them as a means to an end in order to further their own interests. Essentially egoism, at least the way that she is describing it here, would fall apart if everyone were to practice it in such a manner because it is more of an individualized philosophy than she is making it out to be. Not everyone can be an egoist or else the philosophy falls apart, due to the fact that if everyone is only concerned with what benefits them, then no one will be able to achieve what they want to achieve to the extent that they will be ultimately fulfilled. I also find it problematic that we are supposed to, in this philosophy, completely disregard other people and only focus on what will further our own interests. I think that ultimately not considering other people would cause us to lead a more solitary and unhappy life than one in which we take into account the other people surrounding us. I think instead of taking such a radical stance as Rand suggests, we should instead act with our happiness in view and include it as a deciding factor in our moral code, but not without considering how our actions will affect others as well.

Making Connections

After looking at the definitions and positions of the different types of ethical positions, I decided to try to make some connections.  Before moving on to support or critique of ethical egoism, I tried to figure out where it could possibly fit into what we've looked at thus far.  I see similarities between ethical egoism and deontology.  As we learned, deontology requires one to judge morality based on the intrinsic quality of the act itself NOT the consequences.  In other words one must perform an action come whatever may.  I see the same type of mentality for ethical egoism.  One acts in their own interests (or those more seriously than the interests of others) and result is good for the public.  The action is not based in the idea that it will necessarily bring good to others, but the moral one will.  I also see a slight similarity between Kant's categorical imperative.  Once again we learned that the categorical imperative states that the moral status of an act is that it would be willed as a maxim of universal law of nature.  The way I interpreted ethical egoism is that all people act in their own interests and would expect universally that all others would do the same.

Ayn Rand's Defense of Ethical Egoism

In her piece, "In Defense of Ethical Egoism," Ayn Rand says that what most people have been told growing up is that morality involves limiting the self, demoting the self to better serve the needs of others or to serve God. For she says, "...the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors." Rand says that both of these views "demand the surrender of your self-interest and of your mind," as morality opposes both practicality and reason. Rand then proceeds to argue that in reality, morality stems from the need to preserve the self, for in not preserving the self, a human being cannot live to his or her full potential. By limiting the self and dismissing the needs of the self for the "good" of others, one cannot flourish and in line with Aristotle's views, a person who is not flourishing is not being in a state of full moral integrity; he or she is lacking in some way and as a consequence, will not be able to act in the world with the fullest sense of morality.

While I agree with Ayn Rand that the self should be considered in matters of morality, I disagree with her emphasis on putting the self before others, especially in claiming that "pride is the sum of all virtues." For if we fully place our needs before the needs of others, how can we as individuals flourish? In order to flourish, don't we need others to accomplish this feat, and if so, don't we need to be sensitive to others' needs? Are we not meant to share our abilities with others and be in constant dialogue with them to build up our own characters, our own sense of morality? Perhaps there should be a balance between meeting the needs of the self and the needs of others---a type of middle ground between the views of Rand and the "traditional" view of morality that Rand presents.

Riffing off of Mill

This is a return to Mill and the refinement of utilitarianism. Mill refines utilitarianism by introducing the quality of pleasures to the quantity of pleasures. He says that given two pleasures, the more valuable pleasure in terms of quality gets its qualitative value from the preference of it over any number of another pleasure, even if the qualitative pleasure comes with a greater amount of discontent. However I believe that this distinction is more blurry than when first apprehended. I think quality and quantity are not entirely separable concepts/terms and there is an interdependent relationship between the two. For example, take the most purely quantitative thing there is, say the number 23. The number 23 is an abstraction of 23 somethings, or 23 qualities. There could be 23 baseballs, cars, pies, whatever. Each one is a capacity, a quality. Now lets look at the quantity within quality. Take the color purple. The color could not exist without the right frequency of wavelengths of light. In addition, simply observe their linguistic structure. They both start with "qua". I also think there's evidence that Mill is implicitly aware of this relationship. On pg. 229-230, he says "Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decide preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it....". In actually making the distinction, he says "placed so far above it", implying a single spectrum of value, corresponding to one concept.

An Organization of All This Stuff

We have encountered many ethical theories up to this point and, in order to remember all this stuff(as well as trace relationships and overlaps), I feel an organization of this stuff is really helping me out. Some housekeeping for the mind is required. I, personally, have organized my theories from the order of most related to material things on bottom(like utilitarianism), to the most immaterial things on the top(like virtue ethics). There are some curve-balls thrown in there like ethical egoism and moral luck. But, overall, there is a general ranking between these philosophies. Consequential-ism seems to underlie many of these disciplines so I kinda just threw it under everything.

Ethics and Egoism

Imagine, for a moment, a world in which all people act only out our pure self interests.  What do you think would happen?  I would suspect that there would be more violence and less compromise over various issues.  I do not know if anything fruitful would come out of this way of living.  Acting out of self interest forgets the "other", yet the other still plays a part in one's action.  Are we ever free from the "others"?  By deciding to take an action that you think is in your own self interest, is it not an interest possibly related to and stemming from the society or culture you are in; therefore, is it not "others" who govern our actions, rather somewhat indirectly?  Everything may indeed be outside of us and not from us.  Can things be truly from us?  What do you think?

Problems with the critique of Ethical Egoism

The critique that ethical egoism is an oxymoron if all moral action is "other directed." The issue I have with this is that it assumes ALL moral action is "other directed." This premise assumes that one can, therefore, be neither moral or immoral to themselves. This is problematic because I would venture to say, that if someone never eats so that others can eat and then this person dies from starvation, that person has acted immorally toward themselves. In summary I have issue with the statement that all moral action must be other directed.

What to do with the Ring of Gyges

Plato's story about the Ring of Gyges is an extreme hypothetical but it does serve a valid purpose in fleshing out whether appearances matter more than truths.  I would agree that it is far better to be moral than to merely seem moral, as there is damage to one's soul which impairs the ability to experience true happiness, but the situation he presents is even more dire.  The soul is indeed more important than the body and Plato explains this view well.
Rather than simply comparing appearance versus actuality, he states that a man who seems moral but is actually evil is worse off than a man who seems evil but is really a saint.  This is a harder concept to swallow because both men are in bad situations.  A man who is full of vices, even if he can hide them well and receive honor, still will never have true happiness.  There are countless examples of addicts and hedonists who search for means to happiness through carnal pleasures but never receive a respite from their search, so the appearance is less important than the actuality of being moral.  The man who is moral but seems immoral is in a bad situation not just because he receives no honor and is disliked by the city, but he is likely to appear like a pariah and may receive physical harm due to the society's perceptions.  Society can often get morality wrong and there are many examples of innocent men suffering because of misconceptions (Jesus often springs to mind) so it is not outside of the realm of possibility that a man who is truly good could seem bad because he goes against a corrupt nation's laws.
As the 1930s and 40s have a perfect example of evil, I feel it is appropriate to draw from that.  This hypothetical could be fleshed out to mean is it better to be a Nazi or a Rabbi in Hitler's Germany?  Obviously both situations are bad (one for the soul and one for the body) but which is truly worse?  When speaking of this we mean a fervent Nazi and a devout Rabbi (this is to prevent muddling the argument with examples of soldiers who helped smuggle Jews out and also prevents the atrocities some Jews did to others in the concentration camps from confusing this issue).  I'd like to say that the Rabbi is better off, but enduring the hardships one faced within concentration camps (which can parallel a good man being thrown in prison for appearing to be guilty of crimes in the Platonic example) caused irreparable harm to many Jews who went there and one can assume that there would be harm to the souls of the good men in the misguided city.  There were some people who came out of the camps and were unable to tame their inner demons (or the various bestial elements of a man's soul for Plato).

Aristotle and Virtue Ethics

In Aristotle's Virtues Ethics, taken from his much larger work, Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle states that the ultimate goal of life is to achieve happiness, which is chosen of its own accord as an end (never as a mean to any other virtue). Furthermore, Aristotle states that happiness is "an activity of the soul" that can only be achieved when one is activing in accordance with reason, and in this way, happiness is the "supreme good" and the highest of virtues; the purest excellence. Aristotle then proceeds to outline the two major branches of virtue: intellectual virtue and moral virtue. Intellectual virtue, according to Aristotle, stems from teaching and to a certain extent is an inherent capacity, whereas moral virtue is the "outcome of habit"---it must be cultivated by direct experience through our action. Aristotle then proceeds to describe virtue as being the disposition between two vices, namely excess and deficiency. Virtue can therefore be described as a mean state, for a mean state is not full of either extreme. Aristotle goes on to cite some actions that are decidedly either excesses or deficiency and have no mean, such as adultery, which is always a grave sin, according to Aristotle's views. Do you agree with Aristotle in that virtues should be described as mean states lying between two vices or do you think that they should not even be compared relative to vices? Also, do you think that virtue ethics is compatible with deontology? For if we are acting out of reason in accordance with virtue, would not we be living according to a deontological principle? Just food for thought. :)

Is Virtue Relative?

Macintyre suggests that virus are "aquired human qualities" derived from specific "cultural and social traditions".  This makes sense because the way one is taught from a young age to live his/her life is most likely the values he/she will hold as true later in life.  But what happens if a child grows up in an environment that distorts "good" virtues?  What's to say one culture is wrong about its interpretation of virtuous? Are there then even such things that are universally virtuous?  Time and place seem to heavily influence one's collection of virtues.  That is clear in Macintyre's account of several different figures/movements in history that all hold different qualities of virtue with esteem.  It would be logical to conclude that as societal standards change, virtues change.  But to me it seems to be a "cop-out" to say that because another person's view of virtue is different then I can do whatever I want.  It shifts responsibility and accountability.  However, Macintyre does say that there is a centralized, singular concept that brings all interpretations of virtue together: practice.  The practice he refers to is the pursuit towards a certain kind of excellence, or way of life, by following all the right "rules".  But who creates these standards of excellence that a person strives to follow?  Are they understood universally?

Were the Nazis Just Unlucky?

In our discussion of Nagel's "Moral Luck", one of the main points that we considered was the idea that being a member of the Nazis was somewhat circumstantial and that, had someone who was a member of the Nazis lived in a different part of the world, he or she might have lived a blameless life. Likewise, a person who had lived a peaceful, seemingly moral life might have been a Nazi if he or she had been given the opportunity or put in the same situation as the members of the Nazi party. I think that while circumstance definitely has something to do with our actions insofar as morality is concerned, I do not believe that it is the only factor in determining how we will act in a given situation. If it was the case that all of morality was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time, so to speak, then what would be the point of even trying to act in a way that we perceive to be moral, since everything would be at the mercy of chance? I think that instead of morality being a matter of luck, it is something that is internal and must be practiced, almost like muscle memory in a way. The more we train ourselves to act in accordance with out beliefs about morality, the easier it is to adhere to our principles and act morally in the future. Since so many of our moral decisions are made in a split second, or are based on a gut reaction, if we have practiced our moral beliefs enough, then acting in a way that does not compromise these beliefs is likely to almost be a reflex. So, going back to the example of the Nazis, I believe that while circumstance and luck was definitely not on their side, it is not the case that these were the only factors concerned in their participation in the party. Had they practiced adhering to their values to the extent that their moral beliefs were always in view, they might have led very different lives despite their location and bad luck.

Deontological Ethics: Kant

In The Moral Law, Kant is looking for a universal moral law that everyone can live by. He says that in a post-Darwinian world, people want to explain the moral law through anthropology; explaining it through scientific reasoning. One of the things he spends time talking about is the fact that you cannot have good will without reason, because reason was made to guide good will. My question, then is, is it possible to follow/think through reason but still act upon what you think instinctively? Isn't that what people do anyways, follow their instincts even after reasoning through the situation? 

Would Fried say parents are harmful?

In "The Evil of Lying," Fried argues that lying to someone is harmful. Parents lie to their children quite often and do not reveal the truth until the child is much older. The most obvious cases would be Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the stork. So in this case, Fried would say that parents are harmful to their children and that they are morally wrong. I wonder if/how this changes once the parents reveal their lies to the child.

Is Kant a fan of the Golden Rule?

Categorical imperative: "Act that the maxim of your action can be a universal law."

Golden rule: "Treat others as you wish to be treated."

Is the Categorical Imperative a much broader, more universal form of the golden rule? I'm not saying they're exactly the same, but pretty darn close.

My views on Deontological Ethics/ Kant

After reading the views of Immanuel Kant, I think that I am sold on deontology. It makes perfect since that the rightness and wrongness of an act should be determined by its qualities not its assumed consequences. Going against individual moral principles therefore would be unacceptable for the sake of a guess. If morality is something that we all are familiar with, it would just make the most logical sense that obeying these principles should be absolute, not being contingent depending on certain circumstances. What made the most since is Kant's test to determine the moral status of an act. According to Kant, if the principle the act is based on could logically be a universal law, then the act is acceptable. For example, if a situation calls for an individual to lie for the sake of potentially doing good, Kant argues that since ethics are absolute, If the law made it so that people have to tell lies instead of the truth that would not be right. I most certainly agree with this.

What Would Jesus have done in Omelas?

So, I'm not really sure how I feel about negative harm. Is it a thing, is it not a thing? I don't know. My morality is colored by my religion, and that is probably why I tend to believe that if I witness a wrong occurring, and it is within my power to stop it, I am morally obligated to stop it. If I saw a person being mugged, or raped (yeah, this just got real) on a street somewhere, and did nothing to stop it, I would not be pleased with myself. Yes, it was not my fault that this bad thing happened, but I did have the ability to stop it, and I didn't do so. To me, that makes me almost as bad as the perpetrator.

Does that mean I believe in negative harm? Maybe. I do know that it is a hard thing to consider with Omelas, because there my fixing a harm being done to one person would harm hundreds. I read that story my freshman year in FYS, and we talked about it. A similar discussion to the one that we've had in this class; someone in that FYS class brought up Jesus and Christianity. Now, I try to deny to myself that I am a consequentialist, but sometimes that seeps through, and I had to stop and think for a moment about what I would want to do in this situation (rescue the child) and how that could be wrong because I would have been damning a whole city by doing so. I had to wonder (as cliche as it is) "What Would Jesus do?" I concluded that the correct answer was that Jesus would have taken the place of the child (assuming that a substitution could be made, Le Guin never addresses that).

Is that an incorrect interpretation of Jesus' teachings? Is this a deontological viewpoint, saving the child because it's right, or a consequentialist one, keeping the many people happy?

I do know that if I saw that child, and did nothing (for this post, walking away is something), I would not be able to live with myself afterwards.

Star Trekkin through Ethics.

So,  Vulcans are the theoretical elevation of logic within the bipedal psyche.  I like the way that star trek seems to poke fun at the Enlightenment.  For those who don't know,  the Enlightenment is taught in Mercer's Great Books program as the area of time right about 16-1900 when philosophers started to suggest that reason was the most noble aim in human perception.  The reverberations of this philosophy are felt all over the place in our world today.

I enjoy the quote at the end of Star Trek 6 from Leonard Nimoy's character "Spock" suggesting that the Vulcans as a species are too inflexible to be relevant to the world of the 24th century.  It seems to me that the possibility of being inflexible in our understanding of the world can beset all of us as we study ethics this semester.

So,  to avoid this quandary,  don't read blog posts and watch star trek on a sunday night...

Merry MLK day, everyone!

The Dependance of Personal Action on the Moral Situation at Hand

So far in Ethics, we have primarily focused on the importance of a few general theories and our valuation of their validity, or rightness. However, as important as these theories are to one's structural interpretation and understanding of reality; I have realized that, more important than any theory, is the particular context in which humans apply that general theory. I am no doubt a flip flopper, and yet, as Dr. Thomas pointed out to me, I am not. In every situation, my actions are dependent on external conditions. Whether I act on principle or utility, my actions are conditional on the variables of the situation at hand. So, in that sense, I am most certainly not deontological(from what I understand of the term =), because my actions are never unconditionally motivated. Paradoxically, these very principles often stem from our valuation of the effects their application creates in everyday reality. Oh, wait, I am a little deontological. Because I do believe that the intrinsic quality, intention, and principle of an act do very much matter in judging a things rightness; but, I also at the same time believe consequences do have a bearing on the very same act. But, I don't know. This stuff is good for the right hemisphere though.

The Reason for Ethics

According to the class definition, ethics is the application of reason to our moral behaviour.  This definition sets up an interesting distinction between that which is rational and that which is moral.  Studying this frame of reference can lend some worth to understanding what a moral action is, what purpose reason serves in ethics, and what the reason for ethics is.

First and foremost is the consideration of moral behaviour.  It has to be addressed in brief: moral behaviour is a complex thing. The fact of several theories about how to determine ethical behaviour points to this fact.  Like many things in life moral behaviour defies the simplicity of our communicative symbolism.

That being said, part of the beauty of the human experience lies in the communicative process and the way that we are able to convey information between each other using symbols and language.  Effective communication provides a survival incentive for human beings, as it allows for the observations of physical dangers, predators, and resources to be shared among the human collective (tribes, cities, countries, etc). Reason underlies the communicative process of human beings because definite symbols in our language have clear definitions, and constructions based upon these symbols have clear meanings. Reason,  then,  serves as the tool through which humans attempt to relate the dearth of human experiences to each other concisely thus maximizing the survival incentive in language.

By applying this tool to our moral behaviour, we ask ourselves as humans what things we value.  The complexity of the ethical theories starts here.  In the logical model there is a action followed by a consequence or a response.  Utilitarianism suggests that the most important value in the ethical equation should be in the result that maximizes usefulness (and it is worth noting that the focus tends to rest on the individual as an actor).  Deontology suggests that a principle in action should have the most value and infers that the value of the principle supersedes any value of consequences.  There are other models that suggest the relationship between an actor (or group of actors) and the choice being made matters the most. (Any Walking Dead-heads remember Dale?)  The purpose of studying our moral behavoiur, then, is to be able to concisely relate these experiences to others.  It would behoove us as scholars to recognize that the logical model that underlies the communicative symbolism is limited in its ability to accurately represent the experiences of one human to another, and so over-focusing on either potential source of value (in either action or consequence in the logical model) might be the result of the inefficacy of the logical model through which we analyze the experience of moral behaviour.

While a minimalist can say that the survival of the most people at all times is the most ethical course of behavoiur as it is the most rational course of behaviour,  it belies the complexity of the human experience.  It also assumes a positive answer to the question of whether or not life has value.  An interesting point in Utilitarianism is that it suggests that maximizing pleasures and minimizing pains is the ultimate course of action.  In that model,  a intelligent person with a propensity for murder can maximize his personal pleasure (as well as his personal pain) by eliminating everyone on the planet in an planet wide extinction.  That particular action would also have the added benefit of minimizing the pain experienced on the whole of the planet in the course of the next few years.  Remember,  then,  that the focus of the action in ethical quandary seems to be on the individual as an actor. Can we consider his action ethical? If he is the sole survivor (perhaps a bunker of sorts), then his pleasure is maximized, and pain (on a planetary scale) is minimized.  His presumable eventual death would maximize his pain and remove all of his pleasures, but it would allow an elation that would be unparalleled in that instance. If his survival is not predicated as a worthy goal,  this action might be construed as ethical along those lines. (consider a slightly off point suggestion, too, that the pain of a death for this man is unavoidable, it is just a matter of propinquity).  The question of value matters a great deal to this question, then, and the focus of consideration on an individual actor might bear some consideration as well.

Ethics,  then, suggests that the communication of a set of moral information is important,  but it capitalizes on the survival incentive that is provided by reasonable understanding between humans.  Ultimately, I don't disagree with this suggestion, but i do hope to point out the challenges of living and learning through a rational brain in an irrational world.  The locus of behaviours in our lives (and the conversations we have had in class) suggests that we need to refine the things that we try to communicate to others about what moral behaviour is,  in order to do so more effectively.  In doing so,  we become more ethical.

The Ones who walk away from Omelas

I found this story troublesome as many of you also did.  When confronted with the question of what to do in this situation, how is it best to weigh one's options?  Calculate them with Bentham's methods or talk about quality with Mill?  Would I want to do a "greater good" by keeping the child locked up, thus keeping the whole town of people as they are, happy in their utopia?  Or shall I give the child a (hopefully) better quality of life if it were to be freed at the cost of the whole city's suffering?  Can one not teach the child in secret so that it learns the ways of the world and comfort again, in a neutral way such that kindness is not shown but that the child can come to understand this kindness somehow?  Is it better to sacrifice one for the many?  How do you plead?  What will sit better with one's conscience, the dissatisfaction and unhappiness of one to save many or the satisfaction of that one at the cost of the dissatisfaction of many?  Is there a way to have both parties satisfied?  If you walk away from the city of Omelas, you have made the choice that you are per say, washing your hand of it as you cannot do anything for the child, but you are still faced with the fact that the child is still there suffering and its suffering has not changed.  Is it better to walk away and plan to come back later to lead a revolution against such things?  If you think of this in terms of good and bad, can bad exist without good or good exist without bad?  Are these parts of the story so dependent on one another that you cannot have one without the other?  When it was said that the utopia would no longer be a utopia if the child was shown kindness, how bad could this be?  Could it be possible to "learn from your mistakes"?  Lets say for instance, that many people cannot hold their heads upright and their inner voice cannot keep quiet; their conscience gets the best of them and they wish to help the poor child.  If the child is helped then all, including the child will now live no longer in a utopia, but a place not so great as it once was.  Can it then be a time to rebuild and rethink, anew, with flourishing to begin again, and all consciences clean with the feeling of doing a sort of right and of what is just?  If what is just is the most good, should it not be pursued at all costs even after counting the consequences?  Does not justice prevail over immorality?