Morally Right or Morally Wrong?

One of the things we addressed in class one day is the notion of a moral dilemma. During class I wondered what exactly a moral dilemma was. By simply typing in “define moral dilemma” in the Google search bar, a definition was displayed: “A moral dilemma is a conflict in which you have to choose between two or more actions and have moral reasons for choosing each action.” Then I decided to look up the words “moral” and “dilemma” separately to see what their definitions were. Morality deals with what is right or wrong in human behavior according to the Merriam-Webster website while a dilemma is a situation in which you have to make a difficult choice. At the end of class we were asked to ponder this scenario: there is one track with a trolley containing five people inside heading toward a cliff and a fat man is beside you. You have two choices: don’t push the man to stop the doomed trolley or push him and possibly save five lives. There are two ways to look at it. One: Save one life and lose five. Two: you can sacrifice one life to save five. One could say by choosing the first option it is not your fault that those five died. You didn’t start the trolley. You didn’t send it heading for a cliff. You didn’t tell those people to stay on board the trolley (It might have been going slow enough for them to safely jump off before it barreled over the cliff). On the other hand, option two could deem you a murderer because you physically and willingly pushed a man to his death. You are directly responsible for him losing his life. The thing about moral dilemmas is that the person facing the dilemma may not always have the full story. For instance, a lot of things play into this scenario that isn’t mentioned, but we’re supposed to make a sound judgment on a limited amount of knowledge. It’s like court trials. People are expected to review evidence, to hear both sides of the story, etc. before making a choice to seal one’s fate. Is it really good or morally acceptable to make judgements without knowing the full story? Is it morally acceptable to commit murder to save the lives of others? Those questions can only be answered individually based on the type of people we are.

Twigs

A life lesson that I seem to always have to be reminded of comes from something my father has told me many times: "A single twig breaks but the bundle of twigs is strong." The majority of the time, people believe that they are alone, and have to do everything in solitary. People struggle alone everyday; what everyone forgets is that everybody has friends and family that can help them. Even those cliques that might not be as cool as those included in the  more popular and successful have someone to lean on. We are all each a twig of our own that brings something special  to a bundle. I was reminded of this by the words of Thrasymachus: "justice is the advantage of the stronger." In short, the strong use justice as a tool to use the weak for their own bidding. I feel that every day in our society the system of "justice" is abused for profit. Citizens everyday rise together in protest as a "bundle" to make a change in the world they wish to see. Anyone who has a belief or a change they wish to see in the world, I promise there are like-minded individuals in this world that wish to see the same thing. Anything can be accomplished when you have a "bundle of sticks" fighting for what they believe. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

-Graham-Contemporary Moral Issue_Johnson
-MWF 9AM

The Universal Good Samaritan

The topic of a "just" society or human being is one that can lead to a prolonged debate. This being because what makes a person just or unjust isn't clear or on one universal accord. The factors of being a just person must first be set in stone as such a guideline before we can distinguish if a person is just. In my opinion a just person is one who exhibits the following qualifications:  honesty, integrity, believes in equality for all, kind, ambitious, and finally passive yet aggressive. These are my qualifications of a just individual because in my opinion, if a person exhibits all of the following, then that person is one who can be subject to any situation and prevail. The reason a just person must be flexible and able to stand strong in any situation is, because a just person would always be looked at as the wise person who is able to control any controversies around them. If a person is just they will know what is right versus what is wrong. But just because that is my criteria for a just person someone may look at some of my qualifications as a person who would be unjust. This is why this discussion would be one that could be defined as an aporia. Simply because there are rare forms of universal guidelines as to which we as a whole could agree upon as being universally just. One person may think killing is wrong, while another view it as right, and another's view is wrong only on certain occasions--out of each of those views which one do we dean as just? We could all say that the morally right decision is to not kill at all, but even some of our own internal beliefs can sometimes contradict our morals. So in all honesty the question remains is there really a truly "just" person in the world?
    

Truth vs Opinion

Truth verses opinion is a very interesting topic. I feel that some truths are base off of individual opinions. For example something can be true, but there is always someone who is trying to justify or prove why or why not something is or isn’t true. Take science and religion for an example. Those who believe in the scientific approach to things are always looking for proof or evidence to show that something that is said to be true is actually true. But, if you are more religious, these truths do not have to be proven. It is based on faith and not evidence. These truths also are based on the opinions of the individuals to believe in one or the other. No matter which concept you believe in you probably have an opinion about the other. Let’s say that a scientific person believes that the big bang created the earth and that’s what they think is true. They are going to have opinions about a religious person saying that God is the reason why the universe exist; since that is their truth. So really I think the truth of somethings are the opinions of these things. They go hand in hand because when you are dealing with truths not everyone is going to believe the same thing you believe. To me this is opinion. So saying something is true does not mean that there are not going to be opinions attached to the truths that people believe.

Tayler Hildreth

Power in Today's Society

One day as I was scrolling through social media, I found something that caught my eye. The title was “NFL or NBA? “Then it listed these statistics: 36 of its members have been accused of spousal abuse, 7 arrested for fraud, 19 accused of writing bad checks, 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 business, 3 have been in jail for assault, 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit, 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges, 8 have been arrested for shoplifting, 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits and 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year. It turns out it is neither sports league but rather the 535 members of Congress. Even though it is dated, it reminded of Thrasymachus known as the “bad boy” of the Republic and his quote on justice. He said that, “Justice is the advantage of the strongest”. What I don’t understand is how Congress could represent all of those statistics, yet no one even thought to assume it was them. The strongest, in this case is Congress, definitely have the advantage because they are the ones that make the laws and that can then benefit from them. Even when Congressmen do get pulled over, what makes you believe that they don’t then state they on Congress and claim immunity? In today’s world, you can be powerful and rarely pay consequences for breaking the law. And sometimes the only reason the powerful suffer consequences is due to the large amount of evidence stacked against them. Like another thing we talked about in class, most people don’t face jail time for crystalized meth because it is so expensive and if you do get caught, you can more than likely buy your way out of jail. Yet if you get caught with powder meth, you will probably face jail time just because you can’t afford to buy your way out of jail. I agree with Thrasymachus when he states that, “Justice is the advantage of the strongest” because this is very true in today’s society.

Glaucon

In Plato’s Repubic, Glaucon’s story about the ring that makes the wearer invisible presents some disturbing thoughts. Glaucon’s argument is that no one would act justly if there were no consequences or rewards. This would mean that justice is only an instrumental good rather than an intrinsic one. When asked the question about what we would do if we were invisible most of us were willing to do the wrong thing, but I believe that Glaucon’s idea of justice is wrong. If our justice system fell apart, chaos would surely ensue due to a lack of structure, but in a matter of time we would once again lay down a system that encourages justice because it is what the majority believes is valuable. In class we discussed the example of cheating as intrinsically wrong. Even if we were to never get caught, and there were no consequences for any actors in this scenario, most of us would still consider it wrong. To this we can mostly agree to add murder, stealing, lying, and plagiarizing. All of these actions are wrong in themselves, despite the reasons behind them. Though there may be a good reason to murder or steal, the action in itself is still wrong. We are born with a sense of what is right and wrong and therefore I believe that most of us would remain just even if we suffered no consequences from acting otherwise. Each of us has a moral compass that naturally points us towards what is right (though we do not always follow its direction). Because of these ideas of right and wrong that are within us, I believe that we would make just decisions for the sake of being just. We would not choose not to shoot someone because we were scared of being caught or to be praised as merciful- we would not shoot because we know murder is wrong. But maybe I’m being too optimistic.

Plato's Republic and a Just Society

In class, we learned that there are two types of “good”. Instrumental good is when people only doing good for the sake of something else. Intrinsic good is when people do good for the sake of good in itself. Glaucon’s philosophical look on the question of what is just and what is unjust is that there is never any true just to be found in a person. He believes that we only perform justice acts in order to reap the benefits or to not be looked down upon from the majority. It seems as though he looks at justice as anybody performing the instrumental good. In relation to this lesson, I found a current event that contradicts Glaucon’s philosophical look on justice. There is a Kentucky county U.S. clerk that refuses to marry same sex couples due to her religious beliefs. Now the Supreme Court has already ruled that same sex marriage is legal and is a divine right of human beings to marry who they want to. Its ironic how this woman is going against the majority of people’s beliefs and judgements in order to uphold what she believes in. Which is going against the instrumental good idea Glaucon has due to the fact that she isn’t giving into the norms of society that is already ruled by the law. It also almost completely destroys the idea of justice because she is refusing to give other people their basic human rights. Justice is defined as having just behavior or doing the morally right/fair thing. It also brings up the ideas of how the woman is acting based off her religious beliefs. Finally I’m going to leave you here with the notion of if the woman is acting off her religious beliefs, is she being morally right?

-Author: Jade Housewirth
-Phil MWF 9:00am -090215