Welcome To The Ice House

Previously I have used this blog for a philosophy class on ethics, but now I want to open it up more than just that. I have alot going on in my life, and I want to rant about it it. Whether it’s something I hear on the news, or something that has happened to me, if I feel the urge to write a little bit I’m going to do so. So look out for me, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. Welcome to the Ice House.

When Aliens Attack

If aliens touched down on Earth and asked me what ethics is, I’d most likely say something Amillstetlian (a combination of Mill and Aristotle). I would say, ethics is learning to balance your virtues in such a way that produces the most happiness for society first, and yourself a close 2nd. The reason I say this is because although I happen to like Aristotle’s idea of vices and virtues the best, his analysis on how we deem whether or not an action is right is a bit plausible. Mill on the other hand does a very good job explaining whether or not an action is good, but the cost on the individual to achieve this may be too lofty. This combo theory puts society first, but gives the individual a reason to enjoy the gifts life gives them. Whether or not this is the best theory, that’s for the jury to decide. However, I do believe that this is the best way to go about life.

The Happy Medium

In the world of Aristotle, there are virtues and there are vices. However to Aristotle, it is not the job of man to be overly virtuous, nor consumed by vice. Take for example exorbitant generosity and greed. Although it would be very virtuous for someone to give all of his earnings to others, it certainly would not seem fair to leave himself penniless, especially if his earnings are hard-earned. At the same token, being greedy seems to be a vice that everbody has from time to time, and can bring out the worst in human nature. Imagine a man whom tried to take as much wealth as his capacity would allow. Surely this man is not living a moral life. It seems that no amount of wealth would be able to cleanse a man’s soul of all the rotten things this man would do in the name of greed. It seems in this case the happy medium is somebody who is altruistic. This person gives what he can but at the same does not give so much that it hinders him from being happy.

Politics- The Master Art?

Alot can be said about politics. Cynics will say it’s a dirty business, or even that it’s the work of the devil, but people who believe that would probably think Aristotle is Satan himself. After all, Aristotle believes that politics is the master art. Can a person honestly say this though? It’s hard to confirm or deny such a statement. There have been many cases in our country that have shown this to be the case. Our government could turn around tomorrow and enact legislation that makes slavery legal again, or force everybody to wear pink clothing. Although there would be public outcries, it’s easy to see how politics does shape the world around us everyday. Others can argue that politics may not be quick enough to catch up to the world’s needs. Although slavery ended after the Civil War it took about 100 years more to grant blacks equal rights. I think that politics is a great vehicle for change, but it takes more than just a vehicle to arrive at a final destination.

Hobbes and The State of Nature

Hobbes’ state of nature does without a doubt paint a very bleak picture of mankind if it existed without some structure. Here’s my take:

In regards to his views on the equality of men and the scarcity of goods: I would agree with his views. Given the example of the fight for a banana, it doesn’t seem that any one person would be able to prevent all others from taking it. I also think that there are a great deal of things that are extremely scarce. We see it everyday in gas prices, or when we complain about food costing more.

I would only partially agree with his other statements about the state of nature being a state of war, and his ideas of self interest. There are very few animals in nature that only work by themselves. Most animals work together in groups to achieve goals, whether it be beavers building a dam or wolves hunting in packs. This isn’t to say that animals don’t act out of self interest at all, but that there is something else inside of them that enables them to see that they can achieve more things working together.

Even in pre-historic times, there were drawings on walls of caves and primative tools. It’s hard to believe that there was a government in place at this time, but yet, people were not so preoccupied hiding and defending their resources from one another that they were unable to create art or craft tools.

For these reasons, I don’t believe Hobbes is entirely correct, although, I would agree with some of his assumptions.

The Kantagorical Imperative

If I haven’t made it obvious before, Kant just couldn’t do right by me. Even if he rescued my entire family from a burning building, I’d still yell at him for writing the most confusing piece of work I’ve read since the Heart of Darkness. Today I plan on attacking his view of not cultivating talent.

 Kant’s view is that it’s a part of human nature to cultivate talents rather than to simply submit to pleasure. He arrives at this point by saying that although humans might not better themselves to better society, humans cultivate their talents in order to use them for their own personal gain. Whether that gain be economic, social, or just personal enjoyment doesn’t make a difference. An example of this we discussed in class would be somebody taking piano lessons as a child and being able to use this skill to gain money, impress others, or as an outlet of expression.

I would actually agree with Kant here. One reason being although for a while some people can go on without doing anything, but after awhile, I think it would just become boring. Besides that, in order to get anything, we’d have to use some sort of skills, which would imply that we had to cultivate them somewhat just to get to that point.

A few arguments a person could make however is if there was a human who was incapable of determining what his skills were. Or even if a person had so many talents, he was unsure of which ones to cultivate. Or finally, a person who had a talent that society would deem as immoral like a talent for stealing or killing.

You Kant Kill Yourself

Kant’s writings are very baffling to say the least. One such aspect is the idea of suicide.  Do people have a duty not to kill one’s self? To Kant the answer is no. In class we set this up in the terms of the categorical imperative and established the maxim: If suicide is the only way to satisfy the demands of self-love, kill yourself. I think this is not what Kant is truly saying. In my interpretation of the text, Kant says that if you are killing yourself in the name of self love when the troubles of life SEEM to outweigh the PROMISES of future happiness, it is wrong. I would agree, but I took a different road than Kant.

Kant says that self-love was a quality all human share and is intended to preserve life. Therefore Kant finds no logic in the fact that we would be killing ourselfs in the interest of self love. Instead he believes we would be in fact acting against it. This argument can lead to a myriad of cases (a terminally ill person who is suffering, or a person who knew for a fact that they would experience nothing but pain the rest of their life) in which this argument seems wrong.

If Kant used the categorical imperative on the maxim I interpreted it to be: If the troubles of life appear to outweigh the promise of future happiness, in the best interest of self love kill yourself. This changes the argument greatly. The argument changes into a statement like this: If life seems crappy, and nothing on the horizon looks good as well, then out of self love, kill yourself. I think this maxim could never be willed into universal law, because people have bad weeks, months, even years, but for the majority of people, things get better. If this maxim were willed into universal law, then nearly everybody would kill themself at some point, because there are very difficult times in everybody’s life. Based on this argument it seems that killing one’s self in the name of self love is wrong. I’m not sure if Kant would agree, but I would hope to think so.

Utilitarianism is too high for humanity

Utilitarianism is starting to become a bit more difficult to swallow the more our class delves into it. The latest objection was that Utilitarianism is too high for humanity. The objector goes on to say that it would just be too lofty for people to always make a decision based on how it will effect ALL the people in the world. This does seem a bit daunting after all.

To combat this Mill says that it doesn’t really matter what the motive behind doing an action is, so long as it increases overall happiness. In fact he goes further to say that NO system of ethics worth considering takes this into account. He makes an analogy of a man saving another creature from drowning. To Mill it doesn’t matter if the man saved the creature because he thought he would get a reward or that it was done in goodwill, the man’s action increased overall happiness. Therefore, this person performed a morally good action.

Although Mill does a decent job in defending himself, I believe he is wrong. If a person walked out of his or her house with the intention of murdering another person, but for one reason or another failed to do so, the intent still seems morally wrong. Mill would say, no harm, no foul, but in our society we would probably tell this person that he or she would need counselling at the very least. The same argument would hold true for somebody who was forced to do a moral action such as community service due as a punishment for a crime. Although this person is doing a moral act, it seems that it would not be the same as a person who volunteered through their own free will. To Mill this wouldn’t make a difference.

It seems very Macchiavellian of Mill that he does not seem to care about how overall happiness was obtained, but merely if it is obtained. Without delving too deeply into Macchiavelli’s theories, a person who believes that “the ends always justify the means”, does not seem to promote a good sense of morals.

Based on these reasons I firmly believe that Mill is wrong in this case. I believe that people do different things for different reasons (or motives) and not all of these reasons are particularly moral. I’m not saying that motive is just as important as the action itself, however it certainly does seem that motive should be taken into account in regards of morality.

Mill The Rule Bender?

As the objections to utilitarianism are mounting, Mill keeps trying to fend them off. One of the objections to utilitarianism is that it basically allows for people to bend the rules so long as it is not hurting anyone, such as telling “little white lies”

Mill’s defense of this is that although initially there may be no consequences, there is an importance in the “moral fabric” of society. This makes sense because if people continually told lies, they would begin to question nearly everything anybody said to them. Therefore the long term effect would be a decrease in happiness.

In addition Mill also gives a little wiggle room for being dishonest in special circumstances. An example discussed in calls would be telling a lie to thwart a potential murder from finding his or her victim or not telling a terminally ill person that they are about to die. There are certain cases where lying does seem to be a moral thing.

I would have to disagree with Mill on this occassion. It does seem that lies are generally a bad thing, however some special circumstances warrant deception. It would be one thing to keep telling lies to people, it is another to tell a lie to protect somebody from danger or extreme unhappiness.

Make up: Mills to Pay the Bills

According John Stuart Mill, utilitarianism is the ultimate theory in not only ethics, but for life in general. However, being that the utilitarian theory is extreme, there are many critics of it. One of the arguments that Mill comes under fire for is that utilitarianism is a cold and unsympathizing theory that does not take into account past actions, or the character of the person.

To this Mill responds that one could make this argument against any theory of morality. In other words, no theory judges an action to be good or bad based on the person doing them. He then goes on to say that just because somebody does do a good action still does not make them a good person and vice versa.

I feel that this argument is a poor one. Suppose a child, or a handicapped person, or even somebody that was simply incapable of knowing what right from wrong performs an action that decreases overall happiness. It would make no difference who it was: whether it was the 3 year old or the 30 year old, both actions would be just as wrong, and this just doesn’t seem right. If a person does something wrong and KNOWS that it is wrong, it seems that it is worse than someone who did the same action NOT KNOWING that it was wrong. To make a claim that there isn’t a single moral theory in the entire world that is capable of making this distinction is just as extreme as the theory of utilitarianism itself.