The Walking Dead

**Walking Dead Spoilers inside. Do not read unless caught up.


Lately we have been discussing the good will of a person. I believe there must be more to being noble than simply having a good will.

A show that I enjoy quite a bit is the walking dead. It is a story about people living in a zombie apocalypse. In the show every one is doing everything and anything to survive. Throughout the entire  show people begin to change and begin to show how hard they're willing to work to not only save themselves but the people they love. The character Rick starts off as a police officer holding on to as many moral values as he possibly can but begins to see that in order to survive in this world one must do certain things that at first glance might seem horrid but in the long run will benefit him and his family. He only does what is ABSOLUTELY necessary however.


The governor on the other hand is a man that will and has done anything to survive. He kills those whom think may be a threat to him or his people, he silences anyone he thinks might disturb the peace of his community and he uses deception to influence people into doing what he wants. He does all of these things because he think that in the long run it will benefit his community. My question to use if both of these men are doing what they do with good intentions does that meant that they both are just as moral.

Kant's Third Proposition

In most circumstances I would agree with all of Kant's Propositions of Duty. However, this is not a perfect world and I think the third proposition is not always correct. In general, most laws are just. But there are some that were not enacted with proper reasoning. These laws do not deserve reverence. I'm not just talking about the incredibly unjust laws, such as any law that condoned slavery, but rather some relatively recent ones as well. Many people view the Patriot Act as a law that was agreed upon unwisely following the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Americans have seen many freedoms taken away, and everyday we learn of more ways our privacy is violated. In an ideal world all laws would have the people's best interests in mind. Until that time though, Kant's third proposition will be slightly flawed.

Karma and Traffic

Today in class, we talked about Kant, and got a little sidetracked on the topic of karma. A lot of the class seemed to be not-quite-happy with Kant's 1st proposition of duty. By definition, karma(which I DO NOT believe in) is the "force" generated by a person's actions to perpetuate transmigration and its ethical consequences. Basically, it's this universe juice that perpetuates the non-Christian belief that good deeds beget a good life and a spot in Heaven, while bad deeds beget a horrible life and a spot in Hell, and the driving force is not people, or society, but rather a spiritual force somewhat like that of chi. What I was trying to get across in class was that karma is entirely different from the psychologically proven fact that when people see you or perceive you to be a virtuous, goodhearted person, they tend to react to you in a more kind and generous fashion. It isn't some weird universe juice, or voodoo or even karma. Just the simple idea that people are more sympathetic toward those who seem more worthy and appreciative of sympathy and compassion. My theory is that this is because every person alive has had to ask for help in one way or another at some point in their lives, and they remember that. And whether or not they received the help they asked for or not, they remember feeling entirely helpless, and desire to help others with that same feeling of helplessness.

Now that we've established that, back to Kant. He had three propositions of duty, which make a good amount of sense, especially if you have a strong moral compass that often guides you into making good decisions. But what about those people who were raised differently from us and have  a different set of moral beliefs? Whose are right and whose are wrong? Who is to say? And would his actions driven by that moral compass still be considered good because it was done out of his sense of duty?

I was late to class today, and when Dr. Johnson made the reference to a student's motives for being late to class, I couldn't help feeling that they were somewhat pointed at me. I was not trying to be disrespectful, and in fact, I HATE being late. I hate that it makes people wonder about my level of respect toward them. I hate that it undermines my reputation with the person with which I have an appointment. I was late today for the simple fact that I have had a really terrible day, and one of the things that made it terrible was the traffic which made me slightly late to class today. That is, I wasn't acting in a purposeful way in order to be late to class for some means to an end. I was late because my car broke down Wednesday, and I just got it fixed today in time to come to class, and got stuck in traffic along the way.

Duty

In Todays Class Lecture We Talked About Duty. The First Proposition Of Duty Says "The Purpose Of Reason Is To Produce Good Will.  A Human Action Is Morally Good Not Because It Is Done From Inclination And Still Less So Because It Is Done Out Of Self Interest But Only Because It Is Done For The Sake Of Duty" How Do We Know If It Is Our Duty To Do Something Or Not ? If We Are Inclined To Do Something That Is Morally Good, Does That Mean It Is Our Duty ? I Think Our Duty Is To Complete The Task We Were Put On Earth To Complete. Everyone Must First Figure Out Their Calling In Order To Know What Their "Duty" Truly Is. Just Because We Feel Like It Is Our Duty To Do Something, Does Not Necessarily Mean That It Is. Since Everyone Has Different Morals And Values, The Way Each Of Us Determine What Our Duty Really Is Can Be Very Unique.

The two must coincide to right

In today's lecture an interesting topic arose in what Kant believes to contain moral value. Kant believed that an action done from duty has its moral worth if the action done follows a formal principle. To many that is an obvious statement, but to take such a simple yet abstract concept and give it guidelines that make sense in even today's society is remarkable. It is even MORE remarkable that Kant came up with so many years ago. Kant believed that there is an objective principle which is a principle that any RATIONAL person would deem to be true. On the other hand Kant describes what subjective principle is, which is nothing more than the principles a person follows to produce an action. The hardest part for me to grab about this concept is that there is no right subjective principle. That relies solely on the agent. However, the objective principle remains constant and does not change no matter what the moral agent does.

Bad results of a Good Will

I honestly don't fully understand the concept but I am slowly getting it. What I am about to say is solely based on what I understand so far and I will try to reiterate it into my own perspective.
 What I can say is that no matter the consequences a good will's intentions can never be compromised. If the urge to do something beneficial to others in purely from the heart then; the outcomes can not compromise that goodness. For instance,  there was a time in high school that I brought treats for my Spanish class. Unfortunately, one of the students came severely close to having an allegiance reaction. On the bright side, however,  the crisis was avoided. However,  even if that student suffered from the treat my good will remained in tact.
Good will motivated me to feed my peers, and I thought it to be a rational notion. My telos, no matter the outcome was to be friendly. This goes to say that when ever someone is being genuinely kind, and everyone doesn't benefit in the way you intended, it does not lessen the goodness of your actions. One can't always satisfy all, but the attempt to do so is good will in its own.

An unfair assessment of motives

This week in our philosophy class we’re discussing Kant and Groundwork for the Metaphysics of morals. The Grounding for the Metaphysics of morals focuses on moral and how to develop a clearer understanding of moral principles so that we, as moral agent may avert distractions. In the book, Kant gives three duties or deontological moral principal. They are as follow; An Agent actions are moral if and only if undertaken for the sake of morality (which means it can’t be with motives) An agent moral quality of an actions are not based upon the action’s consequences, rather according to the motive in which it creates. Agent actions are moral if and only if morals are taken out of respect for the moral law (it can’t be based upon desire). What Kant is saying is that moral principles must have absolute validity and independent of all circumstances.  

While I do I agree with Kant deontological principal morals, i have an issue with the 1^st principal in term motives. I think it’s unfair to judge every agent moral actions based upon motives. I think there’s such a thing as good and bad motives.  For instance here at CBU students go out into communities and get involved in community services. In that comes an immense amount of attentions that they probably never wanted. This to me is the bad motive.  However, community service also helps students in long run. In term of a resume, it helps students build their future. Also, Aristotle may argue that It would help students acquired an ethical virtue. I like to think that this is good motive. It wasn’t based off the desire of one to gain but in which both the community and the student gained.  Again, I do agree with Kant duty principals but I just think it’s unfair to say all motives are just motives. It may be crazy but it just my thoughts and opinion. 

Three Categories of Philosophy

When talking about Immanuel Kant in class, we discussed his three main categories of philosophy. They were:

·       Logic

·       Physics

·       Ethics

As logic being one of the main categories of philosophy, he describes it as a formal area of investigation. To be more specific, it is characterized as laws of thinking. It is based on a priori, which means that it is independent of experience.  Rational thinking is often associated with this part of philosophy. It can also be described as non-empirical, or not based on experience.

The second category of philosophy is physics. Kant described this as a formal area of study, or to be more precise, laws of nature. Based on his beliefs, no one can be rationally immoral or irrationally moral. Those are both gross contradictions since you can’t be thinking logically (rational) when you commit an immoral action. This category of philosophy is empirical, meaning that experience is required to confirm the principles. Nowadays, physics is a study of the laws of matter and energy, which could only be proven through experiments and observations.

The third category of philosophy, as defined by Kant, is ethics. He describes it as a formal area of inquiry, and as the laws of morality. It is both empirical and a priori, which is actually possible despite many people’s beliefs. In order to formulate the principles of ethical philosophy, experience is not needed. Therefore, it is a priori in this aspect. On the other hand, in order to prove these principles, experience is required, making this aspect empirical. Any morally good action is done solely for the sake of duty (deontos; Greek). Kantean philosophy is known as deontology because of this. In order to determine the duty with which morally good actions should be done, one must go through a priori ethics. 

But Wait...

In the last class, we discussed Kant and his theory of deontology. Deontology says that morally good actions are done for the sake of duty. Kant believes that a good action is predicted when that action is based on duty. But wait, what? What if the good "duty" that someone has to perform will involve harm? Say for instance, you were in a courtroom and you had to testify on the stand against one of your family members who murdered someone. You just so happened to see the whole thing and your family member actually committed the crime. You put your hand on the bible and everything. The good duty here would be for you to tell the truth. It would be your duty to tell the truth against your family member because they did not do a good. Whether it being your brother, sister, mother, or even father. Would you lie for them? Would you perform your moral duty and tell the truth?


I guess what I am trying to say is, we all want to do good. Why is it that in Kant's view, we are doing good for the sake of duty? Why can't we do good just for the sake of..good? Just because we want to. Of course some people feel obligated to do good in their lives for whatever purposes, but let's be honest. Some people just don't care. They don't feel it is a "duty" to do good because no one is keeping score. Some may see it that God is for sure keeping score, but what is a god to an atheist? Everyone doesn't recycle, tell the truth, or go to church. Good being done for the sake of duty isn't an everybody kind of thing, especially when you say its a duty.

Feelings or Nah?

Wednesday and today we discussed the school of Epicureism which is based off Hedonism the thought that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. While Epicurus argued that emotions would cloud judgments in that people would be so over-run by emotion that they would not be able to function properly and have virtue(as far as maintaining a will in accord with nature), Lucretius argued that the main point of life was to be lived happily and in tranquility, meaning minimum pain and maximum pleasure. I agree more with Lucretius than Epicurus because emotions are needed to help people live happily. How would you know you were happy or pain free if you've never experienced pain or sadness? Although I understand Epicurus' point about not allowing the emotions you feel to take control of your reason and cause you to act in ways that are only explained as "of passion"(ex. crimes of passion), I think that your emotions help shape your tranquility. If we lived in a world where people did not act on their emotions it would be very boring. What would the people that are in love and spontaneously get married do if they did not act on their emotions? They would not get married and may become bitter or change. Although some emotions are painful they help shape our human experience, Without the emotions, good or bad, we wouldn't be living the most full life as we possible could. Emotions help us to feel what we may not be able to say in words or rationalize/reason. Without them, how are we any different from robots?

Lucretious is not a cold hearted philosopher; he simply thinks in the reasonable way of feelings. The views of not over reacting to your feeling to the maximum. Just like the example of a family member dying, and Lucretious reacting as if his vase broke. He was not over reacting or under reacting. He was simply feeling with logic, and what I mean is that his reaction was a civilized form of dread. He simply saw no point of over reacting or being in a depressed state of mind and body because ultimately it wouldn't help the situation in any way or form. He would have lost energy being sad about something he could not change by being say. Ultimately his philosophy is that death is the end of both pain, fear, and even happiness.The soul and the body no longer have anything to do with life. It can not feel or react after death. He believes the death is neutral and that you can no longer feel any form of emotion. The point of life before death is that you find only happiness and should not have anything to fear. Without fear we will have a regular tranquil life without having  any conflict or bad feelings. The rewards and good things come to you when you make it be good. The gods have nothing to do with the good or bad things that happen to you. They are not in charge of punishing you or rewarding you. The pleasure and pain in the world was measured good and evil. All pain is evil; big or small. He also viewed all events as the motion of atoms. The atoms around the air cause the events to happen in your life. Life is not planned but things happen if atom's actions lead up to it.There is a randomness in the world that can happen at any time. The way to live life is to understnad how things are and how they work. That the Gods have no say in your life or consequences.Humans train yourselves to not want more than what you need to survive, so the necessities will be meet and not overlooked.To avoid pain and evil and have no pain and good we should be in tune with nature.

Epicureans, Close to the truth?

Lucretius, Aristotle, and Plato all seem to be on the same track to me. Plato is searching for the way to achieve perfect justice and believes that would lead to everyone living a satisfying life. While Aristotle seems to take it one step further foregoing justice and arguing that we should instead judge everything based on what brings people the most happiness or in other words leads to them living well and doing well. This sounds awfully similar to Plato’s end goal and his idea of ergon. Lucretius seems to further refine these two previous ideas by stating the goal should be the removal of pain or as close to it as possible because in the end that would lead to happiness in a more general sense. All seem to be trying to get close to what every individual wants. In my understanding Lucretius and the epicureans seem to have hit the bull’s-eye. By definition pain is something that is a negative experience so by eliminating the negatives in life nothing would remain but happiness and pleasure and at the very least neutral experiences. The stoics however seem to abandon this seemingly well done refinement of ideas and go down a different path. Stoics make assumptions that are not necessarily true like that somehow in nature there is a path for everyone laid out. This seems to be more hopeful and more abstract. What “nature” demands can be interpreted in many different ways and leaves room for error. However close to what everyone truly desires in life the epicureans might be their ideas on free will seem unnecessary. Adding a “swerve” to the universe is not necessary to make our choices valid effectually. Our choices still say something about us and how we think no matter how deterministic the universe is. Swerve seems to be trying to fix a problem that does not truly exist. The illusion of free will is enough to maintain meaning in our choices. ISIS is no less responsible for their actions whether or not free will truly exists. The blame is still on them, free will may not exist but there is still an abstraction of it that is relevant to us. Ultimately epicureans seem to have the most well refined philosophy out of the four to me. Aristotle and Lucretius both have very similar ideas at the core one aiming for the positive another eliminating the negative.

Epicurean view on death

For the most part, I admire the epicurean worldview. It is very logical, rational, and optimistic in the way that it stresses ways in which to maximize happiness while living, by ridding yourself of fear and pain. However, while, I do agree with his points on this, I think that his view on not fearing death is a little unrealistic and takes away an essential part of life. Death is one of the biggest fears common to mankind, so naturally, one has to wonder if it is even possible to completely rid yourself of this fear. The reality is that humanity will always fear death, for the mere reason that it is in our nature. A fear of death governs the way in which we live our lives, and the reality of knowing that we are mortal, motivates us to maximize our existence by living life to the fullest, and appreciating every moment. This is necessary to a healthy life and is almost impossible if one does not fear death at all. Ultimately, not fearing death would take away from the value of life. The best example that comes to mind is from the book, Tuck Everlasting. The Tuck family could not die (so obviously, they did not fear death). Taking away this element made them unhappy and unfulfilled; thus, taking away from the way in which they valued their lives.

The Truly Intrinsic Good

In today's symposium, a question was raised about what is really the most intrinsic good. After today, I really cant say that either happiness, justice, or pleasure is the most "high". Aristotle argues that happiness is the most intrinsic because it is the thing we all strive for. Plato will disagree and say that justice is the most intrinsic because it is ultimately what we all must define and we must all be just. Lucretius then will argue that being the most happy will bring pleasure so therefore pleasure is the most intrinsic good. Epictetus calls for all emotions to be removed from judgement and thus perfection should be reached.

I personally feel like all four of these are essential and cant be one without the other the most "highly intrinsic" or most complete good. Plato calls for "the noble lie" which is a lie told to keep order and alter people's perception of nature. Well Lucretius will argue that this lie does not give the most pleasure to the most people which will then agree with Aristotle on the premise that people will not be the most happy. Then Epictetus will then say that if emotions were not the governing force then people would not need to be told this lie because everyone would be equal.

Unfortunately for Epictetus, emotions do exist and are not so easily silenced. However, they do need to be set aside sometimes to accomplish certain things which agrees with his point to some degree. Emotions are essential, on the other hand, for pleasure to be felt which in turn causes some degree of happiness which agrees with Lucretius and Aristotle. If everyone spends their time trying to be the most pleasurable, it will most certainly cause displeasure for someone else because everyone's idea of pleasure aren't the same. This needs to be moderated by reason which agrees with Plato's point. All four need to be used in balance in order to truly be the most good.

Maximizing Pleasure and Minimizing Pain

Pleasure versus pain. Pain versus pleasure. In Epicureans’ arguments, they state that one should maximize pleasure and minimize pain. However, is minimizing pain really a way to live life? Clearly, most people want more pleasure than pain, but would we have pleasure if we didn’t have pain? Would we know pleasure if we didn’t have pain? First to clarify, I am not saying that Epicurean argument states that we should not have pain.

Epicurean values state that one should have ataraxia and aponia, the freedom from fear and the absence of pain respectively. Experiencing both of these would equal the true definition of pleasure. Maximizing pleasure would then equal minimizing fear and pain. However, if one does not feel great amounts of fear or pain, can they feel great amounts of pleasure? For example, a friend of mine experienced some very mentally painful things for a long period of time. Now my friend is experiencing great amounts of pleasure and is essentially happy. The question it raises, though, is that would he really be this happy or have a pleasurable life if he did not go through pain and fear.

Epicurean arguments also state that pleasure is the only intrinsic good, or good for its own sake. However, in most cases, it is not the only intrinsic good. Justice is considered to be an intrinsic good, according to Plato. Justice is good for its own sake, as in one should act justly because it is a rational or reasonable thing to do. Virtuosity is good for its own sake because it is virtuous. All of these can be intrinsic goods, even pleasure. But it is a flawed argument to say that it the only intrinsic good.

Now I don’t believe that Epicurean arguments are trying to say that maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain are bad things. Nor am I trying to say that one cannot have pleasure if they don’t have pain. Epicurean arguments just seem to be flawed into making it seem that these are the only goods in the world and only way to be fulfilled in a way. I might have stated before that one cannot have pleasure if they don’t have pain, but what I really meant and what it really boils down to is, would one really know if they are experiencing great amounts of pleasure if he/she has not experienced great amounts of pain (or if they are trying to minimize said pain)?

Lucretius Overview - Epicurean Beliefs

The purpose of philosophy for Lucretius was to attain a happy and tranquil life, consisting of two basic characteristics.

1)      Ataraxia: freedom from fear

2)      Aponia : absence from pain

In this system, pleasure and pain are the measures of good and evil. Good things are determined by what causes pleasure, and evil things are determined by what causes pain. Since Lucretius was an Epicurean, the belief on death is that it is the end of both the body and soul, therefore, it should not be feared since after death there is no cause of either pleasure or pain. It’s a very interesting philosophy, and someone asked in class if it was similar to atheism. I would agree with Dr. Johnson’s response to that question, which was something along the lines of that there are nonreligious people that fear death and religious people that do not fear death (whether it be because of personal reasons, religious reasons, philosophical beliefs otherwise, etc) so it’s not exactly one or the other. 

To expand on that, Epicureans believe that all events in the world are based on the motions and interactions of atoms, so they shouldn’t believe anything that cannot be tested through logical deduction. (i.e. like explained in class, if you mess up a shot in pool then it’s your fault—not that the ball randomly decided to go in a different direction because it hates you.)

But, Epicureans also believe that “swerve,” or “clinamen,” is built into the universe that adds a randomness to the universe so everything is not totally pre-determined, which accounts for the fact of free will. What do you think of Lucretius and the philosophy of freedom of fear and absence of pain? What about the ideas of swerve?