Tuesday, December 11, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMQB_73RG_A&feature=youtu.be
watch this you guys on youtube.
like it, and maybe Tim Burton will contact us? ? ?
you can help!

Friday, November 30, 2012

Legally Protected Relationships

Today in class we discussed the distinction made about certain kinds of relationships protected under the law and those that are not. For instance, information between spouses, even information that is criminal, is protected by law. Other relationships include professional ones-- lawyer/client privilege, doctor/patient confidentiality privilege-- but I intend to focus on more personal relationships (as this was the qualification that framed our discussion today in class). If a personal relationship between spouses is legally privileged, why not the relationship between parents and children? Or between brother and sister? Though not in all cases, these personal relationships can be as close and rewarding as a spousal relationship. The only significant difference is that, presumably, the relationship between spouses involves a sexual relationship and the relationship between family members does not. If that is the only discernible difference, then do not all adults in consenting, long-term sexual relationship constitute protection under this principle? The protection of the law, however, does not apply to same-sex couples or couples who choose to live together without obtaining a marriage license for whatever reason.
So what makes loyalty between spouses fundamentally different before the law than other personal relationships? It seems that I can usually identify some kind of guiding philosophy when we have discussed US laws before, but in this case I cannot see a philosophical distinction.

Loyalty


     In class today, we talked a lot about the importance and value of loyalty, and we tried to determine what situations where the obligations of loyalty are outweighed by the obligations to the greater good. Loyalty is an interesting test of ethical conduct because it seems to fall in the grey area between the categorical imperative and utilitarianism. For example, most of our concerns about loyalty stemmed from utilitarian calculations of the greatest good combined with the categorical idea that loyalty is something that ought take precedence to many other concerns. In class, we demonstrated that loyalty is a force that encourages us to keep contained and minimize the potential harm we do our fellows, such as when many of us said that we would prefer to report someone within an internal chain of command rather than cause more trouble by bringing in outside influences. Though, we must all admit that there is a point where loyalty breaks down, mainly in two cases: where the result is somewhat  insignificant and when the result is extremely destructive. For the first, it would be akin to having to testify against a close friend for some small thievery or other small crime. Most would not deliberately perjure themselves, and I doubt that many would plead the fifth. We would thus inform on our friend, and yet we would not feel that we had violated any claims of loyalty in this case. On the other extreme, if the result would be destructive with no positive gain, such as the example with the football team, most of us would still remain silent. What do you all think? Have I correctly represented our in class discussions?

Affirmative Action: Benefits and Consequences

As we read in Sandel's Justice, there are many arguments for and against affirmative action. Justifiable moral arguments abound on both sides of the discussion. I would like to take a consequentialist look at the benefits as well as the ramifications of affirmative action.

First off, affirmative action does work. It is certainly preferable to the absence of affirmative action programs in that regard. And the goal of affirmative action is a lofty one. Equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, sex, gender, or religious persuasion, is important to the success of a democratic society. It is even more important to the foundation of a just society.

The arguments against affirmative action usually come from those who feel that they have been discriminated against due to affirmative action programs. Those opposed to affirmative action are generally residents of the majority demographic of a society, and receive no immediate personal benefit from these programs. If you're interested in reading an article from the anti-affirmative action side, I found one that basically sums up this position. Opponents of affirmative action in the United States often cite the founding documents of our country as evidence for the injustice of such programs. For instance, the article listed above begins with Jefferson's famous quote from the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Ignoring the fact that relying solely on centuries-old documents for our moral judgments is likely a bad idea, this quote and others like it bring to light an important value in American society.  We value equality to an extensive degree.  So, when we feel that equality is not being upheld, or when we feel that discrimination is taking place, we are upset by it.  This indignant response to inequality is further complicated by the rather inflated issues of race and gender in our society.  I say "inflated" because these attributes are given far too much importance as separative features in our society.  Race or gender should not determine our moral judgments of a person.

There is no doubt a legacy of discrimination in the United States.  Affirmative action seeks to correct the aftereffects of this legacy by favoring certain individuals over others.  The trouble with this is that many members of the unfavored group under affirmative action policies now feel discriminated against, as well.  Whether this feeling is legitimate or not is another debate entirely.  Illustrating the conflicts between the pro- and anti-affirmative action camps in this manner serves to obscure an even more severe consequence of affirmative action.

This consequence is that affirmative action policies, through their virtuous goal of promoting equality, actually proliferate the illusory divide between those with certain racial, religious, etc. attributes.  By maintaining race, gender, etc. as factors in selecting individuals for certain positions, these attributes remain unnecessarily divisive.

This argument is sometimes used to discredit affirmative action programs altogether, which is, in my opinion, a totally ridiculous moral position.  Affirmative action is in reality necessary to the creation of a truly equal society, where race, sex, gender, and religion are not given arbitrary positive or negative identifications.  We should understand, however, that affirmative action alone cannot eliminate these prejudices in our society.

Affirmative Action


For the past 50 years, many colleges and companies across the United States have tried to increase diversity in their populations. In order to do this, they enacted affirmative action policies that gave minorities an advantage in the admissions and hiring process. Many of these colleges and companies have justified their discrimination by saying that these affirmative action policies are a way to increase diversity and a way to compensate for past wrongs. I believe that affirmative action policies are examples of blatant racism and it is imperative that we find another way to solve our low diversity issue.

Why is it racism? The simple answer would be because they unfairly favor minorities. Sandel stated that it’s not racism because the colleges need a black person and that’s the trait they are looking for and that this makes it okay. Using this logic, it would be fair to say that discrimination against blacks in restaurants in the 1950’s was completely okay. If blacks did eat at the restaurant then it would drive out the whites and the whites are the customers that the restaurant owners are looking for. Using that logic it was okay for colleges to discriminate in the 1950’s because at that time they were looking for the white trait. I just can’t comprehend how one could justify this.

Fighting fire with fire, that’s what affirmative action policies are doing. We are discriminating so that we can compensate for past wrongs—the past wrongs being discrimination. I believe that the better way to increase diversity is to start at the bottom and work our way up. How? Well, the first thing that should be done is secondary school reform. In the US, a majority of high schools are in poor order. Many can’t meet the minimum competency requirements. In the US, dropout rates are at an all-time high—especially for minority students. In 2009, there were 3 million 16 to 24 year olds who never enrolled in high school or nor had a diploma or GED (Huffington Post).In 2009, 4.8 percent of blacks and 5.8 percent of Hispanics between the ages of 15 and 24 dropped out of high school. More astounding facts include: 70 percent of eight graders can’t read proficiently, and most will never catch up. 44 percent of dropouts under the age of 24 are jobless (The Broad Foundation). These are very surprising numbers. This is what leads to decreased diversity in post-secondary education and in many workplaces. If there are honest efforts at bettering the public school system, then I believe that diversity in the workplace and in colleges will automatically increase.

A Better Affirmative Action System

Affirmative action is a program that could potentially overcorrect the system of admission into schools the attempt to end racial prejudices.  But this is not to say that those who created these admission techniques or those that support them by any means have bad intentions.  They in fact have very good intentions and are closer to a solution to the unjust inequalities in our country than those who would like to completely abolish affirmative action.

But is affirmative action really the right way to go about correcting the system?  By implementing affirmative action, the board of admissions and the applicant himself are taking into account an attribute that is not correlated to the person's merit, abilities, or personality.  In my opinion, it is not a correct assumption to say that just because someone is of another color that he or she magically brings to the table all of these cultural differences.  I believe that a person is a product of their environment and rearing, not the color of their skin.  I think one of the reasons we see differences in people of different racial backgrounds is because we expect to see differences.  And as long as society continues to regard individuals as mentally different because they are physically different, there will be no progress made in culturally integrating our society.

Affirmative action is meant to right the wrong done to minorities in the past.  While I do think we have a duty as a society to take responsibility for our communities past wrong doings, I also believe that our actions in correcting today's societal issues should come first.  Today we do not need any further distinctions between race.  We need to help all who are least advantaged.  This system would instead take into account the economic situation of applicants rather than the color of their skin.  Because, as philosopher Walzer argues, the main problem with our society is the hold the sphere of money and commodities has over the other spheres of justice.

Though race does still have an impact on the attitudes of our society, it is money that is the bigger factor in determining one's ability to lead a successful life in this capitalistic society.  Because race and poverty are correlated in our nation today, affirmative action does have its benefits.  But this system does not lead to a solution, but a path to overcorrection and the eventual need for developing a new system that makes the playing field equal.  The only way to having a just affirmative action system in admissions is to give the upper hand to those in worse economic situations.

Can We Collectively (As A Nation or Group) Justly Inherit Good Fortune/Advantages?


From our reading and lecture, it seems that there is at least some conception of collective responsibility in the average person. When talking about Patriotism and immigration laws, Sandel touches on the issue of equality among nations:
The inequality of nations complicates the case for national community. If all countries had comparable wealth, and if every person were a citizen of some country or other, the obligation to take special care of one’s own people would not pose a problem--at least not from the standpoint of justice. But a world with vast disparities between rich and poor countries, the claims of community can be in tension with the claims of equality (230). 
I pose this question: if you can collectively inherit obligations to address past injustices, can you also collectively inherit good fortune/advantages? At face value, one would seem to follow the other.

The first thing that comes to my mind is a Rawlsian argument. Placing yourself behind a “veil of ignorance” would compel you to correct imbalances and injustices unless an imbalance  could be determined as favorable for everyone.  This would compel us to correct injustices and oppose both benign and harmful imbalances. The problem with using Rawls’s principles here is that they are meant to be the governing principles of a single society, and it isn't clear from our reading what Rawls’s foreign policy might be. Perhaps one could make the argument that we’re all part of a larger, international society, but I think this argument would be met by a string of  equally valid objecting arguments. At the very least, the current state of affairs don’t seem to indicate that we view the international community as an amalgamated society.

One could also make the argument that collective wealth and advantages directly affect human rights and the quality of life (things we tend to view as universal). To see an example of this, check out this chart (I highly recommend spending some time looking around Dr. Rosling’s site. He has some great data graphing techniques. He has also presented some great TED talks.). At this point, it becomes a contested issue between universal obligations and loyalty-derived obligations, and I think we have all agreed that either may win over the other, depending on the specific person making the judgment.  Perhaps one could make the argument that we all have loyalty to people in general? If it isn't restricted to a subset of the population, is it really a loyalty?

What do you think, and what’s the argument for your viewpoint (let’s try to exclude ideas of practicality)? In this instance, the well-being of people across the globe overwhelms my feelings of patriotism. I'm essentially applying Rawls's principles on a global scale. I also apply utilitarian calculus to convince myself; if there are people suffering because their basic needs aren't being met, I don't think other subsections of people should be happily living in excess.

Affirmative Action


            We have talked about affirmative action numerous times in class, but we talked about it in the most depth on Wednesday. I think affirmative action is just, and I think that Sandel points out three good arguments that support affirmative action: correcting for the testing gap, correcting past wrongs, and promoting diversity. The first argument I think in some ways avoids a larger problem, which is the state of the education system. As for compensating for pas wrongs, I personally think that it is less about compensating for things like slavery directly but more about how we as a society view people as a result of it and because I think that is something we can’t exactly control, I think we have some responsibility to try to correct it. I think that the third argument is something that most people can agree with, a classroom isn’t the same with any majority of people, or as we talked about in class, a whole group is not represented. Affirmative action helps to not only diversify classrooms, but as we saw with the University of Texas Law School case, it helps to diversify a profession as well.
            Though those are all good arguments for affirmative action, is affirmative action achieving its goal? As Dr. J pointed out on Wednesday, more women attend college than men (there are also more women in the US) so why does that not reflect in the business, or the political world? Despite affirmative action why are there still so few minorities in big positions? Is affirmative action helping to only correct the testing gap, compensating for past wrongs, and to diversify the classroom, is it helping society any? Do you think affirmative action is supposed to do anything more? What do you think?

Patriotism vs. Universal Humanity


What I found most interesting in Sandel's consideration of loyalty dilemmas was his discussion of patriotism.  Sandel cites Jean-Jacques Rousseau's argument that communal attachments, such as patriotism, are vitally important to an idea of universal humanity.  Rousseau argues, though, that we are limited in our ability to sympathize.  He writes, "It seems that the sentiment of humanity evaporates and weakens in being extended over the entire world."  I thought this was fascinating.  He seems almost to suggest we should feel a sense of universal humanity, but it is an ideal that is, because of our limited capacity to sympathize, impossible.  For this reason, patriotism is important because it encourages us to sympathize with one another.


It seems problematic, though (and Sandel mentions this, too), that patriotism also compels us to place more concern upon those within our community, whatever that community may be, than those in other communities.  It's a complex problem.  We cannot sympathize with everyone, so it is good that we practice sympathizing with, for example, other Americans.  Doing so is good, because it means we feel a communal responsibility, but it also means that we perhaps unrealistically overvalue those within our community.  This complicates our sympathy for the rest of the world.  Patriotism means that we feel an obligation toward one another that is stronger our obligation toward others.  To me, this actually seems to discourage our sense of universal humanity.


Strong patriotism is good for the country, but if Rousseau is correct that we ought to feel a connection to every human being (and our patriotism is just that feeling as far-reaching as it can go--only to the boundaries of one's country), then too-strong patriotism does something wrong by obscuring our feelings about other countries by imploring us to value one another, as Americans, over every other human being. 


Rousseau seems to suggest that we ought to feel this kind of sympathy with the world, but because we cannot, patriotism is a good substitute.  Really, though, it seems like we would be more compelled toward universal humanity if we did not value citizenship in the same country as some special connection requiring special loyalty.  By valuing one another over other people, we're actually making universal humanity even less possible.  It seems to me that, if it is the ideal, we should seek to achieve it, even if we can't fully get there.  If Rousseau is right, I mean, we should encourage a more communal vision of the world. 


I think Rousseau is probably right that we cannot feel tied to everyone, but so often we see near-religious patriotism causing strong antagonism between countries.  I think we, as humans, want to feel communal ties, but perhaps we cannot expand those beyond the borders of our country, and unfortunately this causes us lots of problems.  What are your thoughts?  

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Affirmative Action Thoughts

While reading Sandel’s chapter “Dilemmas of Loyalty”, I was reminded of our discussion yesterday in class. Sandel says, “you can’t apologize for something you didn’t do. So, how can you apologize for something that was done before you were born?” (211). This got me thinking of the possible reasons for affirmative action that we came up with. It seems safe to say that there is a sense of guilt held that affirmative action is in a way, an attempt to assuage. Although I agree that the intention of affirmative action is a good one, it isn’t executed in an effective way. Like the examples in Sandel’s chapter we read for Wednesday tries to illustrate, sometimes the best candidate doesn’t get the spot because race is looked at too much. A fault of affirmative action is that by trying to create a balance, an overcompensation is the result. Race ends up being blinding at times and taken as the defining characteristic of a person instead of looking at the person as a whole. I do not want to assume and generalize that this is the case every time but it is something to be aware of. Also, I think it is interesting that when talking about affirmative action people start talking about it first in terms of race not gender. I think this is in part because we are trained to be more sensitive to racial issues rather then gender ones. Gender dialogue can be more intimidating because we are not trained to use it as much. Affirmative action is a sensitive subject but it is important to remember that just because someone may not agree with the way it is carried out does not mean that the intention of it is not appealing.

2 Wrongs Don't Make a Right "Affirmative Action"

      First off let me just say that this is merely my opinion and I don't meen to offend anyone with.  I am merely making an observation from what I have read in the book "Justice" and what we have talked about in class.

     I can understand where the idea of affirmative action comes from and I think the idea is morally just.  To give people who just happen to have been born into a worse situation then others help is definitely the right thing to do.  However, I am not sure if affirmative action is the right way of doing things.  I see where people are coming from when they suggested the idea and how it appears to be an easy way of correcting a wrong that has been in our country ever since its origin.
     Three reasons the book gives for taking affirmative action into consideration when admitting students into the educational systems are correcting for the testing gap, compensating for past wrongs, and promoting diversity.  Do you see any other main important reasons for affirmative action?  The first is the idea that there is a gap that is in the scholastic aptitude testing we take to get into higher education systems.  To start off the argument against this claim I would like to recall the inconsistency of these tests and the continual complaints people give for them not actually telling the academic ability of students.  I do agree that someone from a poor public school getting the same grade as someone who went to a nice private school is much different.  Although, I think instead of affirmative action we should be working on bettering the educational system of those kids in the bad public schools.  I also think that we should be working on coming up with a better way of testing kids on something that could and will impact their lives so drastically.  What are your thoughts on what they should do?
     Next the idea that we are compensating for past wrongdoings.  I do recognize that there has been extreme anguish experienced by minorities and still is today in some places.  As to say that the government should pay for something that happened hundreds of years ago that most all of us had absolutely no direct interaction with is kind of strange to me.  If we were to go by this mindset then why don't we try to compensate the families of the hundreds of thousands of people that we actually killed while dropping the bomb on hiroshima and nagasaki?  I understand that due to the oppression that some minorities went through they are put into a bigger hole to, but we should focus on giving them better schools to start off in rather then discriminating against other people when choosing positions.  What do you think we should do?
     The last argument seems to be a very viable option, and I think it is very true that diversity does add to the learning experience.  I just think that we shouldn't allow for someone to who has worked just as hard as another person to not get into a college regardless of their race.  I think that we should work more at the root of the problem and give some lower end schools the upgrades to become like the private schools and better our educational system from their very start.  Do you agree?

    I know that there is a huge difference at times between minority and majority races, and it is very important for them to be integrated in classes.  I just think that if we wrongly give someone a position just because their ancestors were wrongly abused that does not make a right.  Any questions or comments?
   

In considering the implications of a social system which recognizes the obligations of solidarity as equally relevant in our decision making as voluntary and natural obligations and duties, we begin to solve some of the problems we have with an increasingly independent and individualistic society. If individual agents conceptualize their existence as entirely self-defined, they fail to grasp the breadth of responsibility we have for our own existence.  Although we are born and die alone, our existence is defined by forces over which we have no control. Thus, in defining your own existence, it is imperative that you recognize the constraints and benefits you enjoy as members of communities with varying degrees of influence on your life. At some point, we must rank and identify which of the obligations of solidarity hold more weight, but without recognizing them in the first place, we lose the ability to discuss or conceptualize them when dealing with moral choices involving varying degrees of obligations, or voluntary or natural duties.
When examining the weight of obligations of solidarity, the separation of the actual weight of the emotional consequences and the logical social systems that attach us to certain individuals in certain ways is imperative because it allows us to distinguish between conflicts and objectively evaluate the problems we encounter. We may recognize that we have an emotional connection to a certain individual, but recognize that based on our value systems, we may choose to harm or fail to help that person in order to achieve a greater good.  When we establish reasoning behind our value systems, and fully recognize the external and internal forces in play in such decisions, we are able to make objective choices, despite finding our individual emotional attachments running contrary to the choice we have made. The fighter pilot refused to bomb his own village, because he felt a stronger sense of duty to his immediate family than his national duty. This is a reasonable decision, both emotionally and logically. Yet if he had bombed the village, he could have still claimed himself subject to the conflicting obligations, but as having made the decision that the good of his country was greater than the negative consequences he personally may have felt in violent assault on his home.

Friday, November 16, 2012

LibertaKantianism


Libertarianism tells you what rights you have, and set up the freedoms that exist for each individual. This is hard philosophy to argue against, because it is hard remove the rights that many philosophies hold self-evident. When dealing with something like the Walt Chamberlin example (Michael Jordan example), we know that people are not equal in talents, luck, hard work, etc. There are differences that arise in people and the things that come from those are in the right of the individual. There is no aspect of morality in this, everything is defined in terms of right. Government is defines in terms of right and all human actions are determined in terms of right and will.

Libertarianism tells you what you can do, but it does not comment on what you should do. I think that its weakness comes from the fact of that it does not comment on morality. I believe that there are two aspects that need to be understood when it comes to a philosophy. The first is what it believes is the position of humans compared to other humans, and the other is role humans should play. When I say I have the right to freedom of speech, this does not mean that I should say whatever comes to my head. Yes, i do have the right, but acting on the right is a different story. This is where ideas of libertarianism can meld with ideas of philosophers such as Kant. The combination of the two may go something like the following:

People have certain rights that exist for all people. They have a right to their property, to their person, and to their liberties, and through these rights people act as free rational agents. In their range of activities, there are two centers of focus. The first is that people have a right to pursue pleasure, and they do so. The other is reason. Through reason dictates what one should do in the scope of their rights. It dictates if the action that is allowed by right, is allowed by morality. This is all basically defined by the categorical imperative.

Do you guys think what i am doing is possible? Can we combine the realm of rights and morals? For me personally, I just find libertarianism inadequate, but can not really argue against it. This is a way for me to reconcile, my Kantian views with my views on rights.

Conflicts of Owning Your Body



Today in class, we had a long discussion about whether or not we truly own our bodies. Our topics ranged from selling organs, prostitution, and someone giving up their life for the improvement of their child’s life. I think it is necessary to make the distinction that if we truly own our bodies, then each of these would be acceptable. Someone could willingly and freely offer to do any one of the aforementioned situations.  If we are not truly in control of our bodies, then our responses in those situations would be extremely limited. 

We never really achieved a consensus on whether or not we do actually own our bodies.  Some people felt that you couldn’t sell your organs and others disagreed and saw no problem with the issue.  Most of the disagreement probably stemmed from the fact that we were discussing highly controversial issues. 

On the topic of prostitution, I actually believe that it could be more beneficial to legalize the practice. That way, at least regulation could be set up to prevent the mass spread of sexually transmitted diseases.  In several others countries, prostitution is a perfectly legal and regulated business.  Dr. J asked in class if women should be allowed to offer her body for money, because, perhaps, the women believed that they would make more money by offering pleasure than filing papers. Does owning your body allow you to give it up for a price?

Another topic in Sandel’s book was the consensual cannibalism. A man accepted an ad online seek someone that was willing to be killed and eaten. When the killer was brought to trial, his lawyer argued that his client could only be guilty of “killing on request”, since the victim was a willing participant in his own death. Is it acceptable that this man willingly allowed someone else to kill him?
If we consider, for a moment, the idea of abortion, does owning her body make it ok to have an abortion? Since women would be the rulers of their bodies, is it acceptable for her to decide to deny life to a child in her womb?  By my understanding, it would seem that some would argue that abortion would be acceptable since women have the right to control their own bodies.

What do you guys think? Do you think that owning your body would provide a basis for making abortion acceptable? Or what do you think about the cannibal situation? Does owning your body allow you to let someone destroy it?

Libertarian ideology leaves it susceptible to criticism based on the idea of social interconnectedness. In that no man can be understood outside of his or her historical and social context, we must also accept a certain relationship between man and society. Just as society is responsible to man, man is responsible to his or her society. My actions will inevitably affect the lives of other human beings, whether it be friend, foe or unrelated individual, possibly in the future. The degree to which libertarian thought promotes the minimal state is contradictory to the extent of human interaction. While it is feasible to suggest that positive interaction should not be infringed upon, even understanding a minimal state only correcting negative effects of social interaction would be far more extensive than any feasible state. Thus, libertarian though must define the level of infringement, or negative impact, individuals can have on others, or society as a whole, before intervention is justified. Such a definition would itself be subjective- In that there is evidence for smoking, or littering, or cursing can negatively affect other health or wellbeing, yet we don’t consider them rights the government need to intervene to secure. While libertarian ideology is structurally sound, the system must be emplaced upon a society, and the society itself will ultimately decide where lines are drawn- and in a democratic society, there is potential for disagreements over the nature of rights that libertarian thought has no means by which to resolve.
In the example of the differences between soldiers going to war, a man selling a vital organ, and a woman dying for her child, the necessary minimum intervention that I would propose would be the prevention of the taking of a life except in circumstance of necessity, as provided in situations where a life will be lost regardless of the choice of action taken. I think it is critical to establish the value of life as equal to all other human lives and separate from the free market. While soldiers are rewarded for their choice of profession with financial compensation, the understanding of service is that it is a choice to defend the country from enemies that would otherwise take the lives of many other civilians- it is not an equal distribution in that the weight placed on military service is not only the potential to lay down your life, but also to commit acts in the defense of a society to save many more lives than those that would be lost, up to and including your own. Compensation is a practical necessity for soldiers to be members of society, and to provide some semblance of gratitude, but it is not seen as a profession generally chosen for purely selfish reasons. Obviously the reality of any motivation is that it can be dissected as selfish, and members of any profession will have made choices that benefit themselves,  but in its purest form, it isn’t always possible to rationalize the choices made in sacrifice as self-interested.