DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
PHI1630 Contemporary Ethical Problems - Shanghai Summer 2019
HTML https://phi1630shanghai19.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: General Discussion
*****************************************************
#Post#: 2--------------------------------------------------
Online Comments (You should have 4 total by the end)
DIR By: ethanmoore
Date: July 2, 2019, 11:28 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Respond to one or more of the readings so far assigned, on this
forum. You may respond to the abstract moral theorists (Kant,
Mill, Nietzsche, Foote, Strawson, Van Inwagen, etc.) or to one
of the moral philosophers attempting to deal with a specific
contemporary issue, such as euthanasia, abortion, or capital
punishment.
In your comment, you should:
Quote a passage from the reading and criticize it or explain it
more fully.
Give an example of a hypothetical situation, or a situation from
your own life, or use ANOTHER one of the author's points, to
help explain your points.
Your comment should be 200-500 words.
#Post#: 3--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
DIR By: bobbyfangxingjie
Date: July 5, 2019, 9:39 am
---------------------------------------------------------
On page 15 in Ethics for Mordern Life by Abelson Friquegnon, the
author writes about rationality ethics suggested by Immanuel
Kant, “the most influential thinker of the eighteenth-century
Enlightenment”. This method of distinguishing whether one act is
moral or immoral suggests that “good will or moral character is
the willingness to obey rules that each person legislates for
all to obey”. To be more specific, rationality ethics, or duty
ethics, states that people’s own will or duty is the key for
moral actions. Kant also suggests a concept of categorical
imperatives, which gives a standard of which kinds of acts are
moral and which kinds are not moral. Categorical Imperative
tells us that if there is an act and we do not know if it is
moral or immoral, we just set this act as an universal maxim.
Suppose this act could be acted as an universe law and there
wouldn’t be any self-contradiction exists. For example, to
determine if stealing is moral, we set stealing as universal
laws, and check if it is possible. If everyone steals things
from other people, then nothing belongs to anyone, and therefore
stealing does not exist because there are nothing for the thief
to steal. Therefore, stealing is not moral. This method gives
people a clear perspective of what is moral and what is immoral,
which is a profound theory on ethic philosophy.
However, there are still some problems with this theory. The
first problem, is that sometime the categorical imperative test
could be overcome by just simply add some restrictions to the
requirements. For instance, if we say that we should not steal
unless my name is Jack. This can pass the categorical imperative
test because not everyone can steal. Nevertheless, that guy
named Jack can convince himself that stealing is moral because
his name is Jack. This is one defect of duty ethic. Another
defect is that sometimes people would not choose the action that
are only based on their duty. There is another ethic theory,
which is called utilitarian ethics, suggested by J.S Mill, which
argues that people will measure the cost and the benefit and
then decide what to do. Sometimes these two methods would not
come to the same decision, and for some certain questions people
would more likely to choose the perspective of utilitarian
ethics. For example, if one of your friend is having a incurable
disease and you just know the truth from the doctor. As for duty
ethics, you should not lie to the patient and tell him/her the
truth. However, some people would choose to lie to him to let
him enjoy the rest of his/her life. This choice can not be
explained by Kant’s duty ethics.
#Post#: 4--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
DIR By: Xiaoyu Zhang
Date: July 5, 2019, 1:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
When we talk about Determinism, we always mention the “free
will”, For soft determinism, it agrees with the determinism, but
free will may still exist; for hard determinism, it states that
there is no such “free will”. When reading Galen Strawson’s
“Hard Determinism”, Part II of the reading named “What should we
believe?”(p118) talks about the idea of whether “free will”
really exists. As it believes that all human activities are the
results of previous causes, therefore, human behavior can be
predicted according to previous conditions and experiences. As
mentioned in the reading, when all the choices we made are
resulted from our previous experiences and has causality, the
free will will no longer exist. If people understand all the
factors involved in an upcoming event, they can accurately
predict it; or, conversely, if an event occurs, they can assume
that it is inevitable. Oppositely, what soft determinist says,
just as Simon Blackburn said in “Soft Determinism”, that
“sometimes the causal routes are totally independent of what we
think”(p145). It argues that people can have free will while the
causality happens.
So here comes a problem, how can we make sure that the “free
will” is the real free will? The so-called free will is that a
conscious subject can make his/her own choice when facing a
variety of open-ended possibilities, completely according to
his/her own wishes. Let’s imagine a hypothetical situation, you
want to eat something, you can eat apple because you haven’t
eaten it for a long time; or you can eat pie which you have
never tasted before. After hesitation, you chose to eat pie.
These are two possible choices, and choosing either one is
according to your own will. But when we’re thinking about the
reason why ate pie, you might think: I’m hungry now, I need some
food, though apple is delicious, I want to fill up my stomach
more; I never tried pie before, I should have a try; I can eat
apple anytime I want, but the pie is hard to buy… Where do these
thoughts come from? They are influenced by many elements, such
as your mood, your personality, what others told you… These
makes your decision predictable. Since your decision is
predictable, it must happen. Are you still “free” to make it?
Your decision is only the one that you have been determined to
make, just as someone said “we do what we will, but we don't
will what we will”. In that case, when the world is in
determinism, all of our decisions had been decided previously,
also the process of making a choice is totally out of your
control and is processed with those determined factors.
Therefore, the existence of free will cannot be proved.
#Post#: 5--------------------------------------------------
1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
DIR By: xzz0427
Date: July 5, 2019, 2:05 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I’m interested in if euthanasia should be legalized. Euthanasia
refers to the painless killing of a patient suffering from an
incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma. But
the reason why it’s still illegal in several countries I think
is because there are some limitations. First, the incentive for
executing euthanasia must be reducing the pain of the patient
and should be done by medical staff. Then the patient must be
suffer unbearable and incurable pain. Also, the thought should
be sincerely given by patient or his or her family .Last but not
least, the way to get euthanasia should be as simple as
possible.
In China, euthanasia is illegal and become a controversial
topic. People are afraid of the uncertain and illegal use by
evildoers. Moreover, once you assist others to suicide, it’s
also consider as murder in Chinese law.
People should have their own rights to decide their life. If
there’s a patient is suffering extreme pain and with clear mind,
he or she can choose euthanasia to end the life, it’s a
represent of respect of his or her own life. Others do not have
rights to oppose the patient. The choice follows the
utilitarian, which is to bring greatest pleasure to greatest
amount of people. The patient can release their pressure, and
his or her family do not need to afford lots of charges.
However, there’s also problems. As far as I learn about
euthanasia, I can learn that people usually use cyanide to
achieve their goal. As a chemistry-related major student, I know
that cyanide can kill people in few seconds but I don’t know how
much pain the patient will suffer. People think the patient dies
peacefully only because their placid face. The doctor would tell
the patient’s family that he or her dies without much pain. But
no one knows if the word is true. Only patient knows that it’s
moral or not. Therefore, it makes people hard to choose. Just
like the passage says “This reflects not just a fear of
experiencing substantial pain or suffering or of being abandoned
by loved ones when dying, but also a desire to retain dignity
and control to the extent possible during this last period of
life.” Only the choice that is made by patient sincerely can be
effective, or it would bring problems.
Siyi Qiu
#Post#: 6--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
DIR By: Qi Wang
Date: July 5, 2019, 6:31 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Duty, then, consists in the obligation to act from pure
reverence for the moral law. To this motive all others must give
way, for it is the condition of will which is good in itself,
and which has a value with which nothing else is comparable. It
was quoted in Mill’s article. It states that duty follows the
moral law and it leads people to do good and right things.
Following their own duties makes the society better and better,
because value of duty is more important than other things. In my
opinion, the modern society is duty-based and make it to develop
in a well-organized way. Everyone has their own duty to do
things. A single person also has several different duties at the
same time.
Take myself as an example. As a college student, I have duty to
study hard and graduate from college. By finishing this duty, I
could make more contribution to the society and make more money
maybe. Colleges cultivate people to explore knowledge in depth
and develop social skills. The duty of study also helps me to
develop myself. Then, in China, it is very common that kids need
to take care of their parents when their parents get older. It
is very different from America. In China, kids have duty to take
care of their parents for the reason that parents bring up kids
when they are young. In this way, kids have duty to take care of
their parents when parents do not have ability to make money and
could not look after themselves. As a son, I have the duty to
raise my parents when I could make money.
Everyone has duties to do things in their daily live. Police
officers protect citizens from criminals and help them. Teachers
cultivate students to good people. Doctors cure patients and
help them out. Duty is very important for the reason that
society is duty-based and everyone does their own duties.
#Post#: 8--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
DIR By: fjontk
Date: July 5, 2019, 10:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
According to Dan W. Brock’s definition on page 191 and 192, “In
assisted suicide the patient acts last (for example, Janet
Adkins pushed the button after Dr. Jack Kevorkian hooked her up
to his suicide machine), whereas in euthanasia the physician
acts last by performing the physical equivalent of pushing the
button.” In his article, he compared the two and argued that in
the case of assisted suicide, the doctor is moral while in the
case euthanasia the doctor is not. Even though I agree with his
conclusion, I still want to argue that these two cases can not
be compared by the definition of suicide. In my opinion, suicide
is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. There are
two important points in this definition, one is that
“intentionally”, which in this case means that the patient
should have their own will to death. In the case of euthanasia,
instead of the patient, the doctor made the decision, thus the
death cannot be “intentionally". Another point is “causing one’s
own death”. Similarly, the consequence of euthanasia is the
death of the patient, but the “act” is taken by the doctor.
As a conclusion, I won’t consider euthanasia as a kind of
suicide, and I don’t think it is a comparable case with assisted
suicide, since they are not in the same category.
Zhongyue Cheng
#Post#: 11--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
DIR By: haoruli
Date: July 5, 2019, 10:26 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I would like to talk about the right of abortion. In the
textbook, Mary Anne warren points out that the debate over the
moral status of abortion is that the term `human’ has two
distinct, but not often distinguished, senses. Since it is wrong
to kill innocent human beings, and fetuses are innocent human
beings, so it is wrong to kill fetuses. However, does fetuses
have the same rights as human beings? What characteristics
entitle an entity to be considered a person? From the concept of
humanity in the moral sense, a human being must have
consciousness, reasoning, self-motivated activity, the capacity
to communicate and the presence of self-concepts. Obliviously
any of these conditions above cannot be applied to fetuses. In
this way I would say fetuses do not have equal rights as normal
human beings. A more interesting thing is that abortion is not
an isolated moral issue, it can be related to euthanasia.
Imagine a situation of an infanticide case. The fetus is
diagnosed with a disease that will kill him after a year or two
with great pain. An infant is born with such severe physical
anomalies that its life would predictably be a very short. It
will be better to let fetus not suffer by euthanasia. It can be
immoral to practice involuntary euthanasia on persons, since
they have the right to decide for themselves whether they wish
to continue to live. However, infants are incapable to make
their own choices and end that suffering in the most humane way.
Haoru Li
#Post#: 13--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
DIR By: libo
Date: July 5, 2019, 10:36 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Page 169-189, this is a short science-fiction story. There’s
couple questions I want to discuss. I know in those kind story
we are forced into doing some moral choice like this, so I have
get rid of any other possible solution, like the situation in
the “train” story.
As in utilitarianism approach, in order to maximizing the
benefit, the best choice for them is to throw the little girl
out the window, which would save other five’s life. And they
did, also they are following the conventionalism approach, they
are on a mission and no matter what it takes, they should follow
the command. Here is my question, what if that was not a little
girl, instead, it was an animal(dog/cat/bear), and captain has
huge connection to it. Does he still choose to throw it out the
window. I guess he could not make choices in that circumstance.
So the point is, anything , a living creature or a object, once
there’s relation or emotion associated with it, people tend to
hesitate, that is the virtue doing the work. In the end, they
throw the girl out the window, she does not have a connection to
the captain. That is why she got throw out in my opinion.
Libo cheng
#Post#: 14--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
DIR By: yeqiyang
Date: July 5, 2019, 10:59 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
As the response to Van Den Haag’s argument, I contend that death
penalty may not deter murder. There is more fearfulness of death
penalty than any other sentence. However, for most of the cases,
murdering comes out of unreasonable behavior rather than
intention. For those cases, no matter what sentence actually
lets to the same result because the murderers have never expect
the result or they will not commit that. Or, in terms of the
intentional killing, like terrorist or like the case of Breivik,
their murdering comes out of extreme thought which will not be
deterred by any kind of sentence. In other words, what they are
aiming at it to die and then they will become martyr. For those
extremist, the only possible way is to educate and therefore
deters more people to become extremist.
At first, it is questionable that whether the government has the
right of sentencing and executing death penalty. It is dangerous
hand the right to decide one's life to the government. Nowadays,
in majority of the countries, there is at least a certain amount
of transparency in the process of sentencing even in the
countries which are implementing sharia law. However, what if we
are living under WWII? Nazi Germany and imperial Japan are both
seemingly civilized and modernized countries, but the government
does not obey the minimum extent of human rights. Jews,
communist or any kinds of people who fail to meet the
requirement of Nazi are put to death. At the time of the
election of Hitler, a few people may expect the disastrous
outcome of Nazis’ policy. It is the same thing we are facing
today. If Donald Trump is given the amount of power that owned
by Hitler, there will certainly be disastrous outcomes followed
by. The power that decides one’s death is one of the most
important but dangerous power held by government right now. A
good government may uses this power to do some good, but the bad
government may uses it to destroy the whole country. In
conclusion, the harmfulness if the government holds the power of
death penalty exceeds its benefit.
For the second point, death penalty may not be recovered. No
matter in which country or which jurisdiction, there is a
certain possibility that a trial system carries out misjudgment.
Any kinds of sentence may be recovered except death penalty.
#Post#: 16--------------------------------------------------
Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
DIR By: unmusedsr
Date: July 12, 2019, 12:50 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The topic of Categorical imperative (or Duty ethics), which was
introduced by Immanuel Kant, specifically argues that each human
being should follow the universal duty in order to obtain
morality in life. His theory is somewhat extreme, yet his idea
is well spread due to his unique views on absolutism. In the
text of Ethics of Morden Life, by Raziel Abelson, the author
mentioned that Kant may have a clear distinction between
genuinely moral rules and some mere custom or prudence (Raziel,
32) at the very beginning. Moreover, he decided to follow this
ideology in a life-long path. Based on Kant, one should always
be rational and be fully aware of his behaviour, and also be
able to take consequences based on the actions he took. Although
a lot of other philosophers pointed out that his theory is too
strict or hard to follow, I personally think it is a basic human
ethics that everyone needs to obey. In my opinion, I think human
was born without saint, the crime or vice we have are built
through our growth, it is impossible to eliminate any crime in
today’s world, but based on Kant’s duty ethics theory, if
everyone can have this faith and regulations in their heart, the
crime rate may be decreased a lot. Moreover, based on the
education and environment I grew up, I was told not to lie at
all circumstances no matter what. For example, if my best friend
stole something from the shop and the owner found out and ask me
for evidence. I will tell him/her the truth even my friend may
break with me. I believe everyone should be honest no matter
what the situation is or how hard it is, and eventually faith
will overcome the vice. Although it is not simple to apply this
theory to every circumstance, I think Kant’s duty ethics theory
is one of the most successful and moral theory in the world.
shuran lin
*****************************************************
Page 1 of 6
DIR Next Page