Cerney's Blog

Final Hwk

ccerne1 — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:06:31 +0000

Studying Mill’s Utilitarianism was my favorite part of the semester. Mill gave a very clear and useful judge to what is moral and immoral. Even though there were some flaws in his explanations his theory gives a feasible way to pursue a moral life.

Hwk 12/9

ccerne1 — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:01:31 +0000

If murder was committed by a virtuous person and was virtuous in nature Aristotle would not think it was bad. Aristotle was concerned more about the character of an individual than the persons individual actions. Murder is an extreme act so it would be very rare circumstances would this would be considered virtuous.

Hwk 11/25

ccerne1 — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 03:45:16 +0000

They is a a transition between being born and being a full party to the social contract. When you are born you taught about the contract by your parents and learn to be apart of the contract to promote peace. When you are younger parents are more responsible for their children then the children are for themselves. As a child grows the burden for responsibility their action transfer from the parent to the child.

Homework for 11/20

ccerne1 — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:34:11 +0000

According to Hobbes a governments is created to uphold the social contract between its citizens. The people give up rights that are in conflict to the contract, to protect themselves from other citizens. Hobbes argues that the government, and the people within it, are beyond the bounds of morality and must protect the contract between citizens by any means. I do not believe this is functional in a modern democratic society, although the government does need the ability to break the contract to protect its citizens, the individual members of government are still citizen and must abide to the contract.

Homework for 11/18

ccerne1 — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:21:26 +0000

I believe that Hobbes’ theory is correct and that if the was no social order that it would be a constaint, every man for himself war. The nature of every living thing on the planet is survival of the fittest and that would lead to the natural fittest controlling nature’s resources. Social order has protected us from this war by having humans work together for protection and accumlation of reasource. Even though we have social order, war still does exist between opposing social and cultural groups proving our nature is still with us, but not all out every man for themselves.

Homework for 11/13

ccerne1 — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:03:24 +0000

I believe that although Kant’s arguement is credible, Mill’s theory is much more conceiveable. Mill gives a definate value to the basis of morality, happiness, it can still be use on a daily basis to solve many problems. Kant’s theory is hard to conceive on daily basis.

Homework for 11/11

ccerne1 — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:49:15 +0000

Kant aruges that “rational nature is distinguished from the rest of nature by this that it sets before itself an end.” This pertains to self-interest because life must be preceived as an end not a mean. A suffering person may continplate suicide but rationally suicide can not be commited because then person become a mean to be content till the end of life.

Homework for 11/4

ccerne1 — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:05:46 +0000

According to the Catagoical Imperiative theory of Kant, cheating on an exam is immoral be cause you can not make the maxium universal law. The theory states that an action is immoral if you place your maxium, or the desired results of your action, into universal law and the maxium no longer holds. In this sence you would enter a world where everyone cheats on exams. If every cheated no one will learn and will get caught, because of this cheating is immoral.

Hwk 10/30

ccerne1 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:20:26 +0000

I do not believe happiness has intrinsic value because as Kant says senitory impulses such as happiness can be misleading and that only reason can reveal true happiness. An example of this is a person addicted to drugs. A person will be happy when he receives his fix but that doesn’t mean that it is morally right to do drugs, it is definatly not.

Hwk 10/16

ccerne1 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:05:18 +0000

In class we discussed the objection that the standard is too high for everyone to consider overall happiness for all of their actions. Mill responds by saying that it is a shame that this misunderstanding is brought up as a objection to utilitarianism. People cannot and should not be thinking about the overall consiquence to society but to the individuals the make it up. This objection is useful against any moral theory including religion, people cannot go and read the bible for advice everytime they have to act.