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“I believe that our best procedure is not to think about this or that specific rule, drawing analogies, refining it, and giving counterexamples, but to focus instead on the nature of morality as a whole. What is a moral code? What do we want it to do? What type of code do we want to support? These questions will give us a fresh perspective from which to consider the merits of rules which allow people to appeal to rights and desert and to weigh the issue of whether our present code should be reformed.” These questions are the basis for all of ethics philosophy. All of the ethics philosophers, including Plato and Socrates, used these very same foundational questions.

The most interesting thing about this paper is its more rationalized approach toward the issue of ethics and money/resources. It’s a much more easily acceptable point of view than that of Peter Singer, because Arthur points out, step by step, the discrepancies in Singer’s argument and offers his own interpretation of morality and how a moral code should be designed in order to help humanity as a whole, while being more rational and less drastic than Singer.

The fodder of Peter Singer’s argument is the gap between the rich and the poor has grown excessively, to extreme detriment of the roughly 1/4 of the world’s population living in poverty. Although this is not an essentially philosophical topic, the significance of the problem he brings up begs some input from ethic philosophy.

My favorite quote from this reading: “There are several significant differences between spending money on luxuries instead of using it to save lives, and deliberately shooting people.” “Several” and “significant” are very important words in this sentence. At first, I was a bit put off by the idea of buying luxuries as “The Moral Equivalent of Murder?”, as one section is titled. To his credit, Singer does flesh out the question mark in the phrase. I like to consider myself empathetic and globally conscious to at least some degree, but I still could not set my mind to associate a passive act (not doing anything at all, in fact) with murder. Singer’s five differences between buying luxuries and deliberately killing left me with the conclusion that, no, it is not quite like murder. However, neglect is also a very serious crime, and I feel that the world’s wealthiest nations, especially our own, would be quite embarrassed to have to answer to the statistics in Singer’s paper. The United States only gives less than one tenth of one percent of its gross national product, the market value of literally everything in America produces in a year, to aid those living in poverty. The thing that made the biggest difference in my perspective was actually Robert McNamara’s definitions of “absolute poverty” and “absolute affluence”. Although these terms and their concepts were not Singer’s own, citing them created a solid system of measurement to weigh Singer’s moral conflict.

The connection to philosophy comes from the ethical dilemma of this social problem. Singer’s question of “what is the right thing to do” is the basis of ethical philosophy. His question and his modus operandi in searching for an solution to this problem reflects those of Socrates. In addition, there are questions inserted intermittently, and the disruption of the argument causes the reader, or in Socrates’s case, the jury, to be reminded of their own ability to ponder these questions for themselves, which strengthens their arguments. He also mentions Thomas Aquinas and his religious belief that excess money should should be given to the poor.

“All polite letters are nothing but pictures of human life in various attitudes and situations; and inspire us with different sentiments, of praise or blame, admiration or ridicule, according to the qualities of the object, which they set before us. An artist must be better qualified to succeed in this undertaking, who, besides a delicate taste and quick apprehension, possesses an accurate knowledge of the internal fabric, the operations of the understanding, the workings of the passions, and the various species of sentiment which discriminate vice and virtue. How painful soever this inward search or enquiry may appear, it becomes, in some measure, requisite to those, who would describe with success the obvious and outward appearances of life and manners.”

The context of this quote from the introduction of Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is the relationship between the introverted and extroverted qualities of human nature, as described through a talented artist using an unattractive anatomical illustration to make a more accurate and beautiful figure. I’m unsure whether “letters” refers to actual letters between people or their words in general, but I thought that the first sentence offered an interesting perspective either way. Whenever people are interacting, especially in an informal way, it is very demonstrative of their culture and the contents of their minds. Artists, however, Hume continues, must be especially good at delving deeper into the subsurface meanings of everyday interactions and correspondance. As an artist, I really liked this particular point. Although it’s only a foundational allegory, I thought the artist, looking through a raw, unaided lens at humanity in order to better understand it, and through that making their work even more beautiful and meaningful, was a very powerful moment of his introduction. I also thought it said a lot about his attitude towards his philosophical endeavor: although it’s not a pleasant experience, sometimes looking at the raw guts of humanity has the potential to yield a kind of beautiful truth.

One thing about Hume’s philosophical argument that I particularly liked was the formation of ideas through impressions. An “impression” is a term that can be openly interpreted to be a memory, a sensation, a physical feeling, a presence of any sort that makes an impression upon the mind and shapes it in some way. In today’s world, humans are presented with so many mental stimuli that thousands of impressions must be made, and their effects, immediate and delayed, are indeterminate. I also liked that, unlike, Descartes (and essentially all of the other philosophers in the course; but I single out Descartes because I had taken issue with him specifically in a previous blog post), Hume removes a certainty of God’s existence.

John Arthur’s “Equality, Entitlements, and the Distribution of Income”

At this point, the crux of Arthur’s argument seems unclear. He is definitely responding to Peter Singer’s essay “Rich and Poor”. His main problem with Singer’s view on morality, class structure, and economic decision-making is that it “ignore[s] an important feature of our moral code, namely that it allows people who deserve or have rights to their earnings to keep them.” I have yet to more thoroughly re-asses Singer’s argument, but in re-reading Arthur’s essay, the most poignant point comes from his address of the changes in society’s overall sense of morality: “Certainly the fact that in the past our moral code condemned suicide and racial mixing while condoning slavery should not convince us that a more enlightened moral code, one which we would want to support, would take such positions. Rules which define acceptable behavior are continually changing, and we must allow for the replacement of inferior ones.”

I can’t remember which other philosopher spoke to this fact… I feel like someone may have just brought it up in class. However, I do remember addressing this when examining Socrates’s opinions on what is “loved by the gods”. Things that are controversial now – homosexuality and abortion, to name two of the most talked-about current issues – may be completely understood and accepted by society in the future. If what we are doing now is “loved by the gods”, the gods must have thought we behaved very poorly in the past, when our society was so different.

Arthur puts this in terms of the money that is available to someone, through rights, desert, or entitlement, and he explains that there is no way to ascertain what is the ultimate moral truth in how to allocate, share, and reserve one’s assets.

Descartes’ contributions to Western philosophy are iconically abridged as “cogito, ergo sum” - ”I think, therefore I am”. I was familiar with this quote before being introduced to Meditations on First Philosophy, but I had not previously understood its larger significance to his philosophical ideas. By understanding his method of doubting everything, even mathematics and his own existence, one can see in Meditations on First Philosophy his procedure of finding out what truly exists. The metaphysical nature of this question closely mirrors Aristotle (who refers to metaphysics as “first philosophy”) and his teacher, Plato.

For Descartes, doubting everything still leaves him with the existence of God as an undoubtable principle. From this point, he works forward in the establishment of his ideas until he comes to the foundational conclusion that because he is able to ponder, doubt, and examine his existence, he must Be. If he Wasn’t, there would be nothing to ponder, doubt, or examine.

My biggest question about Descartes’ argument is if it could be done in the same fashion, with the same end conclusions and with the same amount of validity, if God’s existence was not considered a “given” principle. Without this cornerstone of Descartes’ reasoning, would his logical search have led him to some other philosophic region?

One thing that I thought connected to our reading in the course so far was Saruman’s decision to unite with Sauron instead of fighting alongside Gandalf. His motive for aligning himself with Sauron is rather stoic, because he accepts his fate that Sauron will be able to easily overpower Middle Earth, and trying to stop him would be foolish. Gandalf, on the other hand, refuses to simply play into Sauron’s hand. Although there is no way of knowing what is truly right for the people and creatures of Middle Earth, Gandalf believes that Sauron is truly evil and that the right thing to do would be to stop him. This is where the disagreement between the White Wizard and the Grey Wizard begins, and they duel it out, wizard-style.

Second, the One Ring and its subsidiaries resemble the idea of greater and lesser degrees of divinity and power. In order to denote power among the regions of Middle Earth, Sauron gave three Rings to the elves, seven to the dwarves, and nine to men. Sauron is  a god-like figure in that he possesses the One Ring. The elves, dwarves, and men who possessed these rings were the ones closest to Sauron’s limitless power. This resembles the Neoplatonists’ ideas. The One Ring is the center of the monistic “religion” of the Ring. The Ring and its owner possess all the power of the universe. This is augmented by the inscription on the One Ring: “One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.” Isildur had the opportunity to stop Sauron forever, but the allure of being able to harness the divine power of the One Ring made him abandon the opportunity to end Sauron’s control over Middle Earth.

Also, Aristotle’s four causes can be applied to Sauron, Gollum, and Frodo.

Sauron:
Material cause: His body/host and his detached spirit held inside of the One Ring
Efficient cause:  He is driven by the Ring’s power and his desire to rule Middle Earth
Formal cause: His rationality, logic, and moral code. He is heavily influenced upon by the Ring. He has the ability to retain his soul inside of the Ring, even after his body has been destroyed.
Final cause: His purpose is to rule all of Middle Earth until the end of time.

Gollum:
Material cause: He is a hobbit.
Efficient cause: He is completely absorbed by the ring. It has warped his mind and his body.
Formal cause: Gollum is essentially defined by the ring. He was once a regular Hobbit, but now he is completely unrecognizable. The Ring is his only source of happiness or solace.
Final cause: Because of this, his only purpose is the Ring.

Frodo Baggins:
Material cause: A member of the Baggins family from the Shire; a Hobbit, smaller than most Middle Earth creatures.
Efficient cause: His uncle, Bilbo Baggins, finds the Ring on accident and then gives it to Frodo when he leaves the Shire sixty years later. He is an unwitting hero. However, he and the audience have a suspicion that it was his destiny to be the protector of the Ring. He too feels the pull of the Ring when he is trying to keep it from Sauron and the Nazgûl.
Formal cause: Frodo is a longtime friend of Gandalf the Grey, and his advice saves Frodo’s life. Because he has the cunning of a Hobbit and the advice of Gandalf, he is able to stay out of danger. The Nazgûl discover that he has the ring, and Frodo realizes that he must strategically plan how to avoid them.
Final cause: His purpose is to discover why he, a Hobbit, was the one who was destined to have the ring, and also to hide it from Sauron and eventually destroy it.

Basically, salvia (Salvia divinorum) is more or as intense as LSD, but its effects wear off after about five minutes. It renders the user completely stupefied and confused, often creating the illusion of a complete shift in reality. It is also legal in a majority of the United States.

Warning: Videos contain some drug-induced profanity. They are also terribly hilarious, so don’t watch them if you think drugs are cool.

My latest research has indicated that Congress has overstepped their duties outlined in the Constitution. The original idea of Federalism was put into place to give the national government few and limited powers and to make sure that the local powers had most of the control. In the case of Gonzales v. Raich, it was decided that Congress could ban the use of medical marijuana even in states where it had already been legalized. Justice O’Connor made the point that one of the benefits to empowering local government is that it would serve as a “laboratory” for experimenting with new laws about controversial issues to see how those laws might effect the country as a whole.

Happy 4-20!

There are two main reasons that I’m particularly passionate about the legalization of cannabis. The first is that I’m passionate about the environment. An acre of cannabis yields the same amount of raw fiber as 4.1 acres of forest, and hemp-based plastics are far more environmentally friendly than oil-based plastics, in addition to being less expensive and independent of foreign oil. The second reason is that I believe that crime would sharply decrease, because if people were allowed to grow a certain amount of cannabis, there would be far less drug dealing. While dealing marijuana should still be illegal, being able to grow it for recreational use would decrease the amount of drug-related crime and decrease the adverse health effects caused by dealers including additives to make their customers likely to become addicted to their product, thereby making marijuana relatively safer. Studies should be done on the adverse effects of marijuana, just like cigarettes, in order to educate the public, but it’s something that many people enjoy doing. Smoking home-grown marijuana, free from drug dealing and violence, doesn’t cause harm to anyone but the smoker, so it should not be considered a crime.