Annette Baier: The Need for More Than Justice

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn what does Annette Baier means by the title “The Need for More Than Justice.

Quote:

“For “care” is the new buzz-word.”

Review:

In this Chapter, Annette Baier talks about two perspectives. The justice perspective and care perspective. We can see here that there are many male philosophical spokespersons for the care perspective. Gilligan still wants to claim that women are most unlikely to take only the justice perspective. It is in nature of women that care perspective because of their role as primary care takers of their children and of course women are known to be more warm-hearted person. Also she explains the Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. Kohlberg developed this theory about typical moral development which saw it to progress from a pre-conventional level, where what it seem to matter is pleasing or not offending parental authority figure, through a conventional level in which the child tries to fit in with a group, such as school community, and conform to the principles and policy to a post-conventional critical level, in which such conventional policy are subjected to analysis or assessment, and where those assessments are utilitarian or related to Kantian views where ones that require respect for each person’s individual rational will, or autonomy, and conformity to any understood social contract such wills are deemed to have made, or to any hypothetical ones they would make of thinking clearly. Gilligan believed that we, the girls and women not only said as lower than the boys and men, but be inclined to revert to the lower stage of the conventional level even after briefly attaining the post conventional level. Also Baier talks about the need to transvaluing, the values of our patriarchal past, she means that she wants to develop and pursue it. For her, there is no need to remove the old ones, it should be retained and just improve it. In Kantian view people are required to do their duty because it requires them to do so. With women and minorities there are some limitations with their duties and responsibilities because some of them are not capable to do their duties. People have different capacities and that is what he wants to point out.

What I have learned:

I’ve learned in this chapter that justice perspective is not enough as a moral theory. If there is justice there must also be care.

Integrative questions:

1. What does Annette baier means by the “ the need to more than justice”?

1. What is justice perspective?

1. What is care perspective?

John Rawls: A theory of Justice

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn about what is the theory of justice and principles of it.

Quote:

“Just as each person must decide by rational reflection what constitutes his good, that is, the system of ends which it is rational for him to pursue, so a group of persons must decide once and for all what is to count among them as just and unjust..”

Review:

In this chapter, John Rawls talks about of course the main idea of the theory of justice as well as care. Also he discussed the concept of the original position. Original position matches to the state of nature in the traditional theory of the social context. Ronald discussed the principles of justice and the first one states that “Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty of others.” This means that people have the choice to do what they wish but of course there is a limitation and that is not to harm other people.  For example is the election, people have the rights to choose who will they vote. Next, the second principle states that “Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all..”. It applies to the allocation of income and wealth and to the design of organizations that make use differences in authority and responsibility or chains of command. It allows people to have equal rights which mean that they have the free will as long as they don’t break any law or the rights of other people. For me, in the case of homosexuality, yes, they do not interfere with other’s rights but I think it is going to be related and will violate the principle of being moral. We are not the owners of our own body and it is the temple of the holy spirit so I think we must accept what has given us and must act according to what way we have created. Another thing is the pornography. Pornography does not limit anyone’s freedom but people are doing it because they need money or they have been forced because of some circumstances in life. Yes, they have the choice but at the end they still have no choice but to do it. We have our own duty and some of these duties are being violated because of some reasons but for me I think there are rules and that rules are made to protect us and not to harm us.

What I have learned:

I’ve learned in this chapter we have to freedom to choose what is wrong and what is right but we need to consider before we decide we need to consider the fair dealing and our own integrity.

Integrative Questions:

1. What is the theory of Justice?

1. What is the concept of original position?

1. What are the two principles of justice?

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn why we need to take rights seriously and to know the views and perspective of Ronald Dworkin.

Quote:

“They should begin with a sense that whatever they decide might be wrong.”

Review:

In this chapter, Dworkin talks about why we people need to take our rights seriously and focus more about government. Ronald stated that “if people have a right to do something, then it is wrong to interfere them.” The government has the big role in protecting our rights but sometimes they also became a hindrance to exercise our rights and that is wrong. Yes, we all have rights so if we have given the right to speak, we must speak and take the privileged to have that right. Dworking also discussed the difference between legal and moral rights. Legal rights are rights that are imposed by law and moral rights are rights that are imposed by the society. These two became the basis of people to know which act is moral and which is not. But sometimes there are legal rights that are not moral rights and there are moral rights that are not legal rights.  In this situation the government may interfere to exercise one’s right. Also Ronald discussed the two important ideas that are behind the institution of rights are the vague but powerful idea of human dignity and the political equality. With the first one, the idea is that there are ways of treating a man that are inconsistent with recognizing him as a full member of the human community, and holds that such treatment profoundly unjust. The second idea is that the weaker members of a political community are entitled to the same concern and respect of their government as the more powerful members have secured for themselves.

What I have learned:

In this chapter, I learned that a person has the right to break the law as long as he could justify his actions and he is ready for its consequences but of course we people should think that whatever we decide might be wrong.

Integrative questions:

1. Whay do we need to take rights seriously?
2. What is a legal right?
3. What is a moral right?

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn more about the importance of one’s right and know how to respond and defend my own right.

Quote:

“The sovereign, to be sure, had a certain duty to treat his subjects well, but this duty was owed not to the subjects directly, but to God, just as we might have a duty to a person to treat his property well, but of course no duty to the property itself but only to its owner.”

Review:

In this chapter, Feinberg wants to demonstrate that rights are really significant. He started the article by giving an example of a place called Nowheresville. It is a place that no one has rights and because of that, people in this place cannot make moral claims when other people treated them unjustly. They cannot ask for justice, they cannot even demand or claim fair treatment, and as a result they are deprived of self-worth and self-respect. Feinberg also explains the doctrine of the logical correlativity and here I think his idea and Kant’s idea are somewhat connected. I think what he wants to point there is that all duties are related with the rights of those to whom duty is due or owed. I really like one sentence in Feinberg’s article that says: “The sovereign, to be sure, had a certain duty to treat his subjects well, but this duty was owed not to the subjects directly, but to God, just as we might have a duty to a person to treat his property well, but of course no duty to the property itself but only to its owner.” I like that passage because that simply means that we people must love and respect each other’ rights for God created us all and all must protect and help each other. In addition to that, Fienberg also discussed the concept of the personal desert which I think means that we people needs to show appreciation. It is something that if other people treated us right, we must do something in return not because it is our responsibility but because it is the right thing to do. As a conclusion, I think what Feinberg wants to say is that we all need to be treated fair and be worthy for others.

What I have learned:

I’ve learned in this chapter that we all have duties and those duties correspond to our certain rights. We all need to be treated fair. Every action we made corresponds to a duty so if we want to be treated nicely we must be nice as well. Another thing is that, we cannot gain world peace without rights.

Integrative questions:

1. What is logical correlativity of rights and duties?

1. What is Nowheresville?

What is the importance of having your own rights

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn Aristotle’s view about happiness and virtue and how those two turn out to be connected.

Quote:

“Similarly, the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at carrying its rider and at awaiting the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if it is true in every case, the virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his work well”

Review:

In this chapter, Aristotle talks about happiness and virtue. First, for us what happiness really means? For me, happiness is the feeling of contentment. We are happy when we got all the things that we ask for. Now, let’s take a look to the views of Aristotle about Happiness. According to him “happiness is not a pleasure, honor, or wealth, but an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue”. So, what is virtue? For us we always think that virtue is a characteristic or quality valued as being always good and right but for Aristotle virtue is equivalent to excellence. For example, a man has virtue as a teacher, if he teaches well, since teaching is the distinguishing activity of a teacher. From what I have read, “a virtuous person is someone who performs the distinctive activity of being human well. We all know that we, as human beings are rational and rationality is our distinctive activity and since our rationality is our distinctive activity, its exercise is the supreme good”.

Aristotle also discussed the two kinds of virtue which are the moral and intellectual. Aristotle says that moral virtue involves behaving the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess. Moral virtue according to him is through habit and practice rather than through analysis and instruction. For Aristotle, If you wanted to achieve excellence in your field for example in badminton, you cannot simply read books about badminton, you have to practice. Intellectual virtues, on the other hand, do not make a person ethically good, but it makes you wiser and more knowledgeable. It is more about reasoning.

Happiness, for Aristotle, is not something that comes from outside forces instead for him, happiness is happening within you. Happiness is an action.  It is not something that happens to you or comes to you without doing anything. It is an activity based in human choices. Just like what others said, a good man is one who reasons well and chooses well. And if you chose the right thing, you will be happy. So, a man who did good things is a happy man. Happiness, according to Aristotle, is going to result from making choices that promote the fullness of one’s being. So, we can say that you can be happy if you want to. You just need to choose the right manner and the right actions in the right place and time.

What I have learned:

I have learned from Aristotle that you could have self-control, but if you never exercise that self-control by facing down your weaknesses, you cannot gain happiness. We can be happy if we want to. We just need to put things on the right track and be excellent on what is good. ”A good man is a happy man” if you choose to do good and choose to do the right, good and excellent thing you will be happy.

Integrative questions:

1. What is a virtue?

1. How is virtue related to one’s happiness?

1. What is moral virtue?

1. What is intellectual virtue?

Reference:

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/aristotle/section8.rhtml

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn what categorical imperative means and understand some ideas of Immanuel Kant about good will and duty.

Quote:

“Intelligence, wit, judgment, and any other talents of the mind we may care to name, or courage, resolution, and constancy of purpose, as qualities of temperament, are without doubt good and desirable in many respects; but they can also be extremely bad and hurtful when the will is not good which has to make use of these gifts of nature, and which fir this reason has the term “character” applied to its peculiar quality..”

Review:

In this chapter, Kant shared his ideas about good will and duty. From what I understood, Kant wants to say that we do all things not just because we just want to but because of a reason and that is not just a reason but an important reason and that important reason is because it is our duty. Kant wants to impart to the readers that being good means doing good will and to have good will is to pursue our duties and to do our duties we need to perform actions which are required to keep you away from those actions which are forbidden. Sometimes we people, do things because of some self-interest or we can gain something after we accomplished a thing but I agree with Kant that we people should do things not because of any other rewards but because it is our duty.

Kant also discussed here the hypothetical and categorical imperatives and i figure out that categorical imperative will allow you to know that there are things that you do because it is your obligation and there are things that you do not do because it is forbidden. For example, you do not smoke inside the premises of the school not just because it is forbidden but also because you think that it is your obligation to respect your school. On the other hand, hypothetical imperatives means you do things because of some conditions. A great example for this is I must clean the house so that my mother will give me php 500 later. For Kant, the only moral imperatives were categorical because in categorical you just do things because you need to do it with no other desires or needs.

What I have learned:

I’ve learned in this chapter that we must do things because of one reason and that reason is because it is our duty. Sometimes, we tend to do things because of some rewards but I think Kant wants us to realize that we must be responsible for our actions because we are accountable for it and not because we want to be exalted.

Integrative questions:

1. What is categorical imperative?

1. What is hypothetical imperative?

1. What is the difference between categorical imperative and hypothetical imperative?

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn and understand different views of people about Utilitarianism.

Quote:

“Instead, they are individuals who, by their own choices, show themselves to deserve different kinds of responses”

Review:

While reading this chapter, I immediately got so interested in what Rachels is pointing out because what she is saying here is what I actually say against in the last article about Stuart. I like what Rachels says here that Happiness is not something that is recognized as good and sought for its own sake, with other things appreciated only as means of bringing it about. Instead, happiness is a response we have to the attainment of things that we recognize as goods, independently and in their own right. That is why I agree that Hedonism gets things the wrong way around. Also in this article, I think the idea that in order to determine whether an action would be right, we should look at what will happen as a result of doing it is really right. We need to look first about the outcomes of an act before we say that this act is morally right. Furthermore, there are two bases or theories where we can say an act is right first is by the rule-utilitarianism, it is the new version of the theory which rules are established by reference to the principle and individual’s acts will then be judged right and wrong by reference to the rules or to make it simple for rule utilitarian, you can say that the act is right by looking on the amount of good it brings when pursued. In contrast, the act-utilitarianism is the original theory. Act utilitarian judge actions in terms of the goodness of their consequences or outputs. Just like what Rachels said “Common sense” can, indeed, mislead us. We cannot deny that sometimes we tend to follow or make a decision because it is what the majority says. Sometimes we need to think first about the other factors or consequences before we decide. We may ask ourselves the questions: What are the consequences of this act? and also most importantly we must ask if it it’s a moral act? Is it right?

What I have learned:

I’ve learned in this chapter that we have the ability to choose what is right. And when choosing, we can’t always choose the right one, so we must be careful. We must choose the best goals using the best possible means to bring about the best possible results.

Integrative questions:

1. What is act-utilitarianism?

1. What is rule-utilitarianism?

1. How Stuart’s point of view differs from Rachels?

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn more about Utilitarianism and understand the different principles about it.

Quote:

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.”

Review:

In this chapter, I can say that John Stuart aspires to develop a positive view of the world and the place of humans in it, one which contributes to the progress of human knowledge, individual freedom and human well-being. He tackles here the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, he said that an action is morally right if it brings happiness to a person (absence of pain), and wrong if it causes pain. Also in this chapter, it is stated that no reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as Stuart believes to be attainable, desires his own happiness. And for me that is true, we all want to be happy. Some people became so positive or productive when they are happy, it is for me an inner force that drives a person to a better condition. In addition to that, Stuart says that people should consider the majority or those higher in terms of number that can be happy by a certain events, and or decisions. Sometimes, we found answers to our problems by asking people especially when it’s so hard to decide, so we ask others to what they think will be great for us and when we found that many people will be happy on this side we will tend to follow them because for them this thing will be good for you or this will give you happiness. These things made me think that it is not always right to pursue or follow the likes of the majority. It might always depends on the situation. The best example here is when you’re in a situation that you think you need to lie to save your classmates, when you’re teacher asks you if your classmates really did their assignments or just copied theirs from you and you’re confused what to say. Will you let your teacher punish your classmates because you think you’re teaching them the right thing or they will be a better person if you will be honest or will you simply say a lie and continue tolerate your classmates. I think it always depends on the betterment not on the majority.

What I have learned:

I’ve learned in this chapter that we need to think also for the future consequences of our desires and decisions. Yes, we need to love our neighbor as we love ourselves but we need to think what will be the best way for them. Not all the time, we need to help them and be happy for then especially when they are doing wrong.

Integrative questions:

1. What is Utilitarianism?

1. What does the Principle of Utility says?

1. What is Stuart trying to say in this article?

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn what moral isolationism is and to understand different values and beliefs of other people.

Quote:

“Understanding has degrees. It is not a slapdash yes-or-no matter.”

Review:

In this chapter, Midgley talks about moral isolationism. Here, what I really remember is the old Japanese tradition that a samurai sword had to be tried out because , if it was to work properly or before you can say that the samurai is ready to use it had to slice through someone at a single blow, from the shoulder to the opposite flank. Otherwise, the warrior could ijure his honor, offend his ancestors, and even let down his emperor. When we think of traditions like this, we can immediately say or question their culture but in this chapter what it tells us is that we need to be in the position to judge and criticize them. We must be qualified or be a member of their culture to say that we can pass judgment on them. We first need to understand things before we argue, before we discuss things and before we can say that one is wrong. That is what moral isolationism is. On the other hand, we all know that we can learn from our strangers and there are times that we want to learn from them but to do this, we have to distinguish between those strangers who are worth learning from and those who are not. Sometimes we really need to be open in order to improve. Just like what Midgley says “Furthermore, it falsely assumes that cultures are separate and unmixed, whereas most cultures are in fact formed out of many influences. Here we can see that yes it is true especially we as Filipinos, we know that we got so many influences from different races especially when the Spanish, Americans and Japanese conquer the Philippines. In the last sentence of this chapter, it says that there is only one world, and we all have to live in it. Yes, that’s right we are all different but we are living in one world and because of that we need to open our minds to one another and accept changes for improvement or development.

What I have learned:

I’ve learned in this chapter that before we criticize or jusge other’s beliefs or cultures, we must first try to understand them and try to imagine how to be in their position. Think first before you react.

Integrative questions:

1. What is moral isolationism?

1. What is Midgley’s point about tsujigiri?

1. Why is the chapter entitled Trying out ones new sword?

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What I expect to learn:

In this chapter, I expect to learn about how morality has been thought to depend on religion.

Quote:

“Besides early moral training, moral thinking depends on our ability to imagine others’reactions and to imaginatively put ourselves into their shoes.”

Review:

In this chapter, Arthur talks about religion, morality and conscience. First, he distinguished what religion and what morality is. For him morality is more about the notions of rules, rights, and obligations. It involves our attitudes toward various forms of behavior like lying, killing and other delict acts. Also it concerns on what we know or what we think is right. On the other hand, the religion involves prayer, worship, beliefs about supernatural, institutional forms, and authoritative texts. It is more about following or believing on what way God wants us to live. On the other hand, religion and morality can be connected. There are people that say “religion is necessary so that people will do right”. Yes, I believe that religion motivates a person to act or do the right thing but that doesn’t mean that we always consider religion or we always base our actions to our religion because for me there are many factors that causes our reactions or responses in a situation. I think religion is just a factor that motivates us to do what is right. A person can be moral even without a religion. We are rational beings and we have the capacity to identify what’s good from bad. We may think of the consequences just for example, when a man wants to steal something, he may think that someone can see him, he can be caught and imprisoned and that is out of awareness or human knowledge where he doesn’t even think about his religion, instead it is out of conscience and indeed a morality of itself.

What I have learned:

I’ve learned in this chapter that both religion and morality are for good and these two will lead us to a better attitude and behavior.

Integrative questions:

1. What is the difference between morality and religion?

1. How can religion and morality be connected?

1. How morality has been thought to depend on religion.