Selflessness

In response to Lyndsey's Blog, not only is selflessness difficult, it is impossible. Not only you would be dull, you would not exist. Everything is self interested. Every act we do, everything we say has a self motivation. Whether or not we mean to we never do anything without getting something in return. We may not mean to get anything in return, we may not even plan to get anything but it happens. By volunteering as a tutor at your local middle school you get to increase your experience with children, meet new people and network not to mention the delight one gets from working with children (this example is assuming that you would not work as a tutor unless you liked kids). I agree with Lyndsey's conclusion that self interested is a goal that one should strive to reach because selfless people who are the essence of selflessness cannot survive.

Altruism and Morals

Altruism is doing something for someone else for their own sake. You can do something morally good for your own sake and still be morally good. One does not have to be altruistic to be morally good, morally good people are virtuous people and altruism is simple a subset of virtue. You can also satisfy your morals of helping other people because you want to be morally good and not because you want to help people. Houchin says that it does not matter as much what someones motives are as long as what they do ends up being good and helping people. Except in the most extreme and rare cases where someone is meaning harm but actually helps someone this rule seems to apply. Whether you want to help someone to satisfy a community service requirement, a guilty conscious, because you want to or so you don't have to go to jail, in the end someone who needs it still gets help. Overall a lack of altruistic traits may make you less appealing to some people you so long as you are still morally correct then you are not a morally bad person because of your lack of altruism.

Superogation

Everyone makes decisions subjectively. Even when we are being objective we have some sense of subjectivity in what we say or do. One example is in how we define our selves socially. One theory of this is the looking glass self. We act based on what we think others think of us and act how we think others expect us to act. One may say that we are individuals and when I choose to wear a black hoodie it is because I want to not because anything anyone else says.  This is not the case. We are a social animal and as Aristotle says we need others to survive and be fully human. He may not have realized but this need to be with other people is so great that we even base all of our 'personal' decisions off of their opinions.

My question was if we judge the basis of what is duty and what is superogation subjectively then what is the point of discussing it objectively? The reason I have concluded is that we need to compare ourselves to others as it is in our nature. The only way we can define the world is through the eyes of others. We are not solitary creatures and since the beginning of our time here on Earth we have had to rely on others to help us get food, for services and now today, for everything. Overall we must compare even our subjective traits to others because otherwise they would not mean anything.

Equal Opportunity Education

The editors mention that not everyone in our society are able to get a fulfilling career because the top most education is unavailable to those without financial stability. If someone is really poor they probably live in a crummy, worn down neighborhood and go to a public high school that receives poor funding and are probably treated like a delinquent as soon as they step through the door. Many a person has come out of a poor family and made a life, but many a more have come from a wealthy family and stayed that way. The resources available in a private high school as opposed to a public one are substantially greater and even from one public high school to another, resources vary. No one has an equal education and this fact helps keep some people poor and others wealthy. This is not to say it is impossible to move but recent history has proven that it is getting increasingly harder to gain mobility.

Working people-Q&A

If someone lives an unexamined, 'unfulfilled' life because they work seventy hours a week are they to blame? If one needs to work a lot to survive and therefore have little free time after eating and sleeping, are they to blame for their unexamined life?

If someone is working that much it is not like they are laying on the couch and watching TV all the time. They are interacting with their coworkers, any customers etc. They are living their life to the fullest they can because if they are not working that much then what happens to their spouse and children. They are in a sense living a fulfilled life because they are surviving, They have chosen the path of living rather than of thinking and hoping another meal comes on the table. I think these people are living the fulfilled life not in Aristotle, Plato or Socrates sense but in the sense of the average person. What is the purpose of life if we cannot even feed ourselves? If we cannot feed ourselves then we cease to exist and there is no purpose. I would rather spend my life working to better it than thinking about bettering it.

Miracles

In Rachel's Blog she talks about miracles. She also mentions, in a sense that everything happens for a reason. I agree one hundred percent. In class we mentioned every event has a cause, every event also has an effect. Typing this blog is causing me to not study for my psychology test or go outside. Typing this blog is also causing me to get a better grade in this class than if I didn't type it and that will in turn help my GPA which may or may not help me get a job in the future.

Miracles have a cause yet we either do not want to know what that cause is or cannot find it. This is how a miracle happens. As you grow intellectually the amount of miracles that you experience grow less because you know the answer to more questions. This is not to say that miracles do not exist for intelligent people but they occur less frequently.Everything happens for a reason and there is a cause behind every event but sometimes we just do not need to find the cause.