Prep for First Reading

"In a situation where one person is being harmed and the other is doing the harming, which is most to be avoided, harming the other or being harmed by another? Why? What if the person doing the harming will not get caught? What if the person doing the harming can avoid feeling guilty? The harms we're talking about can be minor (stealing parking place), moderate (embezzlement) or major (genocide)."

First, I would like to narrow down our hypothetical situation as this will make it easier for me to directly address the questions being asked. In the situation I will discuss, the harming will be physical (fighting). In the case of physical harm, I would say that it is more important to avoid being harmed by another. I say this because there are times when it is necessary to take on the opposite role, become the person doing the harming. Now, don't get me wrong. I am not trying to say that violence should be a person's primary means to an end, just that certain circumstances can only be solved by harming another. A situation that fits these circumstances would be that if the only way to survive would be to attack an attacker. I believe that the person trying to survive would not feel guilt. The whole situation could have been avoided, however, if the person was able to avoid being harmed. I know we would all like to believe that morals and ethics will win out in the end, and that decisions like these will become obsolete in the future. I am afraid that this will not happen any time soon. Many people make their decisions based on furthering their own life, not on how they can further the community. It seems as though people are "primative at their core with a layer of civility on top." I'm not sure where I have heard that, but I don't think I made it up. I think what it means is that when the going gets rough, man will try to serve himself.

"What skills should we work to possess, the skills to persuade others to agree with our beliefs or the skills to discern whether the beliefs we have are true or false?"

I would say that it is more important to look at our own beliefs and determine whether they have truth to them. I believe that perpetuating something that is false is one of the worst things that science can do, yet it is done every year. Physicists hold to the idea that formal charge flows from the positive to the negative even though it is common knowledge that electrons really flow from negative to positive. Instead of trying to change this fact, however, physics teachers go on persuading freshmen that formal charge is true. I do understand that the reason for the wrong information is so that many equations do not have to be changed, but is this worth believing false information?

"What do the 'Prior Questions' have in common?"

The previous two questions both deal with ethical decisions and how they relate to everyday life. In both cases, I believe that people will choose based on how it will affect them. In the first situation, people will choose to harm another if this helps them avoid being harmed. In the second situation, people will choose to perpetuate false information if it allows them to do less work (change old equations).

First Entry

This is my first time creating a weblog. I am creating it for a philosophy/ethics class, and future posts will confirm this. In addition to this being my first "blog," this will also be the first philosophy class I take. I am a science major and enjoy science courses. I do not know yet if I will enjoy philosophy as it seems there is not always a specific answer to a given question. The study seems very open ended.