I was struck by Alex
Rosenberg’s question regarding religious influence on what is “right”.
Rosenberg asks “which is it: right because God choose it, or chosen by God
because [it’s] right?” Being a Christian, this made me think back to the Bible
and different passages about the Earth’s creation or the Ten Commandments. It’s
an interesting question but even more interesting when I changed “God” to “society”.
I then asked “is it right because SOCIETY chose it, or chosen by SOCIETY
because it’s right?” I think that it is simultaneously both and that “because
society” and “by society” are two sides to the coin and cannot exist or happen
independently. This thought is a never-ending cycle and to choose one way over
the other would be impossible.
Rosenberg then goes
on to discuss the theories of Mill, Kant, and Aristotle. Each philosopher had a
very different point of view. Aristotle states “what is morally right is what
virtuous people do. We can see what is morally right by observing how virtuous
people behave.” I think that Aristotle is correct but only to a certain point.
Virtuosity is relative. Right and wrong is based on points of view and
experience. Even Morticia Addams said, “what is normal to the spider is chaos
to the fly.” If you compared virtuous behavior from an American and the
virtuous behavior of an Asian, they would probably look different. Perhaps there
would be similarities (lying is bad, stealing is wrong) but because of
cultural, spiritual, and personal influences, they would be different. Thus,
Aristotle would be wrong if his theory was applied universally. Locally and
geographically, Aristotle is more right. Rosenberg argues that “there is no
culture-free point of view from which to adjudicate such disagreements about
what counts as virtue”. It is impossible to have a completely bias-free opinion
on virtue, right, wrong, good, or bad.
Men and Women Use Different Scales to Weigh Moral Decisions
Because women “seem to be feeling more equal levels of both
emotion and cognition” when facing these moral dilemmas in the article, does
that mean that their decisions are more right than the men’s? The scenarios of
killing in this article are perplexing. Killing is an absolute; one is either
dead or alive. You cannot be partially dead or partially alive. So to decide on
such an absolute is difficult. It is even more difficult when either outcome is
harmful to either party involved.
It is interesting that the answers might be easier to come
to when the issue is just on paper or just a hypothetical scenario told to us
but when the situation is real, that is when the true test happens. The article
gives the scenario of employee your daughter in the pornography industry or
letting your family starve. Since I have no family, it is easier for me to say
it’d let my family starve and save my daughter. But if this were a real
situation (which I’m sure it is very real for an alarming number of families),
I wouldn’t know what to do. I would love to say that I would save my daughter
and sacrifice the hunger of my family but then I’d be hurting my entire family
for an undetermined amount of time with the hope that the crops would begin to
grow. For a few days this might work but after a week it would be easier to
give my daughter over for the good of the family. Sacrifice one for the good of
several.
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