I do agree with my brother and his friends. Studying is more fun!!! Damn! How I wish that I am still in high school or college I don’t care. But the only downside on that is I won’t grow as a man. anyways. I just accepted a job offer at this certain company. I hope that I won’t regret that decision. I know I won’t but still there is doubt at the back of my head. Maybe because it is new for me and it’s the corporate world, the real world! Who won’t be nervous on their first jobs? Right?!

This chapter, Annette Baier distinguishes the justice perspective of different philosophers. Baier argues that justice perspective by itself is insufficient as a moral theory, because for her there are still inequalities that are happening to people. It is an unrealistic view on how freedom of choice is explained and according to Baier it ignores the importance of moral emotions such as love. She therefore concluded that the best moral theory is one that harmonizes justice and care.

“Justice is only one virtue among many.” I found this in the book and I find it interesting because in this world there are a lot of virtues that are good and as Baier said, Justice is one of them. Justice gives equality to people an example that was given were the black and women who gained their justice in the society. In America, we witnessed last year the very first African-American who became president, Barrack Obama.  That wouldn’t have happened if there was no justice for the black. As for the women, from what I have learned, they are not allowed to vote or work at offices during earlier times but because there is a need of equal rights and justice today it is not a practice anymore. The two perspectives that Baier mentioned are the justice and care. Justice perspective is where people give importance to the equality of people to gain justice. According to the book, it is unlikely for women to take only the justice perspective while some men are claimed to. The care perspective is appropriate for women in my opinion because by nature they are the caretakers of the children.

FULL READING OF ALL THE MORAL PROBLEMS here

This chapter is about John Rawls’ theory about the two principles of justice which states that the first principle involves equal basic liberties and the second principle is concern with the arrangement of social and economic equalities.

The first principle is about how people have rights to do something that pleases them as long that right doesn’t conflict to other people’s pleasure. Both sides must be equal or a person must not only think of himself/herself but also think what it will bring to others. They must show respect to each other because that is a sign how they value each other. Both sides must be equal so that justice will be done. The second principle for me is give and take of people. There must be no discrimination that is going on. Everyone in this society must be treated equally. There certain things in this world that will bring equality to people, everyone must help each other especially when there is a time needed to do that. Calamities for example, in times of need both sides are willing to help each other because that gives justice to the equality of people. Also Rawls’ perspective of justice is that each person must somehow knowledgeable about their rights. A person must not be well educated in order to achieve this because a man has a rational thinking on what their rights are and thus bringing justice to them. As I said earlier, everyone must be treated equally and not to take advantage of what we have especially in a case wherein a person knows he/she is guilty for what they did.

The quote that I chose was from Dworkin’s point of view of what rights are. The example that he gave is the freedom of speech of people or citizens, for him then it is wrong for the government to interfere with the exercise of this particular right of people unless this is somehow needed to protect the other rights.  Dworkin’s included the government because basically it is the government who usually state what are the rules for its people. It is up to them on how they will keep each citizen protected.

But there is an issue involved in this particular chapter which is all about legal rights and moral rights. There is something contradicting between the two because one right can affect how the other right is interpreted. We know that legal rights are rights that are obligatory for us people or citizens, we are being controlled by a law in which we must respect. But we know that some people still ignore some of these rules implemented by the goverment. It is the people’s right but it must not be conflict to the right that government imposes. Legal rights can be moral depending on the interpretation of the people doing it. Me as a citizen, I think it is right to fight for our rights but we must also know that there are certain limitations that we must consider. These limitations will make a better society.  That also goes for the government, they must also know there limitations because even though they are the one who imposes the law, they also need to follow them to lead us citizens by example.

Joel Feinberg gave a scenario where the nature and value of rights may be applied: He would like us to imagine a place called Nowheresville, it is a world very much like our own but the only difference is no one or hardly no one has rights. Of course our basic instinct is that it is ugly to live in that world, but for Feinberg, we can make it pretty in terms of moral aspects. We can see men helping other men not because they are obliged to do but because of their compassion that motivates them. It is like living in a world where we don’t have duties and we have the freedom to do whatever we want. But there are flaws, because in my opinion having our duties is a good practice because it will help us discipline ourselves and surely it will make us a better person or make our world a better place to live in.

For Joel Feinberg, when a person doesn’t learn how to value their rights then they will not be able to make moral claims. Let us remember that we have our own duties and responsibilities, if we don’t do those things then we are stealing justice from other people. In this world, we as humans have our rights, especially us Filipinos since we are living in the Philippines. We must learn how to fight for our rights if we know that it is for the betterment of this country. Let us treat each other equally because that is the start of something new and extraordinary.

All of us are familiar with Aristotle; he made great contributions in philosophy, mathematics, politics, logic and many more. He is considered as one of the founders of Western philosophy. Base from the book, Aristotle argues that all human seek happiness and for him happiness is not pleasure, wealth or honor but rather the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.

Well we are talking about happiness in this chapter; it is good if we know what the meaning of happiness is. Happiness according to Wikipedia is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. But in the book, happiness is somehow connected with our soul, so in order to achieve happiness our soul and our personality must be significant to one another. An example is if a person achieved their goals and dreams in life then for sure their personality and soul is filled with happiness since they worked hard to achieve it and they know in their selves that it wouldn’t be easy to do all those things. Next is virtue, according to Wikipedia, virtue “is a character trait or quality valued as being always good in and of itself”. Well there are two kinds of virtue, moral virtue and intellectual virtue. Moral virtue comes from training or habit, and state of character whether excess and deficiency. An example is courage, if a person has an excess of courage then they are in terms of extreme rashness and if they lack courage then they are cowardice. Intellectual virtue produces the most perfect happiness and can be found in the activity of reason or contemplation.

For this particular part of the chapter, Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher formulated a supreme rule called the categorical imperative, in which all our duties can be derived. For Immanuel Kant even though there is a supreme rule, he gave two different versions of it and base from the reading the two versions are distinct. The two versions are good will and duty.

What is a good will? That is one of the questions that pop in my mind while reading this chapter. Well as I read through it, a will may be good or bad depending on the character of the person using this “will”. Well if that person has the sense of care and his character has a pure heart then I can say that he can do a good will. Let us say that a taxi driver found a wallet in his cab and he knows that the wallet he found is from his previous customer. If he then decides to take it back to the owner then he is doing a good will. But he still has the option not to return it and just keep it for himself. This is the contradiction with “will”. Duties on the other hand are things that must be done because people are obliged to do it.  Also in this chapter, Immanuel Kant explained the difference between psychological imperative and categorical imperative,  a person knows what are the things contain in an action he/she is going to do is categorical imperative and if a person doesn’t know the will contains until a condition is given is psychological imperative.

In this particular part of the book, there is a debate about utilitarianism. Basically it is not surprising because some people have different views about this certain topic, because in reality they believe in their views.

There is a question there, “Is happiness the only thing that matters?” Well doing the right thing will most likely produce a good outcome. But what is good for a person right? If a utilitarian will answer this, good is somehow connected with happiness. For them, happiness will bring good to a person who is experiencing confusion or doubt in whatever he/she is thinking about, thus bringing us to a new view which is Hedonism. First of all, Hedonism is a perennially popular theory that goes back at least as far as the ancient Greeks according to book. This theory become well know because of its simplicity and expresses a plausible notion that a certain thing can look good or bad depending on the account on how it makes us feel.  In other words, it is up to us on how we will react to the things that are happening around us, whether it is good or bad.  In the defense of utilitarianism, the examples given in the book are quite unrealistic to happen in real life. All of these things have consequences that will surely happen. Consequences are things that are going to happen once a person has already made a decision. Now the consequence for utilitarianism is that as long as it brings happiness to more people, it is right already.  No moral philosopher will reject utilitarianism, because it will bring good to people. But there are certain things that people must think twice with utilitarianism.

Basically Utilitarianism is an ethics concept in which the happiness of the greatest number of people in the society is considered the greatest good according to the definition from businessdictionary.com. It is also said that an action is morally right if its consequences lead to the happiness (absence of pain), and wrong if it ends in unhappiness (pain).

In this concept, for John Stuart Mill it is morally right to do something as long as a lot of people will be benefited of being happy. An example of Utilitarianism is let’s say that a person was given a choice between blowing up a bank with hostages in it or he/she will kill herself, in the concept of Utilitarianism that person must choose to kill himself/herself. Killing one person creates a greater amount of good than killing those hostages. In the book, it is said that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others. That is right for me because people have different views on how they will gain pleasure.

People have the freedom whether to accept or deny this concept. But in my opinion, whatever they decide must be morally right and is acceptable by a lot of people. I know that sometimes it very hard to decide what is the right thing to do; especially in my example earlier. But that is the point; people must realize that it is up to other people to judge them, because by nature he/she is the one who really knows himself/herself.

This particular topic discusses what culture is about and how it can affect a person’s personality. Well since this is about culture, we should know what is the meaning of it, basically culture is “the totality of socially transmitted behaviour patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought (From answers.com)”. Based from its meaning I can say that people are different from each other. We have different beliefs, way of life and traditions thus creating a little bit of conflict to other people.

But even though people have different culture, each one must respect on whatever their culture are. A perfect example is us Filipinos; by nature we are hospitable that’s why a lot of foreigners or tourists visit our country. Those foreigners appreciate the culture that we show to them and they also have their own culture which can be new for us. It is just a matter on how we will handle each situation and what will be our reactions towards that new culture. Even though each culture has differences, people can still get new information or good indictments. They can learn from different culture new things and eventually they can apply it in their own selves as long as it is for the betterment for them as a person or for the society.  Still culture can have its own trick, some culture can be immoral in other countries but it can be moral for other, still there are still conflicts that may occur.