Synthesis Paper (Prelims to Finals)

According to Mother Teresa “Not all of us can do great things but we can do small things with great love” Yeah, it is partly true, even in simple ways we can do good for others; we can learn from this small things and we can be happy from this experiences.  I learned a lot from our subject (Ethics and Philosophy) such as science and virtue, relativism philosophy, religion, morality, fallacies, human as a person, laws and rights, and many more.

Philosophy and Ethics had been a great influence regarding the development of ourselves as a human. One of the major factors is that the way we think, the way we perceive things around us. The way we understand life and developed your real self as a person, would help you answer the big questions about yourself.  It also taught me about the values, morality, being a critical thinker, the truth and reality.

It also taught us to know what is the significance of human as a person, that human then was the image of God. We were created by God, and were given the gift of knowledge, and free will to do whatever we wanted. Man was the most perfect in the whole nature, because we were showered the knowledge to think unlike other creatures in the world.

Our professor taught us the different fallacies, the argumentative statements that may affect us as a human. We were taught on how these fallacies were applied in different situation/ events. Also, we were taught about the real meaning of science and virtue, the relationship of each philosophy with one another. The morality was also explained regarding being moral and immoral. Different laws and rights of human were taught with us.

We were given a lot of activities and school works about this topics and issues, for us to know more about this. During the whole semester, we learned to make reaction paper in a specific topic that was given by the professor. We learned to make essays, and we learned how to read even deep issues about philosophy and ethics. A lot of examples were provided by our professor like reading materials, videos about the topic, and many more.

“The unexamined life is not worth living” -- Socrates

The last topic that was discussed is all about laws and rights. It talks about Bioethics,Work ethics,Code of ethics, and Environmental Ethics.

The class was divided into different groups and was assigned different topics to discuss. The first group discussed about, arguments regarding surrogacy, cheating, and other issues. The topic about the arguments against lying, it is being unjust and unfair to others. There are different types of lying including lying itself, white lie, and cheating. These lying include breaking promises, it implies certain agreements, and it is a form of dishonesty. Once a promise was break to a certain person, there will be negative effect on the person. One of which is, destruction of relationship that could affect person’s life choices, and could have destruction of social trust as well as loss of personal integrity.

The second group discussed about Bioethics. Bioethics is the study of morality in relation to Medicine, Genetics, and other scientific advancement. It also tackles the issues regarding Bioethics such as cloning, stem cell therapy, mercy killing, abortion, and many more. Different principles about bioethics was also presented like the principle of respect  for autonomy of patient, principle of non-maleficence, principle of beneficence, and lastly, principle of justice. Major Dilemma regarding bioethics was showed. The premises if medical break thoughts like stem cell therapy, cloning, and mercy killing promotes life.

The third group discussed about the Work Ethics. Work ethics is related to the morality within the work. It includes the roles of an employer, personal manager, and etc. It also includes the personality, attitude, character, productivity of a person in specific organization.  One of the roles of the personal manager that was discussed by the group is that, they act as a counselor they are the power planning and recruiter for the employee. They have also discussed the laws concerning the employees’ rights. For example, the right of the employee with their salary, and other matters.

Fourth group discussed about the code of ethics, this includes the principles concerning the psychologist rights. It is the morality regarding the personality and rights of the person. Different principles were presented, each of it was related on discussed how it affect us as a psychologist.

Lastly, our group discuss about Environmental Ethics regarding moral extensionism and its issues.  Moral extensionism is an argument in environmental ethics that moral standing ought to extend things such as plants, animals, land and earth. It means that moral extensionism is concerned with the non-human things.  Since environmental ethics is related to the nature, its major concern is plants, animals, and earth, wherein human share and benefit with it. Additionally, it describes the animal rights in relation to human and animals equal rights.  It also says that animals and other creature have the ability to feel pain, and have the capacity of reason.  It is also discussed about the issues regarding environmental ethics and it effects. It also includes the rights about the and laws concerning other non-human beings like plants, animals, lands, and/or the nature itself.  Our group also discussed about the global warming and its effects on earth and human.

Science Can’t Answer Morality

Last Saturday, our professor let us watch a video clip about a speech of a man about the relationship between science and human values. The speaker had a good speech about Science vs morality and other topics. He has given a lot of situations. He mentioned things that would views that science can answer morality, and morality is relates to values which is kind a fact.

According to Sam Harris, “it's often said that science cannot give us a foundation for morality and human values, because science deals with facts, and facts and values seem to belong to different spheres.” Yes, science is the body of knowledge with the facts. Values are facts about the well-being and consciousness.  Knowing what is morally right and what is morally wrong. Values are certain kind of fact. Science cannot answer all about morality because it science don’t have such a study about morality, but then it can’t be the basis about the science Maybe, there were certain facts about morality that is not bounded by science.

Morality relates to value. In morality we value differences and opinions. Science has no opinions since there were theories and studies about the things surrounded by us. Whatever talks about science and morality, we cannot change the fact that science and morality have different boundaries. People, do have different opinions about the relationship of the science and morality. About the religion, science cannot argue with it. It talks about God, it cannot be contracted by someone, we do have different religions and cultures we believe in.

Just to know that whatever science and morality differs, the important is we know what to believe in. What is better for us, and what makes everyone happy. If they believe that science can answer morality, then go and believe it. There is no problem on whatever you believe as long as nothing is wrong, and no one is affected. What we just need is to respect about their differences. Understand the positive and negative fact on it. Let just be open-minded on what they think is right.

People have different perspective, sometimes they do cannot see same point of view of other people. We need to speak up on what we know so that other people would understand others point of view, so that nobody would make argument on whatever they think is right. So that no one would make problems bigger, and complicated. Maybe, everybody would just be happy and just enjoy the life God has given us.

“Ciencia y Virtud” (Science and Virtue)

I’m going to share today about the University’s philosophy Ciencia y Virtud (Science and Virtue). Generally questioned on how this philosophy guided and inspired us as a part of the community. Science in general is the body of knowledge, while virtue is the moral excellence.  Science and Virtue means learning and excellence, doing things with values and morality. Guided by Science and Virtue would rendered us to be socially responsible and caring citizen.

As part of the mission/ vision of the university this philosophy would enhance the development of the students to value others, to learn as individual, and to be socially responsible student. Science and virtue help us to understand and know our potentials and skills as an individual. It let us nurture the moral and spiritual values for ourselves and for the community.

Science and virtue developed our personality and our character. It will help students to gain knowledge, to overcome our skills and abilities, and to share the moral values we learn. This philosophy would lead us to true happiness and would make some difference on ourselves. Thus, Ciencia y virtud, guided and inspired us to be morally good and promote excellence with integrity and responsibility.

So, in discussing the universities philosophy we would be aware on how would this enlightened the students about Ciencia y Virtud. In science we gain knowledge, in virtue we gain morality. The fact that we were guided by the university’s philosophy we were more nurtured to appreciate the value of arts and culture. The intellectual value of having integrity on others view, and of having social responsibility on our own community.  We’ve been united to value the community for good, to be committed as inspiring leaders, and to engendered knowledge to empower them and be excellent in all endeavors.

At last, we all are guided and inspired by the maxim of Ciencia y Virtud, thus make us better citizen of the community. We are learning as one, bringing up knowledge, sharing our moral and spiritual values for the excellence. Discover our goal and self-enhancement for the better future. Full fill our dreams. Just do the best, have the courage to know what is morally right. Hope you learn on our short talk about the philosophy Ciencia y Virtud. Thank you and have a pleasant afternoon to everyone.

Major learned: Man as a Person: Critical Thinking

     There were lots of ideas, critiques, and philosophies about man as a person. First, that man lives in their ego because of the greed and pride. Second, that man is the image of God, wherein we become united and belong to one family. Lastly, man viewed as the product of social interaction.

     Man was given lots of meanings and philosophies about man, but for me man is the creature of God, who was given the gift of intellect and free will. Man has the freedom to make a change on our society. Man has the body and soul to use for living. Our body functions as the shell/house where our soul operates. Man where given the knowledge to think, to do whatever is right. We were given the gift of knowledge that other creatures can’t have the capability to use. We have the free will, wherein we can do whatever we want.

     I learned that man has the different personality and character. Personality differs from character; it is because personality is the rational action while character is the moral action. Personality is being develop by man through its actions, while the character is develop through it values. Good personality and good character when combined is the result of perfect person, because having good personality and character would mirror yourself, how you were grown up by the people on your environment. Thus, whatever you do it mirrors your personality and character.

     Our professor also discussed about the fallacies. It says that fallacy is an error in reasoning. There were lots of fallacies discussed such as Fallacy of Irrelevance, Fallacy of presumption, and the Fallacy of ambiguity. These fallacies were most use in an argument especially Argumentum ad hominem. I learned how the following fallacies were used and make an argument. For example, submit all the needed requirements and I’ll pass you on my subject (Argumentum ad Hominem). One type of Fallacy of Presumption is the Fallacy of composition- from whole to parts. For example, all Antonio family is good in playing musical instruments. Karla Antonio is part of Antonio family. So, Karla Antonio is good in playing musical instruments. Fallacy of Equivocation, for example, Student: Sir! Go out?! These statement/question may have other meaning, first, it could meant by asking for permission going out, another it could meant to the teacher to Go out of  the classroom.

     Knowing and understanding the following lessons gave me ideas about the things like the fallacies and about man as a person. Studying fallacies would help me avoid mistakes in reasoning. This may be open my mind to think more to avoid mistakes like in fallacies. Studying philosophy about man as a person gave me ideas that are very usual to know by students. Man as a person, is being responsible on whatever we do, thinking on what is right, and making decisions in the right way. 

Midterm: Ethical Dilemma

Ethical Dilemma: MORAL or IMMORAL?

Hospital Situation: Would you choose to save him from death or end his life?

For example, you have a relative who has very serious/ critical sick, and his only chance to live is the life support that was connected to him. The problem is the more he stayed on the hospital the higher the bill you need to pay, and in contrast, the longer the sick person would live.  But, it came to the point that you need to decide whether you’ll continue the life support that is his source of life or end his life and disconnect the life support.

It is very hard situation a person could experience to choose to save the life of your love ones, for his sake or to end his life for the future and others sake.  If I was in that situation and ask to save or not, I think it would be hard for me to choose. Maybe I would choose to save him, because I can see the fact that I would end his life with my bare decision. I couldn’t end the life of a person who would choose to live his life till the end. 

At first I would choose to continue the life support as long as I have the money to pay the hospital bills, as long as I have the source to support him in the hospital. And lastly, as long as I could see that he is fighting for him to live. But in some point of view, if I really don’t have the choice, and I don’t have the source of income to pay the bills, even though it is really a hard decision, we need to choose but to end the life of our love ones. If I really don’t have the power to change the reality, well then we need to accept the fact the he need to say good bye and leave his love ones.

For me this situation is very serious problem as well as experience of a human. If it came to the point that you’ll need to decide not only for the sake of yourself, but for everyone, maybe it would be harsh yet serious decision making. For me this situation wherein you end the life support of a dying person in some point is Moral, why Moral? Let’s just take the reality now; taking each session of life support is very expensive, that only rich people could afford. If the middle man would be on that situation, and they have pay for the life support for 1 session, but nothing happened. I think no one would think to continue it, because it would deplete your money, and maybe cause you to be nothing in the future.  Though we know that it would save the person, yet if we really don’t have enough money to put on, therefore we don’t have the choice but to end the life of that person whether we like it or not. If we know that we do our best and our part as a family member, maybe we don’t need to felt some guilt and conscience in our hearts. Just accept the fact that people die, people end his life. We are human created by God, we were given the life live for, to use, and to appreciate, so what we need is to live our life to the fullest as long as we live here on earth. Life will always be an end, maybe it would be hard for us to accept the reality, but we need to move on whatever happens. Just live our life to the fullest. So in this kind of situation, we don’t need to afraid of whatever decision we made, as long as we know that this happens for a good reason, nothing should be afraid of.  Just think that there is nothing wrong if you choose to save the life of that person or not, because you just choose what you think is right and more reasonable.

There were lots of dilemmas but this situation I choose because it is one of the best examples of dilemmas. I n addition of the real life situational dilemmas, is that when you need to decide whether to save the pregnant mom or the baby in the womb of the mother. Then, another is that when in work situation, you need to choose if you resigned to work because of the work stress, but in consequence you will lose your work, or stay on your work but you will always feel down and very stress. There are lots of dilemmas, showed but then, always think that it would be your final decision that would be considered. We need to be careful on whatever decisions we made in our life. It is very critical and seriously, takes all of this experience as a lesson. Do whatever we know is right to do, think of others point of view as well as your own opinion. Balance what we need to do, and be ourselves. In this case, it would not be hard for us to decide, and make decision.

CULTURAL RELATIVISM

Our professor gave us homework to be read about Cultural Relativism. Cultural relativism is about the distinctions of the culture itself. In my opinion, we people do have different ways to perceive things, or the way we views life either through our cultural values or how we believe  such a thing.

Like what had been said in the topic of the Free Radical, “Cultural relativism is the mistaken idea that there are no objectives standards by which our society can be judged because each culture is entitled to its own beliefs and accepted practices.” Yes I agree with it, why? Because every country or every people has its own culture or own standards or even laws. People have its standards from which we accepted and believe in, we have laws that we need to take notes. Like in schools/ universities they do have different cultures. They have different rules that were implemented. Even the bible has the commandments that had been following by the Catholics.

“He argued that because all of our knowledge comes from experience, we couldn't have any knowledge of causality because we do not experience causality.” I think it’s somewhat confusing, because you gain and learn from experiences. For example in school how a student would gain knowledge through the instructors’ way of teaching, and we learned from them, from their experiences through their examples.  Somehow we really learn from others experiences, we gained knowledge we are learning. 

Knowing what is right from wrong, truth from reality is another argument that had been argument on this topic. I think that we have all minds which set right from wrong; it has its own consciousness to know right from wrong. According to “Kant contended that reality (as far as we can know it) depends on the cognitive functioning of the human mind in total. Society sets the norms of truth and falsity and right and wrong. This is the essence of Kant’s social primacy of consciousness theory in metaphysics. Man’s ideas are essentially a collective delusion from which no person has the power to escape.”

PHILOSOPHY: A GUIDE TO HAPPINESS: SOCRATES ON SELF CONFIDENCE

Philosophy a guide to happiness is the title of the documentary film hosted by Alain de Botton. This documentary film featured about Socrates, his main views on self-confidence by means of giving opinions. In the first part of the film, Socrates was described as an extraordinary person, an ugly person. Even though he was given a title like that, he was known for his own beliefs. This film told about thinking and speaking. It was told there that “thinking logically makes us independent.” It taught us to build confidence among our own beliefs. It also taught us to speak for ourselves not for others. The film also talked about governments’ authority; that people was hard to accept the reality that government has the higher rights. In the Philippines, we all know that we are democratic meaning we have our right to choose our own leader that would lead the country in a better way. People must have the right than government authorities. Socrates was really annoyed of the others major opinions, why? It is because Socrates wanted us to speak up our own opinion. He wanted us to be brave and confident enough on whatever we wanted to say. He also disagreed about “the will of majority”. Actually, we do have our rights, we do have our own point of view in life, but one thing we should always remember that we should be responsible in our actions and opinions.

Based on my observation about the film, one thing Socrates wants us to realize is that “Everyone has the right to know about life, that every opinion was equally listening with.” We should not be afraid to voice out our opinions, be confident. But it should have its own limitations in a way that would not only think of you, always remember that other people have their own opinion too. Learn to listen to each other to have understandable and meaningful talks. We should not be afraid to develop our beliefs through our opinions and built up our own self-confidence. That is why it was told in the last part of the film “From being a sheep to a thinker philosopher”. A sheep who would always follows the same sheep, should change because we should know our rights, in which we should have to think like a philosopher. See the world on our own eyes. Remember the quote of Socrates that “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVA8jX9KQcE