animal crackers in my soup.

A look at the morality of non-human animals.

The intro to honors class ha seemed to be hung up on this topic all semester. I feel like i've been taking an intro to PETA course. However, i know that there is merit in these questions, else we wouldn't be asking them.
Just the simple fact that we care so much about whether non-human animals are moral creatures shows us what kind of creatures we are. We are so concerned with whether the way we treat other animals is right or wrong and this shows us that we are moral, though possibly misguided, creatures. I don't know if non-human animals have morals. I would like to see the world through the eyes of a member of a different species for a day so then i would know. However, because this is impossible for me to do, i will just have to assume that animals could be either moral or non-moral and that either way, my choices will affect them. And so, i have decided that it would be wrong for me to mistreat these creatures... to just eat them. And thus comes th decision to refrain from eating meat unless i kill the animal myself - i am against slaughterhouses but people need the nourishment meat has to offer.

The Dark Side of the Universe

For the reading assignment, i went to the library in an attempt to find something with philosophical value that wasn't so dry that i wouldn't be able to read it. I considered rereading Plato's (?) Republic but decided that it would be best if i had chosen something new. I looked into famous philosophers and thought about reading some Marx but the library didn't have a great selection. When i was searching through the databases for the right book for me, i came across this book: The Dark Side of the Universe. Not only did the title remind me of a Pink Floyd album i have back home, but it was a book about space theory, something im very interested in. To make sure, i picked up the book and started reading. This is what i found:
There is a theory that the universe can have no end, that it simply continues forever. The point is made by the idea of a spearman, standing at the edge of space. He holds his spear tight, draws back his arm, and lets his spear fly. Where it lands beyond the edge of space, the spearman then walks to and that becomes the edge of space. He then repeats the process. The conclusion is that because the spear can always go beyond the edge of space, there is no edge of space.
This theory captivated me. I know that because of the zero gravity point outside of planetary atmosphere, that the spear would never land, it would just keep flying until some other force interfered with its trajectory. However, the point presented made sense: if the spear can travel at all past the "edge of the universe" then that point must not actually be the edge of the universe. There is also the possibility that the universe is like the earth in that it is a round space and if you go straight along a path across the universe, you'll eventually end up where you began. But then, the fact that it is a round-shaped universe, it must be contained within more space, and withing the other space, there can be more universes. or maybe that space around the universe is just another part of that original universe which would man that the universe is endless. I feel like i can talk in circles about this forever ans neer find a solution. Maybe there is no answer.

the philosophy of decisions (a post for myself and anyone who wants to listen)

there is ambiguity. shades of gray, spots of gleaming white light, abrupt black lines 0f varying thicknesses crisscross the patchwork gray once in a while. With all of these bland, muted monochromatic shapes which make up our world, it is easy to understand how making clear decisions would be impossible. We struggle with ourselves to do what's right. Sometimes, we're lucky and we come out better in the end. Sometimes, we're not so lucky. Is it luck that forces our decisions: are we just guessing and hoping? do we really know? these questions ring through my mind because i'm sitting here wondering whether i've made some unlucky choices, or whether, knowingly, i made bad choices.
Maybe i'm hoping that my own choices aren't what brought me to this point. This point where i'm looking back, wondering where i'd be if i had made different choices. Or is it fate that i'm sitting here writing this down? i don't know. What i do know is that my choices are made, they are past already. My future choices will either be fate or accident, or they will be clear choices an dwhere i end up, is where i'm supposed to be.

inside an honors student

there is no true recipe for an honors student. each honors student is unique, as every student is unique. However, there are some attributes that any true honors student should possess.

the key ingredient: hunger
the hunger for knowledge. it is not love for competition or the ability to ace a test that matters. it is the desire to learn; to break down barriers and expand horizons. it is not the need to organize every factoid safely in notebooks or in the compartments of one's brain; but the gumption to recognize the chaos and the patterns and accept that no human is infallible. the honors student will not necessarily earn good marks in classes, but they will do the best they can to squeeze all of the information out of any source. the honors student does not do their work for the rewards or accolades received but to gain new knowledge.

next on the list is empathy. this goes hand in hand with humility. the honors student may recognize kindred spirits, their intellectual matches. and they may see those who appear less intelligent than themselves. The honors student looks at both of these groups and sees the similarities. each person has their faults, including the honors student. recognizing the similarities helps the honors student share what they know while accepting that their own knowledge is incomplete. thus, the honors student is humble.

one thing to remember is that all honors students, as all other student, have their difficulties. Sometimes, an honors student hits a low, skips a class, forgets homework, and at some points simply does not care. but what separates the honors student from the other students is recognition of these times; the pride to make no excuses for their pitfalls; and the strength to get back up and try harder the next time around.

nature vs ... by now you guessed it ... nurture.

when one considers philosophy, one very likely considers this debate at least a little. To make things short for those who don't feel the need to read to much into this blog, the answer is BOTH! both nature and nurture affect human development. If it is in one's nature to look on the bright side of life and one is thrust into a violent society, that society can either hae a negative effect on your optimism or you can have a positive affect on the environment. people are fille with various receptors that pick up different signals and interpret them in unique ways. These people, once having interpreted the signals, put out signals of their own which are received by other people and the loop continues. Thus, humans affect society, or the nurture aspect. In return, the signals have the power to influence the receiver. People continually grow and change and what may have begun as nature is soon affected by nurture.

torture to me

Controversy is nothing new; especially when it comes to the definition of torture and the repercussions of this definition on the law. Firstly, i would like to state that i haven't been desensitized. I have played violent video games, really who hasn't? but it still sickens me to see blood and gore and to think of one human being pulling out the fingernails of another. Gross.
Now, back on topic.
When it comes to legal torture in democracy, as ludacris and ironic it sounds, it is a part of issues which are wholly subjective and thus, controversial.
I believe that torture, in some of its lesser forms, are a necessary evil. i'm not a god and therefore have no right to judge the wicked (i'm still debating whether a god has that right or not anyway) however i feel that all knowledge is worth haing. And some of the most necesary of knowledge comes at a price. Sometimes, that price is weighed in flesh and blood. referring to an earlier post, i will restate that this price IS subjective and that if all people felt responsibility for fellow humans this wouldn't be an issue. But they don't and it is. Therefore, we go back to the drawing board. Torture can be necessary as a valid means to gain necessary information.
Someone made a point that torture should be defined as anything which causes intense anxiety or fear. No offense, but i find this idea pretty ridiculous. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger and one useful thing that many seem to have lost through evolution is a spine. Fear and anxiety, as much as joy and laughter are a part of the human spectrum of emotions. To try to cut off these emotions is unwise because fear and anxiety CAN make one grow as a person so long as they have the will to travel through these travails. TORTURE IS SUBJECTIVE! people find different things torturous and hey, some people enjoy pain. I personally find this argument, as well as any kind of radical rant torturous. Everything in moderation, that's my motto.

the man with the Moses beard

there was a question in class in regard to this murderer's sanity. Some may say that any person who kills another human being is insane, but this is not necessarily true in my eyes. Sure he was deluded, but it was his personal belief that he was helping the world. Maybe he was simply misguided in this notion. Maybe it was one of those errrs where we try to put our best foot forward with the best of intentions and instead, we make the situation worse. It happens on different scales but is it not possible that this is one of those instances? where politicians and preachers of all sorts stand up against the communist and they tell you that they're the reason everything in the world is as bad as it is and that it's your responsibility to flush out the comunists... they may not mean killing your neighbor, but it's not far off. this man may have been crazy or he may have been trying to do his part to make the world a better place, like he was told to do. we shouldn't brush aside either end of the argument just because it doesn't make sense to us.

cruelty to humans

torture and human rights. we watched a video on these things. It wasn't quite as graphic as the one on crualty to animals but i think it was supposed to stir your mrality and boost your awareness rather than gross you out.
There was a question as to how much the media affects the way we feel about violence. It was about the use of propaganda to twist the human mind so that killing and torture would be seen as a good deed rather than an unforgivable sin. i think that after watching the first half of the movie i held the same belief as before, that within each human is the seed of corruption, that it only requires a little nurturing and the blood lust can flourish, sustained by ignorant beliefs and a weak mind. To be honest, the only thing that i found affective about the movie was the "marching" sound in the background. As for te rest, especially the use of the rodent in propaganda, should be common enough not to stir us. it's pretty obvious.

torture... is it unforgiveable?

On the subject of torture, i find that it is something that i find myself reluctant to talk about. My own beliefs on the basis of torture are somewhat scattered and possibly controversial.
Torture in the past has been used for many things. If we consider the "all powerful" Roman Empire, we see that torture was a very popular form of public entertainment. I believe that this is partially because of the innate bloodlust which resides within most humans, though today e consider ourselves more "civilized" than that and so we have either eolved past that animalistic state or we are hiding it from ourselves. I'll continue on the subject of the Roman Empire and say that even though that part of their culture we see as vulgar, they were still among one of the greatest civilizations of the world. They were intelligent in politics and warfare, they knew how to change their world and how to influence the people under them and for this, we admire them. They were a force against the "barbaric" tribes and yet the fact that they tortured innocent for pleasure is in and of itself barbaric... and the reason for it is even more so. The grand arena was a place where the common people of Ancient Rome could gather and watch slaves kill eachother and be killed y animals, etc. These events were held to keep the common people happy and to satisfy their blood lust so that they wouldn't turn against the emperor.
A similar event still takes place today in Spain, a country which we consider highly civilized - i'm talking about the bull fighting. This satisfies the people's blood lust and then the meat from the dead bull is distributed to the hungry.
What is the difference between these examples of satisfying blood lust and human torture which is supposedly used to gleen information from the victim? I think there is a huge difference. I don't believe it is right and i certainly don't believe that it should be common practice. I do believe that it is sometimes necessary. i believe that as humans we have certain rights, and yet at the same time, we have certain responsibilities. To betray our obligation to the rest of our species is to relinquish some of those rights. We should all be above torture. We should be enlightened enough to be good enough to eachother to make torture obsolete, and yet most of us are far from this state. And so, it is under the most dire situations that torture should be practiced. Sometimes, we must allow a lesser evil to achieve a greater good.

Animals

In some cultures, the animal is considered sacred. In india, the cow is not to be killed because i is seen as a physical manifestation of one f their gods. In some other cultures it is considered a saced act to "sacrifice" an animal the the gods or to nature. This was particularly a common practice in the polytheistic or pagan religions of the past, yet it does still occur in the modern world on a small scale. Things, however, have changed over the centuries. Not everyone in the world depends on their own crops and cattle for food because these things can be procured easily in markets, especially in "civilized" cultures. however, people do still throw goats out of windows. Is this simply done to satisfy an animalistic blood lust? or is it truy a sacred act? and if sacrifice is s sacred, why do these people make a sacrifice of their wn bodies?
Personally, i believe that the act is barbaric and ignorant, yet i find that it is important to take into consideration the positions of these people who commit these heinous acts. Though we may be moral agents, we are imperfect beings. Though science is widely accepted, not all can find comfort in the idea of closed in cities and cold metal gadgets. These people yearn toward the traditions that seemed to help their people survive throughout the centuries, and if this is what give them comfort, is it their right to do such? I don't believe that this is a question that i can say that i have the correct answer to. I believe that it is up to personal discretion and that even though some of us see this for the disgusting act that it is, we still have to consider that the people doing this are aware of what they are doing and most of them are most likely sane. It is a difference in our worlds that if we do not look at the positions of these people, then we will become as closeminded and ignorant as we see them to be.

can animals have morals?

So, from what we've learned, morality and those influenced by it are divided into two categories. There are moral agents, and then there are moral patients. Moral agents are also moral patients but not all moral patients are moral agents... am i getting this straight?


From what i heard i believe i am. So the real thought that's been hovering in the back of my mind for the last few days is why this idea in't more widespread. Most humans beieve that their mental capacity is beyond that of animals and so the morals that stem from conscious decision-making should also be taken into account. All of our decisions affect the world around us. Perhaps animals are moral creatures, because pets in particular seem to be attentive and caring. Yet, even if they don't have morals, we are aware of our own ability to make conscious moral choices, and so whether they can or not as well doesn't matter because they would still be moral patients. This is a theory that i see as acceptable and whether or not it is completely correct, it is still something that all people should take into consideration because it could be an idea to better our world and our relationship with that world.

naturalism and morality

if there is no god; if there is no afterlife, does this mean there will be no need for morals. though many, maybe even most, people are naturally good and do no evil just because of their love for community, there are those who only resist temptation to do evil for fear of punishment. even though law exists to prevent crime, religion does a better job of it because the afterlife goes on eternally for some yet law can only touch you while you're alive. So, when we remove religion from the moral equation and remove fear of eternal damnation, do we oen the door to crime and sin?
to at least some extent i believe we do. if people were to believe that the here and now is really all that exists, not much would stop anarchy. there are those who only restrain for religion and without religion, there is no restraint.
on the other hand, there would be no religious wars, no need for hatred between sects of people but who's to say that humans wouldn't just find something else to bicker about? the spread of the naturalist view could have catastrophic effects on our world, or it culd heal a great many wounds. we cannot part the veils of time and so the question may be irrelevent. however, the notion is somewhat terrifying.

the unknown... naturalism vs supernaturalism

Natural v.s Supernatural
It is in its own sense a war between worlds. Some believe that, as humans, we have a soul; a spirit. It is something that moves beyond this world after we die and goes to sme unknown and unknowable place. Others believe that when we die, we are dead and that is all there is to it. This war is rbably not going to find a peaceful resolution anytime soon. Humans fear what we do not know, and if science cannot give us concrete solutions, individuals must personally choose what is true for them.
Who can say what is real and what is not? if you ask me, i would say that this empty space that is filled with guess work is proof that there is more. We are not robots; we are human beings and our very bodies are miracles unto themselves. Even if there is no god, no heaven, no reincarnation, there is still more to us and to this world than meets the eye. It would appear that slowly we are finding valid explanations for the motions of our universe, and yet we may never find the answers. Therefor, this cold war that wages in each of us will continue. We may try to hope beyond hope and believe that if we are good, we will reach a better existence of what we have now. We may decide that it could all end at any second and so it is our personal responsibility to live each moment fully. Either way, there is too much that, at this point, cannot be known for any of us to radically believe that what we think is absolutely right.

the weight of words

"Beware of words. The moment you look away, they will take on a life of their own; they will dazle, mesmerize, terrorize, lead you astray from the reality they represent, lead you to believe they are real. The world you see is not the kingdom seen by children, but a fragmented world broken into a thousand pieces by the word. It is as if each ocean wave were seen to be distinct and separate from the body of the ocean. When words and thoughts are silenced, the universe blossoms forth - real and whole and one - and words become what they were always meant to be..."




for the past few days, i have pondered the weight that words hold. It was mentioned in class that words got in the way of our free will, that they boxed in our imaginations, that they boxed in the world around us.


words give us the power to express ourselves, and yet, if we think about it hard enough, can we truly use words to express those thoughts or emotions that are most significant?


freewill.


determinism.


Do words give us the freedom to express ourselves? or do they determine who we are, what we feel?

now that i think about it, i am beginning to beliee that each of my thoughts is trapped within the parameters of my vocabulary, and that if i see something i have never seen before, that i don't know the word for, that i can truly see it as it is, without any kind of label or connotation. I try to see this world around me in the silence of sight. These words cannot capture the way i truly feel and i can only hope to portray my thoughts and emotions of this subject by the use of familiar language. Yet now that the question has been raised inside myself, i feel as though none of these words are familiar because speech is not one of the five senses, and so it is never as accurate as we intend.