Late Half Time Post

Is it possible to make a perfect island/country with laws that both appease and help everyone?

Alex says: Perfection in itself is impossible to maintain, especially when in the creation of a society. Too many personal desires get involved and divide the final answer. I think instead of perfection, a society must reach a level of compromise that tends to everyones needs rather than everyones wants. Only then can a culturally combined society thrive under laws that protect everyones individual rights to exist as themselves.

As members of a society, are we constantly only thinking about ourselves or do we think of others and how are decisions may affect others?

In terms of your constitution groups, were the laws you created realistic to today's society, or just an outline of the perfect society we all wish to live in?

Would you consider having a veil of ignorance a positive or negative thing for society? Do the laws you constructed in groups somewhat reflect thinking with a veil of ignorance?

Service Project form

Please fill out this form documenting your service project. This is important both for my records and for the College's records.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dDFQOUJlOUh6aE1CUXprNWNUSkZIYWc6MQ#gid=0

It should take ten minutes or less, I expect!

REMINDER! Service project due WEDNESDAY at 11:59 PM!

Hi everyone!

Just a quick reminder: the service project is due tomorrow, WEDNESDAY, at 11:59 PM.

You can find the guidelines in the previous post. Briefly, by 11:59 PM tomorrow, please send me an email (profpoole at gmail dot com) with a link to your portfolio.

In your portfolio, you should have completed the "Service Project" section. In that section, you need to:

1. Explain what you did. Describe your project, complete with multimedia. Make your readers feel like they were there.

2. Explain how it impacted people--the people you served, your colleagues in service, and yourself.

3. (important but hard!) Explain WHY what you did was, morally speaking, the right thing to do. What is the philosophical justification for why what you did was right?

Tomorrow, Wednesday, 11/23, CLASS WILL NOT MEET AS USUAL. From 1:05-2:15 tomorrow, instead of class, I will be in my office (B-227-H at BHCC Charlestown), and available on Google Chat and email, ready to respond to your last-minute questions about the service project. This will PROBABLY be your last chance to be in touch with me before the portfolio deadline, as I teach Wednesday afternoons and evenings!

Service Project guidelines

Also: here are the guidelines for the service project, in case you have lost your copy.

Visit to TLITC for e-portfolio

Remember, tomorrow, Wednesday, we're meeting at our usual classroom and then immediately going to E-230, the Teaching, Learning, and Instructional Technology Center to learn about Digication, the e-portfolio app that you will use for your portfolios, where, among other things, you will display your SERVICE PROJECTS. (YAY!)

Please bring your photos, writing, etc for your portfolio so you can get started in creating your portfolio with your real stuff! You could use a flash drive, a cloud service like Dropbox, or just email the files to yourself.

Please make sure you have logged into bhcc.digication.com and made sure your login works before tomorrow's class! Your login is your entire BHCC email address (whatever@bhcc.edu), your password is your email password.

Half Time Post

In class we talked about equality; The concept that all people are not restricted by their means and are given equal chance to benefit their own life and society as a whole. Other definitions include equal opportunity in the military, jobs, education, and marriage.

1. In terms of the "veil of ignorance", Rawls says ignorance about ourselves will lead to a fair society for all people. Do we allow our class, race, ethnicity, and family background to interfere with the decisions we make towards society as a whole? Are we limited in life because of where we come from or how much money we have?

2. Does succeeding in todays society depend on whether you come from a wealthy background or any other type of social or economic advantage?

3. Regardless of family background or class, a person should be free to work and strive in any job in any society. Would our society today benefit from a merit based society, one in which people are rewarded for their efforts, not put down because of disadvantages we cannot control?

4. Will those with natural talents always get ahead of those with less of an advantage? For example, take two basketball players, but one with a natural born talent reaches the NBA and makes millions, beats out the other competitor who works hard to make himself better. How can we equal out the playing field to allow those with less of an advantage in life become just as successful as people with natural talent?

A really well produced version of Harrison Bergeron!!!

www.finallyequal.com

Harrison Bergeron

On video!

Harrison Bergeron

On video!

Pregame Post: John Rawls and Equality

Hello! Pregame team here with some questions posed from "Chapter 6: The Case for Equality / John Rawls" from Justice by Michael J. Sandell and Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.

What makes a contract just?
What kind of obligations does a seller have to a buyer?
Is it fair to take advantage of an uneducated buyer?
What is the advantages / disadvantages of a free-market?

Is individualized success always fair?
Is it okay to handicap our talented?
Should our successful be forced to share their wealth?
Is it possible to adjust an unequal society without serious repercussions?

What does an individual deserve?
Is "accident of birth" or "natural born talent" an unfair advantage / disadvantage?

What is motivation?
Is the individual born motivated?
Is incentive important to keeping talented individuals motivated to contribute to society?

Who decides what skills are valuable to a society?
Is it fair to pay an actor more than a teacher?

Should we accept the "unfairness" of life?
Can our differences be something to work with?

Equality? Really?

For this week please read:

Sandel, Chapter 6"

Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut


Also: HEY! Halftime group, postgame group, y'all are slacking! Pregame is leaving you in the dust!

I. "Just" Kant: Reject Utilitarianism

What Matters is the Motive/Immanuel Kant Chapter 5

In chapter 5 Michael Sandel introduces the important theories of Immanuel Kant who lived from 1724-1804. Kant challenged the concept of utilitarianism which treats people as a means to an end to achieve the maximum utility. Kant argues that people are rational beings capable of reason, and as such deserve respect and should be treated as an end in themselves.

Freedom

With this thought, we must also then consider his framing of freedom. He describes freedom as “autonomy” from desires, preferences, biological determination, or social conditioning outside of yourself. Where our decisions are not free Kant made up the word “heteronomoy.” Sandel uses the scenario of ice cream to show us the difference of acting heteronomously. It may seem like the decision between flavors is our own but it’s not! We didn’t choose our preference of one flavor over another.

How can we act autonomously? By simply having a preference of one action over another, can we ever achieve autonomy? Would making a decision against our preferences be considered autonomy? My example: it is very cold outside and I don’t want to be cold so I will put my boots on. My preference is for warmth so my action is not free, heteronomy. If I go against my preference for warmth and wear sandals is this autonomy? Kant claims on page 107 that “happiness contributes nothing whatsoever toward the establishment of morality.” Is there room for happiness in Kant’s philosophy?

Sandel sums up this concept of freedom in one important sentence at the bottom of page 109. “To act freely is not to choose the best means to a given end; it is to choose the end itself, for its own sake-a choice that humans beings can make and billiard balls (and most animals) cannot.”

Here is a comedy sketch about acting against our preferences.

Kids in the Hall - Bathroom Support Group

Reason

Where does our freedom, the capability of opposing a law forced on us, come from? It comes from our ability to reason, Kant said, which determines our will, separate from our nature and inclination. Kant's definition of reason is much different from that of other definitions at that time. The utilitarian definitions of reason describe it as being able to maximize utility by satisfying desires we happen to have. We can see immediately that this contradicts Kant's freedom.

Thomas Hobbes called reason the "scout for the desires," and David Hume called it the "slave of the passions." If reason were as simple as that then we would be better off with instinct, Kant said.

Kant recognizes that as long as we are able to act freely then it must prove that we are acting with reason.

Kant made the claim that because all human beings are capable of reason that we must therefore treat each other with dignity. What is our duty to animals who are not capable of reason?

Morality

Kant’s explanation of morality is easier to understand. Kant said that the morality of a person can be judged not by the outcome of their efforts or even the decision they have made but rather the motive behind that decision. You could make the right decision but for the wrong reasons. He claimed that only the actions made out of the “motive of duty” have moral worth.

Sandel questions the moral worth of deeds done out of compassion, like our service project. It is hard to tell if our volunteer work has moral worth because 1) we are compelled to do it for class. How many of us would be volunteering otherwise? 2) are we acting out of compassion? If so Kant said the compassion of the altruist (altruist being the devotion and interest in the welfare of others) “deserves praise and encouragement, but not esteem.”

5-way Kidney Swap

There is a complicated system for donating organs where a recipient has a family member willing to donate but isn’t a match. This system pairs compatible healthy donors with a person in need of an organ who does match. By willingly donating an organ, their loved one receives an organ in operations involving up to five transplant at once! Does the decision of the donor to give an organ lack moral worth when we look at the motive?

Half-Time Monday Recap

On Monday the 31st, we discussed our e-portfolios, learned how to start a movement, and discussed property;
To start a movement, a fearless and confident leader is necessary. Even more important is the first follower. That person transforms the lone leader into the beginnings of a group. Once the first follower (who must be treated as an equal) joins, a second, third, fourth, et cetera will follow. Once there are upwards of 3 people in the group, more will follow as there is less risk.

**Document (with screenshots of FB/Twitter/etc.) how you are spreading the word about your service**

John Locke's Labor Theory of Value: A person can own what is in the natural world (common, public land, things 'owned' by the Earth) by mixing labor with it or mixing yourself with it. For example, if you pick apples in a public orchard, the said apples are yours because YOU put in the work to pick them.
Locke's exceptions: There must be enough and as good for others (you can't pick every single apple and leave none for everyone else).
No waste! (Don't be greedy; you can't pick 35 apples when you only need 20 and let the remaining 15 rot)

Here are some of our miscellaneous notes from the lecture:
To give/sell something, that thing must be yours.
Once barter/trade economies got complicated, Locke believed that currency and a government was necessary ONLY to regulate property and property disputes.
Who decides a thing's worth?;
Capitalists: A market economy, supply and demand should determine prices/worth.
Socialists: The government should decide and enforce currency (incl. weights, measurements etc.) and regulate prices.

Question(s) posed in class, answered;
How far should the government go in regulating wealth? Wealth caps? Inheritance? Flat tax?
"I don't think we should tax millionaires/people with wealth more because it's not fair or just. Whether their money was inherited or earned, it's their money. Everyone should be taxed equally whether you are working class or wealthy. This makes me think of a past discussion we had in class about banning the color yellow. What it came [sic.] down to was, people would ban the color yellow on the reason that people didn't like it. If we tax millionaires more its like we're punishing them for something that may or may not have control over."
"I believe that a progressive tax is just and fair. For example, a flat 10% tax on a $20,000 income ($2,000) is so much more detrimental than $20,000 to a $200,000 income (They still have 180,000). People making 6+ figures can (typically) spare some money to help America and participate in our democracy, whereas working class families making barely-over-the-poverty-line do NOT have that kind of cash to spare. After groceries, electricity, bills, college tuition, etc., there just isn't money to spare. A flat tax is unrealistic. Take Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan, studies have shown that over 86% of Americans would be paying more taxes than are being paid now. The "99%"/middle class, lower class, and the impoverished make up that 86% and we just can't afford it. Also, in response to my group-mate who sees taxes as punishment, I disagree. I think taxes are good. Taxes are necessary and one of the many ways we participate in a democracy." :)

What do you think?