Is It Wrong To Bigoted Against Bigots?

Is it just as wrong to be bigoted against somebody because they hold oppressive beliefs as it is to be bigoted against someone for their race or gender? I thought of this during our discussion in class on Thursday. I personally don't think I would knowingly befriend someone who was violently misogynistic. Not only would I probably not have much in common with this person, but it would be dangerous for me to befriend this person. Similarly, I'm guessing most black people wouldn't want to be friends with a KKK member. Again, this is dangerous for them. Maybe we can be friends with people who hold prejudices against other groups (such as white nonracist people befriending KKK members, or men befriending misogynists), but I still don't like the idea of that. To me, being oppressive is not a flaw that I can look past. It's pretty much a dealbreaker and I don't think I'm a bigot because of that.

Did Lincoln Have Bipolar?

Reading Donald's biography on Lincoln made me think that Lincoln may have suffered from bipolar disorder. The descriptions of his cycling from depression to extreme productivity seemed like almost a textbook example of bipolar disorder. From what I know about the disorder, people in the mania stage are often extremely productive, charismatic, and take on new tasks. These qualities are valued in society, so people in mania often go undetected of any issues. The extreme swinging from depression to what seems like mania described in the biography really stuck out to me. I guess there isn't really any evidence to suggest that Lincoln suffered from anything so bad that it kept him from functioning, but I think he may have had mild bipolar.

Sarah Josepha Hale

As I was doing some research on Lincoln and Thanksgiving, I came across some interesting information about Sarah Josepha Hale, a women who wrote Lincoln letters urging him to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Apparently she also authored "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

In addition to campaigning for Thanksgiving as a national holiday and writing famous nursery rhymes, she held some interesting political views. She was opposed to women's suffrage because she believed women could influence male voters in their own ways. From what I read, it seems like she believed women's place was in the home, but that they could be powerful and important there. She was, however, a big proponent of higher education for women. I just did some quick internet research on this figure but I found her really interesting. Does anyone know anything about Sarah Josepha Hale?

Sophrosyne as a Virtue

I don't know if I consider sophrosyne to be a virtue. "Healthy-mindedness" sounds nice, but why should health be considered a virtue? Most of the time, health is due to luck and privilege. This obviously goes for physical health but I think it can go for "healthy mindedness" too. What do you think?

Nobody is Self-Made

Of course nobody is truly self-made. We have all had help and that is clear. But why do we choose to remember all that Lincoln didn't have? Everybody knows about the log cabin and the rail-splitting. But why don't as many people know about his step-mother? I am fascinated by that relationship but you never hear about it the way you hear about the bad parts of Lincoln's life. I understand that it is more interesting to hear a rags to riches type of story, but I wonder why as many people aren't interested in Lincoln's relationship with his step-mother. Not many people have had a parent who was as encouraging and inspiring as it sounds like she was. I think this played a big role in Lincoln's self-education and success. I wonder how successful Lincoln would have been if his step-mother never came into his life.

What If Lincoln Was Depressed?

Some people think Lincoln may have suffered from depression. If he truly was depressed, how would he have acheived all that he did? I don't think a "self-made man" really can be depressed. Since depression typically affects people's motivation, it seems really unlikely to me that Lincoln was actually depressed. I guess that's another way Lincoln got lucky- he had motivation to work hard and educate himself.

Sophrosyne and Meat-Eating

Today, when I was in the cafeteria, I was thinking about veganism/vegetarianism. They have a lot of fake meat in the cafeteria (imitation chicken, etc). If eating meat is inherently wrong, is it sophrosynic to eat this imitation meat? My initial thought was no because, if you are naturally inclined to do the right thing, then you wont need to trick yourself with fake meat. What do you all think?

Lincoln as a Self-Made Man

I was interested in our discussion the other day about whether Lincoln would have been elected President today, having no formal education. I agree that America would not elect someone without a college education to be President. However, if Lincoln had existed today, I think maybe he would have a college degree. Today, the idea of a "self-made man" often involves working really hard in school to get a scholarship to college. Lincoln probably would have been able to go to college today, maybe through scholarships and loans. I thought Jamie made a good point in class when she said that it was contradictory how although we idealize the "self-made man", we probably wouldn't elect somebody who was self-educated the way Lincoln was. I think we only appreciate self-made men if they follow a certain path. We want self-made men to choose to go to college and get a good job. If somebody else's idea of a self-made man is living off the grid, or working a minimum wage job, we don't celebrate that, even though it may have been "self-made" (they came to it on their own, didn't get help achieving it from anybody else).

1st Inaugural Address

A passage in Lincoln's first Inaugural Address stuck out to me, and I wanted to see what you all thought of it. "Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassible wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence, and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this."
Lincoln is right that physically, the South cannot separate from the North. But most continents make up many different countries, unlike North America. I think the United States is way too big a country to work together cohesively, and the Civil War is an example of this. Why can't the South and the North split up? They would still need some sort of working relationship as separate countries, but I don't understand why Lincoln thought that just because they couldn't physically separate, they wouldn't be able to be two distinct countries.

Spectrum of Racism

Our class and blog discussions about Lincoln's possible racism have been very interesting to me. It seems like not all of us are working with the same definition of racism. I think that if a person in power (in this example, a white person) upholds or reinforces unequal power dynamics between the races, then they did something that was racist. It doesn't mean that the person, at their core, is "a racist". We have defended Lincoln by essentially saying "it's not as if he was as bad as a lyncher", but not being a lyncher doesn't mean you are not racist. If we view racism as a spectrum, lyncher would probably be all the way on one end. But there are a lot of points between "lyncher" and "100% not racist". Lincoln did say some racist things. He isn't as bad as a lyncher, or someone who never thought to oppose slavery. But that doesn't mean he wasn't racist at all, it just means he wasn't as racist as he possibly could have been. I'm not really invested in proving Lincoln was racist (most white people are at some point), but I just wanted to explain my view of racism as a spectrum and see what you all thought.

Mary Todd's Portrayal in Gore Vidal's "Lincoln"

I may be alone in this, but I actually thought Mary Todd's portrayal in Gore Vidal's "Lincoln" was much more sympathetic than in the last two films. This seems to be the first film to acknowledge that she most likely suffered from a mental illness. The others just portrayed her as having all of these personality flaws without any explanation. Also, there was one bit of dialogue that really stuck out to me. Mary Todd is with the handmiaden who says something to the effect of, "The newspapers don't portray you accurately at all", and Mary responds "Nobody does" (this is all paraphrased). I thought that maybe this was an acknowledgement of how Mary Todd has been seen as unlikeable and mean, and viewed unsympathetically throughout history. Did anybody else think this? In any case, I found that dialogue to be very sad, and I felt sympathetic toward Mary Todd.

Racism

Miller seems overly defensive of Lincoln, especially related to matters of racism. He keeps pointing out that the term "racism" had not yet been coined in Lincoln's time, but does that really matter? Racism did exist, it just didn't have a name. I don't see the harm in pointing out possible racism of Lincoln using our modern language. A lot of people excuse prejudice by saying that the person was "a product of their time". Racism was widespread during Lincoln's life (and still is), but if there were people questioning it then, then why didn't he? I don't think the time period is a very good excuse (I know there have been discussions in class and on the blogs about this topic but I am just forming my opinion now so that's why I haven't responded to anyone in particular).

Is Lincoln a Radical?

To quote Angela Davis, "radical simply means 'grasping things at the root'". If we use this definition of radical, was Lincoln a radical? In a way, he was. Lincoln did abolish slavery-it can be argued that slavery is the root of racial oppression in America. Some would have simply advocated for reforming slavery so that slaves would be treated more ethically and given some rights as slaves, rather than wanting to abolish slavery as an institution. However, in most other ways, Lincoln was not a radical. He didn't seem particularly interested in ending prejudiced thinking against Black people (no, racism was not a term used back then, but it doesn't mean racism didn't exist and couldn't be identified). It makes me wonder why Lincoln was so opposed to slavery, yet he did not view Black people as equal and the Emancipation Proclamation did not grant citizenship to slaves.

Final Thoughts on Utilitarianism

While I can't bring myself to like utilitarianism, i do agree with Mill that intent is not the only thing that matters. Consequences do matter in some sense. You should always be accountable for the consequences of your actions, meaning you see what went wrong and apologize. However, when the consequences of something you did aren't what you intended, it does not reflect on your character or sense of morality.

Reaction to "The Civil War in 'Postracial' America"

When reading "The Civil War in 'Postracial' America" the last passage really stuck out to me. Foner describes a Paris monument dedicated to the victims of slavery. The inscription reads: "By their struggles and their strong desire for dignity and liberty, the slaves of the French colonies contributed to the universality of human rights and to the ideal of liberty, equality, and fraternity that is the foundation of our republic." I love this because it actually keeps the focus on the people forced into slavery and commends their bravery. I think that in America, we tend to focus so much on Lincoln being the savior of slaves that we don't focus enough on the actual victims of slavery. We should focus more on Black abolitionists rather than White ones. This is an example of the "white savior complex" commonly seen in the media (read more about it here: http://spectrummagazine.org/review/2009/12/07/hollywoods-white-savior-complex). Even today, we have to act like White people save Black people from racism instead of viewing Black people as autonomous beings who worked towards their own emancipation.

Utilitarianism and Young Mr. Lincoln

I really enjoyed the film Young Mr. Lincoln, and I think it tied into some of our discussions about morality. In particular, I was interested in the court scene when the mother was on trial. She could have saved one of her sons, but because she couldn't bring herself to turn the guilty son in, she chose to let them both die. Clearly, she was not a utilitarian. I'm sure in another situation, she would prefer to have one son alive then to see both die, but it seemed to be against her moral code to turn her son in. We could guess that she subscribed to more of a Kantian code of morality. She did what she thought was right even though it's consequences caused more harm then the alternative. I suppose that in this situation, a true utilitarian would chose one son to live and one to die, although I can't imagine many people would actually do that in the moment.

Sophrosyne and Lincoln's Pig

Lincoln said that he helped the pig stuck in the mud for his own benefit- not the pig's. But what if Lincoln hadn't done it for his own sake? Imagine if Lincoln saw the pig stuck in the mud and went, "Ugh. I really don't want to go help that pig and ruin my clothes. I don't even care about the pig, but I think it's the right thing to do so I will force myself to help it." This would be an example of the interpretation of sophrosyne that means self-restraint and chastity. Lincoln would be forcing himself to do the right thing, and restraining from the temptation of ignoring the pig. But Lincoln claimed that he did it because he wanted to. So we can assume his thought process went more along the lines of "I should go help that pig because it's the right thing to do and I want to act morally. This is more important than ruining my clothes." This exemplifies the true meaning of sophrosyne. I know that I am taking the story very literally here, and probably more seriously than it was ever intended to be, but I'm just doing that for the sake of understanding Lincoln's behavior in relation to the idea of sophrosyne.

Sophrosyne in modern day

I found it interesting that sophrosyne, in some translations or understandings of the word, means self-restraint or chastity. This definition is very different to me then healthy mindedness or moderation. It's interesting how we confuse these concepts. Something that immediately came to mind for me was women's roles in modern society. More specifically, women are expected to acquire and maintain an ideal body through extreme forms of self-control and self-restraint. Many women completely cut out foods that they enjoy (and here I am not talking about cutting out foods for moral reasons such as animal cruelty) and restrain from eating in front of other people. These behaviors can manifest into an eating disorder. It is sophrosyne gone wrong. We value self-control in our society, but what is wrong with indulgence? On one extreme it can be bad, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with allowing yourself to do harmless things that are enjoyable. So, how do people get "self-restraint" from "moderation"? Moderation is a completely different concept. I like the "moderation" and "healthy mindedness" interpretations of the word much better, but it seems as if we often confuse self-restraint for healthy mindedness.

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development

Our discussion of Kant has reminded me of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development. For those that are unfamiliar with this, he proposes 6 stages of moral development:

1. Obedience and punishment driven- people in this stage obey rules and laws to avoid punishment

2. Self-interest driven- people in this stage are concerned with the personal benefits they will gain from doing or not doing something

3. Conformity driven- people in this stage are concerned with societies approval of their actions

4. Authority driven- people in this stage have respect for authority and think laws should always be followed

5. Social Contract driven- people in this stage see laws as a social contract. If the majority thinks there is a law is bad, then it should be changed.

6. Universal ethical principals driven- Laws are only valid if they are fair. In this last stage, people's concepts of right are wrong are independent from law and society.

We move through these stages throughout our development, and not everyone reaches the last stage. I was going to ask you all if you thought Kohlberg was inspired by Kant, but I just read on Wikipedia that he was. Kohlberg was accused of being male-centric in his ideas about morality by Carol Gilligan. Her proposed theory of morality is based in an ethic of caring, rather than an ethic of justice. What do people think of this?

You can be a good person without having a role model

Having a role model probably helps one become a good person, but I don't think it is necessary. You can become a good person through self-reflection and observation. For example, observing events going on around you and reflecting on their outcomes can teach you about morality. Some people in class said that examples like this one, as well as reading books can actually serve as role models, but I think this is expanding the definition of role model too much. I think a role model is a person (and you don't have to know them in real life) who you model your life after and aspire to be like. This isn't even always a positive thing. Deciding what role you want to fill through your own thoughts and reflections may be better than simply aspiring to mimic somebody else. I think we are all inspired by many different people, experiences, books, etc. Most of us probably take little pieces of each thing that inspired us to make ourselves the best we can be-sort of a collaboration of all the things that have inspired us. I do not think this is an example of having role models because it doesn't involve modeling your life after someone.

First Post

This is my blog for a class on Abraham Lincoln's ethics. I am a psychology major at MCLA, but I have taken many philosophy classes through the honors program and as electives. I believe that these classes have made me a better writer and thinker. I am coming into this class not knowing much about Lincoln's life (other than what I read in the David Herbert Donald bio) so I am looking forward to learning more from this class and being challenged by my fellow bloggers.