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.