endsthegame (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomhigh2015-06-05 06:34 pm
endsthegame) wrote in fandomhigh2015-06-05 06:34 pm
Entry tags:
Practical Philosophy, Friday
"Judgments," Ender said. "We all make them."
He gave everyone a faint smile. "About actions, and about people. It's the idea of judging people that drove the philosophers of old into endless debates, on when it was okay to judge something terrible or evil. They developed extensive theories on what made something good and right. Take the old Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle, who believed in what's called 'virtue ethics' - the idea that the character of the person defines the morality of his actions. Socrates argued, for instance, that if a person knew what was right, then he would do right. It was only not knowing what 'good' was that might cause someone to do evil."
"Then there were the stoics, who believed virtue laid in contentment, in being happy with what you're given, whatever it was. Opposite them, the hedonists, who believed 'good' was anything that made you feel happy. Later philosophers came up with the theory of consequentialism, the idea that one's morality depended on the consequences of what someone does. Some philosophers felt that good deeds were only good if they worked to better the country, for instance. On the other hand, deontologists such as Kant believed that goodness came from doing, and the reasons someone might have to do something - if you did something because you felt it was your duty, Kant would've thought you were doing something good no matter what happened."
He sat back.
"As I said, we all make our judgments. Of ourselves, of the people around us, of their pasts - especially around here. On what do you base your judgments? I think most of us realize that there is no such thing as pure good and evil - but how we judge other people tends to depend a lot on what we were taught and where we come from."
Another faint smile.
"I personally believe that character is important," he said. "Once you try to understand what makes people do what they do, it becomes that much harder to see them as evil. After all, most of us do what we think is right, even if our ideas of what right is are different. And in doing these things, we inspire other people to act in their own way."
He gave everyone a faint smile. "About actions, and about people. It's the idea of judging people that drove the philosophers of old into endless debates, on when it was okay to judge something terrible or evil. They developed extensive theories on what made something good and right. Take the old Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle, who believed in what's called 'virtue ethics' - the idea that the character of the person defines the morality of his actions. Socrates argued, for instance, that if a person knew what was right, then he would do right. It was only not knowing what 'good' was that might cause someone to do evil."
"Then there were the stoics, who believed virtue laid in contentment, in being happy with what you're given, whatever it was. Opposite them, the hedonists, who believed 'good' was anything that made you feel happy. Later philosophers came up with the theory of consequentialism, the idea that one's morality depended on the consequences of what someone does. Some philosophers felt that good deeds were only good if they worked to better the country, for instance. On the other hand, deontologists such as Kant believed that goodness came from doing, and the reasons someone might have to do something - if you did something because you felt it was your duty, Kant would've thought you were doing something good no matter what happened."
He sat back.
"As I said, we all make our judgments. Of ourselves, of the people around us, of their pasts - especially around here. On what do you base your judgments? I think most of us realize that there is no such thing as pure good and evil - but how we judge other people tends to depend a lot on what we were taught and where we come from."
Another faint smile.
"I personally believe that character is important," he said. "Once you try to understand what makes people do what they do, it becomes that much harder to see them as evil. After all, most of us do what we think is right, even if our ideas of what right is are different. And in doing these things, we inspire other people to act in their own way."
Talk.