Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
INTFILO C33
April 6, 2016
Final Exam
pleasure and pain, it defines three groups of desires in which everything falls
into. Natural and necessary such as food, natural but unnecessary such as
sex, and unnatural and unnecessary such as fame. I disagree with
epicureanism because, similar to hedonism and stoicism, it defines good
through the satisfaction of the end or the desires of man. Because it focuses
too much on the end, it is unable to settle what is moral for the means. For
example, is the act of stealing food moral if the objective is to get satisfy the
natural and necessary desire for food?
Another ethical theory is situationism which proposes Christian love as
the criteria for what is good. Christian love, which is mostly correlated with
agapeic love, is the care and concern for others. What is good is what shows
the most concern for others. This theory fails to convince me as it puts the
individual in the least level of concern. Personally, I think the good should
consider all stakeholders the individual, the persons nearest to the individual
or those directly affected by the action, and the society as a whole. Add to
this its difficulty in deciding what is good in gray area situations. For instance,
should a Hitler be killed if his existence causes the hardships of many others?
The Holocaust was against the beliefs of Christian love, but so is killing a
person, in this case Hitler. Whose welfare should be of greater concern?
Mightism is another theory of ethics. It argues that power and control is
what defines morality. The actions of the ruler are always good, and
supporting the ruler will be the good. This is because the ruler is the one that
has power. Similar to situationism, it fails to conclude decisions in gray areas.
My specific concern with mightism is this: if the good lies in the one that has
power, and the power is with the ruler, what if the people overthrow the ruler?
Who has the power now? Whose actions are moral?
Deontologism, also an ethical theory, focuses on the duty of the
individual as the norm of morality. In deontologism, something is moral if the
person responsible for it does the action with regard to his duty. For example,
a President is moral if he does his job on the basis of his duty as the leader of
the country he will think about the citizens of the country and enrich himself
with taxes. There is a major flaw in deontologism, however, in that it regards
duties as mutually exclusive. Consider the situation of a daughter. A daughter
has the duty to obey her parents. Her parents wanted her to become a doctor.
At last, she became a doctor, but the problem is that she is doing medical
functions not with regard to her duty as a doctor but with regard to her duty
as a child of her parents whom she obeyed as they wanted her to become a
doctor.
There is also humanistic ethics which talks about self-realization or the
fulfillment of the needs as a human as the basis of what is good. In this theory,
self-realization occurs in the satisfaction of the vegetative (physiological),
sentient (emotional), and rational natures of human. Similar to ethical
theories of hedonism, stoicism, and epicureanism, I find it hard to agree with
humanistic ethics because it talks of the fulfilment only of the individual. My
that were to be followed. It was very much patriarchal, in a sense that there
were leading figures in each field of the sciences and the arts which were
greatly followed, and no one else.
The culture of postmodernism, on the other hand, refers to the
characteristic of challenging what is rational. If modernism decides to create
a rational system of ideas, postmodernism is open to a lot of ideas which may
be conflicting against each other, but the people get to choose what they
believe in.
As one that challenges what is rational, in terms of the arts, specifically
painting, the culture of postmodernism is exemplified in the colorful and retro
artworks of Andy Warhol very much contradicting to the preferred mimic of
reality style of painting.
In the field of architecture, for instance, the postmodernism culture
allows the mixing of architectural styles which is not what is supposed to
happen. For example, Ancient Roman curvature are allowed to mix with edgy
and zen-type structures that are full of lines. An example of which is the Taipei
101. The grand colossal structures are abandoned for simplified straight-line
structures such as the Wells Fargo Center in Minneapolis, United States.
The culture of postmodernism, in terms of ideas and beliefs, basically
speaks about the freedom of the many instead of the rule of the few. Such is
the cause for the different advocacy movements in the postmodernity era, or
how capitalists are freely allowed to become more capitalists than ever.
Everyone has freedom.
To exemplify the beliefs of the postmodernism culture, it is important to
view the proponents of the such ideas. One of the proponents is Michael
Foucault who critiques the control of the ruling classes and the standardization
of ideas present in modernism. By modifying Francis Bacons statement that
Knowledge is power, Foucault indicates that the seek for knowledge is driven
by the seek for power. Thus, those who know are those who have power. They
dictate what should be known. Knowledge, therefore, is never objective and
reliable. It is biased and in accordance with the desires of the powerful used
as a tool for domination.
Another proponent is Jacques Derrida who speaks about the
postmodernist language. He argues for the dismantling of the structure built
into language that ideas, or signifiers, are connected with other ideas and
signifiers. Thus, there is no secure ground for an idea because it is only part
of a further and larger mass of ideas, wherein singling out an idea is
impossible. An example of Derridas argument is a conversation between a
child and an adult. A child would ask What is a bed? and the adult would
answer It is a piece of furniture for sleep and rest., in which the child would
respond What is sleep? and the conversation will continue forever because
a certain word, in this case, bed, is always signified by another, in this case,
sleep.