My group consisted of five members; Ericka Blenker, Sarah Stevens, Alex Castillo, Sam

Cook, and myself, we meet two times. The first meeting was at Buffalo Wild Wing we have

discussed the first five questions, the second time was a Beans and Brew where we discussed the

last five questions.

The first question was “Do we have any ethical duties regarding what we do with our

money? There was one person that answered yes and the as Sarah; her argument was that

because it benefits everybody around us and that will make our life easier if nobody struggles.

Another point she brought up was there is not set amount to legal enjoy life. Everybody else was

a no, Erika brought up a good point that it selfish because you do only feel good, she brought up

the value of life argument where is that person worth giving my money to them. Alex brought up

that we already do this with our taxes, he argued that people with more money should get taxed

more. Sam said that is not Peter place to say that because ultimate decision should be made by

themselves and not be a person saying it or forcing them, Sam and Alex both strongly disagreed

with Peter Singer because giving money to people will not anything.

A philosopher that comes to mind talking about ethical duties is Confucius, a quick

history about he was considered a legendary teach who sought to take a political office so he

could reform t the government according to his philosophy. One of the main things

that Confucius believed in was humanism which is the belief that human inkling and effort to

improving the condition in the here and now. He might be the as harsh as Peter Singer but he did

believe in human empathy, and we should work as a society together to make it a better place,

that's the main goal of Peter Singer's philosophy that the e all be happy if we help the poor out.

One of Confucius belief was Jen which translates to human; it has a double mean of both
humankind and kindness. He believed that relaxation of Jen leads to full names. Therefore we

can only achieve this by learning how to balance the need for our self and others.

The next question was kind of ironic because it was it unethical to eat meat, and we were

eating at wild buffalo wings. The other two quotations where do we have an ethical duty to be a

vegetarian and is it unethical to any food? We all said no because we all love meat, we all agreed

on this there was like no debate on this, except Ericka, brought up hunting and cruel animal

torture, she thought we know of that then it unethical.

The most apparent philosopher to me is Peter Singer, to me asking people about is

meaning unethical makes some people unscorable and a bit upset because it questions their way

of living and in way interferes with some of their happiness that meat can bring. Peter Singer did

release a book on Animal Liberation and eating meat can fall under that category with cruel

animal treatment. I can’t remember but I think I brought up cannibalism can fall into this

category for people who eat other people and this is considered unethical. Peter Singer argues

that we shouldn't put less value on animals life like a dog for example. So I think that Singer

would have agreed with Erika with all the animal cruelty, and would have said that eating meat is

unethical.

The next cover truth, what is truth? How do know if we have arrived at the truth? Ericka

starts with boulder analy; she rocks climbs so anything that it related to rock climbing is true for

them because it applies to her. Alex argument was interesting because the truth will come by the

strongest opinion or argument, this how we get some of the truth an example of this would be

history books, I’m pretty the truth about wars are different from each country. He also stated we

arrive at the truth we feel like we have arrived at the truth. Sam brought up science, and that truth
is mostly how you perceive things. Another good argument he brought up is that most truths are

comprising, like history, people will often make a deal, and so the “truth” ends up being a lie.

Immanuel Kant comes to mind when we talk about knowledge and truth, according to Kant, we

form know by two things, actual experiences we face and the mind’s faculties of judgment. He

most recognized for his ideas about perception. This means we cannot know what the world is

like; we can only know what we perceive the world to be like.

The next question is the very interesting question, and that is how is good behavior vs. bad

determined? Alex started this argument with that society are the ones who decide what is good

and evil, he brings up the point of murder, it wrong because we say it bad, where we take a look

at like Stalin or Hitler where they killed people, and they said it was good because they were to

one who controlled society. Over all, he thought that our intentions were what mattered, and with

this point I brought were if I were to break up a friend because the relationship was toxic for hm,

my behavior would be considered bad but overall my intention was good because I was

protecting my friend. I and Ericka brought up the value of life, and that comes down to a

personal level, Sam came in with that god and bad is usually defined by the individual and we

come back to the Hitler killing Jews. Sarah brought an interesting point and said that we could

define the good and behavior by the consequences that follow the action.

Karl Marx comes to mind when we talk about society and for the most of the part is the

society that decides all the rule and regulation, but how? Marx believed in the economic structure

of culture create its ideas, which in means the law. And that is true in today's world as we see

that the rich control production which controls our economy, so they can control what goes and

what does.
 For this one, I don’t know if this was mentioned in the philosophy book, but I remember

learning about this philosopher in one of my history but it was Michel Foucault, he often would

question our assumptions about how much better the world is today than in the past. He studied

history, some of the books he wrote he was criticized for not being accurate with historical, but

what he did was thought tale was the box of good ideas and that we should grab the right ideas to

improve our past rather than keeping them unchanged. And by doing this we continuously

change what is consider what is good and evil, we look back at history, and we took the good

and implanted in here in the present.

The next question felt like the last question except reworded but it was if we do the right action

for the wrong reason, is less moral. Some of said it was less moral while others did not any, we

kind of rehashed some of the same ideas from the last question but some of the points that were

brought up was Sara that if we do the right thing is done for a selfish reason, it still selfish. The

example she gave was the tax break where that encouraged people to provide some of your

money to charity to cut your tax bill, but it goes back to the intention vs. action thing. As for the

rest of we aggress is not less moral and Sam brought up a good point that people are still doing

so it doesn't matter if they are forced, I brought up that intentions don’t matter in the eyes of

society people are more likely going to care about the action more.

The next question brought back some childhood memories and a bit of nostalgia, are bad

actions that are completed with good intent less moral (Robin hood)? Most of the answers to this

question we that it the intention that counts, Erika, brought up killing someone in self-defense

the action is seen as wrong, but the intention was good because you were protecting yourself

from a threat. But then Sam counter with this argument that people will remember the action, not

intentions, so you have to define the wrong action. But then I brought up personality; I said that
we could determine an intention at times depending on the person character. If they are usually a

response that likes to cause harm to society them most likely their intention was bad wherefore

like a straight-A student got in a fight to protect himself the intention will seem good and not less

moral.

John Hick said a famous quote “The harshness of life, gives us a robust texture and character

that wouldn’t be possible without an imperfect world.” And how does this relate to the question

will to bring up religion, John Hick believe that when we are sent down here from God we were

sent unfinished so here we learn, and when you learn we get the sense of good and bad, so,

therefore, we learn what is less moral and what is not. I think we agree that doing the doing the

bad action but with good intent is less moral.

Happiness is tricky to define; the next question was about happiness and how does one

life and happy life and how do morals play in role in this. Sarah started out with that being happy

starts with living an authentically life, she brought up that society uses fear to make barriers to

make us act a certain way, to her we must break out of these barriers and trust our instincts, and

she said that had brought here happiness, she also mentioned the “the Way” and how we talked

she really connected with it. Alex was next, and he said that happiness to his is comfortable with

your personal life, his philosophy was similar to that of Epicurus, where you are surrounded by

the people you love, he also brought up Buddha and how I must know sadness to know

happiness. Sam philosophy was sort of in the same lane, according to him is that happiness

comes from a personal level, to prove this he brought up a friend who lives in the woods with no

electricity, to us that we be a hardship, but to his that is what brings him happiness, but then he

mentions society has morals of how we could be happy as well, I agreed with both Sam and Alex

on how we become happy, I feel like we are happiness when we are with our friends, but then I
brought up happiness to criminal like serial killers whose happiness revolves around killing

around torture, we settle that we that we consider happiness is immoral and that they should not

have the right to take another life that was also seeking happiness. Arika philosophy around self-

awareness like Sarah that we should focus on our goals and our god, this was a good counter

argument towards the serial killer happiness.

For I feel like the philosopher the would agree with us is Epicurus, as we all mentioned, we

are happy when we are with are friends, Epicurus philosophy also revolved around that world

posesion do not help us achieve that happiness, as Sarah brought up society put us the

expectations on how to live a happy life and that is filled with money and expensive items, if we

were to truly live happy like Epirus we would have to leave all our worldly possessions and go

out into the middle of nowhere and live with our close friends. The last step of happiness for

Epirus was to self-providing which meant that we could provide on our own and we don’t need

anybody for help, of course, we would agree that killing is wrong because we should not deprive

of anyone of happiness.

The next question was about a leader, what are the qualities of superior individual, I stated that

certain attributes, what I meant that a leader should not be a combination of all traits because that

will interfere with goals and if feel like it would make them very manipulate, a superior leader to

me would be a person that sticks to their goal and that every decision they make focus on

achieving that goal. Sarah brought that a superior person should have a balance between self-care

and care for others. That this person should also be focused on making their weakness and make

them into strengthens. Alex brought up the point that a superior individual should be realistic, in

other words, that nobody is perfect and having all “superior qualities, they are simple but

complex. Ericka brought up the point of self-mastery, that you must look at themselves and she
brought up an important point that they don’t play a role in society should not matter, because we

look at celebrities and we think of them as superior individuals, but they lack the qualities of

leadership and self-mastery, Same brought up that a superior should master self-mastering. Once

they have mastered that they must look to control your surroundings and not let them affect you.

Plato believed that the only people that were superior were philosopher themselves, it's kind

ironic and bit cocky. But the main reason that Plato argued for this is that only philosophers have

the knowledge to lead. Back in the day Plato had a school just dedicated to teaching his teaching

to the new generations along with the other materials like Math and Science. But his school

taught them things that regular school that would never teach them like empathy, leadership, and

philosophy, these students would be society “celebrities” where everybody should look up to

them as trying to be like them.

The next question dealt with social duties, do we have any duties to our neighbors or society

members, we all agreed to this at some point. Most of agree on the same ideas that we do, Sarah

said that we should because we as a human being have a duty of improving society to make it

better tomorrow, which we should treat everybody like our family, to give more that you take.

Backing up this philosophy that does have a duty to improve society, he brought up that if we see

crime, we must report it to the police, but that we should not stop society’s progression. Erica

said that if do our duties all hell would break loose, there would be no order like the purge. Then

Alex counter with we do have an obligation but that doesn’t mean we have to do it, but then I

countered with a hypothetical scenario, what if we see a person getting beat up to the point of

almost dying, we could do something, but we would value our life more because we don’t want

to die so then settle that we should help to the best of ability.

 There has often been a lot of debate whether we do have a duty to our fellow neighbors,

Martin Luther King, Jr would have agreed that yes we do, as we all knew he lived in a terrible

area of segregation. He felt like he had a duty to help his people live an equal life, to make

society a better place for the future generation. He did this with moral tension; he would make

people uncomfortable by disobeying the law which was racist against the black. King had a

choice, he could have just grown up healthy and just focused on being a pastor and not care

about segregation, but no he choose to do something there for stating that we are not obligated to

serve our neighbor but if we do it should lead to water ripple effect where one small dead start a

whole movement of good deeds.

The final and last question was wisdom, what is understanding and how does one acquire

wisdom, Sam started out you can only receive knowledge thought to apply what you learn, you

can be smart and know all these random facts or “skills” in your head but until you actually put

them to use they are completely useless. Sarah also said that you don’t get wise thorough lots of

school but with experiences, to back her up I brought up my job. I worked at auto collision shop,

my boss is excellent example of wisdom, because he has worked on car for so many years he

knows what to do, how much to sand, what to cut off, how to improvise, you don’t learn that in a

book, but only by mistakes and working the problem out and find the solution. Alex agreed with

Socrates on the wisdom that you have to know your limitations and know you self-more.

Nietzsche comes to mind when it comes to wisdom, this was often considered the anti-

philosopher by many people because of his ideas, and he looked weird. But how we discussed

how we get wisdom is through experiences and the is mostly based on failure because you don’t

learn much if you get right, you in a sense never learn anything. So we learn through hardship,
and that is wah Nietzsche was all about, you never learn anything if life gives you everything to

your hands.