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Brian Ghilliotti

Philosophy 111

Mid Term Questions

Gateway Community College

4/20/19

Question #2

If a child steals candy from his sister the natural tendency is to hold him responsible -but if he
takes a handgun out of his parent’s drawer and shoots his sister- the natural tendency is to
hold his parent responsible. Why? What does this say about rationality?

In this case, we know nothing about the age of the child’s sister, but we could assume that she
is also very young as well. If the child stole candy from his young sister, we can assume that
neither party “knew better”; the young child did not understand that taking things from others
whenever they felt like it was wrong, nor did his young sister realize that theft is a reality in life
and one should be on guard against it. In the stolen candy case, both parties supposedly “did
not know better”, and the child who stole the candy is treated according to standard social
norms related to theft and discipling of young children.

In the case of a young child stealing a gun and shooting his sister, the case is different. It is
probably the parent(s) who are the legal owners of the weapon, and they are thus responsible
for the keeping the weapon secure so that it does not get stolen and used destructively. In the
stolen gun incident, one could possible say that neither the young child or his young sister
knew any better; they may have never seen a gun before, and wanted to experiment with it. or
perhaps they knew how a gun worked but were mislead about its destructive impacts by things
they saw on TV. However, the adults did know better, or should have known better, and should
have secured it to protect against theft by criminals or those who could generate manslaughter
incidents.

The pattern here is that as we get older, we are expected to have developed a higher sense of
rationality, which makes us more accountable for not only our actions, but for actions of those
that we are responsible for as well. Under this system, we have seen many early teen offenders
get very light sentences for pretty heinous crimes, which some feel is unacceptable. In these
cases, we hear cries of “try them as adults”! The question here is at what point, and for what
actions, do human beings become rational enough to take complete personal responsibility for
their actions?

Question #4

According to cultural relativism, the rightness or wrongness of your actions is based on the
norms of your culture or society. Most of us, however, belong to more than one culture or
society at the same time. Assuming that the various societies that we belong to have different
norms, is it possible to satisfy all of them? Or can desperation and hypocrisy, under such
circumstances, be seen as virtues?

To address this question I would like to briefly review the career of the Bosnian Muslim warlord
Fikret Abdić, who lived in the Bosnian town of Velika Kladuša, in the extreme northwest of the
country. Abdic was successful in transforming this economically neglected region in the then
Bosnian province of Yugoslavia into a major agricultural producer for both Belgrade and
Zagreb. It was said he converted this region from one the nation’s poorest to one of it’s richest
regions.

In 1990, he tried running for the Presidency of Bosnia, but he was essentially cheated by his
main rival, Alija Izetbegović, who would later become the first President of the post Yugoslavia
Bosnia. Abdic essentially refused to support his rival, and decided to play off the rivalries
between the Croats, Serbs, and Bosnian Muslims by a three pronged strategy:

1. Promote reconciliation with Serbs and Croats amongst the Bosnian Muslims.

2. Pledge to keep all Bosnian Muslim Army elements out of his region, using deadly force and
repressing any supporters of Izetbegović in his region.

3. Happily offer to act as a buffer state between the three warring factions, separating the
Bosnian Republic, the Serb separatists, and the Croats, whose forces all converged on his
enclave. The Serbs and Croats welcomed his offer to act as a buffer zone.

Essentially Abdic was playing off all sides to protect his region and keep away from his hated
rival Izetbegović. The result was there was little destruction in his region, and Serb and Croat
forces were a little more lenient when dealing with the Bosnian Muslims in the region.

The pattern that is established here show us that those who like to take hypocritical and
deceptive positions usually do for self interests. How ‘ethical’ these self interests are depend
on the extent that these self interests also benefit others. Yes, he may have promoted “peace”
amongst different warring factions, and he may have spared his local region of support of
major violence, but he also had no problems repressing other Bosnian Muslims and assisting
their enemies to also achieve these goals. In these cases, where people are willing to act
“ethically” for contradictory reasons, it is usually in pursuit of purely selfish interests, at the
expense of any group or set of individuals.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fikret_Abdić

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velika_Kladuša

Question 7

Why do we need ethics? How do humans differ from animals in this respect?

I find this question perhaps too simple for me to answer. If an animal wants to commit a
“wrong”, which, is this case, would most likely be a primordial, biologically based act of
survival, they are not as intelligent enough as humans are to create weapons, manipulate
others into facilitating social and institutional breakdowns (ie race/ethnic wars, separatist
movements, and crime schemes) to achieve their goals. Humans, on the other hand, have
evolved beyond the hunter gathering stage that many animals are still a part of, and have
developed systems that no only support basic needs, but also wants. When there is a conflict
over either a need, or, more importantly, a want, human capabilities to resolve these conflicts
range from courtrooms to weapons of mass destruction. Ethics (and laws for that matter, -it’s
close cousin) was established to control desires (or one of the reasons for its establishment)
related to the use of chemical weapons part of the spectrum to resolve conflicts over needs
and wants.

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