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Continued… (Part III?)

Aaron Vanderzwan — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 14:40:42 +0000

So i have (in my last few posts) been throwing thoughts together, trying to organize them as i go (which I enjoy doing better), but i understand if i lose people. let me know and i will explain something more thoroughly.

so i just re-read my old post and want to continue, but it is hard because i am having different strains of thought right now. i will do my best.

i just barely touched on heaven in my last post, but have to say, it is a large part of why i think the way i do. heaven makes this place (earth or ‘not heaven’) ‘not fully right’. what i mean by that is, it could have been better, but with a loving, all-powerful god, god didn’t want it to be. again, i feel the need to back track. i may not have explained my interpretation of ‘all-powerful’ enough yet…

(i believe that is how this post might end)

my understanding of all-powerful, is to be in complete control of every aspect of everything. just realy quick, yes that includes sin. all powerful is not a lazy term that i throw around lightly, i believe that if i say that god would be all powerful than god contains this characteristic of being in control of absolutely everything. well (as i touched on in the last post), this seems rather obserd as this free-will B.S. stands in my way of a belief in an all powerful god. i have to say that with this point, i tend to stray rather close to the crc belief (the one i always argued against) of predestination. now, everyone hears the word ‘predestination’ and thinks they know whats up. i am not, and will not waste time arguing about whether or not god ‘sends’ people to heaven or to that other place most christians believe in. god being all powerful makes that a non-argument. i could move in a circle here and argue god being just and people going to hell unjust, but i will wait a little longer. the point i am trying to make here is that our faith in god CAN be so strong that we believe god ‘is’ and was in control of everything. now i should, again, clarify this statement. ‘is’ is somewhat debatable. i am not stricktly convinced that god right now does stuff/changes events, however my belief in god at one time controlling today makes the ‘is’ work. yeah i know, that was horribly articulated… please read on.

i move with the deist here and believe that god, being all-powerful, created the world in such a way that i would be sitting here writing this post and you would be (now?) sitting here reading it. i am in the firm belief that the only way god can control today, (since i see god nowhere currently in action or body) is to have spun the world, such that we are here today. this is a tough concept to grab a hold of and i welcome questions for better explaination. i see no reason why an all=powerful god couldn’t have accomplished this move. this would explain why god is in control of everything, and why god isn’t concerned with showing god’s-self to us in any physical voice/being/action/light/etc. god’s already in control.

however, this definitely puts god in charge of the sin that was included in god’s spin of this world (aka. creation) and it also makes a lot of people feel sour because they don’t feel in control of their actions, or that others (hitler, murderers etc) aren’t responsible for their actions. for this explaination and reasonaing i jump away from theology and look around me. it seems like i, and everyone that i know, is sitting in the position that they are sitting in based on experiences that they have encountered, somewhere in their life. they have accomplished NOTHING on their own and are only affected by situations/happinstances in their life. for myself… i am a white middle class citizen of the U.S. This alone means that… christian? moral? financial? (well maybe those) those are the direct effects of only 2 situations that i was brought up in. more? i had loving parents that tought me well and treated me like an adult even when i wasn’t one. that can easily explain why i can handle myself in social situations, why i do not look for blood to give me an orgasm etc. etc. etc. the people that we look at as the most ‘insane’ in our modern world are those that had situations that made them the way they were. do they have a choice? well maybe. i guess that depends on the definition of a choice. when eric’s parents tell him he can eat from the cookie jar, can eric be blamed for not eating from the cookie jar, just the way many people believe that jihads are a’okay, and why many people thought that black people were inferior to the whites. it has nothing to do with personal thought or belief, simply situations that brought about that belief. even me sitting here writing shit against what i have been taught all my life is because i was taught to question what i was told and to be persistent with debate and understanding.

i digress. anyways, as you can see i could write for a long time on what seems very little. either way, it seems, even if the argument may be that people have natural brain malfunctions or whatever, that people are not entirel culpable for the actions that they do, or commit. i don’t think that this is where i intended to end up tonight, but i did. one more step. the experiences that people have, to make them they way that they are (i see this to be plausible) happen only because other people act a certain way (caused by their situations). so african-american’s today being sour against the white culture can be explained by little johnnie in the 50′s acting how he was taught to act by his father, etc. (one of many many many reasons) and johnnie’s father by his father etc etc etc. the father teaching the son how to treat another race is only part of the ‘situation’ johnny had to deal with, there were millions of them, school, bus rides, restaurants, street discussions, etc. all of which i believe god set up in the beginning and therefore, controls.

i hope i am making some sense and am not ranting, saying the same things over and over. i will quit now and maybe outline my next post. please let me know if you have questions or problems with what i have stated so far. i will do what i can to explain better.

3 Comments:

jocelyn said…: alright, so i will admit i do have comments and questions for you.
firstly, i am realizing that i do believe in “predestination”. i never used to even growing up in a crc home. i refused to have an opinion and avoided the topic as i believed it was a “non-issue”. meaning if in the end nothing changes whether i believed in it or not, then why bother having an opinion at all. i guess maybe in some ways i still do think that way a little. well i think that could dip into every type of philisophical or theological debate.
i’m in the process of redefining my beliefs as you are. i used to believe God was this way in that situation and that way in this situation. defining him based on my emotions and how i felt he should respond. which now looking back is childish and very controversial. being our creator, who are we to “put him in box” so to speak. allowing him to affect our lives only when we ask him to. i believe God deserves more respect than that.
you touched on “nature vs. nurture” and a few other things such as the existance of hell. i look forward to discussing these in person when i come down next weekend. hopefully we’ll have time to talk despite your busy performance schedule.; 1:48 PM
walawalapb said…: srsly dood; 1:19 PM
jocelyn said…: alright now it’s your turn to post something new for me to read. and you failed to mention in your email that you were so into timberland right now. love it. guilty pleasure? i think so!!; 8:35 AM

Digging into the CRC

Aaron Vanderzwan — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 22:40:41 +0000

I have to start with my belief in God according to sin/evil/pain/suffering. Again, I feel this is important because of how pulled i have been to it. this has been the largest reason for my questioning religion as i knew it. This is nothing new. This problem of evil has gone down throughout history as a reason for many conversions to atheism, agnosticism etc. I am unwilling to give up. As I said in the previous post. I have chosen my belief in God, and that is where i begin. The problem of evil is not one that compells me to lose belief in a God simply strive to understand that this god is not what i have always been taught.

The CRC’s belief, as well as I know it is: God created the world (God is all powerful). God created the world sinless and good (God is holy and loving), God is in control of everything (God is sovereign). The fall occured only because God allowed it. The CRC seems to use this idea to make God blameless of sin being in this world. This is the heart of the problem. How can God be all powerful but not be the sole reason for sin being in this world?

The added problem with saying that God allowed/enabled/created sin, is to accept the idea that God wants little susie to get raped every night from her drunk violent father until one night he kills her. We cannot accept this because God is a Loving God, a Just God or at least that is what we want God to be. Here we come to another place where I had to make a decision. My decision was one that aspires hope for this world and for little susie’s death. My choice is for God to be loving AND all powerful.

my struggle was… why is there ‘sin’? Why does little susie have that constant pain and suffering? Couldn’t this loving God that is all powerful come up with a better way for us to live? A thought is… yeah, a world that has no sin. Often, people respond to a world that has no sin as a bad place to live because we don’t have the choice to choose God. First, I have trouble believing that God would put susie in that situation so that her father could have the choice of God or his little daughter. Second. “Free-will is something that is good; a gift from God. Without it we would all be robots.” Bull Shit. what do we call heaven than? Somehow this connection gets lost when people think about free-will being what makes our relationship with the creator real. The all powerful creator, could have… and potentially did… create a world with no free-will that is good. Heaven.

This realization did not push me into belief of heaven, but just for our creator to have the ability to create a place i had always heard was ‘robot-like’. This is not an acceptable reason for sin to be a good thing; “so we can value God more”. I believe if heaven exists, we will value the creator very much there.

Damn it. this is getting too long. I will pause here. re-read. re-think. re-organize.

1 Comments:

jocelyn said…: i think it has been shown (even through your thoughts) that free will has given us the opportunity to grow, to challenge ourselves and what we believe in. honestly i do not believe that having doubts is a bad thing. if everyone went through life with the sunday school version of who Jesus is then i think we would miss out on who he really is. i myself am only learning these things now. God gave us minds of somewhat intelligence and i believe that he wants us to use them.; 6:09 AM

Base premises (or whatever the plural for premise is)

Aaron Vanderzwan — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 02:12:20 +0000

Okay, so it has been four score and hella time since i have posted on this thing but here is the story. someone recently got me interested in blogspot again, and so i found my old blog and began reading through some of my old posts. How awesome this tool is for recording our transitions and movements through this world. With that said i explain my gameplan for returning to posting. I intend to respond to where i left off. before my most recent trivial post, i posed some serious questions about this world, primarily pertaining to religion. Well, in my head, i have come to some conclusions for these posts. My intent here is to explain my worldview, how i came to it and why i have gotten here.

Now, i should also say that this is not set in stone. i guess my first premise in my “worldview” is that we are always learning/growing, and strengthening our “position” (if you will). I don’t expect many to read these, but i ask that if you have questions or struggles with anything that i post, that you comment. I am in no way stuck to my beliefs and in all honesty I am not entirely happy with how it all works out in my head. i welcome someone to prove me wrong and show me a way to a happier (or just different) point of view. I will try my best to comprehend (as my developing brain can handle) and add to my thoughts what you comment.

One last thing. I will try to keep these posts relatively short. I don’t want anyone intimidated or frustrated with the time necessary to dedicate to reading these.

Okay here is where I begin. 88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

I will begin with the beginning. (seems like a good place to start). There are a few things I have “chosen” to believe. These things I believe are not provable and debate on them just leads to circles, frustration, and eventually ‘thought defeat’.

I believe in a God, a Creator of all things, the all powerful. – this goes into more of my childhood and up-bringing. it is much more comfortable for me to accept the idea of something/someone being at the beginning than the opposite, which seems at a glimpse so desolate and scary. Also, looking through history it seems that many cultures have set foundational priciples on this belief. Whether it be for proof, political reasons, or just plain moral, I really don’t care. I feel, at least, that my hope for this world is greater when this belief is accepted.

This Creator did not/has not changed. – This is a widely accepted belief of the CRC, which made me question it. However, it would be quite pointless to discuss a God that would change all of the time. Think about it, that is true.

I believe that Creator to be good. – Not all “good” as the CRC tends to shove. The Creator was willing to create wrong/evil/pain for the strength of a “greater good” (this is not what you are thinking and I will explain it more later). These are huge ideas and I will probably warrant much of many posts explaining what these mean. Long story short, I chose to believe that this Creator choses for the world to be as shitty as it is (if you question my struggles with this world’s shittiness and haven’t read my previous posts, i urge you to read, to gain an empathy for my position on this world being insanely shitty).

Well that is all you get for this post. 1. this post has to be a reasonable length, 2. i want to develope my thoughts into words better 3. hopefully this leaves you with some questions, and myself as well, which will keep you, the reader, interested as well as myself, the writer. 4. tomorrow morning at 8:30 work begins again and that is in 7 hours from now, so only 6 for sleeping.

Again, give me support, rip me down, ask me a question, just let this be a discussion. I want to learn from this, hopefully you can help me do that and maybe learn a little yourself.

night

1 Comments:

jocelyn said…: it is often difficult to “express the mess” , if you will, of our thoughts. i think you have done well of the difficult task in laying out the concept of our God being one who wants us to grow and change, yet shit just keeps getting in the way. but is it truly him who is laying out the mud that we walk through and the same one who is helping us clean it off in the end? this i still struggle with. how can i trust in someone who is inevitably looking for my downfall only to pick me up?; 12:37 PM

Ehzee’s blog update

Aaron Vanderzwan — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 13:42:59 +0000

Hello.

The list in the nav area of this blog is actually a list of the top tracks that I have listened to. It changes whenever the amount I play these songs change. For example, Stars – Elevator Love Letter is in the lead with 11 plays in the last 2 weeks. Spice Coyote is second and third with 11 and 8 plays. I do have to update the player though. There will most likely be an update on the player when Spice Coyote records this next song we are working on. It is our favorite so far, in that it surpasses “A Post-Feminist Critique” in fun and pointlessness. It is almost perfect. Anywho… with my most recent Dashboard widget I can post to blogger straight from my desktop, so you will be seeing a few more postings here. More Info on Blogger Widget

2 Comments:

Reshae said…: can’t wait to here it…you’re gonna be famous soon. i can just feel it!; 7:12 PM
Anonymous said…: i’m taking credit for kt tunstall and the shout out louds. hope that’s okay;); 12:16 PM

Delicious

Aaron Vanderzwan — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 22:25:50 +0000

So I am sitting here today, reading more Dostoevsky. What can I say, I’m enthralled. Right now, Ivan is explaining to his brother, Alyosha, his struggle with Jesus. A quote, talking to Jesus from Ivan’s perspective of the church, is as follows, “You promised them bread from heaven, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, always vicious and always ignoble race of man? And if for the sake of the bread from heaven thousands and tens of thousands will follow you, what is to become of the millions and scores of thousands of millions of creatures who will not have the strength to give up the earthly bread for the bread of heaven? Or are only the scores of thousands of the great and strong dear to you, and are the remaining millions, numerous as the sand of the sea, who are weak but who love you, to serve only as the material for the great and the strong?” – The Brothers Karamazov

Now, I actually write this article not so much in response to the real meaning of this book and chapter, even though that interests the point that I have thought about recently. The point is as follows, our world, the world that we know it, is not going to last. Eschatological study will soon be proven right or wrong. As it is going, and as history has shown us, living conditions will eventually only exponentially get worse, we continuously devour every good physical essence that this earth has been granted us to have. I feel like one day, one of our future generation will hold her stomach in the corner of her rubbled house, trying to shield her unclothed body from the wind and rain that is ripping shreds of skin off of her body. She will think about the books that she read about our generations, how nice we had it, how beautiful the sun had been, how clean the air had been, how we could go to a store and buy any kind of food we wanted.

The unarguable truth is this, we are going to die, you the reader is going to one day die, your children will die, their children will die and eventually whether we kill ourselves or not, the resources on this earth will be so used up, everyone will be dead. Now the passage by Dostoevsky has, yes made me very mellow dramatic, but also shown that we as a whole generation should not focus on the differences and warrant them into being something important, but instead should look at the enormous amount of freedom that is waiting for us at the doorstep everyday; a gift showering us continuously. I am very grateful for being born into one of the easiest cultures and generations ever, a culture which shows me so little of the pain and death that other cultures and our undoubted future holds. However, I am also distressed at how the circle of life must take its course. We do not understand the importance of work in this happiness, we utterly take it for granted and therefore spew shit at others who we think, “just don’t work hard enough.”

What can I do with my situation? Well as I see it, I have two choices. One, I can look at myself in the mirror every morning and thank God for God’s graciousness in not presenting me with any serious difficulties, and go on being thankful throughout my meaningless monotonous life, figuring that no matter what I would do it would result in pain and death in the end anyways; or I could try to do something with my almost perfect (big picture) life. So cliché. So Bull Shit. However, when the game is over, when the king is knocked down and we all have to go to sleep to wake up on the other side, I want to bank on the fact that there is more. So what do I live for? Not this world. This world is going to be dead in a couple thousand years, “second coming” or not. (well I suppose with the “second coming” the idea that this world would be dead is debatable) Either way, it will hit the fan. Life will not be the same. All the religious stuff will either turn out true, or very, very false.

No, for me to struggle to redeem this world is a pointless cause. I simply struggle after what I am told to struggle after. I do the “right” things, the “correct”, righteous things in response to this evil pain ridden world. I take on the losing, pointless goal of promoting the happiness and the painlessness of others. I am not convinced of how righteous these actions are, however, I have nothing else to base my righteousness on. I believe there is more to this world, I believe that death is only falling asleep, and I do believe that we wake up in the next life “only gaining a yesterday”. This is something that I have to use as my crutch, the crutch of hope that works me through the mindless actions of today; the “faith”, if you will, of something beyond this world.

2 Comments:

Reshae said…: just for the record..when i click onto the music listed, it doesn’t have the same music available to listen to that is listed on the blog…it has the old list of music…with heart, sigur ros…etc. not the new list.; 2:41 PM
sarah said…: a, i’m with reshae… much as I would love to hear some Spice Coyote tunes. I can’t, because it’s broken.; 5:26 AM

Quotes – Dostoevsky

Aaron Vanderzwan — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 00:17:09 +0000

“The most direct and spontaneous historic pastime we have is the infliction of pain by beating. Nekrassov has a poem about a peasant who flogs a horse about its eyes, “its gentle eyes”… He describes how a feeble nag, which has been pulling too heavy a load, sticks in the mud with its cart and cannot move. The peasant beats it, beats it savagely and, in the end, without realizing why he is doing it and intoxicated by the very act of beating, goes on showering heavy blows upon it. “Weak as you are, pull you must! I don’t care if you die so long as you go on pulling!” The nag pulls hard but without avail, and he begins lashing the poor defenceless creature across its weeping, “gentle eyes”. Beside itself with pain, it gives one tremendous pull, pulls out the cart, and off it goes, trembling all over and gasping for breath, moving sideways, with a curious sort of skipping motion, unnaturally and shamefully… But it’s only a horse and God has given us horses to be flogged.

And there you have an educated and well-brought-up gentleman and his wife who birch their own little deaughter, a child of seven- I have a full account of it. Daddy is glad that the twigs have knots, for, as he says, “it will sting more” and so be begins “stinging” his own daughter. I know for a fact that there are people who get so excited that they derive a sensual pleasure from every blow, literally a sensual pleasure, which grows progressively with every subsequent blow. They beat for a minute, five minutes, ten minutes. The more it goes on the more “stinging” do the blows become. The child screams, at last it can scream no more, it is gasping for breath. ‘Daddy, Daddy, dear Daddy!’”
- Brothers Karamazov

1 Comments:

etiyet said…: just a favor-when you quote-could you let me know where the quote is coming from? Thanks. It would be good for me to see it in the larger context- help me to better understand it. Very powerful quotes and also very thought provoking.
Hard questions. Thanks for them.; 4:42 AM

Personal Transition

Aaron Vanderzwan — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 13:42:23 +0000

So right now I am sitting on a plane that is headed for Dublin, Ireland. I am cramped behind a seat that is reclined to its max. I have my tray down, and am listening to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in the airplane headphones. Every once in a while I look up to see some crazy child making some mistake, misjudging the value of candy. Interesting and quite hypothetical, I would say. Not really about candy but more about instruction and respect. I enjoy it except for one thing. The new movie completely leaves out Charlie’s mistake that he makes with his grandfather, a staple in the original film that brings home the point about obedience and our individual accountable to a supreme being. This idea seems to be replaced by a spin that the new movie tries to throw on the importance of family. Acceptable but it ends up being very predictable.

However, the point of this journal has little to do with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and more with my trip to Northern Ireland. I was fortunate enough to land a seat on my 5 hour flight (Newark to Dublin), next to a guy that actually attends Queen’s College in Belfast (this is the university that we are going to be “staying” with). He is presently taking classes in Portland but is taking a break to go home. He is arriving in Dublin and then is going to look for a bus ride to Belfast. I am hoping there will be a way for us to take him along since we are going to be practically going straight to Queen’s. It would be nice to save him some money and it would also be nice to continue a “friendship”.

I understand that my posts have not ever been personal before. Well I guess I change that now as I am going to be looking for a place to journal and document what I learn and experience in this country.

Now for the personal in depth analyzation of myself, albeit a depiction of my egoistic nature. I still call myself a Christian. I feel like as a Christian, my worldview should include much more room for God than I have given Her or Him. My life has not been completely void of the idea of the orthodox perspective of a God, although my view has seemed to form with echoes of deistic theology. The ideas that echo are, very generally, that God created this world and everything in it, good and evil, created a scenario of redemption that includes promoting the creators need for acceptance of the creator. I feel like this was scripted in the shape of a sacrifice, a sacrifice that we should view as a true sacrifice and therefore something that makes the creator worthy to be praised and respected.

Many people would say that this is not Christianity at all and I imagine that is a fine judgment to make. I do not want to base my beliefs on titles or even affiliations. I would question the one that pushes for my excommunication from the body of Christianity on what basis it is that they believe what they believe. Then I would ask if they did not have that reason, could they still believe… and with a guaranteed answer of “no” I imagine some understanding in my present struggle would have to be manifested, and also, hopefully through that understanding they might see that my questions are asked in order to move me in the direction of a similar belief of what they feel, for I do not have that belief as of yet.

So much for my defensive banter. Big issues have brought me to where I am, big issues with small decisions about those issues. Some of these issues are large issues in Northern Ireland right now. This is the basis for my excitement for my trip: not based on the idea of learning the culture and struggles of this great people that has minor differences, but primarily to let my egoistic nature shine and allow for my own construction to continue through their struggles and readjoinment.

Well we still have 1768 miles left to go,.. we are currently hovering over miles of water and are still only about a third of the way there. Given everything goes well, I will post this online. However with so much time left I have promised myself that I would close my computer when my battery reaches 45%. After an hour of intense work on my portfolio my battery is closing in on that point. I look forward to any responses you may have for me, and I hope that now that this is personal you don’t a) criticize me personally too much, and b) don’t fear responding openly with questions or issues that you can think of about my theories.

Anne Lammott writes…
“I try to listen for God’s voice inside me, but my sense of discernment tends to be ever so slightly muddled. When God wants to get my attention, She clears Her throat a number of times, trying to get me to look up, or inward-and then if I don’t pay attention, She rolls Her eyes, makes a low growling sound, and starts kicking me under the table with Her foot.”

I don’t have this kind of faith right now. It seems appealing, and maybe (for all of those out there that are already sending up prayers for my soul) I will discover something like that somewhere on this trip. Cheers…

4 Comments:

Anonymous said…

Hey darl’en
Lots of things to think about! I am looking forward to reading these blogs and the Calvin website to keep on top of your responses and thoughts. I am learning from your experiences as you comment on them. Keep up the honest banter.
mom

10:52 AM

Reshae said…

hey bud. love the post…keep ‘em coming! i am in rochester after a long day of travel…and am headed to bed, but will email you tomorrow.

love ya!

3:04 PM

Anonymous said…

my love,
i do not assume to know you, or to know where you are. in fact, i think that knowing you is so far from true at this moment (which i hope changes!). and my comment was not a prayer for your soul. my comment was a prayer for your struggle. you mean the world to me, and you have my complete and utmost respect. if only i was able to be so clear with what i feel and what i struggle with. and believe me, there are stuggles for me as well. we don’t always agree, but your pursuit for who you are and who you are to be is a reason for my complete admiration. i do pray for you- that this trip does answer questions, or does not answer questions as need be, and that it opens to you new perspectives and experiences in your faith.
thanks for your honesty. i’m eager to read more.
i love you so much.

7:28 AM

Anonymous said…

As usual, I am going to affirm you. I know that you are in a constant struggle with what you believe when it comes to God and Christianity(and just about everything else;). Is that such a bad thing? I would almost argue that we should be praying for the souls that aren’t struggling with that. What good is it to believe in something without knowing why you believe it? Sure, it may result in a happier way of life, an easier way of life, but it would be a choice of ignorance. One that I am sure you would never choose. The gist? I think you are way ahead of me in terms of “my worldview should include much more room for God than I have given Her or Him” simply because you are opening your mind and thoughts to question your beliefs and what you base those beliefs on. This is much more than many people could offer and are willing to offer to God. I’m still thinking on the rest of it, but wanted to give a little affirmation:) Much Love.

9:04 PM

Logical Demonstration of Something Profound

Aaron Vanderzwan — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 02:42:48 +0000

Find the 3 errors in this symbolic logic proof:

Why Should We Conform To Morality’s Demands? (Essay)

Aaron Vanderzwan — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:29:04 +0000

There are a number of different theories as to what morality standard we, as humans, should adhere to. We have studied the works of virtue theorists, deontologists, and consequentialist that have scripted opinions on this matter. I will compare the different reasons that Plato, Kant, and Mill supply for why we should conform to morality’s demands and will offer my own opinion on which I think most adequately addresses this issue.
Platonian thinkers, in the realm of ethics, are considered virtue theorists. This means that they rely on their definition of virtue in order to determine what is just. Virtue is viewed of as being the most positive action that you can do. With a focus on eudaimonia, which is defined by Plato as a satisfying life, humans are able and required to act just.
Personal justice is a struggle for a personal eudaimon. Eudaimonia is a state of happiness or life long satisfaction. Plato sets up a sort of “Justice Pays” idea when he defines why people should strive to be just. Justice seems to be only worthwhile if and only if our actions of justice positively contribute to our own eudaimonia.
In a society, Plato defines justice to be each person playing their own role in order to further harmony of soul; this includes respecting the individual. It is each part of the soul playing their proper role. Plato divides his idea of the correct society into three groups, guardians, soldiers, and workers. The reason he believes this is true justice is because it mirrors his ideas of the build of a soul. His first section of society is the guardians who echo the part of our soul that Plato refers to as “reason”. These people contain the “reason” section of the society; they provide guidance and leadership. The next part of the soul Plato echoes the soldiers on; this is spiritedness. These people protect and give strength to the society the same way spiritedness does to the soul. The third part of the society that echoes parts of the soul is the common worker, which mirrors “appetite”, our base desires or struggles.
Plato argues that because a just society is so closely related to the build of our souls, we should never commit an unjust act, because if we do, it will break our souls and we will feel it in the core of our being forever.
This idea of Plato’s seems reasonably implausible. First it seems that he offers a selfish reason for why we should act just. Justice doesn’t seem to be something that should be based on selfishness, it seems like justice by definition should exist barring almost all forms of selfishness. Another problem with Plato’s idea of justice seems to be that there is no connections between what Plato says is just and a person’s rights. If Plato’s theory would be correct, it seems as though lying to someone without them having any knowledge of it would be a just thing to do, since it might promote your own eudaimonia. We obviously believe that justice includes respecting someone enough not to lie to them, whether they find out or not. It seems like this idea of rights, or something like it, should fall in the theory somewhere, however it fails to do so. Another issue that this theory produces is the problem that comes up with people that act unjustly and get over it with time. Many people only feel guilty for a little while, but with time, they don’t feel the pain anymore. This doesn’t seem to fit into Plato’s theory of morality. This does not coincide with his thoughts about an unjust act, breaking the soul forever, and leaving the person acting unjust in pain.
Plato gives a virtue theory that offers many possibilities on why morality makes strong demands on us but falls short on a few issues. Deontologists also have their own ideas of why it is that morality needs to take such a strong position in our lives. Kant, a deontologist of the late 1700s, offers a strong position from a deontologist’s point of view. Kant’s theory begins with the description of our world. A Kantian would say that the world is divided into two main parts, the phenomenal world, which we cannot see or change, and the nominal world, the world that we see and can partially change. He argues that the nominal world is something that we can see and that we have the ability to determine what, of that world, we think is right or wrong.
We are the ones that determine what is right and wrong; therefore we are the ones that set up the Categorical Imperative. The Categorical Imperative not only shows us what is right and wrong, but it also determines what is right and wrong, through our creation, based on our perceptions of the nominal world. These are both defined, by Kant, as the epistemic and the ontological dimensions of the Categorical Imperative. The epistemic dimension shows us that it is what we can be sure about because it is stable and secure. The ontological dimension shows that the Categorical Imperative not only is a guide, but also reveals the truth for what is right and wrong.
Even though these dimensions differ in small ways, they both follow a single basic principle. The Categorical Imperative principle is explained three different ways, by Kant, but is determined to have the same effect. Kant says we should act only the actions that we feel we would want to become a universal law. This means that immorality is revealed through people not wanting such an action to become a universal law.
The second way he tries to explain his principle is to say that we, as humans, should strive to treat all of humanity as ends and never as means. We should be concerned that we do not use people as a gain for ourselves, hence, acting how we would want everyone to act.
The third way Kant tries to explain his Categorical Imperative, is to say that all of the laws that we construct, from the nominal world through the Categorical Imperative, must allow for any maxim to harmonize with its results and do so naturally. This means that no matter what situation that we put into the laws we have constructed, it must still hold true to the natural identities we prescribe to the law.
If a maxim is put into any of the laws and a contradiction occurs, we know that the act is not moral. Also, if a maxim comes out of the Categorical Imperative clean of contradiction and is something we wish to be a universal law, we can feel comfortable knowing that our action is morally blameless.
This theory seems very strong and plausible except for a few exceptions. One of these exceptions is an exception that relies on the maxim having a specific time specified in it. If the maxim were to say, “Is it moral for me to play tennis at 10:00am on Sunday morning?” we would have to say that this action is immoral simply because we would not wish it to be a universal law. It supports contradiction and therefore is proven by the Categorical Imperative to be immoral. We know this action isn’t immoral; therefore there must be something wrong with the Categorical Imperative.
The Categorical Imperative also seems to be deemed false because it seems to prove other things to be immoral when most people say they shouldn’t be. If you had no money but you asked someone if you could borrow some, promising to pay them back, that act of lying would be wrong whether they ever found out or not. The Categorical Imperative tells us that if they never found out about it, it would not be morally wrong.
The consequentialist, Mill, organized a theory that was far different from the deontologists and the virtue theorists. His theory is based on the idea that good is equal to pleasure. He explains morality by saying that morality first worried for the good of the community. Since the good of the community means that good is granted to the largest amount of people that comprise that community, then the best good for each person is their happiness or pleasure. However, he also says that good is an abstract joy that can be enjoyed by anyone. Mill is also sure to add that he thinks there is a qualitative difference between types of pleasure, and the best type of pleasure is when the person has practical wisdom.
The arguments against Mill are often with respect to the world and HIV. Consequentialism seems to tell us that we should kill all of the people with HIV to save future victims of this illness. Most people would argue that this thought of morality would not seem right. People with HIV have rights that extend beyond the happiness of the largest amount of people.
I personally feel that Mill’s justification for why there is an importance for morality is most adequate. I feel as though everyday we determine things consequentially. I feel that the case of the people that have HIV is a situation that is an objection only when it is not looked at closely enough. I would say that we should not kill everyone with HIV because we have security to uphold. Security in value is something that is vital to almost everyone’s happiness. By killing the people with HIV you make all of the other people wary and question their own security. This questioning of security would be detrimental to their own happiness and therefore bring unhappiness on the people much more than the happiness of those being saved from HIV. Living a life with HIV is even less pain than living your life in fear. In this way, I feel that Mill adequately applies our everyday rationality to the realm of ethics and morality, making morality’s demands on us more clear and understandable.

1 Comments:

Bongo Bob said…: why indeed? simply, because it is what is most familiar. you have a deep, well oiled mind. have a happy life; 3:18 AM

Untitled – Steve Stockman

Aaron Vanderzwan — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 16:40:30 +0000

kids sit on street corners
sipping bottles of cheapest wine,
the taste of their transcendence
is not the sacramental kind.
there is no time for religion
when you long for bread alone
and their only picture of jesus mercy
are faces in ancient stone.
lord i don’t want to be a symphony
or a choral in a marble hall,
don’t hang me in some gallery
spray me graffiti on the subway wall.