This essay will explain and analyze two essays by individuals who express entirely different opinions of civil disobedience. In his essay, “Civil Disobedience: Destroyer of Democracy”, Lewis H. Van Dusen strongly discourages the use of civil disobedience as a means for change. He feels that this act of disobedience directly contradicts our democratic system. The other individual being compared in this essay is Henry David Thoreau; who in his essay, “Civil Disobedience”, supports the act of peacefully challenging or protesting unjust laws. He impugns us to do what is morally right, and to not be afraid to take a stand against injustice.
Mill believed it was extremely important that an indivduals free will should not be crushed by society. Mill believed indivduality is what it is to be human and anything that takes away your indivuduality is wrong. Mill state in his book On Liberty “Whatever crushes indivduality is despotism.” Despostism is the idea of dictatorship so Mill is saying that anything that stops our indivduality for example religion is controlling us and not allowing us to be free, which is wrong. Althought we are free we must consider others, this means that we can use our freedom however we must make sure we are not spoiling the freedom of others. This is supported by Paul Kurtz who states humans have the right “to satisfy their tastes” but however they shold not “impose their values on others.” For example you may want to murder someone with your free will however if you go ahead and commit the crime you are negatively effecting others in society and this is wrong.
The role of our conscience is also a reason a follower of a religious ethic would use to support their objection. Firstly, Natural Law is a deontological theory and does not look at the individual needs or situation; it considers the act of euthanasia or ‘the act of killing’ itself. The preservation and protection of life is a primary precept and should absolutely be followed. Euthanasia goes against this. A follower of Natural Law would object to euthanasia, chiefly for this reason.
Rand says “Reality, the external world, exists independent of man’s consciousness, independent of any observer’s knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears…” (qtd. The Ayn Rand Institute 1). Consciousness, therefore, is to distinguish reality, not to fashion or form it around a personal belief. Consequently, Objectivists reject all forms of a supernatural or any beliefs unfounded in fact. In the quote below Rand explains why she rejects religion outright, and she believes man himself deserves the attention: Just as religion has preempted the field of ethics, turning morality against man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts of our language, placing them outside this earth and beyond man’s reach.
According to hard determinism we are not free in the sense required for moral responsibility, and therefore, what happens cannot be affected by choices that are free in the sense. But what happens may nevertheless be caused by the decisions we chose and the choices we make. A reaction to hard determinism is that if it were true, we would have no reason to attempt to accomplish anything, to try and improve our lives because our decisions and choices would make no difference. If everything we do is pre determined then why try hard to achieve anything, if you are meant to do a certain something, it will happen, it is already determined for you, so the hard determinist would say. In the hard determinist’s judgement, this feeling of freedom is an illusion.
Free will means that God does not have any set destiny for us. If God were to create free agents that could only choose good, that would mean that God laid out a destiny of good for all agents. Even though God is omniscient, free will is still possible because while God may know the choices we are going to make, he is not the cause of them. Since God does not choose or cause our destiny, we still have free will. In response to the option in which God creates a world with free agents and no evil, a world with no evil would mean a world with no good, so it would be impossible for God to create a free agents that only choose good, since evil does not exist.
Oddly enough, with this theory, it is prohibited to tell lies or commit suicide because that is morally wrong within itself and does not support the universal good of a rational decision, but if people acted in line with their duty to the universal law of their society, the results were of no consequence (Butts & Rich, 2008, Chapter 1). Kant stated that a person should act without emotion and with a complete sense of duty to serve the morally universal law of society and that the intention is of more importance than the result – consequences of the actions do not matter (Jasper, 1962). The theory of deontology follows this thought by setting demands that humans act at all times as though their actions would be universally accepted into an overall rule for society. He believed that duty and law are always one unit and cannot be separated and that with this duty to law, we shape our world. My criticism of this theory is that thought processes without emotions make our decisions too concrete.
Christopher Taylor December 4, 2011 Philosophy Position Paper Racial Profiling I’ve come to believe that there is absolutely nothing wrong with people forming preconceived notions about their peers or even total strangers none the less. These preconceived notions and stereo types are just ways our brain categorizes and/or tries to make sense of things which is not much of a problem. However, unlike stereo types or those pre-conceived notions, problem arises when racial profiling comes into play in which accompanied by bigotry. Racial profiling is immoral because it mentally abuses its victims by making people feel or believe that they are considered untrustworthy, an outcast, or stripped of their liberty. These negative inflictions are wrong!
I never understood whose gods were the right ones or if there really was a god at all. I do understand that causing harm to someone else is wrong and I won’t intentionally cause harm to myself or someone else. My moral code says that judging someone based upon their skin color, who they’re in love with, or their religion is wrong. My moral code says that everyone is entitled to pursue their own happiness so long as it does no harm. If someone is offended by how I live my life or what I believe, that’s their right to be offended but if I have not caused them harm, then my conscience is clear.
What I believe that the definition of independence is the absolute freedom to do what you want, and to not be held back by any rules or laws of government or man, but by the rules and laws of nature and your own conscious. My view of independence may greatly differ form your beliefs on the definition but in this paper I will try to show exactly what my perspective on the definition of independence is by my experiences, my beliefs, my thoughts, and research on the subject at hand. Firstly, I believe that independence can not be the definition of what your government says is independent. If you go by what the government says is independent than why not go by Chinas definition of independence, or by the communists party’s definition of independence. If you are being governed than you are not truly independent.