The Last

With finals up next week, the concluding blog post is here. I just want to pay homage to the people who viewed and responded to me during this semester: Jared and Penelope. You guys have been absolutely awesome! We destroyed that presentation, didn't we? It had to have been the best one. I appreciate the time and effort you both have put into your responses; most of them really grabbed my attention and provided new perspectives. Hopefully we find ourselves in the same class again in the future!

Is Consistency a Virtue?

For one of our discussions, we glossed over one of Montaigne's essays, and the question of "is consistency a virtue?" arose. In my opinion, I would say it is not. For example, if I give some person flowers every day at 4:30 PM and say, "I love you," does that mean I am morally righteous? No, personally, I think that is bull. Sure, not everyone would have the will to do that, but would the same effect not be achieved by doing the act just once? If it were me receiving the flowers, the luster of the occasion would lose its shine within five days maximum, and by that point, I would most likely be tired of the whole thing. From my point of view, moderation would be a more "virtuous" quality because it depends on achieving a healthy balance, not how many times you can do something in a row.

Beauty as a Burden

After finishing Don Quixote, the class immediately transitioned to Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji. At the beginning of the story, Genji's father, the emperor of Japan, falls in love with a woman (Genji's mother) who is very beautiful but of low social status. As a result of his passion for the woman, the other imperial wives and concubines despised her, and their raging jealousy and acts of hostility began affecting the woman's health.

This woman did nothing wrong; she simply was beautiful and caught the attention of a significant person. The situation she experiences in the book begs the question: "Can beauty be a burden?"

From my point of view, beauty can only be a burden if it, as a quality, does not hold the top rank in the hierarchy of social values. The text provides an example, for social status outranked beauty within the hierarchy of Japan's social structure at that time. If beauty was valued above all else in a society, then it could not be a burden; it could only be seen as a tool for acquiring power. In a society where beauty is valued above all else, people would still get jealous, but they would have less of an inclination to act on the jealousy because, no matter what, they cannot improve upon their beauty to a great extent. No matter what, people more naturally beautiful than them will always be more beautiful and nothing will change that.

Social status still outranks beauty in the hierarchy, however, and I do not know of any civilizations that contradict the trend. Even in modern-day United States, rich and powerful people, even if ugly, will have an easier time finding a partner. A woman may like a beautiful guy, but she will not stay with him if he's broke and lazy. The same applies if the genders are reversed.

Basically, I think beauty can be a burden due to the current social hierarchy of values, but in a theoretical scenario where beauty trumps all other values, beauty cannot be a burden. What do you guys think?

Consequentialism Is Preferred

While analyzing the themes of Don Quixote, our classroom stumbled upon the idea of "consequentialism", an abstract philosophy that was challenging to comprehend. Consequentialism is defined as "the doctrine that the morality of an action is to be judged solely by its consequences." In other words, it is the belief that all of your actions are either morally good or bad depending on the outcome. Good outcome means it was a good action; bad outcome means it was a bad action. The intentions do not matter. To clarify, the text did not feature consequentialism; in fact, it displayed the opposite.

Within the story of Don Quixote, the main character acts according to his ideals (or the ideals of a persona) which embody a chivalrous knight. Because of his delusions, he ventures through the countryside, trying to "help" people. Although his actions may have the best of intentions, he ends up causing problems for some. To sum it all up, he performs actions without thinking about the consequences.

To a few, this rashness is an admirable trait. They believe that living according to ones ideals and acting upon them no matter what and without thinking about the consequences is virtuous. After all, if one does not think about the consequences, then that individual cannot be selfish because he/she did not think about the possible rewards in return for helping. I, however, have a different perspective: always acting on one's ideals can be dangerous and consequentialism is preferred by society.

In my opinion, the American judicial system relies on a mix of consequentialism and intentions-based arguments, but good outcomes are usually favored and bad outcomes can lead to punishment. A great example is the Good Samaritans Law. According to definitions.uslegal.com, the law protects "someone who renders aid in an emergency to an injured person on a voluntary basis. So, if put into the context of this blog post, this would be the situation: An idealist finds himself/herself in the situation of encountering an injured person who they would immediately rush to help. The Good Samaritans Law protects the person because it assumes they have good intentions, but it could also punish him/her if the act produces a negative outcome. On the same website, it details another aspect of the law which states that "...if a volunteer comes to the aid of an injured person who is a stranger, the person giving the aid owes the stranger a duty of being reasonably careful." In short, if the injuries are made worse, you can be prosecuted; however, each state enforces the law differently.

All in all, it seems that society acknowledges good intentions, but the outcome comes first when passing judgement. What do you guys think? Should the idealist, who tries to help but is careless in his helping, be punished or not? I think the person should be.