FINAL #10

10. Out of everything you studied this term, from the fifteen ethical theorists, to the moral case topics, to the life of Gandhi, to evolutionary psychology what or who had the most impact on your thinking and may have actually impacted your life in some way? Explain in detail...apply to your life and world. I really want to see that you digested the material you studied and that somehow it affected your worldview. Articulate who or what influenced you the most and how it did. Offer details.

i was astonished that saint augustine and i hold the same ethical view. i have never been exposed to the writings of saint augustine before, until i had to read the confession for my humanities class last spring. i was shocked. as i was reading i thought to myself: hey, this guy came up with the same idea a long time ago, so i've got to be on the right track. i would spend more time reading the city of god over the rest of the summer, since i've got nothing to do after this course. another philosopher whose ethical view has somewhat affected my life is that of epictetus. his idea that true happiness can only be achieved by a disciplined mind, being able to accept the events that are beyond our control, is exactly the way my dad has taught me over the course of my life. epictetus' ethical view is somewhat similar to the old saying that goes: do not want what you do not have, but want what you have. it is quite astonishing, it seems to me, that my dad, who has never studied philosophy throughout his life, was able to teach me the ethical view of a great philosopher of the past.

another philosopher that affected my view on the world is friedrich nietzsche, but in a bad way. it is not that i am biased because i am a catholic, but i just cannot see nietzsche's logic. if his ethical view is ---god forbid--- held to be the correct morality and everyone follows, this world will be filled with war and people who are trying to dominate others in order to become the strongest --- the superman. maybe nietzsche doesn't mean it to be promoting war and violence, but aside from the fact that human beings ARE violent in nature, nietzsche's ethical view will nonetheless promotes such violence to persist. gandhi, however, was a great example and has earned my full respect and admiration. if i had the opportunity, i would probably be like miss schlesin, who worked for gandhi on low salary just because she admires him and likes his principles. i can relate to gandhi in many ways. i have been provoked many times into violence and sometimes the only thing that stops me from bursting into anger is the fear of pain i will get. but now i learned from gandhi that peace and passiveness can also settle a conflict. before reading gandhi i've always been upholding the nietzschian view that only through conflict can human beings evolve for the better. as much as i dislike nietzsche, i had always thought that whenever something unpleasant happens, the best way to settle it is to confront it. gandhi taught me a different method, and he himself has proven it to be successful.

the articles on cloning has also somewhat shifted my stance on the cloning issue. like i have explained in #9, i fear that cloning produces identical persons, and hence reducing genetic variation. from the articles, i learned that although cloning basically copies someone's genetic code, the mutation and the complex development of the DNA and the genes allow a small variation between the copy and the original. not much, but at least not fully identical.