So What?

The question of so what? as far as it relates to our ethics and decision making is one that we have been grappling with throughout the course.

My mindset going into the discussion and my mindset after the readings is that most individuals will follow duty based ethics, if any at all.  From readings done in some of my other classes, most notably Political Theory, I've had the opportunity to get a glimpse at what some of the more famous philosophers have to say on the subject.  Plato and most the follow believe that individuals themselves tend to see justice and morals as something that are determined by the society in which individuals are living in.  Meaning that people are for certain things such as murder or rape or robbery being illegal not because they themselves do not want to do these things, but they do not want them done to them.  Perhaps it's a bit off on a tangent to go to such extreme examples, but as far as a cultural reflection on the topic, I think it's valid to understand how human nature and the building of society has seen the role of ethics in the sustainment of  humans.  To be part of a society, most individuals agree at least tacitly to be a moral and ethical person.  That is, to the degree that society believes certain behaviors and actions are moral or ethical.  I've used the example of my speeding occasionally on my way to school.  I realize that it is against the law, and duty based ethics keep me from doing things that I see as truly dangerous, but my training and my background give me reason to believe that I can get away with certain rule violations such as speeding while others may not.  I believe it is this duty based ethics system that kept Dr. Jekyll "good" for as long as it did.  Without the duty based ethics and the responsibilities the Dr. Jekyll saw in a man of his stature in Victorian society, I believe he would've let Mr. Hyde run rampant far earlier.

When it comes to the individual members of said society, once you get passed the duty based ethics that control most truly extreme negative behavior such as murders, rapes, etc., you are left with those that practice more virtue based ethics.  They believe certain things such as drinking, cheating on tests, are morally wrong and will not or should not do them not because society necessarily says that they are wrong, but because there own beliefs tell them to do what is right, even when others aren't looking.  I think this virtue ethics comes into play in the movie Source Code.  Although keeping a soldier alive, even in the mostly vegetative state that he was kept alive has led to the saving of countless lives, Cpt. Goodwin believes that it is morally wrong to do so, and even though society may think differently, even though her duty based ethics would more than likely disagree, she helps Cpt. Stevens.

All told, there are several layers of ethics and different types of ethics at work that keep society as a whole moving forward.  As to what level each plays in the overall scheme I still cannot say.  My belief is that duty based ethics, comprised mostly of whatever is the norm or considered moral or ethical by society at that time plays the larger role.

So What?

Why do ethics even matter? What is the point to them? Aren't they just subjective? These are a few questions I have formed through out this semester in relation to our question of what is right and which form of ethics are the correct way to live ones life. There are so many different ways people can live their lives, so there are so many different forms of right. One action may be wrong to one group of people, but could be completely acceptable to another, so what's the point? Why are we trying to decide what type of morality is right and what type is wrong?

Through out this semester I have really taken the time to think about things through a different perspective. For instance, just today I overheard a conversation between two students talking about their living situation for next semester. One of the students was saying that his group of friends were wanting to live in Belmont Commons together in a 4 bedroom apartment, however only 3 of them were able to get into the same place and that the 4th student, who wasn't in their group, was refusing to switch out so that the main group could include their 4th person. They were really upset and were calling the other student "stubborn" and "A d-bag" for not wanting to move out. At first I agreed with them, I thought that it was selfish of that student to not give up his spot so the four of them could live together. However, immediately after I thought that the 4th student was not selfish at all, he was just wanting to secure his spot in the on-campus housing for next semester. When I checked the housing lists the day before, Belmont Commons was completely full. Perhaps this student had been planning on living in Commons for a while and so he signed up when there were still rooms available. There is no where he could switch to in Commons because every room is full. This made me think that the group of 4 were actually the ones in the wrong. They assumed that they would all be able to live together next semester and that if someone took one of their spots that the new person would just leave. The student who wasn't in the group has all the right to stay in that apartment. He signed up at his given sign-up time, the other kid was out of luck because he probably had a later sign up time.

I got into a discussion with my roommate about it and he sided with the group of 4. When I asked him why he told me "While I see your point, I don't know why this kid would want to live in an apartment with a 3 other people who didn't want him there in the first place." Is this really a justifiable reason for someone to leave? Is that right? While I believe the outsider student was in the right, my roommate believed the group was in the right. This just proves that there are different types of morality and different views on what is right and what is wrong. So what? Why do we argue over what is right and wrong when it is so subjective. The outsider student saw that he would be out of a nice house if he succumbed to the groups pressure and left, so he is deciding to stay, which shows he makes his decisions based on consequences. The other group based their belief of what was right based on virtues. They assumed that the 4th guy would see their dilemma and do "the right thing" and give up his spot.  

Moral Decision Making: So What?

Moral decision making is a part of every day life.  We make these decisions even when we don't realize it.  As students we make decisions such as cheating, plagiarizing, being the lazy one in a group project, and skipping class.  As business people we decide weather or not to play by the rules, to steal or share trade secrets, to price products and services reasonably, and whether or not to bribe or blackmail.  As people in relationships, we make decisions in regards to cheating on our partner, lying about where we go and the money we spend, and even lying about our feelings.  How do we work through these decisions?  How do we determine what's right?  I believe we use a combination of all three normative ethics:  virtue, duty based, and consequential ethics.

For example, let's look at a situation involving a student.  The student has a test to take online by a certain date; his friend, however, as already taken the test and received a perfect score.  The questions and answers are going to be the same for each student, so the friend offers to give the other all the answers so he can make a perfect score, too.  First, the student works through virtue ethics - it is morally wrong to cheat.  He should be practicing integrity and self-control.  However, thinking in ethical egoism terms, receiving a perfect scone on this test can really help his final grade by bumping it up from a C to an B.  The end result is favorable towards him.  Duty ethics, on the other hand, says that the university's students have agreed to act ethically - in regards to cheating, stealing, etc. - or face consequences such as expulsion.  The professor, he reasons, would never find out if the students shared answers.  At the end of all this thought process, the student decides that it is morally wrong to cheat on a test, and decides instead to study and if he has any questions to ask his friend for help.

I feel that I do this on a daily basis.  There are some things that you have to work through to really come up with an answer that best fits the situation - and then it may differ from person to person.  In the movie Source Code, for example, Rutledge and Goodwin reason through the task of pulling Steven's life support differently.  Rutledge reasons that Stevens will save lives if he remains "alive" and thus decides to lie to him about pulling the plug.  Goodwin, however, reasons that although he could save more lives, she is morally responsible for keeping her word to him about ending the life support.  There are times in my life where I know something is "wrong", but it is how I feel the situation should be handled.  I'm not sure if I've used this example already, but I speed.  I go between five and fifteen miles over the speed limit (depending on where I am).  I know that you're supposed to follow the speed limit, but if I feel like I'm not harming anyone then I just drive.  The down side is that I'm always scanning the road for cops, and if I see one I slow down.  Why?  Because I don't want to get a ticket.  So I guess I contradict myself - I don't care, but then again I do.  It all depends on the situation.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: A Question of Moral Decision Making

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a literary classic.  Dr. Jekyll, wrought with frustration from conforming to society, creates a drug that transforms him into Mr. Hyde, a man of pure evil.  What starts out as pure joy and fantasy quickly turns to fear and nightmare for Jekyll.  He cannot control Mr. Hyde - the evil has become too strong.  What is to become of the pair?  Contemplation of suicide have fallen through, yet life cannot continue as it is.  While the first half of this novel experiences the pair through the third party of Mr. Utterson, Jekyll's lawyer, the second half provides a first person narrative of the happenings and how things got to be so bad; it is this part in which we can look to discuss the questions of moral decision making.

"Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life...it was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man...that in the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling..."

This section of text is found in the beginning of the last chapter (Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case), and lays out Jekyll's revelation of his duplicity of life.  Growing up, he was taught to conform to society, to be proper and uphold high standards of living.  While this can be seen as "be the best that you can be", it also causes a repression of wants and desires.  To be unable to act on these impulses can drive a person mad, even if they don't realize it.  You essentially become two different people - the one that everyone sees and the one that you yearn to be.

"I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine...the evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I had just deposed.  Again, in the course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted..."

 Here we see the mentions of "virtue" and "control".  Virtue ethics emphasizes the role of one's character and the virtues that one's character embodies for determining or evaluating ethical behavior.  Most virtue ethic theories take their inspiration from Aristotle who declared that a virtuous person is someone who has ideal character traits.  These traits derive from natural internal tendencies, but need to be nurtured.  Moral character develops over  long period of time.  People are born with all sorts of tendencies.  These natural tendencies can be encouraged and developed or discouraged and thwarted by the influences one is exposed to when growing up.  Our natural tendencies, the raw material we are born with, are shaped and developed through a long and gradual process of education and habituation.  Jekyll was never fully able to discourage his natural tendencies, his true evil nature; thus he transforms into Hyde.

Throughout the rest of the chapter, and even throughout the rest of the novel, Jekyll struggles with his moral self.  He is aware of the atrocities that Hyde has committed, and tries to right the wrong by doing good deeds.  He becomes afraid of Hyde, but he still desires the freedom that the evil side offers.  When control can longer be maintained, when Hyde has become too strong, Jekyll can't bring himself to commit suicide because he feels pity for the fear Hyde feels about death.  In the end, he gives in and let's Hyde take full control, even though he wants to live on being only Jekyll.  This constant struggle between virtue, between right and wrong, just keeps Jekyll going in circles.  He became addicted to the freedom from virtue and morals, and it became his ultimate demise.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a classic that everyone knows the basis of. There's a guy, Jekyll, who drinks a potion that turns him into this hideous, horrible beast of a man that runs rampant among the streets of London. However, many people do not normally see a different side to the story. The way I like to look at the story is that Hyde represents the psychological Id that Freud always discusses. While it may not be an exact representation of Freud's human Id, it tends to follow the same basis that Freud has talked out in human nature.

Mr. Hyde represents all things evil in the story. He is the beast that is violent and does whatever it wishes without thinking of morality. He is everything that society tells us we shouldn't be, and while he may come off as being evil in the story he can also be seen as a representation of true freedom. I'm not talking true 'Murica freedom, but rather literal freedom, having no one tell you what you can and can not do. Mr. Hyde is simply one way that Dr. Jekyll can escape from the societal pressures of the 19th Century Victorian era.

There were so many rules and standards back then on how people should act, and while some rules are crucial for a happy society, there was tremendous pressure on Jekyll to act like a gentleman and how society wanted him to act. He was succumb to what would be known today as Social Anxiety Disorder, which meant that he was afraid of societal reject or always aimed to please others. This disorder lead him to experiment and find the potion that turned him into Mr. Hyde. I feel as though the potion is a representation of drugs or alcohol. Many people use drugs and alcohol to escape from the world when they feel there is too much pressure on them to perform up to societies standards. This potion gave Dr. Jekyll the freedom from constantly having to live up to societies life styles. I also feel as though even though Jekyll said he was trying to control Hyde, there was a part of him that wanted Hyde to continue taking over.

Jekyll felt as though Hyde was his scapegoat into a world with no responsibility and strict guidelines. When Hyde took over, all morals were gone from his mind. This brings me back to my point about Freud's Id personality. A persons Id is the very basic, primal lifestyle that we as humans have. There is no moral to the Id, so there for it chooses to do what it pleases. When Hyde killed the elderly man and pushed the young girl, there was no sense of remorse, there was no morality in his decision making. Hyde only knew what he wanted to do and nothing was going to stop him. These are my feelings as to how The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has a much deeper meaning and why it is a good example of what we consider to be morally right or wrong.

Last group meeting

Jekyll & Hyde and Moral decision making

     Having read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde previously, it was refreshing to go back and read it with the specific questions regarding moral decision making in mind.  Perhaps it is my realist views of the world in general, but I have always been in the minority camp that believes Dr. Jekyll is not transformed in Mr. Hyde necessarily, but that Mr. Hyde is Dr. Jekyll's true form, or to put it better, the form that he has always wanted to be and it was societal restraints that allowed him to live as Dr. Jekyll for the majority of his life.  My thought is that man by nature is more evil than good in the sense his decisions are based off of self interest and if allowed to run amok, most of the decisions made by man would be considered evil or at the very least inhumane in most societies. 

     The consequential ethics of the time period in which the story is set plays a major role in both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  In 19th Century England, Victorian society has several very strict guideline for what a "gentleman" was supposed to be and Dr. Jekyll had a difficult time living within those guidelines.  It was only when he was able to transform to what I believe was his more natural state, or at least his more natural personality, that he was able to live his life free of the burden placed on him by society.  It seemed that Dr. Jekyll feared being found out not because of the things he was doing but because of what people would think about him after revealing the things that he did.  If not for these consequences of being shunned by the class of gentleman that he had grown accustomed to being a part of, I don't think Dr. Jekyll would've been nearly as conflicted with what was taking place.  If he could live as Mr. Hyde and still keep his place in society, I think he would've done it without thinking.  One could make a case that this aligns with duty based ethics as well, but overall I don't think it's a sense of duty that keeps Dr. Jekyll "good" but rather the fear of losing his status.

     If not for the consequences of trampling the child in the beginning of the novel, or beating to death the elderly man with the cane, the rush that Mr. Hyde felt from these events would be the driving force in many of his other decisions.  The underlying theme in my mind with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one that goes beyond the duality of man theme that is commonly referred to.  I think the undertones are more in reference to the nature of society and how the consequences of going against that society and its norms are what keep a lot of individuals like Dr. Jekyll from turning into a Mr. Hyde.
    
    

The Book of Matthew as it relates to Moral Decision making

I've always been of the belief that the majority of the rules written in the Old Testament were there not because they were commanded by God but because without them society would fall apart.  In my opinion, eating Kosher was  about not catching or spreading disease more so than it was about not making God angry.  I still feel pretty strongly this way today, although there are always subtle nuances that evolve given enough time.  The majority of the biblical writings dealing with laws sent down by God seem to be about building a peaceful society.  Not so much about what God wants or does not want.  They are all very similar to what was written by Plato, Aristotle, and Saint Thomas Aquinas with regards to what is necessary for a society to flourish and for the individuals inside that society to work towards the greater good or the final cause.

After going over the readings for this week, I found the readings from the Book of Matthew to be the most interesting as they relate to the question of moral decision making.  The Book of Matthew reading of Chapter 5:17-48 goes into greater detail about the many laws put forth in earlier scriptures and texts, focusing specifically on the Ten Commandments.  The part that I found to be the most interesting and the most in line with my own beliefs comes near the end of the reading, starting from verse 38 where he states,

       “You have heard that it was said, Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an  evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.  And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.  If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles." (NRSV Matthew 5:38-42)

The way I read this is the beginning of the Bible version of the Golden Rule.  Matthew continues by stating that you should not only love your family but you should love your enemy.  This aligns with the way I have tried to live my life as well as the way I have tried to raise my children.  None of us are going to get it right, none of us are perfect.  But if we strive for perfection and always try to treat others as we would like to be treated, I don't see how one would not end up after everything was said and done, having lived a good and moral life.  There is literally not one Commandment that I have not broken at one time or another.  That is most definitely not said to be boastful of such things, but merely to highlight that as hard as we try, sometimes we will fall short of doing what is morally right.  But if the intent is there to live in a way that strives to be as perfect as God is perfect, knowing that you may stumble along the way, the end result will end up being a society full of people who are morally sound.  I believe that was the goal of all of the biblical readings regarding laws.  To make a just and successful society.

 

Biblical Readings & Quesion 2

The bible tells many stories that are used as ways of teaching people how they could possibly live their life. While there are those who live exactly by the bible, there are also those who do not live their lives verbatim to what the bible says to do. When reading these passages, I noticed that they were all teachings of how one could live a moral life through the eyes of God. Between the different readings we read, there were many connections to the question that we are discussing this part of the semester.

Exodus 20:1-17 was one of the major readings that related to our question of: what is morally right? In this story, Moses has just lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt, where they were held in captivity by the Pharaoh. They break at Mt. Sinai where Moses climbs the mountain to speak with God. Here is where God bestows the Ten Commandments to Moses. These commandments are supposed to be guidelines that humans should follow in order to live a happy and good life.

This reading really digs into duty-based ethics, which is all about following rules and guidelines in order to determine what is right and what is wrong. The ten commandments speak of violence, lust, false prophets, greed and other topics that we deem today as being "hot-topics". It tells of how to deal with these topics and what is considered right and what is considered wrong in Gods eyes. However, it only speaks in general terms, it is not specific to one event. This leads people to interpret them as they see fit, which can lead to some disputes. Duty-based ethics would say that we as people need to follow the 10 commandments as they are written, so exactly word for word and apply it to any event that falls under its category. So, following the commandments will lead one down a path of good, while not following them will only bring evil. The duty-based people would be Christians who live their life by the commandments.

The second reading I read was Exodus 1:8-22 and it relates to the ethic topic of consequentialist. This was a story of how Egyptian mid wives were instructed by the pharaoh to kill any baby boys that were born, but to let the girls live because the Hebrew population was growing too rapidly. However, the mid wives went against the pharaohs orders and did not kill the baby boys, because they feared God and what he would do to them if they murdered new born children. This relates to consequentialist ethics by showing how the housewives were afraid of what would happen to them if they disobeyed their superior. While the pharaoh was their boss on Earth, they were under the influence of a higher authority; God. They knew that they would experience the wrath of God if they killed those baby boys, so they disobeyed the pharaoh and did what they felt was right, which was to listen to Gods demands. They based their actions off of what they thought would benefit them the most in the long run, and let the consequences of their actions be the determining factor of what was right and what was wrong.

Source Code and Moral Decision Making

     The movie "Source Code" deals with the US government and it's military having the ability to keep basically dead servicemen alive in a state of quasi purgatory so that they may have themselves implanted into another person for a short period of time in the hopes of preventing a tragedy.  I've previously seen the movie but watched it again now that I have questions in my mind going into it.  The moral decision that must be made by the workers, most notably Cpt. Goodwin,  who deals with the soldiers being used in the experiment, due to their close proximity and the bond that they will inevitably start to feel with them is one that I would hope not to ever have to make.  Do you continue to allow somebody who has every right to not want to continue with a project such as this after finding out that they are pretty much dead with no hope of living besides these brief 8 minutes to be treated as CPT Stevens is, or do you go against protocol and let them die peacefully?  Knowing that there is a very good chance that continuing to use these soldiers against their will can lead to lives being saved or people being brought to "justice" for their deeds?  This is a difficult question and one that points to larger issues that go on in the world in which we live.  Though not exactly an apples to apples comparison, a similar question is do we torture individuals in the hopes that we can attain knowledge that will help prevent a tragedy?  Do we as a society force people to remain in a vegetative state even though they have wills that state they want otherwise?  Do we as a society allow for certain amounts of "collateral damage" with regards to warfare or even social or economic projects if we believe they are an acceptable loss towards a greater good?

     As far as the first question goes, Whether or not I would allow Cpt. Stevens the dignity and honor with which he deserves and let him die peacefully, the answer is absolutely yes.  At that moment at least, whether or not it may make it harder to avert a tragedy is irrelevant, since it's a tragedy itself to keep an individual in the state that Cpt. Stevens is kept.  He, along with any person deserves to die with dignity.  Dignity being defined by them and not us.  It is not our decision as to whether or not to allow it.  I would hope that at least as individuals, we would all believe this.  That even though scripture may teach us that life is sacred and that people should not commit suicide, I can certainly empathize with somebody who is terminally ill and in a lot of pain just wanting it to end.  It is not for me to judge.  Although I can see the slippery slope that is created and one that could eventually take society down the path towards ancient Athens or Sparta where children born with the smallest of defects were simply thrown down a well.

     With regards to the rest of the questions that inevitably came up when thinking about this first question, I still don't have an answer.  I would like to think that as individuals we would be against the things I listed above, but I understand that as a society or should I say as a government, certain aspects of the moral decisions need to be made in order to benefit the whole of society.  Perhaps if we all thought with more morality as individuals there would be far less instances where governments felt the need to intervene and end up surrendering the few for the benefit of the many. Basically I'm confused.  There are inherent Duty-Based Ethics that Cpt. Goodwin goes against when she allows Cpt. Stevens to have his life support terminated (although he does not ultimately "die" as far as we see).  But there are also some very serious Consequential Ethics at play.  Again, confused.

    

Source Code

Source Code was a really interesting film that dealt with the classic categories that we are currently talking about. The film really hit on two of the three ethics, in my opinion. The virtue that seemed the most prevalent was Consequentialist Ethics. Second to Consequentialist Ethics would be Duty-based Ethics. Between these two I thought the film was packed full of examples that shaped my view on what these ethics mean.

The reason why I felt that the movie mostly related to the topic of Consequentialist Ethics was due to the fact that the entire basis of the movie was to help change a future event for the better. Colter was placed into the source code to find a bomber that had blown up a train in Chicago. His goal was to find the bomber so that he could notify Goodwin, the person monitoring him, so that they could arrest the bomber and thwart him from making any other terrorist attacks. Any actions he did while in the source code affected his time and what happened to him in the code. For instance, when he was instructed to find a gun in the closet, he was stopped and tazed which made him lose time while in the code. Each time he went back into the source code he would become better and smoother, to the point where he caught the bomber within a few minutes. However, his actions in the source code did not affect what happened in reality, at least that's what we were told. When Goodwin finally pulls the plug on Colter's life support, time seems to freeze while in the source code, but then begins to continue after a few seconds. Colter finds out that his actions in the source code did in fact affect life outside of the code. He had sent a text to Goodwin from a phone within the source code, and a few minutes after his passing, Goodwin received the message. Every action Colter made in the source code affect life in a different world. It turned out that the source code wasn't memory reassignment, but actually a type of parallel world creator. This was the Ethics category that I found the most obvious throughout the movie, because it was all about Colter's actions.

 The second Ethics category that I found relatable to this movie was the Duty-based Ethics category. The entire film was about how Colter needed to fulfill his duty as a special type of soldier. Even though he was basically dead, he was kept barely alive in order to fulfill the mission in the source code. At first, Colter didn't understand why he had to do the job of searching for the bomber, but after a while of running the code and hearing about how proud his dad was of him, Colter realized that he had an important job to fulfill. This changed his mind set. He knew that he had to save thousands of people from the bomber in the real world, so he knew that it was his duty as a soldier to find the bomber in the source code and identify him for police in the real world.  

Group Meeting #4

Source Code: Classical Categories

Source Code is a mind trip of a movie.  U.S. Army Aviation pilot Caption Colter Stevens wakes up on a train to Chicago, except he's not himself.  Christiana, the women sitting across him, keeps calling him Sean, and when Stevens looks in the mirror he realizes he's not in his own body.  Still trying to grasp what's happening, the train explodes and the next thing he knows Stevens is waking up strapped to a chair in a capsule.  As the movie progresses we find out that he has been dead for two months and has since then been the lab rat for "Source Code", an experimental device used to reach alternative timelines.  He now has to find the bomb as well as the person who planted it in order to stop future attacks in the present timeline.  In typical movie fashion, Stevens saves the present timeline and figures out he can continue to live on in the alternate timeline through his new identity as Sean Fentress.  So where does classical categories come into this?  What part(s) involved moral decision making?

Stevens:  "Any soldier I've ever served with would say that one death is service enough." Rutledge:  "...And Captain Stevens, I'd like you to remember that it's not only about you, but it's also about two million real world Americans.  Now, you may not value your own life.  I do, however, ask that you value theirs."

First, we can look at Colter Stevens.  Once he finds out he is in fact dead, Stevens essentially freaks out and says that the Source Code project is unethical and they should of have let him officially die.  The creators of Source Code see their project as ethically right because they are trying to save lives.  In the eyes of Stevens - in the eyes of the experiment - service to the country has been paid.  He served, he died, and now he should have his peace.  Why does he have to be the one?  He didn't have a say in any of this.  The emotional strain is too much (or at least it can grow to be too much).  Working through these thoughts, Stevens comes to terms with his fate.  Without him they have no hope.  This isn't about him anymore, his time has already gone.  Now it's about those that are living, it's about saving them.  Consequentialism says that the importance of outcomes that are good for the community outweigh the importance of individual pleasure and pain.  Stevens takes the ethical altruism route as he takes the action that has the best consequence for everyone but himself.

Goodwin:  "Sir...we told Captain Stevens that we were gonna let him die."  Rutledge:  "Let him die?  He just saved millions of lives today.  How many other disasters might he divert down the line?"

 Second, we can look at ethics through the eyes of Goodwin and Rutledge.  Once Stevens finds out he is dead, Rutledge tells him that once the mission is complete they will terminate his life support.  Later, Goodwin, when she allows Stevens to return to the alternate timeline one last time, tells him that she will terminate his life support once the eight minutes is up.  Goodwin intends to keep the promises made, but Rutledge has other plans.  In his eyes, the world needs Stevens and it would therefore be unethical and selfish to terminate one life that could save millions more.  Goodwin, on the other hand, feels that a promise is a promise and if Stevens wanted his life to be terminated then it would be ethical to honor that right.  Her ultimate goal is to keep her word to Stevens, but the path to get there involves her lying to and disobeying Rutledge (not to mention she will probably lose her job).  All of that doesn't matter.  All that matters is the end result:  honoring her word to give Stevens happiness.  I also think that by this point Goodwin really wanted to know if time went beyond the eight minutes, so she sort of disobeyed Rutledge for her own curiosity, too.  Consequentialism says that to act in an ultimate end manner is to act in faith rather than rational.  Rutledge was acting in a rational manner when he lied about terminating the life support in order to save more lives.  Goodwin was acting in a faithful manner when she lied to Rutledge about performing the memory wipe in order to provide Stevens with (hopeful) happiness.

Overall, Source Code showed me how one situation can be viewed ethically in multiple ways.  Through the eyes of the doer (Stevens), the initiator (Rutledge), and the middle man (Goodwin).  I still find it difficult to distinguish between the three normative ethics, though.  Maybe it's because I feel that not one in particular is always used.  Like if you knew that millions of people could die if you don't find this bomber, aren't you morally obligated to indeed find the bomber?  At the same time, aren't you going through pain to help the greater good?  And even more so, isn't this considered virtuously ethically?  Confusion ~

Virtue Ethics

Among the three normative ethics – virtue, duty-based, and consequentialist – virtue ethics seems to make the most sense.  For example, in terms of lying, a consequentialist would argue that lying is wrong because of the negative consequences that are produced.  A deontologist, or duty-based ethicist, would argue that lying is always wrong, regardless of good potentials.  Finally, a virtue ethicist would focus less on lying and instead consider what the decision says about one’s character and moral behavior – thus choosing to lie on a case-by-case basis.  To me, this makes the most sense because not every situation is the same, and, therefore, you can’t always follow the same set of rules.

“Plato taught that among the many admirable virtues there were four of utmost significance, which later became known as the cardinal virtues:  wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice.”  “Aristotle taught that good moral character should be formed in youth and, thus, it is the responsibility of adults – especially parents – to instill in children the habits of good character.”  Your life should be devoted to achieving balance – achieving all things in moderation.  Too much courage leads to rashness, while too little courage leads to cowardice; too much ambition leads to greed, yet too little leads to laziness; and so on.

Doing a little further research I found that there are three main branches of virtue ethics, according to this article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:  eudaimonism, agent-based, and ethics of care.  Eudaimonism is loosely translated as happiness, contentment, and fulfillment, and is a means to live and fare well.  It is the life of virtue - activity in accordance with reason, man's highest function.  By their very nature, human beings act rationally, which allows us to make decisions, change our character, and allow others to hold us responsible for those decisions. Agent based ethics focuses on our common sense intuitions about which character traits are admirable, such as benevolence, kindness, and compassion.  Ethics of care, developed mainly by feminist, calls for a change in how we view morality and virtues by switching from masculine terms (like justice and autonomy) to more feminine terms (like patience and self-sacrifice).

Because virtue ethics makes the most sense to me, it is the ethic reasoning I use the most.  I’ll give an example of something I do on a daily basis:  speeding.  When I’m on streets, throughout town and such, I tend to drift between the speed limit and five miles over.  On the highway, however, my average speed drifts between 80 and 85.  Why do I do this?  Well, on city streets there are more dangers, if you will.  There’s more stops made, more congestion, more pedestrians, more turns, more cops, etc.  The highway on the other hand, is open road, and you just go.  Now, I speed on case-by-case situations and obviously go the speed limit and follow the flow of traffic when there’s an accident, congestion, bad weather, and road work.  I don’t dangerously traffic weave while going a million miles an hour and never braking or using turn signals; I usually don’t ride close behind people.  I just like going fast and getting to my destination.  I my eyes, I’m not harming anyone. [Duty-based ethics wouldn’t speed because it is breaking the law, while consequentialist wouldn’t speed because the consequence is a ticket.]

When it makes sense to follow the rules, I do.  When it doesn’t make sense to follow the rules, I don’t.  I try to go through life using reason to achieve happiness and contentment.  Life is a balancing act - it's something you always have to work on.

Ethics

  I felt that this weeks readings were really interesting. Ethics is a super cool topic that I love talking about. What's right? What's wrong? It is very fun to talk about, because there is no real right answer. Every answer can be refuted and debated, making the topic rather subjective.

Out of the three types of ethics, Duty-based, virtue and consequentialist, I feel as though I use the consequentialist style of ethical decisions when I make my life decisions. I am definitely one who tends to think about the consequences of my actions, whether they be good or bad. As a normal human, I always try and benefit myself in every way, so I would say that each decision I make is always trying to be beneficial to myself. I don't intend that to come off as selfish or greedy, but if it is looked at in a biological approach then it makes quiet some sense. As humans, we want what is best for us, because best tends to lead to survival, so basing trying to make my decisions so that I can get the best out of a situation really just comes back to our basic human instinct of wanting the best. I guess that Ethical Egoism or the Social Contract Theory would be similar to what I'm saying. Every action we make is intended to benefit ourself. The only part of that theory that I disagree with is the fact that it means that any action you do is right because it is in the intent of making you happy. Killing a person is a great example to disprove that theory. Sure, killing a person might make a person happy, but it clearly does not make the victim happy, because they're dead. When your quest for the best interferes with the happiness of others, then that is when it becomes wrong. Also, it tends to justify selfishness which is not something that is right.

  Constantly being selfish will lead one to an unhappy life, which contradicts what the whole point of consequentialism. My goal when making my decisions is to bring the most happiness to me, and while I may receive short term happiness from being selfish, in the end I will just be alone and unhappy which is not my goal.

  The second ethics theory that I would relate to would be the Virtue Ethics. This one seems to be societies general view as to what is ethical. The way I think of it is that these are your manners. What your parents teach you and how you are raised based on society. People who's parents did not teach them socially acceptable manners are seen as bad influences and are frowned upon by society. But the question with that is what manners or virtues are right and which are wrong or is it just which ones are socially acceptable? One person can think that having elbows on the table is a trait of a bad person, while I think that there is nothing wrong with having ones elbows on the table. Which one of us is right? I think that it really just comes down to what your society accepts. This also makes life interesting because you get learn about the different virtues of different societies.  

Most Sensible Classic Category

After going through the readings for the week and trying to figure out which of the classic categories most fits how I make moral decisions and which one is more sensible, I learned that like most things, there is a grey area in which I use rationale from all 3 when making a fair amount of my decisions.

I would have to say that I think the most sensible is Virtue Ethics, since it argues that ones actions should reflect the character of said person.  If you want to believe that you are a moral person you must do moral things.  Whether or not somebody is watching.  In a perfect world I would think virtue ethics would be all that was needed.  But even Aristotle and Plato, the two philosophers most commonly mentioned in reference to the virtue eithics, realized argued that there was a constant battle for balance in the virtue ethics because certain virtues could lead to non virtuous activities.  An overabundance of courage could lead to recklessness.  Even the virtue of justice or even what the word just means is a thought that Plato cannot fully wrap his head around in The Republic.  Often times seeming to be almost sarcastic in the way he describes human nature as it relates to why people are just or why people truly obey the laws of society.  Claiming they do so more out of fear of having unjust things done to them than in actually wanting to follow the laws.

Where it relates to my own life, I found the duty based ethics to be my primary "go to" category.  The example of whether or not to speed on the way to class was particularly interesting to me since I live forty five minutes from campus on a good day and usually have to park a few blocks away due to the serious lack of parking during the current construction.  On almost a daily basis I have to use duty based ethics along with a dash of consequential ethics.  Duty based ethics is what our country and most modern Republics are founded upon.  Individual rights require a respect from other individuals in order to be fully attained.  I can have the right to not be stolen from or beat up but if there is a person in society that does not follow that way of thinking, my rights actually mean very little.  Having said that, I understand that speeding is against the law.  But as a former police officer, I also know that the chances of a police officer pulling me over in a major metropolitan area for going about 6-7 miles over the speed limit are almost non existent.  I still use duty based ethics to not go faster than what I refer to as the "unwritten speed limit", but use consequentialist ethics to determine if the risk is worth the reward of not only being on time to class, but not being the guy who shows up late, sweating, and having to knock on the door of the class while everybody stares. 

There are certainly times when I use Virtue ethics while making decisions but those are usually decisions that meet two requirements.  First is that it is a serious issue being dealt with.  Life or Death or something similar.  Second is that it is not something that will necessarily effect me directly.  Meaning that if I want to do what I think is best for other people who are in serious need, I tend to use Virtue Ethics.  My best example would be my time in the military, specifically my time spent deployed to the Middle East.  I was tasked with leading other soldiers and had to make decisions that often would have no bearing on my life whatsoever but would no doubt have very lasting impacts on others around me.  I would do my best to maintain the balance that Aristotle and Plato spoke of and that St. Thomas Aquinas took even farther with his four laws.  My soldiers and I went out of our way to not cause harm to anybody unless it was blatantly clear that they meant to do us harm.  I personally went out of my way not to send my soldiers out somewhere without proper guidance, training, or preparation in order to keep them from being injured.  By balancing courage and recklessness, just and unjust, at that moment the best or at least the most suitable classic category was virtue ethics.

So I guess after all of this ranting, I've come to the conclusion that what is most sensible or what suits me best has more to do with my environment than me.  I would fully expect the moral compass of somebody living in a worse neighborhood than mine or a worse country than ours to not point the same direction as mine when I sit in my house in this country.

So What?

Sean Wykoski

So What?

I have been studying and reflecting on our subject of free will and determinism for over a month now. In this time I have really developed my own views and adopted traits from other views on the subject. I would say that going into this class I did not think about the topic of free will and determinism and if I did I would say that I was pretty closed minded on the subject. After reading the assignments and watching the Adjustment Bureau I would say that I definitely have a new concept of what free will and determinism are.

I really liked one of the first assignments we read about the different beliefs of why things happen to us. I could really relate to some, but there were also others that I just could not see being plausible. I would say that before reading the classic categories I would say that I was somewhere between free will and cultural determinism. After reading through all of them I would say that I'm now more on the free will belief. I think that the assignments we have read and watched really helped shaped my new belief. I especially liked The Adjustment Bureau and the story that it told. I thought it was the perfect example of what this class was trying to talk about; how free will and determinism do not have to be separate from each other. The point that it made that I really liked was at the very end of the film when the two main characters are greeted by their friend who was in The Adjustment Bureau and were told that their paths were in fact changed. When they asked how, their friend told them that they fought hard enough to earn their free will.

After watching the film I really thought about whether or not we are actually living our own lives or some life that is preset for us. I think the point I talked about earlier really changed my opinion on how we're living. I've always thought "Well, maybe there is a predetermined path that we are following, but I don't think thats actually what's happening, because I can do whatever I want." (Not without consequences, but the point being is we are all technically able to do whatever we want.) Once I finished the video I realized that maybe we just have the illusion of free will, like the point Thompson made about us being able to choose what toothpaste we use or what drink to order, but that the big decisions are made by a higher authority. It actually boggled my mind sometimes during class. I'll sit and start thinking "Am I actually choosing to learn, or am I learning because someone is making me learn?" Then I tend to get a headache and stop thinking about it to stop my self from getting super confused.

 I would say that I have really had one of my personal beliefs changed. Not a 180 degree change, but it was still changed none the less.  

"So What?"

As far as the “so what” response to the question of free will and determinism, after studying the subject for the past month or so and reading arguments, definitions, and examples of each category, I have already started to slightly alter my line of thinking from originally thinking everything was left up to free will to believing in a balance being struck between ones free will and different levels and types of determinism.

The main reason for my shift can basically be summed up to ignorance.  I was not aware of the study and ideas behind such determinism as genetic, or environmental  determinism.  Where how one’s genetic disposition or how/where they were raised playing a part in their decision making process.  I was under the assumption that all determinism and all of its categories relied heavily on God or a higher power controlling the strings and humans basically being along for the ride.  The “so what” comes into play with this way of thinking and it’s a thinking that I still do not agree with at all because it leaves too much up to a higher power and takes everything, including responsibility, out of the hands of the individual.  This leaves too dangerous of a slope with regards to crimes, feelings, attitudes, and general behavior in that an individual can simply state that any and all of these things were out of their control and were being directed by a higher power.

I think the movie Adjustment Bureau did the best so far in dealing with where I believe the true answer lies and that is with compatibilism.  The idea that one has free will but that they have it in a controlled environment that has certain aspects already predetermined.  One of the first readings had a very good analogy with regards to how compatibilism works when it referenced a poker game and having several different ways to handle the hand that you are dealt, but not being able to alter the hand that you were dealt.  I believe that certain people, whether due to cultural, environmental or other types of determinism are dealt weaker hands than others, but can still end up above others who are dealt much stronger hands based off of the decisions that they have made.  To think otherwise what be a defeatist attitude that leaves little hope for those given a weak hand except to find comfort in the idea that God gave them such a weak hand in order to test them or to justify somehow giving them a better stake in the afterlife.  I don’t know about everybody, but the God that I believe in and the God that I have faith exists does not make people suffer on a whim and does not play favorites. 

So I guess the “so what” response would be just that.  In order to believe completely in theological determinism, one must have a “so what” attitude with how their life is led, what happens to them and the ones they love, and their own actions and behavior.  That does not seem like the type of life I would want to live and it does not seem to fit with the belief that the type of life the God that I was taught about as a child would want us to live.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Trisha is just a nine year old girl going on a hike with her mom and older brother, but when she wanders off the path her whole world changes.  Throughout the next nine days, she struggles to hold on to her sanity and hope of surviving the perils of the deep woods of Maine.  There are times in those woods when Trisha beings to question if there is anything or anyone who can help her.  Is it predetermined for her to get out the woods?  Or does her free will to survive carry her through?

"She had learned to stay on the path.  No matter what you had to do or how bad you had to do it, no matter how much yataa-yataa you had to listen to, it was better to stay on the path . . . On the path you were safe."

 At this point, Trisha is starting to accept the fact that she's lost.  She should of stayed on the path.  She shouldn't of veered off on her own.  The path was laid out before her, all she had to do was follow it.  Now she was wondering alone, lost and afraid.  Her free will deceived her - it was evil and had gotten her lost.

". . . What if she had asked because some deep future-seeing part of her had known that this was going to happen?  Had known, had decided she was going to need a little God to get through . . ."

Thinking back to a conversation she had with her dad, Trisha tries to reason whether there is a God or not.  What had made her bring that question up so long ago?  Was it predetermined that this event would happen, and that some part of her, or someone controlling her future, knew that she would need this reassurance once the moment came?  Why did she need the reassurance of God?  Was He real and therefore trying to direct her to Him?  Or was it simply that He was all she had ever heard about?  She did tend to say "oh, God" a lot.  Was this out of habit that she picked up from those around her?  Or did she somehow have the knowledge of the word "God" already inside her?

"Pree-cisely, sugar, subaudible.  I don't believe in any actual thinking God that marks the fall of every bird in Australia or every bug in India, a God that records all of our sins in a big golden book and judges us when we die - I don't want to believe in a God who would deliberately create bad people and then deliberately send them to roast in a hell He created - but I believe there has to be something . . . There's something that keeps most of us from dying in our sleep.  No prefect loving all-seeing God, I don't think the evidence supports that, but a force."

I love this description Trisha's dad gives her when asked what he believes.  I feel like I fall into this category sometimes, my free will shining proudly.  It's hard to describe this "force" that a lot of people feel.  Is it a being?  Is it mother nature?  Is it the Universe and all its unknown splendor?  I don't know, I don't think anyone does.  This "force", however, seems more reputable than a "God who would deliberately create bad people and then deliberately send them to roast in a hell He created".  Like I've pointed out previous posts:  why give us free will if only to punish us for using it?  Why "lovingly" create us in His image and then torture us when we veer off the path?  Plus, if God is all-seeing then why doesn't He notice these "imperfections" in the plot and change them before we make a mess of everything?  If God was with Trisha, why did He not send a thought, a sign, anything to make her turn around and stay on the path?

"Trisha looked across the stream at them, a little startled but not really afraid, not then.  Two of the robes were white.  The one worn by the figure in the middle was black . . . 'I come from the God of Tom Gordon,'  he said. 'The one he points to when he gets the save' . . . 'Actually, I  am the Subaudible,' the man who looked like her father said apologetically . . . 'I come from the God of the Lost.  It has been watching you.  It has been waiting for you.'"

This part of Trisha's journey intrigued me.  After drinking water from the stream and eating a mixture of berries and nuts, Trisha sits down and observes some butterflies in a clearing.  As her mind begins to fade, the butterflies turned into robed figures, two white and one black.  She's not afraid, just curious - which is strange because I would of been dying.  The first white figure tells her that he is from the God of Tom Gordon, the one she asks her dad about.  He tells Trisha that God is very busy with a earthquake in Japan and, therefore, has no time to help her.  The second white figure, who is in the form of her dad, tells Trisha that he is the Subaudible, the force that guides us.  He also tells her that he is unable to help her.  Once the black figure steps forward Trisha becomes afraid.  He tells her that he serves the God of the Lost, the one who has been stalking her in the woods.  He is nothing but wasps and bugs, and looks like death.

To me, these three figures represent God, the Force, and Fear.  Fear is the most controlling emotion we possess - it influences our thoughts and actions, making us irrational.  When we focus on fear, fear is all there is.  But we have the free will to overcome this fear.  We can choose to run from it, allowing it to control our lives, or we can choose to stand tall and face it.  In Trisha's case, she allowed fear to control her until she came across the gate posts in the meadow.  It was fear that made her run farther into the woods in the beginning, and it was fear that kept her from crossing the lake that would of gotten her to safety four days earlier.  Once she found the gate posts, however, she began to have hope.  This hope revived her free will to survive, and by this point she was becoming less afraid.  In the end, her free will chose to stand up to her demons instead of running - she was fully in control, even for just a brief moment.  But was this all really free will?  Or did God lend her the strength and implant the desire at the very end when she needed it the most?  Was He really with her the whole time, keeping her demons at bay (seeing as the "bear" was following her the entire time and never attacked or showed itself once)?  Maybe God really works like Tom Gordon says:

"[it's His nature] to come on in the bottom of the ninth inning."

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Sean Wykoski

2/21/14

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

   The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was an interesting read as it was definitely a different novel by Stephen King and addressed certain hidden meanings that we can connect to our topic of Free Will and Determinism. The novel starts off with a little girl, Trisha McFarland, who has gone on a hiking trip with her brother and mother. While the two of them argue, Trisha goes off the path to relieve herself and to spite her mother and brother. However, she ends up getting lost and having to survive in the woods for a few days. Lost with only a days worth of food and clothing, she slowly looses her sanity and feels as though all hope is lost. She is finally rescued and while she is recovering she tells her father how she was like her hero Tom Gordon.

  The biggest connect I could see to Free Will and Determinism in this book would be her belief that she is in the mercy of the forest, and that after a while she learns that she must face her fear and create her own fate. Us humans are constantly at the will of mother nature, but we can choose to either allow it to control us or we can fight back and live our own lives. We do so by creating homes, wearing clothes, and driving cars. These three protect us from the elements and it is what Trisha did while she was lost; she didn't make a car however. When it was raining and she was tired and sick, she knew she had to do something, so she took a stick and broke it in order to make a tent out of her rain poncho. This kept her dry from the rain allowing her to warm up and keep the sickness at bay.

  Trisha talked about the God of the Lost in her book and describe this creature in the woods as some kind of spirit like thing that was following her. This could be seen as King's depiction of a god as it was a supernatural being in the eyes of Trisha. Trisha claimed that she was at the will of the God of the Lost and that it determined what would happen to her. However, at the end of the novel she came face to face with a large bear which she believed was the God of the Lost in disguise. She had two options, either give up and let the bear kill her or she could fight back and make her own fate. She thought of what Tom Gordon would do and summoned his courage and strength. She throws her walkman at the bear and strikes it on the face. After this she is rescued by a hunter and while it was just coincidence that the hunter found her, Trisha was in belief that she had earned her rescue by defeating the God of the Lost. She knew that she had fought back against the woods trying to determine her fate and she had created her own destiny.  

Group Meeting #3

Biblical Texts: Free Will and Determinism

From our assigned readings - Psalm 139: 1-18, Ecclesiastes 3: 1-15, Jonah 1: 1 to 2: 10, and Mark 10: 17-22 - one can see how Biblical writers perceived free will and determinism.  From my point of view, it seems they all thought that God was the one that controlled our lives, from birth to death.  We may have an idea of free will but we are never truly free from the works of God.  What shaped these writers' ideas about this issue?  Could they be the written words of God given to them through divine intervention?  Or were there other factors that shaped their idea of story writing?

I'm not a history buff, and I don't claim to be one.  However, times were very different in the ancient Middle East.  War, disease, tyranny, and famine ravaged the land.  People were looking for answers - people were looking for hope.  Perhaps they were looking for someone good to follow to replace the ones that burdened them so.  I don't know.  It seems to me that the writers were very keen on following rules; especially in Jonah and Mark, the ones who did not follow the rules were punished accordingly.  Jonah, with his free will, disobeyed the rule of God and was tormented by storms and man-eating fish.  The man in Mark was told that if he wanted eternal life in Heaven then he was to give up all his riches.  If you continue reading (Mark 10: 31), Jesus says, "But many that are first shall be last, and the last first."  Hence, the ones who suffer the most have the most to gain.  To me, this reflects how many people lived during this time.  They resented the rich and the powerful and therefore believed that because they, the ones who were poor, were suffering they would live the afterlife in peace.  They needed someone to follow because they were lost.  They needed someone to follow because they only knew suffering from the ones they were already following.

Follow the rules set out by the one who is good to you and you shall have your just reward.  Going back to determinism, this notion is clearly the path taken.  Free will is wrong, and although we all possess it we must fight against it.  God knows best because he created everything and everyone.  According to Ecclesiastes 3:1, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven," and in 3: 11, "He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end."  In Psalm 139, it speaks of how God knows everything from our thoughts to our actions and how He is always there even in our death.  In the stories of Jonah and that in Mark, determinism is greater than free-will and it shall always prevail.  If we do not follow His rules than we are dooming ourselves - for our plan is already written out and we must not diverge from it.

Like I've said in previous posts:  I truly want to believe that we have control over our lives - that our futures have yet to be written.  So these texts are little off putting to me.  Why have free will embedded in us if we can't use it without being punished?  Why would God tease us with this feeling of being able to choose for ourselves if in reality He chooses everything for us?  Why live if we are to only be drones of His story?

Biblical Writers view on Free WIll

     From the readings that were selected for this week, and for all of the other readings that I've done throughout my life, it seems to me that the majority of biblical authors had determinism as the number one theme when it came to how ones life was to play out.
     Jonah attempts to leave the grips of God but ends up damning everybody else on his ship to death until he finally relents to the will of God.  The other writers take a similar view with regards to Gods role or the overall role of the higher power when it comes to how one persons life turns out. 
     This definitely splits from my interpretation of not only the readings of the bible that I have come across in my time and my overall thought on Gods role in the individuals everyday life.  I have no doubt that God is responsible for the higher functions of life.  Meaning that reason that we are here, the fact that we are alive, and living on Earth, etc.  Where I find the biblical readings to be a bit hypocritical is where it converges with the everyday individual.  Joe Average is you want to give him a name.  God and Jesus are both known to have stated in the bible that man is to have free will and determine what he/she believes.  Without that free will, you really can't tell he actually loves and believes in God or who is doing so out of fear, peer pressure, or whatever reason of the time.
     It has always been my understanding that since God gave good will, that meant that one could live their own life how they saw fit, and make the decisions that they felt like making.  But when life was over, when it came time to be judged for the decisions that were made during that life, that is when God came around to judge you and your decisions throughout your life.  It seems as if these readings are trying to tell the reader that not only does God judge you at the end of your life but also has a say during your life in that if you make the wrong decision God has the ability and the desire to punish you or others for what you have decided. 
     I find that to be a very dangerous slope to go down when it comes to who God decides to interfere with and who is left at their own accord.  Because if one is to believe that God is there to determine where your life leads and is going to punish those who stray and reward those who do right, then the only logical conclusion to that is that those that are rewarded with Lottery wins are doing exactly as God has wanted them to, yet those children who somehow are inflicted with Cancer and die at a young age have done so because they have angered God.  I refuse to believe in such a God or the prosperity theology that belongs to those who do.
     Overall, I believe the readings were of little influence to what I believe and how I feel about what I believe when it comes to free will.

Sean Wykoski

Jonah and Free Will

Jonah and the whale is a classic biblical story about how Jonah is given a mission from God, but instead chooses to run away from God. Through his disobedience he learns the wrath of God and puts the lives of innocent people in danger because of his selfish actions. Later, he comes to realize that he was the one who created the situation, so he thus throws himself overboard to solidify him self to God. He gets swallowed by a large fish, most likely a whale, where he comes to realize that he cannot run from God and that God is truly his way to salvation. He then thanks the lord for a rather odd "wake up call" and determines that those who run away from god are really only running from his love. Is this really all about free will or is it just a crazy case of stock-holm syndrome?

 When we think of free will, we tend to think of having the freedom to do as we please, and the bible tells us that the greatest gift we receive from God is the gift of free will. Of course, I feel as though the writers of this biblical text created this story as a means of comfort and reassurance. To say that even when we tend to run from God, he/she will always find us and remind us that he/she is only trying to love us. They also made it clear that Jonah had a choice in the beginning. He was told by God to go to Nineveh, but he chose, instead, to run to Joppa and hid from God on a ship. This would be an example of him using his gift of free will. Instead of listening to God, he chose to take a different path. Here's the part where I'm not so sure he truly had free will. When he was on the ship God began to make the sea turn into a crazy storm. God was angry at Jonah for disobeying him. Jonah realized this and had the crew toss him overboard to spare their lives. If Jonah truly had free will then why would God be angry at him for not wanting to follow his will? It seemed like Jonah really only had one choice and that was to follow the will of God, because as we saw, the other choice led to crazy storms and him being engulfed by a rather large fish. This really reminded me of The Adjustment Bureau and the scene where David Norris had asked Thompson what happened to free will? And Thompson replied that it was just an illusion. Is God's free will really just an illusion? It sort of seemed like it in Jonah's case. It was either "Follow the path of God" or "Don't follow it and suffer God's wrath", he had a choice, but it seemed like there was only one option. What kind of puzzled me was at the end of the story, Jonah realized that all along God was just trying to show him that he loved him. It seemed a bit like a sign of stock holm syndrome. I'm not trying to diss on the bible at all, but I know I wouldn't be to happy with God if he/she started a crazy storm and had me eaten by a fish all because I didn't want to do what he/she told me. The story really just reminded me of that scene from The Adjustment Bureau and got me thinking if we really have a choice or is just that there are two options, but we can really only choose one.