I’m not going to lie, I was digging the CTAA reading until we got to mapping the different moral arguments. My brain hurt after the midterm, but once I finished the reading, I respected it. I’ve been in a lot of philosophy courses before, but had never read about consequentialism, egoism, or deontic and aretaic moral arguments before. Although it’s a little hard to remember which is which, I do appreciate the different perspectives in which they let you evaluate a moral argument/situation. If you’re just analyzing a statement written in this book for example, it’d be valuable to try and analyze from each perspective to see which one makes the most sense to you, so you can then form your own opinion. It’s similar to how diagramming an argument and categorical logic are different methods of evaluating an argument but help you achieve that similar goal. When I read about the sheriff situation, I had to stop and think for a minute. I still don’t really what I would do in that moment. I don’t want to frame an innocent man, even if it would be for the greater good, but I also don’t want more people to die. That’s my one qualm with this reading and these methods- if you’re in a situation like that that needs a decision right away, like if you saw a child drowning in a pond, you’re not going to sit back and analyze the different moral perspectives.
I really enjoyed the Blind reading, because it reminded me of readings we did in 102. My professor actually did the social security number test on us; even though I consider myself a frugal person, I was willing to spend more on those three things, and the last two digits of my social security number are on the higher end. I think mindbugs are fascinating and I’m glad that I actually enjoyed reading something for a class for once.
The sheriff situation reminded me of one of the first readings we did , Effective Altruism (fresh in my mind from the midterm). It reminded me of the story with the doctor having to treat patients that were labeled as 1, 2 or 3 depending on who needed treatment quicker. I can’t imagine making decisions on others’ lives like that, but when it calls for in the moment, you have to do what you have to do.
I completely agree, when reading about the sheriff example I thought that it is such a hard situation and it is so hard to see what you would do in that situation. This example reminded me of the trolly example that we have all heard of many times before, killing one innocent person to save a group of innocent people, obviously it makes more sense to save the group at the expense of the one, but at the same time it is still one life that you are taking. I find that these moral arguments are really hard to unpack, but this reading made it easier.
I liked that you brought up the sheriff situation in your response. I agree that the assumption that people will be able to sit back and analyze the moral dilemma that any split-second decision puts them in is an issue with the paper. In some ways, I almost consider the sheriff situation to be similar to these split-second decision; a sheriff cannot wait too long in making these calls without fear of an uprising from the racist crowd. However, also with the sheriff situation, I considered the outcome to be a question of value. More specifically, condemning the one innocent man would be placing more value on the now while turning the mob loose of the entire Black community would be almost in a way placing more value in hoping for change (though an awful decision nonetheless because of all the innocent lives that would be lost because of hate).
Something that I liked about your response was the idea that the knowledge of identifying moral arguments can be beneficial to point out in reading. I agree with what you said about how it allows us to form our own opinions and identify the different perspectives. But I also think that it could be useful in pulling out emotions and biases. Sometimes when reading a book or article, it is easy to not notice emotions and bias that an author could be incorporating. But now that we have a background of identifying moral arguments, I think that it could prove to be very useful in determining bias and where an author stands on an issue (what is the underlying moral argument? what if you disagree?— this is from a cognitivist perspective)