Today’s podcast really helped me condense the reading. I felt like I understood the basis of the readings, but the podcast really helped me apply it to our world today. The most interesting thing I remember hearing in the podcast was how consequentialist,  deontological, and aretaic methods and patterns of thinkings determine our laws. I thought it was interesting that Dr. Bezio mentioned that fact that true relativism is really literally anarchy. I hadn’t thought about it that way, but when you take relativism to the extreme, it really does mean that not only cultures are able to decide their own rules, regulations, and actions, but individual people also then have the complete power to do exactly what they want. Therefore, it seems that there has to be some level of balance among all of this to maintain a fully functioning, effective society. I thought thinking of our laws as mixtures and combinations of our intentions, actions, and outcomes was another new thought for me. I understood that that different intentions and actions of crimes were punished differently, for example, that manslaughter is judged differently than an accidental murder or intention to murder, but did not think about the morality evaluation of it all. With this in mind, it is much easier to see how certain cultures demand and regulate one thing, while another may do something completely different. What makes the common ground so important then? For instance, stealing and killing is generally wrong in all societies. Is this because it is so morally wrong, or is it regulated more so to keep the society able to function?