I think that building names are a reminder to a history that we no longer stand for, and that changing the names of buildings is the bare minimum in my opinion of ways that a University can make the community more inclusive for black students and faculty, as well as other members of the community who are making efforts to educate and counteract past injustices. It goes against everything that the University claims to stand for.

I think the school has an obligation to the students and faculty to change the name of the buildings, and while argument that the donors will pull funding is valid, perhaps other donors would support the change in a way that counteracts the loss. If other schools across the country are making the effort to rename buildings, then UR should be willing to make the same effort. Their unwillingness to potentially lose donors shows that they are more focused on the past than the future.

The Flanigan reading was very thought-provoking, I had never considered looking at prescription paternalism from that perspective before, because I had assumed that it was in everyone’s best interest, and when she initially proposed the idea of allowing patients the ability to medicate themselves, I was immediately hesitant. The idea that a person without any medical training or knowledge would be able to freely use medication that one generally requires a prescription to obtain was shocking at first because it goes against all of my preconceived notions about the medical field. The argument seemed like a leap, but as she presented more evidence about the doctrine of informed consent and concepts of autonomy and authority, her logic began to make sense.

The point that resonated with me the most was the idea that if physicians can allow patients to refuse treatment that is not in the best interest of their health,  but is in line with what the patient believes to be their best interest, then physicians should also allow them to use prescription medicines in their best interest as well. The principle seemed different to me at first, but the both fit into the vein of doing what a physician would not consider to be in the patient’s best interest, and the patient doing what they consider to be their best Interest.

The only issue I had with her argument was the idea that patients are less likely to abuse drugs if they have access to them. Although I don’t think that prescription drugs are more dangerous to use than non-prescription/over the counter drugs if used correctly, and the patient is well-informed, I think that the accessibility of drugs to addicts could worsen the existing opioid crisis. However, I do think that these people with addictions would still find ways to get their hands on prescription drugs, and giving people access to these medications without a prescription may make them more hesitant to use them, therefore using them more carefully than they would with a doctor’s notice.

In the Hidalgo reading, I had not realized that there were expectations for citizens to actively regulate their interactions with illegal immigrants, but when I started reading I quickly realized that these are widely accepted practices that restrict people from giving unauthorized migrants rights that U.S. citizens have. I agree that it takes away liberty from the American people, which is a side I had not considered, assuming it only had a negative impact on unauthorized migrants, which is does, but the basis for it being unjust is the burden on the American people.

In the Critical thinking podcast, Dr. Bezio emphasizes how bias is viewed so negatively in our society, even though it is a somewhat natural result of the content we consume, and that the only way to change it or prevent it is to purposefully expose ourselves to culture and content that we don’t normally engage with, or that defies general expectations. After listening I decided that I wanted to take an implicit bias quiz to learn more about the biases that I might hold without realizing it, which are not necessarily bad, but are important to understand because it does affect one’s viewpoint of the world whether or not they are aware of it.

I was surprised by the results of my implicit bias quiz, because although I don’t consider myself to have an outright bias, I thought that maybe a hidden bias would show up that I did not know about. I know that I don’t have an explicit bias against black people, but because of ideas spread in mainstream culture that tend to portray black people in a negative light,  I wanted to see if I had unconsciously picked up on those biases. I took the IAT test focused on the association between race and harmless objects/weapons. My results ended up falling into the category of slight automatic association with Black Americans and Harmless Objects, and White Americans and Weapons. These are results generally shared by only 6% of the population, so I was very surprised, but also glad to see that my opinions are not popular opinions. But it is also disheartening to see that the majority of people have strong or moderate association with Black Americans and Weapons and White Americans and Harmless Objects. One thing that I thought while looking at the results was that most people who take tests like this generally want to learn more about their biases in order to do something about it, so I think that an even greater portion of the population would have a negative implicit bias against Black Americans.

I think that the difference shown in my test results could be a reflection of the fact that I have paid attention to terror attacks in the United States, and school shootings, most of which have been committed by white men during my childhood, and I think that despite the way terrorists or “bad” people are represented in popular culture, my knowledge of current events has overshadowed that in my mind without my awareness.

Quite a few things stuck out to me during this reading on Moral Arguments. I did not agree with all the ideas presented, especially the ideas behind acetic moral arguments– A good person is a good person who does good actions with a good motive, and good motives are motives that produce good actions– I don’t quite agree with because I think a person can be good even if their actions are bad, and people’s actions should not be included in defining them as good people. Intentions matter much more than actions, I remember learning about moral luck in Leadership 101, and had never considered the idea before, that if the result of someone’s bad intentions are good, they should still be assigned blame for their intentions.

One major question I took away from this reading is if someone is evaluating individual actions, do they evaluate the series of events that led up to that action? In reading I started wondering how actions relate to one another– for example, purchasing clothes from a fast-fashion company is theoretically “bad,” but if you give the clothes to someone and it makes them happy, are those two actions morally separate from one another? Does the immorality of purchasing the clothes in the first place place a certain negative association on the clothes themselves, as in do objects carry immorality? If though the morality of the action of giving is being judged, probably not, but if the morality of the clothes themselves are being judged then maybe? This to me is a question as to if the ends justify the means. I think that the actions leading up to an action should be considered when assigning “morality.”