In our society, we rely on the systems around us for everything we do and for guidelines for our daily life. Flanigan brings up an interesting point when it comes to the prescription system, specifically prescription drug laws and how they violate our rights to self-medication. These arguments over a doctor’s role vs. a patient’s decision in how they self-medicate quickly becomes an ethical one as the expertise of doctors gets placed over the personal judgement and feelings of the patient. Although there is no question that a doctor understands certain medications and treatments better than a patient, the patient themselves understands their health and should in the end have the final word when it comes to their bodies. Flanigan brings up a good point that this in turn would alter the position of physicians in the patients lives as they become regulators and help patients make informed decisions on their own.

Hidaligo on the other hand questions the role that citizens play in the regulation of immigration. I agree that the role of policing illegal immigration should not be in the hands of American citizens, but rather on the men and women hired to do so. Similarly to Flanigan, it brings up ethical concerns as would this then be considered a violation of the rights of the immigrants?

It is very easy for us as outsiders to make assumptions about immigrants and about patients going against the word/decisions of doctors when it comes to our health, but in the moment these people are doing what is best for the well-being. Although some people may disagree with their decisions, these people still have rights and must be treated that way.

When listening to the podcast, I thought it was really interesting hearing about how we tend to think and talk about culture in ethnic culture and never truly discuss how white culture (a topic that becomes controversial between people) is a default culture within America. We are all a part of many different cultures that we may not entirely realize. For some reason the topic of culture can be uncomfortable to think about for people – maybe partly as people believe that if other cultures become better represented then that will somehow harm ‘white culture’. Other cultures are certainly being better represented in media and film which does help to limit our implicit biases that lead to snap judgements.

I feel like I am generally pretty aware of other cultures and try to embrace other cultures in order to learn more about them and move past stereotypes. In the podcast it briefly talked about things like princess movies beginning to portray different cultures and I think this is really essential for younger generations in order to limit these stereotypes and biases at a young age. People have to go out of their way to take time to educate themselves as we cannot simply rely on the history that is learned in the classroom, the movies that pop up on TV, or a different genre of music that comes on to the radio. Some people are not willing to take the time to educate themselves as it may make them a little bit uncomfortable. This is the mindset that needs to be changed as culture is nothing to be intimidated by, but instead is something that is exciting for people to learn about.

As humans, we always want to think the best of ourselves and our in many cases blind to our flaws/mistakes whether intentional or unintentional. When I saw my results I was ashamed to see that I did in fact have a slight bias on one of the tests, but I am not entirely surprised. Although I do always try and educate myself on various topics in order to be more aware of other people and injustices in general, it is easy to remain extremely sheltered as a white straight female in a comfortable living situation with my family. For me these biases are very subconscious and I don’t believe that they are very apparent to others. But I hope that by being aware of the biases I have through tests like these and by having conversations with others, I will be able to become as unbiased as possible when it comes to people that are similar or not similar to me. I don’t know if it is possible to entirely get rid of these biases, but I hope that by educating myself and others that they can be limited as much as possible and willy potentially allow for more equality for all.

When the reading talks about consequentialism looking at the idea that we should treat everyone’s happiness equally, it made me think back to my Justice and Civil Society class where we talked about different theories of justice. One of those theories being egalitarianism in which the idea is that everyone deserves equal rights and opportunities. Our society has certainly leaned towards prioritizing the happiness and the provision of opportunities to those that need the most help. But in some cases this has become a topic of debate politically, typically splitting the political party line between democrats and republicans when it comes to giving government funds to lower income people or instead limiting government interference and letting everyone have the equal opportunity to work for their own money, success, along with their own happiness.

This debate about whether or not to follow consequentialism has become an ethical one. In reality, when looking at treating everyone’s happiness equally, you have to look at everyone’s background as this does not necessarily mean an equal playing field for everyone whether this is from the way they grew up economically. In philosophy, it sometimes is quite easy to pin point what is ethical and what is not. But as soon as it comes to real life situations, the lines get blurred and each situation requires a more holistic approach particularly when it is a question of hurting one person or another.