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Messages - bobbyfangxingjie

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General Discussion / Re: Online Comments (You should have 4 total by the end)
« on: July 20, 2019, 08:20:23 pm »
I want to reply to post # 29 suggested by BaI tianyu, which talks about if animals have rights. In the reply, he talks about two different famous philosophers’ idea about why animals do not have rights, and he also suggests his own questions about the idea they suggested. In the first argument, i agree with Bai tianyu. I believe that if we need to differentiate animals and humans by rationality or the ability to communicate, then it does not make sense for new born human babies or brain-damaged patients. They do not have the ability to think, but we still consider them as the same kind with us. The second argument suggested by Aristotle also has some problems. However, it seems make more sense to me, since i can still find an explanation of the argument.  According to Aristotle, he says that “Man’s tyranny over animals is natural because his superiority as an animal determines for him the dominant position in the natural scale of things.” Bai Tianyu says that this can not explain the existence of slavery, but I believe that the relationship between animals and humans are different from the relationship between humans and humans. As a specie, human are beyond any other animals, whereas there are still hierarchy within humans, just like within some other animals. For example, there might be some leader lion in a group of lions. Therefore, I believe more on Aristotle’s perspective.

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General Discussion / Re: Online Comments (You should have 4 total by the end)
« on: July 17, 2019, 05:14:35 am »
     I wan to reply to #14 by yeqiyang, which talks about the prohibition of drugs. We can not deny the fact that sometimes the prohibition of drugs of adults costs a lot, and it is kind of useless when we see the result of drug prohibition. The fact that it does not stop the usage of drugs kind of support that government should put more funds at other things rather than put so many money in to drug related movements. However, personally I still believe that drug prohibition still needs to exist. The main reason why I believe this is because if the law forbids people from using drugs, it give out the kind of information that drug is bad for people. If drugs are no longer illegal, people will have the will of the temptation of drugs. People would treat drugs as a less harmful and more attractive item. The allure of drugs my attract more and more people to try and then get addicted with it. Although the law that stops people from drugs does not have a significant effect, it still sets a wall for the majority of people to get in touch with drugs, and this is very helpful, since it stops more people from addicting within drugs.

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General Discussion / Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
« on: July 12, 2019, 10:18:17 pm »
  On page 282-291, the author Jeffery Reiman talks about the folly of capital punishment. He believes that since capital punishment costs more than life in prison in America, by rationality, people should all choose life long imprisonment instead of death penalty. “Thus, his arguments goes, we must follow common sense, which teaches that the higher the cost of something, the fewer people would choose it.” (Abelson 282). However, although life imprisonment costs less than capital punishment, sometimes capital punishment are still needed for certain people.
    Recently, there was a famous news about a series killer in China, that aroused a lot of public concerns. A few years ago, he was put in prison because he **** a girl, who was abou ten years old. For that, he was put in prison for ten years. However, since he performed well inside the prison, he was released after five years. Then, a few weeks later, he **** and killed another young girl. After that, he confessed his crime to the police. If he did not do that, he would be put a life long imprisonment. However, since he confessed honestly, he received a reduce in his penalty. After several years, he came out from prison again and people think he would not do that kind of thing again. Then, surprisingly, he **** another girl and kill her.
         From this situation, we could find out that sometimes death penalty is needed for some people like this. They do not care about imprisonment, and they just want to do what they want, and death penalty is for this kind people.

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General Discussion / Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
« on: July 05, 2019, 09:39:48 am »
On page 15 in Ethics for Mordern Life by Abelson Friquegnon, the author writes about rationality ethics suggested by Immanuel Kant, “the most influential thinker of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment”. This method of distinguishing whether one act is moral or immoral suggests that “good will or moral character is the willingness to obey rules that each person legislates for all to obey”. To be more specific, rationality ethics, or duty ethics, states that people’s own will or duty is the key for moral actions. Kant also suggests a concept of categorical imperatives, which gives a standard of which kinds of acts are moral and which kinds are not moral. Categorical Imperative tells us that if there is an act and we do not know if it is moral or immoral, we just set this act as an universal maxim. Suppose this act could be acted as an universe law and there wouldn’t be any self-contradiction exists. For example, to determine if stealing is moral, we set stealing as universal laws, and check if it is possible. If everyone steals things from other people, then nothing belongs to anyone, and therefore stealing does not exist because there are nothing for the thief to steal. Therefore, stealing is not moral. This method gives people a clear perspective of what is moral and what is immoral, which is a profound theory on ethic philosophy.
  However, there are still some problems with this theory. The first problem, is that sometime the categorical imperative test could be overcome by just simply add some restrictions to the requirements. For instance, if we say that we should not steal unless my name is Jack. This can pass the categorical imperative test because not everyone can steal. Nevertheless, that guy named Jack can convince himself that stealing is moral because his name is Jack. This is one defect of duty ethic. Another defect is that sometimes people would not choose the action that are only based on their duty. There is another ethic theory, which is called utilitarian ethics, suggested by J.S Mill, which argues that people will measure the cost and the benefit and then decide what to do. Sometimes these two methods would not come to the same decision, and for some certain questions people would more likely to choose the perspective of utilitarian ethics. For example, if one of your friend is having a incurable disease and you just know the truth from the doctor. As for duty ethics, you should not lie to the patient and tell him/her the truth. However, some people would choose to lie to him to let him enjoy the rest of his/her life. This choice can not be explained by Kant’s duty ethics.

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