Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Xiaoyu Zhang

Pages: [1]
1
General Discussion / Re: Online Comments (You should have 4 total by the end)
« on: July 19, 2019, 11:00:40 am »
About the topic of animal rights, it is a social movement initiated by human beings to protect animals from being treated as possessions by human beings. The aim of this social trend of thought is not only to strive for the right of animals to be treated more kindly, but also to advocate that animals should enjoy the basic "rights" in spirit. For example, the right to freedom from torture is the same as human beings. In other words, animals should be treated as human beings, not just as human property or tools, whether at the legal or spiritual level.

Animal rights critics argue that animals can not be regarded as enjoying spiritual rights because they can not discuss social contracts or make moral judgments, can not take into account the rights of others, or even have no concept of rights at all. Just like what Ruth Cigman said in "Animals Do Not Have Rights", that we should consider the kinds of obligations we have towards a creature (human, animal), and the correlative rights to which he or she is entitled. The way I understand that idea is that they (those critics) think that because only human beings are responsible, thus it is only human beings that should enjoy their rights.

In my own view, I don't really think that all animal should have their own rights. For having rights, I think there should be the ability of rational thinking, therefore, I think animals with perception (self-knowing) should be treated differently from other primitive animals. Only animals with perception ,or stronger self-awareness, have control over their own lives and bodies, regardless of what humans see as their uses We cannot exclude all animals from the moral system and we do need to think about the real purpose of animal rights.

2
General Discussion / Re: Online Comments (You should have 4 total by the end)
« on: July 17, 2019, 01:09:09 am »
I kind of agree with Ricardo's ideas about Paternalism. The purpose of paternalism is for the welfare, needs and interests of the relative people. It can be divided into two situations: one is to prevent people from self-harm, the other is to enhance people's interests while its measures restrict the freedom or rights of the relative people to varying degrees. However, some laws or policies are public welfare from a social point of view and paternalism from a personal point of view.
For Ricardo's idea about "it is better for individuals to be able to exercise choice", I think because of the unreliability of many human choices, we should not assume that the instrumentalist view of free choice is persuasive in all contexts. I think we do should respect personal choices, but can individuals really know where their interests lie under any circumstances? Or we can say, is it right that people make decisions at least better than third parties do for themselves? This claim is not supported in real life and we can't give a clear answer. In the case of smokers, alcoholics and bulimics, their choices cannot be rationally considered as the best way to improve their good life, which is, in these circumstances, people's choices cannot be considered the best choice to improve their welfare.
Therefore, I cannot choose a specific side to say whether Paternalism or self choice would be better, just as Dworkin says at the end of the article: "If there is an alternative way of accomplishing the desired end without restricting liberty although it may involve great expense, inconvenience, etc. the society must adopt it.".

3
General Discussion / Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
« on: July 12, 2019, 08:51:15 pm »
From Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, we can see a new world that there is a high level of material civilization, and everything is automated. People don't worry about food and clothing and enjoy the most comfortable life. Every day after work, they can take a private supersonic plane to travel around the world for holidays. Economic prosperity and enjoyment of life have become the only philosophy and religion of the whole society. Henry Ford, the first pipelining producer, was regarded as the new God. As science develops, people has realized the enormous productivity brought by science, has enjoyed the rich material products produced by the assembly line, at the same time, found the vulnerability of this mode of life: various unstable factors in human society, ranging from war to illness, will affect production, which in turn will lead to chaos and retrogression in society. Therefore, in order to ensure social stability and prosperity, ensure that all kinds of materials can be produced continuously, and realize human happiness, it is necessary to eliminate these unstable factors. So the designer of the Brave New World uses advanced science and technology to transform human beings. The transformed human beings are classified, they are loyal to their own ranks, they can not even have their own ideas because the designer of "Brave New World" understands that the key to social stability lies in controlling people's mind. Freedom of thought is the greatest threat while the emergence of new trends of thought is often the prelude to social revolution. It will be very destructive to allow a person to think freely. Everything in this world is set up: to make people like what he/she has to do. The goal of all conditions is to make people like the social destiny they can't escape.
As I read, I wondered: Can the human beings living in this world really be called "human beings"? When a person's desire is satisfied, but in exchange for his own thoughts and will, is this equal to the satisfaction after the completion of the goal? Let's imagine, the same people, the world without any emotional fluctuations, all your ways of doing things, your ideas, have already been conditioned. Are you really a "human"? You are just a machine that has a human body and educated in batches. Just as what Huxley says, the world without independent thoughts has no freedom, the measure of life is not the human body, but the existence of self-consciousness. Pursuing the satisfaction of sensory desires blindly, the so-called ideological beliefs are also inculcated by the rulers, having no self-will, such existence can not really be called "human".

4
General Discussion / Re: 1st Online Comment (Due 12PM, Saturday, July 6th)
« on: July 05, 2019, 01:02:59 pm »
When we talk about Determinism, we always mention the “free will”, For soft determinism, it agrees with the determinism, but free will may still exist; for hard determinism, it states that there is no such “free will”. When reading Galen Strawson’s “Hard Determinism”, Part II of the reading named “What should we believe?”(p118) talks about the idea of whether “free will” really exists. As it believes that all human activities are the results of previous causes, therefore, human behavior can be predicted according to previous conditions and experiences. As mentioned in the reading, when all the choices we made are resulted from our previous experiences and has causality, the free will will no longer exist. If people understand all the factors involved in an upcoming event, they can accurately predict it; or, conversely, if an event occurs, they can assume that it is inevitable. Oppositely, what soft determinist says, just as Simon Blackburn said in “Soft Determinism”, that “sometimes the causal routes are totally independent of what we think”(p145). It argues that people can have free will while the causality happens.
So here comes a problem, how can we make sure that the “free will” is the real free will? The so-called free will is that a conscious subject can make his/her own choice when facing a variety of open-ended possibilities, completely according to his/her own wishes. Let’s imagine a hypothetical situation, you want to eat something, you can eat apple because you haven’t eaten it for a long time; or you can eat pie which you have never tasted before. After hesitation, you chose to eat pie. These are two possible choices, and choosing either one is according to your own will. But when we’re thinking about the reason why ate pie, you might think: I’m hungry now, I need some food, though apple is delicious, I want to fill up my stomach more; I never tried pie before, I should have a try; I can eat apple anytime I want, but the pie is hard to buy… Where do these thoughts come from? They are influenced by many elements, such as your mood, your personality, what others told you… These makes your decision predictable. Since your decision is predictable, it must happen. Are you still “free” to make it? Your decision is only the one that you have been determined to make, just as someone said “we do what we will, but we don't will what we will”. In that case, when the world is in determinism, all of our decisions had been decided previously, also the process of making a choice is totally out of your control and is processed with those determined factors. Therefore, the existence of free will cannot be proved.

Pages: [1]