Morality and Politics of Justice Project
Welcome to my Morality and Politics of Justice Project page.
In this project, our purpose was to learn basic philosophy, and how it applied to politics (Hence the "Morality and Politics" part), as well as to learn what we believed was right (Hence the "Justice"). Without bearing these goals in mind, I set out on my project, and began to understand why this was important, which I will get to over the course of this reflection.
My work, incidentally, is at the bottom of the page.
To begin with, we learned about Thoreau, and read the entertaining play "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail", in which I acted the role of Thoreau's bother, I mean, brother. I highly recommend it. That aside, we then continued on to learn about other philosophies, philosophers, and what is "right" and what is "wrong", which varies highly depending on who you ask. For instance, Libertarianism is all about individual rights, and Utilitarianism is focused on the good of the majority, even at the expense of the minority. All have their advantages and weaknesses. After this, our project began in earnest, and we looked at current issues in which our philosophies applied.
When I started this project, I was a rather neutral, dare I say, indifferent person. However, as the project continued, I began to find my voice on issues, to find my beliefs on issues. Lessons on rhetoric, on manipulation through media, opened a new passage in my mind, gave me a means to express, to think, to speak as an individual, and not the continuation of the philosophies and opinions which I was given early on in life. When I began my Op-Ed, I was terrified that I might offend or contradict. It paralyzed me. Through the lessons learned in this project, at the exhibition, I calmly and confidently defended my position and my thoughts, my right to say and think what I believe.
My project was not without it's flaws. I feel that my argumentation and rhetoric could have used improvement, as my ability to speak convincingly was aided more by evidence than any sort of profound influence found in my speech. Fortunately, this was counter-acted by my good fortune in finding evidence that supported my points, or at the very least indicated a major problem in how we're going about it currently.
If I could work on it further, I would have explored all the holes in my Op-Ed. So many tangents untouched. What are the long-term consequences? How do religious views affect these teenagers as adults? What laws regarding adult birth control might affect these teens? How does the abortion argument play into it? Given a large enough paper, and time to explore all these holes, my Op-Ed-turned-monstrosity-of-text might have an opportunity to at least acknowledge all these points, and opportunities, and perhaps answer a few of these questions.
In this project, our purpose was to learn basic philosophy, and how it applied to politics (Hence the "Morality and Politics" part), as well as to learn what we believed was right (Hence the "Justice"). Without bearing these goals in mind, I set out on my project, and began to understand why this was important, which I will get to over the course of this reflection.
My work, incidentally, is at the bottom of the page.
To begin with, we learned about Thoreau, and read the entertaining play "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail", in which I acted the role of Thoreau's bother, I mean, brother. I highly recommend it. That aside, we then continued on to learn about other philosophies, philosophers, and what is "right" and what is "wrong", which varies highly depending on who you ask. For instance, Libertarianism is all about individual rights, and Utilitarianism is focused on the good of the majority, even at the expense of the minority. All have their advantages and weaknesses. After this, our project began in earnest, and we looked at current issues in which our philosophies applied.
When I started this project, I was a rather neutral, dare I say, indifferent person. However, as the project continued, I began to find my voice on issues, to find my beliefs on issues. Lessons on rhetoric, on manipulation through media, opened a new passage in my mind, gave me a means to express, to think, to speak as an individual, and not the continuation of the philosophies and opinions which I was given early on in life. When I began my Op-Ed, I was terrified that I might offend or contradict. It paralyzed me. Through the lessons learned in this project, at the exhibition, I calmly and confidently defended my position and my thoughts, my right to say and think what I believe.
My project was not without it's flaws. I feel that my argumentation and rhetoric could have used improvement, as my ability to speak convincingly was aided more by evidence than any sort of profound influence found in my speech. Fortunately, this was counter-acted by my good fortune in finding evidence that supported my points, or at the very least indicated a major problem in how we're going about it currently.
If I could work on it further, I would have explored all the holes in my Op-Ed. So many tangents untouched. What are the long-term consequences? How do religious views affect these teenagers as adults? What laws regarding adult birth control might affect these teens? How does the abortion argument play into it? Given a large enough paper, and time to explore all these holes, my Op-Ed-turned-monstrosity-of-text might have an opportunity to at least acknowledge all these points, and opportunities, and perhaps answer a few of these questions.
jobson_radio_final_draft.mp3 | |
File Size: | 586 kb |
File Type: | mp3 |
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