Ethics

Ethics has definitely challenged me to think about my opinions on what is right and wrong, and why I think so. I do greatly wish that the course involved ideology and focused more on where different views on ethics came from on a societal level (since I think that most of them came about through ideology, which is used to keep societal principles in place). Even so, I still think every time I am in that classroom, and I question why myself and others determine what is ethical the way we do.

I love learning about different types of ethics that people use, since most of the time I do not consider how each person's different views on ethics can be categorized. Subjectivism, supernaturalism and cultural relativism were all incredibly interesting to consider, and when finding their many flaws, I couldn't help but wonder why they are so widely used by many people. That made me think that more people should take a course like this, to find what they really think about ethics, and hear arguments against their logic so that they can back their beliefs up. This is definitely what I am doing. I agree with a lot of subjectivism, which is defined as what the self likes is considered good and ethical. While I don't think that someone considers everything they like to be good, their morals and ideals for what they really want in life determine what they view as good. This is one of the only concepts that make sense for each person being able to have their own unique view on right and wrong, while still being able to relate and be similar to the views of so many.


Food Inc. was also great. I had seen the movie before, and I definitely questioned the ethics of many practices in the food corporation when I did. This time I was able to take visual notes, and I brainstormed artistic ideas that reflected my feelings, deep moral hurt, at the industry in a different manner. These are definitely ideas that I would like to use later on in my life, maybe to help combat the many ethical issues with the food corporation that I still found shocking upon a second filming of the movie.

I also liked the case studies, as they brought up great class discussion and thoughts on morals and ethics. I hope that we do more scenarios where we choose how ethically right / wrong something is and defend our position, because this was a great way to see what our intuitive beliefs on ethics are when brought out by a situation.

I believe that this is one of my most thoughtful classes, and I'm greatly enjoying it.