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Abraham Lopez

Critical Thinking-Class Group Paper


Our group decided to meet at Gourmandise to discuss the ten questions
regarding philosophy. It was slightly crowded in the the small restaurant, but we
were able to start our discussion without any problems. We discussed our
different views and opinions about the questions with our group that consisted of
Me, Arvand, Lexi, and Ashley.
The first question was regarding our ethical duties on what we do with our
money. My personal view on this topic was that I thought that we have the right to
spend our personal money however we choose, and have no obligation to
donate our money, leaving just enough to take care of our basic needs. The
reason I felt this way is because I thought that the money we gain is rightfully and
personally earned, and there is no reason why we should have to give it away.
On the other hand, I do feel like it is our moral obligation to give back to society in
some way, especially if we do have a surplus in money.
After listening to my group member's opinions on this, I found them to be
similar in a way. One person responded that she believed we should give our
excess money away, but only to an extent, because what if we ran into an
emergency, and needed the money we gave away? I thought this was a very
valid point; to give all of our money away, leaving just enough to pay for our basic
needs is in my opinion, financially irresponsible. For example, what if there was a
death in the family? Who would pay for the funeral? This is what Ashley was
saying in a way. She explained that we should help out other people, but we
should also not forget about taking care of our families and just as importantly,
taking care of ourselves. Another scenario would be if one of our cars broke
down, how would we deal with that situation if we don't have any money? If we
didn't have money to fix our car, we wouldn't be able to come to class or even
worse, we would probably lose our jobs. In a perfect Utopian world, I could see
where Peter Singer is coming from. But we live on planet Earth, where everything
is ran by money. Even for people that live a simple and normal life, you will
always need money to survive in this world.
Another good point made by one of our group members was from Lexi,
who expressed that she feels she already contributes to society by paying taxes.
She also mentioned that she already lives paycheck to paycheck, and that if she
had any extra money she would spend it on herself. Arvand also agreed and
added that he wouldn't really help anyone in America because he believes, it is
the land of opportunity, and that if he ever did have any surplus in money he
would use it to help out third world countries.

One thing I did notice regarding this question with my group was that we
were all in agreement that since none of us are millionaires, then we have no
obligation to give away our money. I did also notice that even though we
disagreed with Peter Singer, we did mention a few times that we could help out
our community, but not through donating money(because we don't have much).
But what we would be willing to do is offer some community service, giving back
to society in that manner.
Now moving on to question number two, it asked if we believed it is ethical
to eat meat and if not, do we have an ethical duty to be vegetarians? Personally,
this question was extremely easy to answer, and I said definitely not. We are
humans. I believe that we are supposed to eat meat and that it is an essential
source of protein in our diet, if we want to be healthy and fit.
Listening to my group members, we were a little divided with this question.
Some said, Absolutely not, next question. Someone else said that they actually
tried not eating meat for a week, choosing only to eat fish. I thought that it was
pretty interesting, but I wasn't surprised with their responses. Another thing I
heard was that Ashley mentioned seeing a video about slaughter houses, and
how inhumane they were in the meat industry. I personally have also seen that
same video and am in agreeance that the meat industry is lacking morals and
empathy towards animals. We as a group felt that eating meat is not unethical,
but we also agreed that the meat industry is very flawed and definitely needs to
have some changes made to it. Especially because we did some quick research
on this topic, and it turns out that not only is the industry very inhumane but it's
also set up to be extremely wasteful. We all agreed that this can be fixed and that
we in a way have an ethical duty to help change the industry, but not to be
abstaining from eating meat entirely.
The next question we talked about was, What is the truth? How do we
know if we have arrived at the truth? Are the skeptics correct that we cannot ever
have knowledge of the truth? Is truth relative? Why or why not? Personally, I
thought this question was very tricky. It definitely wasnt as easy as the first few
questions, and it required some critical thinking to come up with my own answer.
In my opinion, I think truth is what we choose to believe. But I don't think there
really is a way of knowing if we have arrived at a truth. I think truth is purely
relative to us because what can be true here on Earth, does not meant it remains
true throughout the universe.
Elaborating on my opinion of why truth is relative, when speaking about
fact and the Laws of Physics, they are not actually laws but a mere description of
how something works. For example, Newton's First Law of Motion states that
every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion
unless an external force is applied to it. Although this law has been proven many
times, the law does not dictate the action. Newton's first law of motion is just a

description, and the law of motion is subject to changes if it ever has reason to.
This is why I think truth is relative, because Newton's law might be true on Earth,
but it could be completely wrong in some other part of the universe.
When listening to what my group members had to say about these
questions, I found their ideas to be somewhat similar but also very different. We
talked about the first part of this question, What is truth? There arose some very
unique responses to this. Starting with Arvand, he believes truth is what we
choose to believe. Lexis response was slightly similar, saying that she believed
truth is a justified true belief. Ashleys response was that truth is based on facts,
although she also mentioned that what is true to one person might not be true
through another person's view. An example we talked about in the group was
about the sky being blue. Some people perceive it as blue, although some with
eye problems or who is color blind, could perceive it in another color. Someone
also mentioned the fact that the sky is actually black, and it's only blue because
of the reflection of the ocean. This brought us to the next part of the question to
whether or not truth is relative. One person said it was relative because we all
interpret things differently than others. So what we might think to be true, may in
fact be the opposite for someone else. We moved on to the next part of the
question about whether or not we know if we have arrived at the truth. Arvand
argued that we know when we arrived at truth if we look at it as a mathematical
equation. For example in math, if we want to know if we have the correct answer,
we just plug in the answer we came out with and if it ends up equaling the
original number then we know we have the right answer. Lexi believed differently,
because she said that when she can be certain about something and fully
believes it is the truth, then thats how she knows she has arrived at the truth.
Ashley answered it in a similar way, saying that if we personally believe it to be
true, then we can say we have arrived at the truth. Although the truth is still
relative to personal views. I think we all had valid and similar answers to these
questions, but the one thing we all agreed on was that truth is relative.
The next question that was asked addressed how good and bad behavior
are determined, and if it is the consequences that define whether an action is
good or bad. It also asked, What matters the most? The action, the intentions
behind our actions, or both? I thought this was a very interesting question to
discuss, because it opened me up to different points of view from my classmates.
My response to these questions was that the way we can determine what is good
behavior versus bad behavior is by looking at the intentions of one's action.
Looking at the intentions reveals if they meant to do bad or good, rather than just
judging the action by the behavior. This is a viewpoint that I am very adamant
about due to personal experience. An example of this would be if someone who
was driving correctly hits another car who ran a red light, and the person that ran
the red light got killed. Should the driver that drove correctly be responsible and

charged for killing someone? In my opinion the answer is no, because it wasn't
the driver's intention to kill someone, nor was it their fault that another driver
decided to run the red light. This is a perfect example as to why intentions are
more important than the action itself. Most of my group members answered that
both intentions and actions are what determine whether an action is considered
good or bad. Arvand argued that it really depends on the situation. Ashley
brought up an example of Hitler and his actions. She believed that he probably
thought he was doing something good for his country, but his actions resulted in
genocide. I argued that how could we even know whether or not he was
intending for something good. In my opinion, his intentions were bad and he
knew it. Also, his actions were obviously incredibly bad. Arvand also made a
good point that even if someone believes their intentions are good, but their
intention is to commit genocide, then the intention itself is bad, regardless of what
the person thought of their own intention. After some discussion and rebuttals,
we eventually decided that this was a bad example, because we were assuming
information about Hitler that only he could've know himself.
The next question we faced asked us to consider the idea of doing good
things, but for the wrong reasons. The question asked that if we did that, is it less
moral or equally as moral? The answer I wrote down for this question ,was that if
we act righteously but for the wrong reason, it is less moral because although the
behavior/action was good, the intentions were not. It was an act out of self
interest, not out of the kindness of your own heart.
When discussing this with my classmates, the first thing we discussed was
that even if we do something good for the wrong reasons, it can still be a win win
situation. Also, doing something good solely out of benefitting one's self interest
doesnt affect the receiving party any different than if you did something good for
the right reasons. Lexi brought up a good example, where when we give a loved
one a gift for his or her birthday, we feel satisfied too. She argued that were
benefitting from that situation and that it's not a bad thing that we did it for self
satisfaction. I responded to her and said that even though we got something out
of it, our intentions were good. We gave a gift to that person because we
cared/loved them and we did it cause we wanted to make them happy. Therefore
we didn't do it for the wrong reasons but instead the opposite, the consequence
of doing something for the right reason will always make someone happy, and it
can be equally as rewarding for the person giving the gift as well. When we
contemplated and asked ourselves if it is less moral to do something good for the
wrong reason, Ashley's response was no. Her explanation was that even if we
did something good for the wrong reason, it's not less moral because maybe her
intentions and her heart will change. I disagreed with that statement because that
is a big maybe, and we are not talking about the future. We also brought up the
situation about future doctors who do volunteer work just so that it looks good on

their resume, and asked if they are doing something less moral. Arvand and I
agreed that it wasnt any less moral for them because theyre trying to get into a
field that's all about helping people and saving lives.
Switching up the question to, Are bad actions that are completed with
good intent less moral? My response to this was yes, it is less moral because
even though the intent of helping out the poor was good, the initial action taken to
get there was still bad. An example to why I came up with this answer is that if
you stole food to help the poor, then it will benefit the people in need, but we can't
just forget about the owner of the food. Who is to say that those people deserved
to get their food stolen? What if those people lived a morally good life, and
contributed to society by having charities and starting foundations to put students
through college? I don't think it would be fair for those people to get their food
stolen, just like anybody else would not deserve it.
When discussing this with my classmates they had their own personal
experiences with this specific question. Lexi told us a story about when she was
12, she went to the mall with her little brother, who had no shoes on. So on the
way to the store, he started getting sores and blisters on his foot. She decided to
go to the shoe store, and stole a pair of socks for her little brother. This obviously
helped her little brothers feet from getting injured more. Another story shared
was from Arvand who had a little brother who wanted a lego set. Arvand wanted
to buy him the toy, but he didn't have the means for it. So he stole it. He shared
that it made his little brother really happy. When hearing both those stories, I
noticed a similarity in both stories. They both ended the story on how their
actions helped their little brothers in a positive way, but I noticed that both Arvand
and Lexi werent so happy about their own actions. Ashey also shared her
opinion and said that any kind of stealing is immoral, whether you steal from a
rich or poor person. She also added that there is always a way to do a good thing
without having to do something bad first. After talking about it more, that
statement was something the whole group agreed on unanimously.
The next question was about what living a good life consists of. My
answer was living a good life consists of being successful at whatever your
passion is in life, and in turn helping others or giving back to the community. Also,
living a good life will consist of having good intentions in all that you do. In our
group conversation about this question, Arvand shared that creating and raising a
family is a living a good life. He elaborated saying that it meant being able to
have kids and to support them and his wife. And he wants to make sure that after
he dies, he can have prepared enough to still be able to provide that his family
can continue to live a good life. Lexi also agreed, adding that living a good life is
whatever makes you happy, without hurting people around you. Personally, I
completely agreed with her response to this question.

The next questions asked regarded the qualities of a superior individual. I


answered that the qualities of a superior individual are to possess good morals
and values, have ambition for success, achieve personal success, and positively
influence the lives of many others. We discussed this question briefly with our
group, and we all had pretty much the same answer but in different words. We all
agreed that someone who has good morals and good intentions are also
considered to be qualities of a superior individual.
Next, the 9th question asked,To what extent, if any does happiness relate
to living a good/moral life? I answered, happiness does relate to living a
good/moral life, because happiness goes hand in hand with good morals and
success. In my opinion, happiness means freedom. When talking to my group, I
noticed that we all had slightly different views on this. For Lexi living a good life
goes hand in hand with being happy. She also added that being able to control
depression, exercising regularly, and taking care of yourself are all things that
relate to living a good/moral life. Ashley added that being a part of something
bigger also relates.
Lastly, the final question asked, To what extent if any, does one's duties to
society/other people relate to living the morally good life? My answer to this was
that it relates a great deal to living a morally good life, because if you personally
contribute to society, it proves you are living with good intent. My group had a
very similar answer to the final question. Lexi said, Duty to society is to agree to
be okay with your society, and make sure you're not causing harm to people.
Ashley also agreed, saying that we should make good and kind choices because
all of these duties to society relate to living a morally good life. I completely agree
with both of them, because you can't live a morally good life without performing
one's duties and giving back to society in one way or another.

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