Unit 4 Comp Civ Essay

Wether "the end justifies the means" is a moral way to go through life or not, is completely dependent on which moral philosophy's magnifying glass you are looking through. Kant's ideas on morals are different from Plato's. The Utilitarianists have a different way of viewing morality than existentialists. Taking a look at each moral philosophy's rules, we will see who believes "the end justifies the means" is moral, and what philosophies believe that it is immoral.

First off is Plato. For Plato, "the end justifies the means" depends on what the "end" is. If the final outcome is knowledge, Plato would say that you should do whatever you want in order to achieve rationalism and in turn freedom. But if the end goal is to act on your desires, Plato would say that it is against your own self interest. This is because Plato's view of self interest is that rationalism is the proper notion of self interest, not your desires. So in this moral philosophy, the moral thing to do is to act in your own rational self interest. As long as that is your goal, then the end completely and utterly justify the means.

Kant also believes in the idea that the moral thing to do is the rational thing to do. He believes in doing ones duty, and that people should put their duty above their own desires. How do you know if you are doing you rational duty? Kant answers this by going back to his idea of universality. In his outline of philosophy, Kant says everyone should come to the same rational conclusion. In his moral philosophy, he asks you the question, "what if everyone did this?", what if everyone lied, cheated, and stole to reach their final goal. The world would be a very unhappy and unsafe place. So for Kant, the end doesn't justify the means, if it doesn't pass the test of "what if everyone did it?". An example would be if you wanted to win the world cup in soccer so you bribe the ref. If everyone did this, the game of soccer would no longer be feasible as it wouldn't be skills that allowed you to win, but rather your money. Following Kant's rule, you know that this is immoral.

Utilitarianists believe the "means" are justified if the "end" will give the maximum amount of pleasure for the greatest number of people. For example, if in world war 2, the allies did nothing, then many people would suffer. But if they fought against the Germans, many nazis and Germans in general would still die, but in comparison to if they did nothing, more people would end up living. Most of the world's population v.s. the German population, utilitarianists would save the world population. In the end, if the largest amount of people getting the maximum levels of pleasure is the end goal,than anything that stands in between is completely justifiable.

The most firm believers in "the end justifies the means" are the existentialists. They have no moral values and do whatever they choose. If they want something, they can do whatever they need to do to get there. There are no moral rules whatsoever that bind them. Completely free to accomplish all their goals by any means necessary. The only loophole in existentialism, which is twisting and turning around their rules (or rather lack thereof) that it really isn't even existentialism any more. This being that because everything is up to you, you could create your own rules, that would make the ends no longer justify the means. But there really isn't any existentialism to be found in this loophole, so all in all, according to existentialists the ends justify the means.

For some of these philosophies, there are set guidelines in order to find out what the moral thing to do is, and those guidelines tell you when "the end justifies the means", and when it does not. This is found in utilitarianism and Kant. In others, it depends on what the end goal is, as in Plato, and for existentialists, you can do whatever you want to. All of these philosophies have their own ways of determining if the end justifies the means, but only one can work for an individual, so your own morals are dependent on which moral philosophy you choose to abide by.


  

Siddhartha Paragraph 3

Siddhartha at this point has realized his disgust and what he has become. He's at the river where he childishly decides to jump in to the river, where om finds him again. Om is the perfect, or the completion, which makes Siddhartha aware of what he is doing, and get out of the river. He falls asleep, and upon awakening Siddhartha finds himself feeling renewed. As though he had been reincarnated into a new life, and a new way of viewing the world.

Ethical Issues

The mood at Baileyville High School is tense with anticipation. For the first time in many, many years, the varsity basketball team has made it to the state semifinals. The community is excited too, and everyone is making plans to attend the big event next Saturday night.Jeff, the varsity coach, has been waiting for years to field such a team. Speed, teamwork, balance: they've got it all. Only one more week to practice, he tells his team, and not a rule can be broken. Everyone must be at practice each night at the regularly scheduled time: No Exceptions.Brad and Mike are two of the team's starters.  From their perspective, they're indispensable to the team, the guys who will bring victory to Baileyville. They decide—why, no one will ever know—to show up an hour late to the next day's practice.
Jeff is furious. They have deliberately disobeyed his orders. The rule says they should be suspended for one full week. If he follows the rule, Brad and Mike will not play in the semifinals. But the whole team is depending on them.  What should he do?

There are many different philosophies that have certain rules about how to go about this. According to utilitarianism, the coach should let Brad and Mike play because the two starters being allowed to play in the game will increase the chance of success, and letting the team potentially get to the finals. This would mean that the students and staff of Baileyville High School would achieve the maximum amount of pleasure, where as if they weren't allowed to play, no one would really be getting any pleasure out of it at all, except for potentially the coach. The basic rule of utilitarianism is morality equals the maximum amount of pleasure for the most people, so let Mike and Brad play and have thee general population be happy they have a greater chance at going to finals.

Kant and Plato however, would without a doubt disagree. Although Plato does say that you should do whatever is in your best self interest 

Siddhartha

In Buddhism, renouncement is used as a method to free yourself to find the god and truth within, also known as Atman. The idea is that without the ties to the objects and people that hold us back, you can develop in the way that you need to, in order to find your inner god or truth. Siddhartha, a novel by Herman Hesse about his spiritual journey and his search for Atman, the god within, uses this as a key concept in his development. While this idea ultimately helps Siddhartha’s personal development and allows him to achieve his goal, it has him going from severe deprivation to total indulgence in order to find himself, often leaving him unhappy or regretful.

Siddhartha starts with the rejection of his parents and early mentors so that he can join the samanas and further his knowledge. He felt that the Brahmins and teachers around him had already “poured their fullness into his waiting vessel, and the vessel was not full” (5). So when the samanas pass through his village, he makes the decision to leave his family, and go with them to learn more about the god within. At the time, Siddhartha thinks little of the decision he has made, but when his own son leaves him later on in the book, he realizes the impact this would have had on his family. While he never outright says that he regrets his decision, he certainly has a greater understanding of the position his father was in all those years ago. His father “suffered the same sorrow that Siddhartha was now suffering for his own son” (115), a deep wound of loss. Despite the how he feels later, the renouncement was necessary for Siddhartha to start his journey on a clean slate, free of any responsibilities or obligations.

Similar to the rejection of his initial teachers in his father and the Brahmin, Siddhartha also leaves the samanas and the Buddha Gautama. Siddhartha leaves the ascetics because he sees that some of his teachers have “turned sixty and [have] not reached Nirvana” (17), so why would he be able to achieve what they couldn't, or haven't yet, by following the same path? Similarly, after meeting the Buddha, Siddhartha realizes that no one can teach him the way to reach enlightenment, not even the great Buddha he has complete respect for. Siddhartha believes that experience over words is what will teach him wisdom, which is reasonable enough, but his path becomes so twisted that the reader becomes unsure whether or not he will reemerge in a better place than where he started, this also not being a Hollywood movie, so there is no guarantee of a happy ending.

The samana, on their way to find Nivana, rid themselves of all that isn’t necessary, and even some that is. The idea is that when the soul is completely empty, the “innermost essence, which is no longer ego,” (14) awakens. To be without an ego is a good goal to strive for, but in Siddhartha’s attempt to renounce his own ego, he pushes himself to severe depravation and creates an opinion of himself that puts him above his fellow samanas and his samana teachers. When he is among the ascetics, he is no different than them, so he doesn’t feel superior to them, but when Siddhartha leaves them to go see the Sublime Buddha, he disrespects the samana by showing them how much better he is than them, and “tak[ing] possession of the samana” (22), overpowering him and making him bow and kneel at him, in an air of superiority that is completely egotistical, and brash. This superiority carries over to his time with the child people. With Kamala, he is unable to love her, since he still retains those values of renouncement, and only “the child people can; that is their secret” (64). The pair is clearly in a relationship, but this superiority to the child people that he never wants to join prevents him from being happy staying with her and his child.

Eventually, Siddhartha ends up in a town, where he meets the beautiful Kamala. After deciding that she would be his teacher of love and sex, Siddhartha is told that in order to be able to stay with her, and be able to love her, he must have “lovely clothes and shoes…lots of money in his pouch and gifts” (51). Essentially, Kamala forces Siddhartha to give up his former life of deprivation, though he doesn’t realize that he has, as he still thinks that he has the same disdain for property and wealth. This obsession with keeping up the semblance of rejecting greed, while giving himself over to a life of complete decadence, makes him extremely unhappy. When he gambles, he plays high stakes to show “the disdain of wealth” (71), while after every loss “he schemed to obtain new wealth…to keep on squandering” (71).  Siddhartha spends entire nights in the lap of luxury, dressing in beautiful clothes, drinking himself into a stupor, watching dancing girls, eating food in excess “play[ing] superior to his peers, [though] the superior man that he no longer was” (72) continuing this pretense that he doesn't indulge in the silly things that the child people indulge in, but rather indulges in order to show them how stupid they are in doing so. Whereas, what's really happening is he's allowing himself to become one and the same with the child people. The only place, ironically, where he still feels that former detachment from all material things is with Kamala. Even there though, he sees the two of them growing old, their senses were dimming, turning more and more into those “child people” that he refused to be like. This keeps going to the point where Siddhartha contemplates suicide so that he could rid himself of “the form he hated” (78). Siddhartha’s renouncement of his earlier ways of deprivation lead to unhappiness, and the only way he can fix it is by completely giving up that entire part of his life.

After living in the two extremes, total depravation and total indulgence with equal lack of success, Siddhartha is finally in a place to reflect on the true path he set out to seek. As he spends time with the ferryman, his reflection with the river and Vasudeva allow him to come to the conclusion that “never is a man or a deed all samsara or all Nirvana” (124) and man must “worship in the sinner, in you, in everyone” (125). This revelation is only possible because of that fact that his renouncement in the extremes has allowed him to experience multiple ways of living. It provides justification and a reason for the dissatisfaction and unhappiness he has felt with life. He comes to terms with what he has experienced, from his renouncement of material things and attempted rejection of indulgence, to the realization that no man is all one thing or another. This idea connected to Siddhartha's rejection of the teaching of others of, as “wisdom that a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish” (124) because words are an opinion and often one-sided, where as life isn’t, and teaching isn’t. Furthermore, he now knows the true meaning behind actions over words, as they can't be distorted. During his time in the village, his words and thoughts had him believing in his samana thinking, but his actions showed that he had rejected it. Since Siddhartha has found peace in the multiple aspects of himself, and when his friend Govinda kisses his forehead, he sees “the oneness over the…thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha’s was exactly the same” (131). Siddhartha found the truth within, while remaining the person that he was. The fact that Siddhartha must go through a spiritual journey for the entirety of his life to find this conclusion shows the long life of thinking that Buddhism requires. Life is a circle, so Buddhism requires its followers to live not in the moment, but look at the greater picture of life.