Surveillance

Central argument: When one has a purpose of doing something just to show other people that he/she is morally upright does not make one morally better because the true desire is morally wrong.

Emrys Westacott, the author of the article, Does Surveillance Make Us Morally Better?, suggests that moral is something related to the way the person thinks not what the person does; doing something in front of other people with the fear of consequences does not make someone morally upright.  Surveillance helps people make the right choice, but does not help people to be morally upright; people have to keep their outlawed thoughts to themselves when there are consequences because there are rules enforced by the government and discouraging nasty things to happen.  I agree with Westacott because she says, in a way, that following the rules is basically putting on a mask to hide the true thoughts and desires which are morally incorrect.

When I was a young boy, I used to get into a lot of trouble, stealing cookies from the kitchen, stealing money from my elder brother and have little arguments with my sister. I used to get a real beating from my parents and sometimes, bullied by my siblings as I am the youngest. Every time this happens, I used to think of the amount of things I could do to them. The knife on the table, my father’s gun or even my sister’s scissors. It occurred to me how my life would be if they had just disappeared from it. The thing is you can never really do the things you think of, because of the fact that you know the amount of guilt you are feeling or the morality of your thoughts if you did the things you think.

Say for example, you are in an exam hall and you haven’t studied for your previous test. You see the teacher leaving the room because he/ she had a bad stomach ache. You imagine yourself stand up and look at your friend’s paper. You leave the exam-hall without getting caught. You would naturally have the bad feeling, a guilty feeling, which haunts you for the rest of the week as you know it is not the right thing to do. The fact that you know that cheating is not a right thing to do, which allow you to not cheat during an exam is a moral statement of the human mind.

Similarly, if a teacher allows trusts you and allows you to grade your class’s paper and you know the teacher is stupid enough not to check your classmates grades, you have this epiphany of trying to change your friends grades as you check it yourself so he/she wouldn’t fail. You would naturally not do it due to the fear of getting caught or the amount of guilt you feel when you finish cheating for a friend.

                Therefore, if you cheat, steal, or act inappropriately, you have this state of mind that you are wrong, in other words, you are feeling guilty of your actions. Thus you are morally upright. On the other hand, if you don’t cheat, don’t steal, or don’t act inappropriately, but you had the chance to do so, you wouldn’t have done it because you feel that it is morally wrong. Thus you are not morally upright.

What Does It Mean To Be Cool?

Central Argument: To be cool is to have self-control during the hard times and able to make an unusual decision to be the right decision.

                Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, the author of What Does It Mean To Be Cool? suggests that coolness is “a paradoxical fusion of submission and subversion” where one is able to react accordingly to the situations to avoid or achieve some kind of reputation of oneself, but, usually, the cool ones are the people who are by themselves because they have different perspectives from the uncool ones which are the majority. It is not easy to achieve coolness along with a good reputation with others because then one need to be able to gain full control; one cannot let the emotion to overwhelm during tough situations.

                Coolness can help people to live longer. If the slaves who were taken out of their home from Africa, transported all the way to the United States, with weeks of being on a ship where there is no space to even stand fully, were not cool, then they would not have been able to survive all the hardships that they faced before they actually were auctioned. They also faced hardships even after the auction, up until the abolition of slavery. It is hard to keep coolness when such hard situation happens, but the slaves were cool as they are able to rebel their master in a different way that is not physical. The cool slaves were not punished because there was no evidence of them hurting their masters mentally.

                There are two types of people, the cool ones, and the not cool ones. In my old school, there consisted of more than eighty percent nerds whereas fifteen are the moderate and the rest does not care at all. The nerds obviously get high grades because they study, the moderate ones get about B to C the ones who don’t care are different. Some fails, but most gets high grade because they are just brainy. Teachers doubted the ability of these people and accused the students of being guilty of cheating. The defendants were called into the office to talk about the issues. The teachers basically got owned at the end because the questions raised to check the ability of the students were answered perfectly correctly. These people were considered the cool ones, but they were not accepted by most of others just because others like nerds are jealous that the cool ones do not have to study.

                To be cool does not mean positive reputation, but to be able to gain control over the situation and to offense the opponent in a way that the opponent is not able to do anything back but get annoyed and go away, or ignore.

Of Studies

Central Argument: Studying makes one feel good, make one look good and make one gain knowledge

Studying, just as Francis Bacon said in his Essay Of Studies, has many uses. Many of these so called uses are for delight, ornament, and for ability. Various people are enthused with the prospect of studying, as it can make one feel good for in studying lies the potency to make oneself feel empowered with knowledge, make other people value ones existence as people whom have received a higher education are constantly rewarded with accolades of praise, and actually gain the knowledge of the world and all the greatness one can achieve with the ownership of such of knowledge.

                The strong feeling of accomplishment after learning something from studying is something big. It creates the feeling of triumph. Studying new things may not be easy and takes a lot of effort so when it is done, the feeling of relief also appears at the same time as the feeling of triumph. The self-esteem of the person will also increase because the person has the ability to brag about the knowledge gained. People also notice if the person is being humble or a showoff.

            Empowerment of the person can be seen by other people around as that will change the way people think about that person who studied and gained knowledge. If the person with knowledge is humble, people notice and look up at the person as an example.

Finally and most important, studying actually gives knowledge to one, not only make one feel good or make other people praise one. Knowledge from studying benefits one in many ways. It could be used in everyday life.

Studying helps make one feel good, look good and gain knowledge just like Francis Bacon said in his essay.

Of Atheism

Central argument: Francis Bacon believes that religion is a necessity which provides us with moral and leading us to the correct path.

                There are many different beliefs in the world and all of them are similar and different from each other. The teachings of many religions are about how to live in everyday life; some religions set limit to what the believer is allowed to do, giving reasons that require only believing. Those questionable rules make the religion unbelievable in which making the believer seems as a spiritually weak person. The religion itself should be able to answer all the doubts about the unbelievable rule, the origin of the religion otherwise the religion is misleading people or limiting the rights of freedom of the people and violates the idea of individualism. Francis Bacon explained that religion is a necessity which provides us with moral and leading us to the correct path in Of Atheism; however, believing in religion should not be something necessary as people have the rights to think for themselves; the rule of religion maybe a necessity which believers must follow and therefore misleading the believers.

                In the history of mankind, religion is one of the biggest sparks of war because people have different beliefs in which are questionable and non-provable so therefore causing conflicts between nations. The stronger side will put down the other side and use its authority to mislead people, blind people so it stays in power. People are not allowed to question or they are given consequences. It is better for one to believe in himself or herself because therefore there is no limit or consequences or misleading information from the authority.

                The religions may violate the rights of people to do something as their rules do not let their believers to eat certain kinds of food, have sexual intercourse before marriage, etc. The rules may benefit the believers in some ways, but people have their own brains to think if what they are doing is right or not according to the laws of the countries in which have clear explanations and mostly reasonable; the rules maybe something that people may look up at and see what fits in their life-style, but they should not be necessity as that would violates human rights.

                Believing in a religion does not necessary help out someone living in everyday life, it may, but some religions violate the rights of the believer and mislead the believer to believe in something unrealistic. People have full rights to think for themselves as long as it does not violate the rights of anyone else.

Abortion

link: Rick Santorum, Meet My Son

Central Argument: Mothers should be allowed to make their own choices, to choose to terminate their pregnancy, if necessary.

                Most countries in the world are democratic republic in which people make their own choices. However, the choices that are made should not violate anyone’s rights so there are laws implemented and enforced in most countries. The right to terminate pregnancy is, however, something different. An abortion means killing someone who has not been born, but, maybe, saving that someone from suffering from diseases and disabilities.  Emily Rapp, a mother who raises a child with disabilities suggests that abortion is not a bad thing since it saves someone from suffering, even though terminating a pregnancy may seem like a ruthless thing to do. The issue of allowing abortion and not having negative impression on the mother who chooses her choice to terminate her pregnancy is an ethical issue where it is up to the people to decide whether it is right or not because the issue can be looked at from many different point of views.

                People in countries that are democratic should be able to make their own choices, but the problem with abortion deals with not just one person, but the mother and the child.  As the baby is not able to make its choice, the mother is the one that has all the rights to make the choices for herself and the baby. However, before the mother chooses to terminate her pregnancy, she should have an appropriate reason for doing such a terrible thing. If her child is going to be born with disabilities that does not let the child live long as in Rapp’s case, the mother should consider the choice. The baby is going to suffer from disabilities and diseases that are not curable so why not save it from suffering?

                If people could choose to be born, they would obviously choose to be born with no flaw. No one ever deserves to suffer from disabilities, but no one really deserves to die just because they are not normal either. Rapp loves her son and wants her son to get the best that he could get, but he is suffering from a genetic disease that will kill him very soon so Rapp suggests that she would have saved her son from suffering if she terminated her pregnancy. Just because her son is born with disability, he does not deserve to die, but he deserves love from his parents and deserves to live as long as he could on this world. Abortion is, basically, killing someone and killing someone is a crime against humanity; it violates the rights of the baby even though the baby does not know a thing.

                The choices should be made by the mother, and should not be restricted by the government like how Rick Santorum prosecutes abortion doctors as criminals. Doctors are doing their jobs according to choices that are made by the pregnant mothers. The child abortion act is, however, still a problem which there is no solution to.