Competition is ethical

Competition

Competition is ethical. Winner will be rewarded, this is always the same but sometimes it can drive competitors to unethical behaviour. Nowadays, competition is everywhere. However, there are two different ways to explain competition. One definition of competition is that how well an athlete can show of himself and become the one of the best. Another definition is that how hard an athlete have been work to compete with other athletes and become the best. The two definition give you a really different view. Some people say that “it's not the winning but the taking part that counts”. Behind winning the medal there are always a lot of touching stories and lots of hard work. Trying and failing is more admirable than even not trying at all.

To me competition is good. Competition against someone else can make you push yourselves to another level and make improvement because we all long for reward and recognize. Competition is a time when we can show off ourselves and also the time to show what we’ve down all over the time. I think people’s mentality during the competition have to me really positive. And mentally they have to be really strong because many things can beat them, such us the use of drug. Celebrating achieving is acceptable but a lot of time athletes forget what they should do and winning became their stumbling block of going forward and lead them to failure. Through competition, people will also learn a lesson of always have positive attitude, be strong, and control themselves from all the temptations that are harmful to them. Competition is just one of the steps that we have to go through to be able to succeed.

Infinity Can Not Be Defined By One

     Abortion is one of the most controversial topics in the modern world. Whether your beliefs are rooted in religion or shaped by your environment, you have created some form of an opinion on when life begins. The debate about the rights of an unborn child has pitted political parties and even family members against each other.
     The most common view of the pro-life community states that abortion should be illegal because it ignores the human rights of a living organism. This political group advocates for the fetus' life because they believe that every person possesses potential to improve the world. Some members of this group question why women pursuing an abortion do not consider options such as adoption in order to preserve the child's life while having "little effect" on the mother. The answer to their question is that though the preservation of a life would be optimal, very few scenarios pertaining to abortion are considered cookie-cutter.
    So many circumstances exist in which a woman would consider an abortion. Some include pregnancy by rape, incest, or simply monetary resources. The post traumatic stress the rape victim is feeling would be amplified by the constant reminder in her womb. Because it is a natural instinct to escape pain, abortion is an understandable action to take. Other women pursue an abortion because the pregnancy is a health risk to the mother or in some special circumstances, the mother and father do not know that sex can produce a child due to mental disorders and diseases. Unfortunately, adoption is not applicable to each of these circumstances. For example, if a mother gave birth to a child that put her health at risk, she could die while the child would live. An adoption might provide the child with a better chance at life, but the mother loses her future in the process. These life decisions are not made lightly.
     Overall, my position on abortion is skewed because of my adoption. I realize that my birth mother could have easily had an abortion which would result in my nonexistence. The thought of this is quite disconcerting and yet, I still believe that people have a right to choose whether or not they will undergo the procedure. It is their body, and I do not think that the infinite scenarios can be defined by one law. What is ethical is circumstantial, and it is not easy to apply a single ethical view point on an infinite amount of possibilities. 

What Designer Babies Indicate

"Designer Babies" is a term refer to genetic engineering of the embryo. At its current state, embryo undergoes the process of genetic screening for gender and flawed genes that lead to birth defects and chronic diseases, and then decisions are made whether the embryo should be planted into the womb or discarded.
While there have been debates over this technology, there are no laws applied directly to regulation of designer babies. I believe that while in some ethical issues, such as war and trophy hunting,the result can partially justify the mean, a genetically modified baby is definitely not ethical. The emergence of such technology is the reflection of one of the seven sins of human: greed. Although it is claimed that the technology is meant to eliminate genetical diseases, it is inevitable to evolve toward the stage of actually designing specific features - appearance, physical strength, and intelligence. Not to mention the mutation occurs potentially during the process, there are two serious ethical consequence to this issue. On one hand, parents' expectation for offspring becomes tangible. The young generation is already more or less living under the pressure of expectation, and the advancement of GM embryos will only bring the pressure to an upper level - altering children as a whole before they possess consciousness. On the other hand, this technology will profoundly widen the gap between the rich and the poor, for it is money and time consuming. Only the upper class will have the "privilege" to designer their babies while ordinary citizens cannot afford such operation. This reminds me of the movie "Gattaca", which depicts a fictional society where people are socially classified by genes - genetically modified people have the access to professional employments while traditionally born humans can only work menial labor.

Truth explained through one perspective

Truth is an absolute. When something is true, it is understood to be the way it is. Reality. Truth is the product of logic. Our constitution is based on “truths” we hold to be “self-evident”. Our system of government is reinforced by the rule of law. The law is founded on logic and truth. Truth is also similar to mathematics because it depends on logic. In other words, truth is what really is. Truth is not subjective but is actual reality. Many people believe they know or experience truth but actually only experience their own reality. The human brain is responsible for creating a reality for it’s host. Reality without the human brain is probably very different from what most people consider their reality. Human reality and truth are dependent on the brain to put matter and change into terms our senses can experience. Absolute truth and human reality are two different things. Human reality is dependent on so many variables that no two human realities are exactly the same. If truth is an absolute, then each of our different realities can only be a part of it. Truth must either be impossible or incomprehensible to the human mind. God therefore, is like truth. Both truth and god can be everything at once. Truth is also not temporal. We do not always love someone, and we don't always hate the same someone. One day yes, the next day no. Which is true. Only both. Truth is not reality, though they are often confused for one another. When people say “Speak your truth” they mean tell us what you see from your perspective. Personal truth, again, may be the complete or just a part of the absolute truth. Truth is stranger than fiction. We all know and have come to realize that our imaginations can not always out do reality. Sometimes the unimaginable happens: miracles. Truth or Dare, this exciting game helps to describe the value of truth and the difficulty of sharing it. Truth is something thought of as the opposite of secrecy or shame. “Truth be told”, this is a saying that implies a personal, intimate, relationship between truth and the teller. A sort of challenge that say “I know”. Historical truth is truth that has stood the test of time or that has been discovered after a period of time to be true. Although truth depends on logic and mathematics, it also can depend on creativity, imagination and courage. Because people see truth so differently, truth can be strengthened or discovered or renewed.

The Size of Truth

Savanna Christy

Philosophy

Mr. Levasseur

10.5.15

What is truth?

*image attached

In small instances, truth is simple to comprehend. Take for example the equation 2+2=4. This is a small and easily comprehendible truth. Inversely, larger truths are much more difficult to understand. These truths take time to discover for ourselves, such as our social, religious, and political beliefs. Rabindranath Tagore sums this up nicely saying, “[t]he water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.”

In class we discussed the truth of our sense perception, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, reason and rationality. Watching the TED talk exploring optical illusions and light, the truth of what we see and the reliability of our senses. This showed us our confirmation biases and that the perceptions we hold cause us to view certain situations incorrectly. For example, there is a common optical illusion of seemingly differently colored rubik’s cube tiles*. When shadows and the rest of the cube is removed, the truth is revealed that the tiles are indeed the same color. When the image is restored, the illusion once again takes hold, and the tiles look different again. This shows us that truth takes time to reveal and is hard to perceive even after it has been revealed to us. As we dove into the Allegory of the Cave, we analyzed one man’s journey from ignorance to knowledge, and a shift of his truth. In this we see that truth is reality, but what we perceive as reality. This knowledge that truth is always shifting and is relative again reflects the great silence that Rabindranath Tagore spoke of. Because so much of our truth is relative, we dove into the ideas of reason and rationality. As we explored our definitions of these two concepts, I again fell to silence. My lack of understanding and the subjectivity of these subjects really made me question what truth was. I haven’t found an answer besides an increased questioning and realization of the subjectivity of my truth.

Truth versus opinion

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth" (Aurelius).
The truth is something that has been carefully examined and thought about until all possibility of it not being true has been ruled out. It has been looked at from many different angles and researched in a non bias way by many. You cannot find truth in one person's opinion. The things we hear simply by word of mouth are opinions, not facts. Based on people's life experiences they will view the world through a slightly different lens. As we see in the Ted Talk the lens we view something through changes the way we view it. It is the same with life and a person's background. Our past experiences cause us to see things through a filter, which we do unconsciously. Therefor no one person will see the whole truth, that's why it is necessary to look at a situation from many points of views to find the truth.
Our brains evolved not to see the world as it is, but as it is useful to see it.When we saw the picture of the forest and the panther in black and white versus color we see that our eyes have evolved to see in color, not in black and white, or in modified color as many animals see things. We have evolved to see a full spectrum of color to protect ourselves from predators. However this does not mean we are seeing the world how it really is. We are seeing it how we have evolved to see it so that our sight is useful to us and our survival.
We see, in the article we read about statistics and beliefs, that not everyone will agree on what is proven to be true. Everyone will have their own point of view. But if we look at everyone's views and research them all in a non bias way then we find the truth, the view that has no possibility of not being true and having rules out all other views as false.
If we base truth off of one person's observations or beliefs we are only seeing their truth. Our experiences shape the way we view the world. Seeing and believing one person's perspective to be truth is seeing the world through a bias and single minded view. If we look at everyone's perspective as a whole and study it to rule out possibilities of falsehood then we find the truth closest to what humans believe and can interpret.

The difference between human beings and animals

     The difference between human beings and animals is that what animals can follow are universal truths; one the contrary, humans choose their own truth as individuals. The meaning of animals’ existence is to reproduce offspring and to keep the food chain running. During the season of malting, the nature that animals are born with makes them do the copulation again and again without pleasure. Some animals even have to kill and eat their mates while copulation. The truth for them is to reproduce like a machine and increase the possibility of birth as many as possible. It is totally different from that of human beings. In a certain meaning we have the ability to choose the way to live. When you take a look around, you see people discussing the topic they interested in, falling in love with the ones who attract them. Just like being in a supermarket, we pick the items that we love from the shelf and place them into the cart. Every item is one simple truth; when it is selected by us, it also becomes a part of us, in which the item (or truth) forms a single ideology.

Truth can be changed at anytime, and this is the reason why each human being differed from others. People in different spirit have been clearly revealed for what they are in the society. No one will ever find two human beings alike in spirit just like no one has ever discovered two identical leaves. The variation of human bases on the experience they had and the truths they believe. Among them, the truth one believes impacted by what the one has experienced. For example, while you are reading my statement, it becomes a part of your thought, no matter you agree with me or not. For animals, everything is functioned for them, including truth. The thing is, what matters to animals is the maintenance that could keep them alive, especially the animals as primary consumers in the food chain. Therefore, the instincts to keep animals alive are the constant truths for them.

There is no absolute truth for everyone, which is why people should not force their views on others. I love peanuts, but this does not mean my friend wants to try some peanuts with me, especially if she is allergic to peanuts. One particular truth is not suitable for all the people. In short, we as human beings have the right to choose the right truth for ourselves, no matter how weird it is for others.