Assignment

Assignment #4 Live Session Module 4- Everyone

In this response, you are going to be asked to try and explore what a good person is. Many of us assume that we know, when in reality, upon further inspection we realize we don’t know about what makes a person a good person. We are going to do a necessary and sufficient conditions analysis to see if we can find a quality that all good people have.

Remember that a necessary condition is a condition that we set, that must be met, for an object or idea to be considered a part of a category. So we could say that if someone is to be considered a good person, they must be loyal. We are saying that goodness has the necessary condition of loyalty.

Remember that sufficient condition says that if you have a quality, then you are considered part of a category just because of you meeting that condition. So we could say that if you are honest, then you are a good person. We are saying that honesty is enough to consider someone a good person.

For this exercise we want to test out necessary and sufficient conditions to see if they are true conditions for considering a person a good person. We do this by asking two questions. First we ask if there is a good person who is not the quality. Then we ask if there is a bad person who does have the quality. If you are able to come up with an example for each of those questions, then you have proven that the quality is neither necessary nor sufficient for considering someone to be a good person.

We’ll use Loyalty as an example-

1N. The people who tried to betray Hitler and kill him when they found out about the death camps are generally considered good people, even though they were disloyal to Hitler.

1S. The people who were very loyal to Hitler and aided in the industrialized mass murder of 9 million people are generally considered bad people, even though they were loyal to Hitler.

Here we’ve created two examples, each disproving the condition we were testing out for our analysis. I want you to do the same process with each of the twenty words below. Provide an example that disproves the necessary and sufficient conditions we’re trying out. What we will find is that none of the terms below are necessary or sufficient for being considered a good person.

1. Humble 2. Strong 3. Helpful 4. Selfless

2. Sympathetic 6. Empathetic 7. Caring 8. Punctual

3. Polite 10. Confident 11. Intelligent 12. Well-Spoken

4. Educated 14. Diligent 15. Honest 16. Beautiful

5. Fit 18. Courageous 19. Respectful 20. Aware

You should have 40 different examples now that show how each of the above words isn’t enough or necessary to consider someone a good person. We have performed a subjective observation and analysis and used necessary and sufficient conditions to recognize that the terms we provided are not good enough conditions to understand what it means to be good.

Hopefully this analysis has helped make clear how little we know sometimes about things we feel like we’ve always known. Now we will perform an objective observation. Please think of 5 people you think are good people and list them here. Also put 5 qualities that each person has that you think makes them good.

21.Example- quality 1, quality 2, quality 3, quality 4, quality 5.

22.

23.

24.

25.

Now look at each of those people’s lists of qualities and look for similarities and differences. Please explain in question 26, what patterns you noticed, what qualities appeared multiple times, and what you can conclude from this objective observation. Also compare what you learned in the previous subjective analysis to the objective and tell me what you’ve learned. (150 words)

Finally, Please spend 100 words describing which approach you prefer and why. Do you think it’s better to imagine what a good person is and then look to see if people can meet that standard? Or is it better to look at people we think are good, and try to be like them? What are you going to do moving forward to try and be the person that you’ve defined as good here today? (100 words)

Assignment #5 Content Response Module 4

Please answer the problems below. I would suggest answering them in a word document and copying and pasting those answers into the text box at the bottom of the page. Good Luck.

1.We learned about objective and subjective terms. This is where we create a definition of an object based on our ideas and also on objects themselves. For question one, I would like you to describe what a horse is like in a hundred words. Do not look up online or anywhere else for what a horse is. Just use your words and thoughts. (100 words)

2.Now I want you to google horse and write down 10 qualities for each of the first three pictures that appear in google. I then want you to take those 10 qualities and figure out which are similar and the same to the definition for horse on webster’s. You should be able to write all of this down in a hundred words. (100 words)

3.Now, we’ve performed subjective (our ideas on what a horse is) and objective (what the pictures of horses show them to be) observations on horses to try and create the definition of a term. Please describe the differences between what you thought of as a horse, and what the pictures showed you from their similarities. Try and explain what you think would happen if we didn’t use something so concrete, but rather an idea like happiness or goodness. Please explain the relationship between objective and subjective methods. (100 words)

4.Universalism is the idea that the same rules and ideas apply to everyone throughout time and cultures. The idea is that right and wrong are always the same, despite context and situation. Please use a universal approach to describe George Washington. Do you think that George Washington, if judged by these universal standards, could be considered a good person? Why or why not? (100 words)

5.Relativism is the idea that we are products of our environment and the culture we grow up in. If we spent our entire lives being taught that certain practices are ok, it can be really difficult to analyze whether or not we’re doing something wrong. The idea here is that humans decide what right and wrong is collectively in societies and we have to learn as we go and improve our morals. Please use a relativist approach to describe George Washington. Do you think George Washington, if judged by relativist standards, could be considered a good person? Why or why not? (100 words)

6.For our final question, I want to know whether you feel you lean more toward a universalist or relativist position. (50 words) After answering that, please explain what you think your moral obligation is moving forward and how you want to achieve it. Remember that for universalists, your job is to search out and find truth and follow it. For relativists, your job is to define what you think it means to be a good person and work hard to be that in everything you do. Explain what you plan on doing to fulfill these moral obligations. (100 words. 150 words total for question 6.)

Assignment #6 Module 4 Quiz

Please answer all of the questions below in the text box further down. I would suggest answering in a word document and then copying and pasting your answers into the text box below. Good luck.

1.What is the word for a condition we set on a term that says it is enough to be considered in the category if you meet this condition? An example would be saying that you are a good person because you’re honest.

2.What is the word for a condition we set on a term that says you must meet this condition in order to be considered in the category? An example would be saying that you have to be honest to be considered a good person.

3.What type of term do you create when you write down the qualities of an object and use those qualities to define it?

4.What type of term do you create when you write down the qualities you think a term should have and then go out to see if objects match it?

5.What type of observation do you make when you come up with an idea of what something is and see how it works in the world around you?

6.What type of observation do you make when you see how things work in the world around you and use that to come up with ideas?

7.Which school of philosophy believes that all truth is only arrived at through conscious, biased, and problematic human interpretation and is subject to deriving it’s meaning inside of a context or situation? Universalism or Relativism?

8.Which school of philosophy believes that there are truths that are true in all cases, contexts, and situations? Universalism or Relativism?

9.I say that someone has to be loyal in order to be a good person. Provide an example of a person that proves that loyalty is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for either. You should be able to provide me with an example of someone who is good, but not loyal and someone who is loyal, but not good. Make sure to label which example is which conditional counter.

10.When we learn about universalism and relativism, objective and subjective, and necessary and sufficient conditions, we get to see that it is difficult to know the exact meaning of words like good and evil and right and wrong. This doesn’t mean that those things don’t exist, but rather that it takes a lot of work and thinking to understand those terms that we’ve always thought we knew. This pushes us to question whether or not right and wrong is the same for everyone in every time, or if it is relative to context and culture. When it is right and wrong for all time, that means everyone everywhere is judged on the same metric. When it is sensitive to context and culture, it means that we know right and wrong are more personal ideas, rather than rules for everyone. With this, it becomes clear that as universalists we have to continue to search for the truth that we don’t yet understand, or we let the world become corrupt. As relativists, we have to find our truth and make sure we work hard every day to follow those values we think are important. My question for you is which do you think is right, universalism or relativism, and how do you plan to pursue goodness in your life moving forward? (100 words)