(1) Choose one inquiry, from inquiries 1 - 28 (pages 114 - 117). Indicate which inquiry you chose, and then briefly explain it in your own words:
A young boy gets an expensive gift from his parents and he gives it to his poor friend. (Page 115)
(2) Stakeholders:
Tom, the young boy, Tom’s parents, the boy who received the gift and the parents of the buy who received the gift.
(3) Are the details given sufficient? Why or why not?
I do not believe there is enough information; Tom made the assumption the child was poor and decided to give him his expensive toy. How did base the opinion the boy was poor?
(4) What additional questions does this inquiry raise?
Does tom give away a lot of things to other child? Does he only give things to child he feels is less fortunate than himself. Does he tell his parents that he is giving his toys away or his he hiding it and lying about where the toys are?
STEP TWO: THE RELEVANT CRITERIA
1. Obligations (aka "duties"):
Tom has an obligation to his parents to take care of the toys the give him.
His parents have a duty to raise their child to be kind to others.
Tom’s friends have an obligation to not take advantage of his kindness.
Tom’s friend who receives the toy has an obligation to take care of the toy
Tom has an obligation to his parents to tell them that he gave away the expensive toy.
2. Moral Ideals (aka "virtues"):
Tom displayed temperance by yielding his desire to own the toy and give it to his friend. (Page 108)
Tom displayed agape (loving kindness) and Compassion to his friend by valuing his friend’s desires as he felt sympathetic to these desires. (Page 108)
I believe Tom gets a bit of self gratitude for helping others. (Page 109)
Its hard to say but I believe Toms act displays beneficence even though he does get a bit of self gratitude from being kind and giving away his toy. (Page 110)
It is unclear whether Tom told his parents that he gave the toy away, but I would hope that Tom would display honesty and tell his parents (Page 109)
3. Consequences (aka "outcomes" or "results"): Optional this week
STEP THREE: POSSIBLE COURSES OF ACTION
Alternative #1:
Tom’s parents could find out that he gave his toy away and become upset. They may choose to punish tom by not purchasing anymore gifts for him. He will have to earn them through chores.
Alternative #2:
Tom’s friend may take the toy home and his parents may feel it is inappropriate and make him give the toy back.
Alternative #3:
Tom’s friend when Tom tells him that he may have the toy Tom’s friend may decline the offer hurting Tom’s feelings.
STEP FOUR: THE MOST ETHICAL ACTION
Examine the action taken or proposed and decide whether it achieves the greater good (the most widespread "respect for persons")...if it does not, choose one that will, from your alternatives. Where the choice of actions is such that no good can be achieved, choose the action that will result in the lesser evil.
In this situation Tom showed compassion (Page 108) for his friend by giving him his expensive toy. I believe the best course of action would be for Tom to ask his parents prior to giving the toy away. This would keep Tom from having to make an ethical decision about telling his parent s when they ask where the toy is. Honesty (Page109)
SELF EVALUATION
1. In your own words, describe something new that you learned from this week’s assigned reading material and guidance.
Every Christmas Eve I go to our church for service and we pick a piece of paper as we enter. The words that are one each piece is different, the words are the ones in our text and I now know what they mean. How cool…
2. In your own words, describe in detail some insight you gained, about the material, from one of your classmates' blogs this week.
I took a minute or two to view Ltrain’s- Ethics-blog, I liked the reference to the origin of honesty.
3. Did you post a thoroughly completed post to your blog on time this week?
This week has been crazy I missed work today with a migraine, but I did get my post completed thoroughly and on time.
4. Did you ALSO print this out, so you can bring it to class and earn total points?
I will print this out tomorrow and bring it to class.
5. Of 25 points total, my efforts this week deserve: Insert your JUSTIFIED answer here.
I should get a 23 on this, I asked the professor to publish the assignments early so I(we) could have more time to work on it. I totally underestimated the work load of 5 classes this semester. I pushed this assignment back but I did get the assignment posted on time.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Blog Assignment #9
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ASSIGNMENT PART ONE
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In this section, we're going to return for a moment to Chapter 7, to the section that discusses errors that are common in the analysis of moral issues (p. 89). Briefly explain each of the following errors in your own words, as if you were explaining the concept to a friend who had never taken this class (consider who, what, when, where, why, how, when); and then give an example of each one, preferably from your own past experience.
Unwarranted Assumptions: Are jumping to a conclusion without taking the time or putting forth the effort to fully understand a situation. This reminds me of when my old coworker, a female, and I would get lunch together. Most of the time one of us would go out and pick up the food and bring it back to our office occasionally we would go out of the office. I never thought much of this, but some of our coworkers had concluded that our actions were anything but an innocent lunch. They would make snide remarks behind our backs remarking that we should not flaunt and display our torrid affair so openly. I later learned that most of the comments originated from a woman who had been cheated on by her husband in a similar manner. So she felt that was impossible for the opposite sex to have interactions such as going out to lunch without it turning into a full on relationship or affair.
Oversimplification: Occurs when you attempt to condense the facts of a situation down to a snippet of information. Everyday I perform oversimplification, my wife asks me when I get home, “How was your day?” For the most part my response is “Fine”. My days are full of various projects and business dealings. So how is my response a simple “Fine”? I don’t see the need to go into every detail of my day and re-live it again. My answer is not a way of avoiding her, I would rather spend time with her a discuss things other than work.
Hasty Conclusions: Similar to unwarranted assumptions hasty conclusions occur when a conclusion is rushed or forced with out considering all the relevant facts. My wife asked my son what he would like for dinner. He replied “Grilled Chicken”. She prepared his meal for him and he sat down to eat. Our lives are a schedule black hole, we are always eating late. This night was no exception to that, my son began to eat his meal and he was complaining “It’s too hot”. I told him to wait a minute for it to cool down. He was tired and was ready to eat and get into the bed, so he kept on with “It’s too hot”. Well after a while and numerous revisits to the same old theme “It’s too hot” I felt the chicken to see for myself. The chicken was cold and he continued. I decided that it was time for him to go to bed. Mind you that he had only had one bite of his meal, but I figured he was just too tired and off to bed he went. He was crying as I put him into bed another indicator that he needed to be there. My wife had been upstairs geeing ready for bed while this was happening. I went and told her of the past few minutes and she asked me if I tasted the chicken. I had not I had no reason too, She indicated that she may have put too much pepper on the chicken. I went to the kitchen and sampled it, and my mouth was on fire. I immediately understood what my son was trying to tell me. Unfortunately he was so tired he could not articulate the point that it was not temperature that made his chicken hot it was the insane amount of seasonings that were the root cause of his discomfort. I proceeded to go to my sons side and apologize for what had happened and then I fixed him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Whoops.
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ASSIGNMENT PART TWO
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Briefly answer the following "chapter opening" questions, in your own words, based on what you learned by studying chapter eight:
1. What do we do in situations where there is more than a single obligation?
You need to weigh all of the obligations to determine the order of need. Once the order of need is determined you should fulfill the requirements for the highest obligation followed by each of the underlying obligations.
2. How can we reconcile conflicting obligations?
Whenever possible you should work to reconcile each of the obligations. In the time that is not possible you should fulfill the obligations that are most inline with the side you are on.
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ASSIGNMENT PART THREE
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1. In a nutshell, what is the most important thing, for you, that you learned from this assignment? I
t is extremely important to take the time to become aware of all factors contained within a situation before drawing a conclusion.
2. How will you apply what you learned through this assignment to your everyday life?
As a parent I am constantly learning and adjusting my techniques for how I work with my son. I want to be fair and understanding. The items discussed here will allow me to adjust so I will be able to shape a future for my son that will allow him to be a self sufficient man.
3. What grade do you believe your efforts regarding this assignment deserve?
I should receive maximum credit for this assignment since I believe I have fully met the requirements of the assignment.
ASSIGNMENT PART ONE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this section, we're going to return for a moment to Chapter 7, to the section that discusses errors that are common in the analysis of moral issues (p. 89). Briefly explain each of the following errors in your own words, as if you were explaining the concept to a friend who had never taken this class (consider who, what, when, where, why, how, when); and then give an example of each one, preferably from your own past experience.
Unwarranted Assumptions: Are jumping to a conclusion without taking the time or putting forth the effort to fully understand a situation. This reminds me of when my old coworker, a female, and I would get lunch together. Most of the time one of us would go out and pick up the food and bring it back to our office occasionally we would go out of the office. I never thought much of this, but some of our coworkers had concluded that our actions were anything but an innocent lunch. They would make snide remarks behind our backs remarking that we should not flaunt and display our torrid affair so openly. I later learned that most of the comments originated from a woman who had been cheated on by her husband in a similar manner. So she felt that was impossible for the opposite sex to have interactions such as going out to lunch without it turning into a full on relationship or affair.
Oversimplification: Occurs when you attempt to condense the facts of a situation down to a snippet of information. Everyday I perform oversimplification, my wife asks me when I get home, “How was your day?” For the most part my response is “Fine”. My days are full of various projects and business dealings. So how is my response a simple “Fine”? I don’t see the need to go into every detail of my day and re-live it again. My answer is not a way of avoiding her, I would rather spend time with her a discuss things other than work.
Hasty Conclusions: Similar to unwarranted assumptions hasty conclusions occur when a conclusion is rushed or forced with out considering all the relevant facts. My wife asked my son what he would like for dinner. He replied “Grilled Chicken”. She prepared his meal for him and he sat down to eat. Our lives are a schedule black hole, we are always eating late. This night was no exception to that, my son began to eat his meal and he was complaining “It’s too hot”. I told him to wait a minute for it to cool down. He was tired and was ready to eat and get into the bed, so he kept on with “It’s too hot”. Well after a while and numerous revisits to the same old theme “It’s too hot” I felt the chicken to see for myself. The chicken was cold and he continued. I decided that it was time for him to go to bed. Mind you that he had only had one bite of his meal, but I figured he was just too tired and off to bed he went. He was crying as I put him into bed another indicator that he needed to be there. My wife had been upstairs geeing ready for bed while this was happening. I went and told her of the past few minutes and she asked me if I tasted the chicken. I had not I had no reason too, She indicated that she may have put too much pepper on the chicken. I went to the kitchen and sampled it, and my mouth was on fire. I immediately understood what my son was trying to tell me. Unfortunately he was so tired he could not articulate the point that it was not temperature that made his chicken hot it was the insane amount of seasonings that were the root cause of his discomfort. I proceeded to go to my sons side and apologize for what had happened and then I fixed him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Whoops.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASSIGNMENT PART TWO
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Briefly answer the following "chapter opening" questions, in your own words, based on what you learned by studying chapter eight:
1. What do we do in situations where there is more than a single obligation?
You need to weigh all of the obligations to determine the order of need. Once the order of need is determined you should fulfill the requirements for the highest obligation followed by each of the underlying obligations.
2. How can we reconcile conflicting obligations?
Whenever possible you should work to reconcile each of the obligations. In the time that is not possible you should fulfill the obligations that are most inline with the side you are on.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASSIGNMENT PART THREE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. In a nutshell, what is the most important thing, for you, that you learned from this assignment? I
t is extremely important to take the time to become aware of all factors contained within a situation before drawing a conclusion.
2. How will you apply what you learned through this assignment to your everyday life?
As a parent I am constantly learning and adjusting my techniques for how I work with my son. I want to be fair and understanding. The items discussed here will allow me to adjust so I will be able to shape a future for my son that will allow him to be a self sufficient man.
3. What grade do you believe your efforts regarding this assignment deserve?
I should receive maximum credit for this assignment since I believe I have fully met the requirements of the assignment.
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