Devon Blaisdell

Philosophy group paper

12/11/14
1. I dont believe that we have an ethical duty for what we do with our money. It is our
money that we worked hard to get and we should do whatever we want with it. As long
as its not effecting other people. Also, the people living on welfare and such, they
should have an obligation to use that money for their families and to better themselves.
If you arent working for your money and the government is helping you, you shouldnt
be using that money to go out and buy a car when you need food. Welfare became a
good discussion in our group and we agreed that a lot of people just use welfare for
their own personal gain and so they dont have to work. This is wrong thing to do by the
people that do it. I think we should help others pay for their basic needs but we should
not be obligated. My other group members and I, agree on this question. One person in
my group said, what I do with my money is my own business. I completely agree with
this because I worked hard for that money and I can do what I want with it.
2. No, being a vegetarian is a choice that we have and there is no ethical reason to be
obligated to be a vegetarian. Eating meat is part of human nature and it is something we
have done to be dominate over other species so we dont become last on the food
chain. In our group we talked about the food chain and how human are on the top of
the food chain. From the food chain we went into religion talk about gods plan and
about a vegetarian. One of the members of our group talked about how it is gods plan
for us to not be vegetarians because god wanted us to eat plants and meat. Thats why

we have animals on this earth. For me, Im not very religious and I dont think animals
were here just to be our food. I think every species has a purpose and every species is
adapting to move up on the food chain.
3. This one is really hard. I think truth is something that we may never find or we wont
even know when we find it. I think a lot of truth comes from people in charge like what
the stoics taught. But I do believe there is more of an order then what they preach but it
is something we will never find or it will take an extremely long time to find. I think we
have to use facts, logic, and reasoning to become as close to the truth as possible. In our
group we kind of agreed on that ultimate truth is something that you cannot find. In our
discussion reasoning and logic came up a lot, but no one really got define logic without
having truth in the definition. One of my group members said that truth is the right
choice and used the quote, truth will set you free. It was hard to agree with this
because I dont think we can truly ever find truth. You can never know if someone is
truly telling the truth unless you were physically there and witnessed it. In our minds we
can have a good idea if someone is telling the truth through our reasoning and our life
experience and our knowledge of the person.
4. I think good and bad behavior comes from our cultures. I think as humans and having
emotions and feelings there is certain actions that make us feel guilty and are just
morally bad, like killing people, rape, robbing. One person said in our meeting that good
and bad behavior is a commonsense thing, I really liked that idea of behavior. At the
same time I had a hard time making that the definition for good and bad behavior.
Because we learn a lot of our commonsense through life experience and what we learn

in our cultures. There is always times when these things like robbing and murder
become ok, like if youre a soldier in a war killing someone isnt the same as going out
and killing innocent people, thats what our cultures teach us and they also teach us
more bad things like lying or hating but those can differ from different cultures. I dont
believe that the consequences make it good or bad. If you rob someone and get away
with it, that consequence may be good. I think in every situation you have to look at the
motive and the action to see whether it was a good or bad decision.
5. I think we have to look at each situation and each person differently, but I think
ultimately the action is more important than the motive, because the action is what
matters most because that can cause the most pain or the most pleasure. Our group all
agreed that the action is what matters most. One of my group members said, Its the
action that makes the reason. I really like his idea. It makes a lot of sense to this
question. The other person in my group said something like, if someone just has the
reason or motive but doesnt have the action it is not really helping anyone out, but by
doing the action you are actually helping people out.
6. My opinion for this question is very similar to number 5, the action is what matters
most. There is some exceptions to where the motive is more important. Like in war,
killing another human being is wrong but in war it is a group of people trying to kill you
and your people so you have to do what you have to do. Or stealing food so your
starving children can eat. I think in these situations if you are doing something selfless
and doing something greatly rewarding to a group of people then it becomes more ok.
In our group discussion, we all agreed that their always variables to the rule and that

sometimes bad actions can be just. Like one member of my group said, if your bad
actions have a good intention start with someone elses bad actions and bad motivation,
then usually there is a just cause for the action. A common example of this is killing in
self-defense. If someone attacks you because they want to hurt and kill someone, and
you kill them to protect yourself, that action is justified because you didnt start the
intentionally trying to kill someone, but because of someone elses bad motivation and
bad actions put you in that situation.
7. Living the good life all depends on each individual person. Every person has different
wants and needs and different goals to complete. For me I want to help other people
and make other people around me, better than they were before meeting me. In our
group we all agreed that a good life comes down to the individual person. Some people
want to be extremely rich, some want to have a good family life and some just want to
be around good people. One of my group members said that hard people are hard to
come by these days. I can understand where she was going with this. For me, from
personal experience, it is all kind of a mindset. If you want high expectations for people,
they are going to let you down more times than not. If you have low expectations or you
try to be more understanding of other people it is easier to find those good people and
have them around a lot longer.
8. Everyone see a superior person differently. For me the superior person is someone who
is brave and never quits or backs down, stands up for other people and is willing to do
whatever to help other people. But you can also be a superior person in a different way
so it changes from person to person and our perceptions. In our group, there was a lot

of different values that were used in defining a superior person. Another person in my
group and I agreed that it was different from person to person. The other person in our
group was almost 50/50 on that idea. He gave a lot of good values though that he
thought all superior people need to have. The first one was wisdom, he said that all
superior people need to be wise. He also stated that they need to have integrity. I agree
with him personally, that a superior person, but I think there is other values that needed
to be a superior person.
9. I think this changes with each individual person perceptions. Finding happiness is like
finding the good life, its something we all want. For me I think having a mentality and
looking at everything and making the best of it helps lead to happiness. I really liked
what one member in my group said, he said that, happiness is a long term feeling. I
totally agree with this because you can do drugs or drink and be happy for a short
amount of time but in the end you arent going to be as happy if you didnt do those
things. In our meeting we agreed that a lot of being happy has to do with the good life.
10. This has to do with a lot of what number 9 asks. Again I think it differs from each and
every person and a lot of it has to do with the good life on number 7. For me I think
helping others is very important and it helps me be a morally good person and it makes
me happy. In our group discussion, my other two members talked about service always
gives you happiness. I think that it does help make you happy but it isnt the key for
being happy to every person. For me personally, service does help me feel good about
myself and helps me feel happy. But I just dont believe that is the same for everyone.

Devon Blaisdell
Philosopher Paper
12/11/14
The two philosophers I choose, were Aquinas and Kierkegaard. I wanted to pick
Aquinas because I grew up a catholic and going to catholic school in elementary and
junior high. We learned a lot about Aquinas and his life. He had such a big role for the
Catholic Church that he is recognized as a saint. I wanted to do Kierkegaard because in
class when we discussed him there was a lot of controversy and a lot of different
arguments that came up when we studied him.
Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 in Roccasecca, Italy. He was the youngest of 8
sibling and they were considered lower nobility because the Thomas family were
descendants of Frederick the first and Henry the sixth. When Aquinas was 5 years old he
went and trained with the Benedictine monks and stayed there for 7 years. After, he
studied at Benedictine House where he completed his primary education. This is where
he began to learn and study about Aristotle and all of his major works. Aristotle became
a major philosopher on Aquinas life. Aristotle inspired Aquinas to find his own
philosophy.
After his primary education was completed Aquinas went to the University of
Naples. During this time, Thomas secretly joined the Dominican monks and when his
family found out, they decided to kidnap him. They wanted to deprogram him of his
new beliefs but Thomas did not and went back to the Dominican monks after his family
released him. He went to Paris, France and Cologne, Germany with the Dominicans. In

1250, Aquinas started to teach Theology at the University of Paris, were he also gained
his doctorate.
During this time, people were having a hard with theology, or faith, and
philosophy, or reason. People didnt know how they could correlate with each other.
This is where Aquinas gains his fame. He goes on to connect the two and prove Gods
existence with reason. In his ideology he gave five reason that God exists and he used
Aristotles ideas and principals to prove his idea. His first reason was that of, observing
movement and called God the, immovable object. His second reason is the
observation of cause and effect. Aquinas identifies God as the cause of everything. His
third reason is that the impermanent nature of human beings, He says this proves Gods
existence because he is necessary and he originates from himself. His fourth reason had
to do with human perfection and the level of perfection. That a perfect being must exist
and thats what we strive for. Then Aquinas fifth and final reason is that we could not
be intelligent without being given that gift from God.
Aquinas got a lot of criticism and skepticism from his ideology. A lot of it, is the
same criticism of religion in todays world. That is that if god exist then why does evil
exist. Other philosophers say that god is just an imagination thing. A lot of people have
trouble with the idea of a perfect being. They believe that we need to see more then we
see every day and that the bible doesnt prove his existence either.
Aquinas went on to be a priest for the Catholic Church and went on to have 60
other pieces of work. He is now a Saint for the Catholic Church. Thomas Aquinas Died on
March 7, 1274 in Fossanova, Italy.

Soren Kierkegaard lived well after Aquinas time. Kierkegaard was born in
Copenhagen, Denmark on May 5, 1813. He was the youngest of 7 children. Kierkegaard
learned a lot from his father, who taught about the suffering of Christ. He went on to
study at the University of Copenhagen, which we studied theology, philosophy and
literature. In 1834 his mother died and he started writing in a journal that he wrote in
from about 20 years. About 4 years later his father died, which greatly impacted his life,
this is when he finished his first book.
After his finished his first book he engaged Regine Olsen. He soon broke off the
engagement because it would stop him from his philosophical calling. After this he,
continued writing heavily and published many books for the next ten years. He then
went on to publish The concept of irony and a few other books that battled the
Hegelianism that was dominating German philosophy.
Kierkegaard went on to be the Father of Existentialism. In Kierkegaards ideology
he talked about how its not what people are to think but what people should be doing.
He talked about how there is no objective truth. He taught a lot about the individual and
not following the crowd. He believed that mass production and mass media was adding
to our problems instead of solving them like people were believing.
In Kierkegaards philosophy he had a leap of faith approach. Like make a
decision and run with it. In class we talked about how he would say something like you
can write down every reasonable or logical pro and con to a problem but you will still be
in the same spot you were a few days ago. This is where the leap of faith idea comes in,
he says that we take the idea we are leaning towards and go with it.

A lot of criticism came towards Kierkegaard. A lot of philosophers believed that

there is objective truth and that reason will lead you to the right answer. During Plato
and Aristotles time, all the philosophers were trying to figure out what the truth is and
how do we find it. People still wanted to believe that there is an ultimate truth out
there, but no one has really be able to understand it.
Kierkegaard went on to attack religion and churches later on his life. While he
was writing, Attack Upon Christendom he fell ill to a spinal disease and died a few
months later on November 11, 1855. He left his mark on the philosopher world and was
a skeptic of all the other old philosophers that were trying to find the truth. He told us
that there is no truth and that reason doesnt give us answers.
So a big difference between Kierkegaard and Aquinas is the difference between
truths. Aquinas went out and proved gods existence through reason and logic that
Aristotle taught us. Kierkegaard would argue with this that reasoning didnt give you the
answers and that there is no objective truth. Saying that god exist is an objective truth
that Aquinas proves.
These two are more alike than they are different in my point of view. In
Kierkegaards leap of faith approach you can very easily argue that like putting it into
gods hands and hes making the decision for you. That is what Aquinas would say to
that, and he would say that god gives free will and he is using Kierkegaard to give people
another argument against religion. This would test peoples faith in god. In Christianity,
they teach you that believing in god and in Jesus Christ will lead you to eternal
happiness.

A lot of Kierkegaards life was effected by religion. He grew up very religious and
even studied theology. This is very similar to Thomas Aquinas life. Kierkegaards father
taught him a lot about the suffering of Christ and even on his death bed admitted his
sins to his son. Which impacted Kierkegaard and after this happened he went on to
write and publish many books. In Aquinas life a great impact on him was his parents
kidnapping him and trying to change his beliefs. Thomas didnt listen to his parents and
went on to write many books and went on to connect philosophy and religion.
For me, Thomas Aquinas life and teaching impacted my life when I was younger
going to catholic school. Now that I am older I find it harder to believe in objective truth,
so I have kind of started believing in what Kierkegaard was teaching. For right now, I
would like to believe there is a higher power and there is a truth that we are searching
for, but it is something we just dont have the capacity of knowing.