I think the most defensible theory of all is that of utilitarianism. I feel that you cant argue with a theory that looks to increase the overall happiness which is irrelevant to morality. This is done by acting in the majority. Because there will never be a time when everyone agrees on a certain matter, this is the most formidable way to achieve overall happiness. I believe that in order to achieve goodness, we must conduct ourselves in a way that will increase overall happiness.  This is because goodness consists of many positive virtues in how we carry ourselves. But in order for these virtues to be good, they must be carried out in the right portion because too much or too little can be detrimental.

I think the most defensible theory of all is that of utilitarianism. I feel that you cant argue with a theory that looks to increase the overall happiness which is irrelevant to morality. This is done by acting in the majority. Because there will never be a time when everyone agrees on a certain matter, this is the most formidable way to achieve overall happiness. I believe that in order to achieve goodness, we must conduct ourselves in a way that will increase overall happiness.  This is because goodness consists of many positive virtues in how we carry ourselves. But in order for these virtues to be good, they must be carried out in the right portion because too much or too little can be detrimental.

I think the most defensible theory of all is that of utilitarianism. I feel that you cant argue with a theory that looks to increase the overall happiness which is irrelevant to morality. This is done by acting in the majority. Because there will never be a time when everyone agrees on a certain matter, this is the most formidable way to achieve overall happiness. I believe that in order to achieve goodness, we must conduct ourselves in a way that will increase overall happiness.  This is because goodness consists of many positive virtues in how we carry ourselves. But in order for these virtues to be good, they must be carried out in the right portion because too much or too little can be detrimental.

So lets take a virtue like tolerance. It seems that too much tolerance would be a bad thing. If a person was too tolerant, there is a good chance they would eventually boil over and do things that they may regret, maybe out of anger or a buildup of stress. It is possible they would also get stepped all over because people realize they can take a lot more of abuse then others. If a person was not tolerant enough, they would be considered impatient. People would not see this as a good characteristic in a person and it could even make someone seem impulsive.

The theory of politics being the “master art” is by far one of the harder ones to refute. It seems that anything and everything can be considered as a derivation from politics because with anything you can say that government allows it or does not allow it. Personally, because of this I do not like this theory. I feel that it is way too broad of a topic and that the reasons for saying something like this are not good enough. What about something like the art of survival?  In the world we use politics because we would like to survive in the most structured way possible. I think it’s possible that this art can be one step above politics. On the other hand, I believe that politics has to be for the happiness or well being of citizens. We can talk about conspiracies all day, but to this point many great things have come out of political science to bring us to where we are today. This must be true because we still carry the same system of government that we started with. However in other countries, there have been many rulers who have looked to solely increase their personal well being through political science.

I feel like if there was no social contract, there would be no reason for people to distinguish between what is right and wrong, or in otherwords, morality. Basically the world would clearly be chaos and everyone would be out for themselves. But because of this, if you were hurting someone else by eating their food all the time while they wilt away because of starvation, then you really would not care because you feel this person would do the same thing to you. So really how could you decide murder is a bad thing when it happens to frequently because we all know wihtout a social contract it would happen so much more. After all, what do you have to lose? It is simply something you would get used to and because of this gradual conditioning you would do it to and not care. Nonetheless, I firmly believe that is the truth regardless of what you say now. I think it’s just too hard to actually put yourself in that situation and realistically think it through.

In this argument,  the part that I seem to firmly believe in the strongest is that man is in a constant state of war. This war is not necessarily just the act of killing but is existent in most aspects of life in other forms. The job you work at is a form of competitive war, the grades you got in school, and maybe even the food on your plate. In order to get that food, you had to beat out others to be successful in life. It might be very minimal, but that allowed you to buy it in the first place. If you werent in a sense “fighting for” that food, you would currently be on the streets hungry. Of course, this all is pertaining to survival of the fittest but I feel that this theory represents war correctly. This more or less gives more reason for self interest to really be the only interest of man. But when you get that food on your plate, it would make sense that you’re getting it for your wife and kids as well. In my opinion self interest seems more dominant then not, however even on a personal level I know many people who I could not find a reason to believe they only act out of self interest which makes it hard for me to agree with.

According to Kant, it is immoral to neglect our natural talents because we have the ability to become more useful by utilizing them. He believes that because we were given these talents, it would make the most rational sense to develop them instead of letting them go to waste. Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this idea that start with Kants assumptions. Kant starts off by saying that one of the main reasons people neglect their talents is because they are comfortable in their current lifestyle and attain pleasure from it. This pleasure is not worth risking in order to develop natural talents. He also builds on the idea that we are all given our talents with a purpose. This may be true, however this is Kants personal belief on the origin and intention of talent. It is not necessarily true that all our talents are given with purpose. Although I’m not sure where this belief comes from, it could certainly have something to do with another aspect of philosophy or religion that Kant firmly believes in. This assumption may vary for everyone. For the most part I personally believe Kants assumptions to be correct, but they prove to be unstable and are still only “assumptions” which could vary for anyone.

What Kant is basically saying here is that we all have the duty not to commit suicide. He claims that self love states that we must agree to kill ourselves if our future provokes troubles, otherwise seen as the opposite of pleasure. In order to prevent these troubles from happening, we should stop pleasure altogether by killing ourselves which would act as a better alternative. However if this was willed into universal law, it would not make sense in a way that Kant says we should continue life. Considering human beings naturally have self love, I do not see how killing yourself would even be a better alternative to troubles. Overall, I believe it comes down to troubles and whether or not the majority of troubles are seen as temporary. There are such things as terminal illnesses which are rather permanent but how are we able to determine whether the future holds something like this for us?

If everyone was engage in false conversation everyday, obviously nobody would be able to trust each other. This probably wouldnt be good as far as us having a functioning society. It would be practically impossible to get something done effectively after a while because everyone would be on the lookout for potential lies. Basically it would be too hard for you to benefit from this after a while. If you decided to tell your friend you would pay them back for something if they lent you the money when in reality you wont, chances are they will be onto you after a given period and you will not be able to get away with this. If it got to this point, how and in what way would categorical imperative be effective?