I've had a few thoughts in the back of my head since our discussion on Thursday about codes of Honor.  For many people hold a code of conduct dear to themselves.  You see it a lot in mafia movies, where you have blood vengeance and other acts that are centered around family.

Systems or codes of honor seem to develop most in areas rife with conflict, or in places where sudden violence is something that people fear could ensue at any time.  It seems that it comes back to the family each and every time.  Protecting the family, saving the family, ensuring the survival of the family.  One thing that this reminds me of is something from the Game of Thrones TV, one of the characters is the head of one of the noble houses and he is reminding his son that when he is dead and gone what survives is the family name.  There will be those who carry the family name to future generations, and that the actions of the individual members of the family need to look to the survival of the family.

I feel like this reasoning could be a central root of the blood and honor mentality of the south.  You've got a lot of people who care more about the purity and honor of the family name than they do about the people around them.  Though it might be a more aristocratic mentality, it might be a significant contributor to the system of Blood and Honor.

I regret not being able to participate in discussion on Thursday.  Was at an information session for possible free job training.  It was not an opportunity to pass up.

However, on the matter of Mills response to Lincoln's apology, Mill appears to be consciously not using Utilitarian terminology in his rhetoric.  I noticed from posts that during the in class discussion there was a general consensus that Mill missed the reasons behind why Lincoln made the apology.  I would directly disagree, since, insofar as Mill is a brilliant man who spent so much of his life studying a vast variety of subjects, he would not be able to not notice the reasoning behind the apology.

Rather I see Mill as deliberately overlooking the real reason in order to support Lincoln.  If it were considered that if the British intervened the Union would clearly lose, he hoped to shame his colleagues into inaction.  Since, as Mill describes, Britain would be remembered for enabling a resurgence of slavery.  He seems to be working to convince his fellows that such actions would be remembered poorly by future generations.

I got to thinking about how a Utilitarian might term or define what people call 'morals'.

It is something that a person sets as a boundary point in there actions as a guiding rule of how they do not act in response to stimuli from their environment.  So if your in the mafia it is not moral to respond peacefully if your friend gets killed.  If you are a Christian you follow the morals dictated in the Bible as how to not respond to those who would wrong you and how to not cause harm to others.

Essentially morals seem to be a group of self-set rules, unique to each individual, that dictate certain limits in how you respond to events in the world around you.

Thoughts?

When watching the movie it got me to thinking about how in some of Lincoln's the Morally right thing to for Lincoln, from the perspective of Kant, was to do his duty as a lawyer regardless of the whether or not he defended an innocent man or a guilty man.  However, as was demonstrated during the movie, only by being a person who had a well rounded and deeper experience of life that Aristotle considers necessary to be a person well suited for the study of law and political science.

The case of using the Almanac to discover that a portion of the witnesses testimony was completely false.

So would this imply that in order to be a morally correct person in ones actions by Kants standards, you might also need to be a moral person by the standards of Aristotle?

In looking at Lincoln and whether or not he could be considered courageous we found some small number of examples where he might have been courageous.  However, the number of such examples so far was next to nothing.  And even then our working definition of Courage is not necessarily completely defined.  

So far we have the Aristotelian definition which presents the spectrum of actions and intentions.  There is the act of Courage, but if this acts is born from ignorance or from brashness then we do not considered it to be a Courageous act since the person acting didn't judge there situation well and just stumbled upon a successful course of action.  For there to be Courage under this line of thinking than the person preforming the act must understand the danger(s) and understand what the options are for resolving the situation.  Then picking the course of action that will get the best results.  

Kant works with the intention of the person in the act overcoming of their fears.  However, if the act of overcoming fear is not involved then there is no Courage.  

The Utilitarian perspective is the one that I least understand in terms of Courage.  From what I understand they do not take virtues like Courage into account in their lives.  For them only the calm choice of what shall produce the best results is what matters.  

I ask that if anyone can give a better explanation of the Utilitarian perspective than please comment as I am both curious and wondering what I am leaving out or possibly misunderstanding.  

First Post for class 9/12/13

Hello, I created a new Blog for the class since the last one wasn't going to work.
As for today,
The "Good" that Aristotle speaks of he relates to "Happiness", as its translated, is spoken of as being self-sustaining.  Its also spoken of as being "Complete".  When he talks about this I think that he's talking about how it isn't something that a person seeks as a catalyst for another goal, its something that someone seeks just for itself.
While I can understand why he would consider that better I also feeling that the translation needs to be updated so that we can understand what he's talking about from a current perspective.
So here's my attempt to explain in a modern context.
-The Good, is more or less something that represents benefit not only to oneself but to the group of people that you are involved with.  It applies to various actions and situations as being something that represents the benefit of actions and intentions towards oneself and others.
-The Happiness that Aristotle speaks of, is not so much Happiness and fulfillment of the mind and body, in so far as a persons actions can bring about fulfillment of the mind and body of the individual.  This is a fulfillment that cannot be achieved through any one action but rather derives from the knowledge that you have achieved goals or that you are moving towards such success through your actions.

I hope my definitions come close to the being a more accurate translation.  Please comment and inform me if I left anything out.

Robert