Sanity And The Metaphysics Of Responsibility By Susan Wolf Summary

Sartwell focuses on the evil of genocide and his own humanity as evidence to corroborate his claims. Szegedy-Maszak on the contrary focuses on research performed by psychologists to corroborate her claim. Sartwell’s evidence consists of traits that he and people who are inherently evil share, such as: having respect for authority, having a desire to find a place in society, categorizing others based on their traits, and making compromises to protect the ones they love (118). All of these traits are qualities all humans possess, Sartwell blatantly accepts these traits along with his humanity claiming “I am not profoundly different than these people, and if you think you are, then you are either a moral hero or you are profoundly self- deluded” (118). This cynical approach in his article causes one to reevaluate their mindset; knowing that nobody is morally perfect makes us as people accept the humanity we all possess.

So much compassion that he could win the love of his underlings [...] But somebody with that much compassion could never be the killer we needed.” (Scott Card, 342) His explanation demonstrates how he believes that sacrificing Ender’s feelings by lying to him is necessary to defeat the buggers to save humanity from possible destruction, emphasizing the theme of manipulation for the common good. They make Ender do what he hates most, hurting others, by isolating him into not trusting anybody, moulding him to the perfect commander, then tricking him into believing he was only battling simulations.

His actions were befitting to the situation. Also, these actions correspond with Rand’s advice in “How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?”. The society is a totalitarian dictatorship and Equality is the “humblest peasant or the lowest savage...rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible “noble purpose,” but to plain, naked human evil” (Rand, “How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?”). Equality follows through with Rand’s advice as a solution to his complications with his society. He knows that the acceptance of submission broke the structure of man and that his society is wrong to let the rights of man collapse under such a worship.

In Equality’s world, to be in egoist was bad, in the speech The Soul of an Individualist it states that “Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue.”, since men such as Equality were taught of that, then he would have been taught to believe not to be an egoist. Equality later on in the story developed a crush on Liberty 5-3000, also known as the Golden One, in the speech, it states “To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego”, in Equality’s world, showing emotion is being an egoist, but Equality and Liberty simply showed the forbidden

Wolf proposes the sane deep-self view states that for an individual to be morally responsible for some action they have committed, if and only if (1) this individual is able to control that action by their desires, as well as such desires are governed by their deep selves, and (2) the individual’s deep self is sane. Consequently, Wolf’s proposal evidently proves why JoJo cannot be held responsible for his actions committed. Hence, JoJo is an insane individual. For one to be considered sane, Wolf claims one must have an idea of what one is doing and to have beliefs/values that correctly correspond with the way the state of the world is. JoJo’s beliefs and values essentially do not match up with how the state of the world is and thus he is considered insane and is suffering

A perfect duty is moral truth that must be followed at all times, while an imperfect duty is one that should be followed some of the time depending on the circumstance. Kant expresses that we have perfect duties to respect other’s freedoms and we have a perfect duty to tell the truth. The AHA uses these two duties in their discussions on teaching and the shared values of historians. First off, the AHA states that presenting multiple perspectives on history are parts of the truths of history, therefore according to Kant we have a perfect duty to truth and presenting multiple perspectives. Secondly, the AHA explains the importance of dialogue and respecting opposing viewpoints.

Jean Jaques Rousseau was partially correct in his statement that all are born good, however, society creates images of bad people. Man is born evil because of his desire for possession and hunger for power, shown throughout current events and recent news. The absence of guidance shows that man does not need bad influence in order to be bad, but needs good influence to be good. The book Lord of the Flies by William Golding illustrates the characteristics of evil very well. Golding illustrates the chaos on the island through the actions of the boys and their digression from civilization.

In Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” , Rainsford is the positive force in a classic good vs. evil showdown against a psychopathic man-hunter. For example, Rainsford non - evilness is displayed when he declines General Zaroff’s “ We will hunt - you and I,” (10). This is substantial evidence towards Rainsford morals and integrity as a human. Based on the short story, a good and decent person would not want to hunt someone, it is an act of cold blood.

Andrew Jackson was a hero back in the days. “ Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.” “Every good citizen makes his country’s honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.” -Andrew Jackson.

John Proctor illustrates that he is an ethical man because he highlights the fact that young girls, children, are controlling Salem purely with their words. Proctor 's ethical attributes are conveyed when he realizes that the group of accusers may be pretending to be afflicted, “I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem – vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” (73) which causes other to question his credibility. He also speaks this to emphasize the problem that everyone assumes that the accusers, children, are innocent.

This is the quote that helps introduce that Ender represents the Ego side of the brain. It is known that a major theory is that Ender is the Ego, Peter is the Id and Valentine is the superego. ” It isn 't what he did, Mrs Wiggin. It’s why”(Colonel Graf 19) supports it.

With higher morality, theists claim that human understanding is too limited for us to understand. Johnson plays off that point by saying that God’s morality is meaningless to us if higher morality is the case. “But it is a strange ‘higher morality’ which claims that what we call ‘bad’ is good and what we call ‘good’ is bad” (Johnson 123). It would be like someone claiming that because Hitler liked children of the right race, then he is a good person despite all the evil he did. Hick, however, might relate higher morality back to the hedonistic world mentioned in the argument above.

Dr. Jekyll is seemingly good, kind, and benevolent; while is not purely good he is a moral gentleman. He started his experiment so he could totally separate the bad and the good in himself into two separate beings. He did not succeed, however, for Dr. Jekyll is plagued by the feeling that he wants to become evil again, thus he wants to become Mr. Hyde. It is important to note that Mr. Hyde is completely evil; he has no goodness in him, in contrast to Dr. Jekyll who was a troubled mix. Mr. Hyde feels no remorse for any evil he has done and actually feels elated when he does commit a moral sin.

Cruelty is more important than mercy because it maintains a prince’s power and establishes order and sustainable peace within society. Moreover, a leader must be feared as he will be taken more seriously and never be questioned by his disciples. Cruelty preserves more respect while shows more compassion towards citizens than mercy and love; thus, a leader is better off being feared and respected immensely than loved and susceptible to his own

“I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don’t want more suffering.” said Ivan to his brother Alyosha after reflecting on the unjust evil innocents face because of humanity’s sinful actions. Ivan’s words shed light to the idea of idealism versus reality. Realizing that cruelty is present in the lives of the most innocent, lead me to assert that evil is a real problem as it intervenes between the harmonic and idealistic view that the world consists of genuine, good people.