Paul Maverick B. Ward                                                                                      

 

Contemporary Moral Problems by James E. White (7^th Edition)

Library Reference: none

Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Moral-Problems-James-White/dp/0495553204/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1233910528&sr=1-1

 

 

Learning Expectations:

 

I expect to learn how care should be a factor in offering justice to other people in a society. I also expect to learn how Annette Baier made use of care to show that there is need for more than justice alone.

 

Review:

 

            Annette Baier, a teacher of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, followed Carol Gilligan’s work to distinguish things between the justice perspective of philosophers such as Kant and Rawls and the care perspective of Gilligan found in her studies of the moral development of women. What she wants to impart to us is that justice and care should be harmonized with each other. Harmonization between the two would form something that will take care of people even when they do something to other people. The harmonization of justice and care is the same as the harmonization of man and woman. The cooperation of the two will form something that will be beneficial for the both parties. The bonding of both characteristics would produce a chance where manly ethics and knowledge can be shared to womanly ethics and knowledge which in time will produce an outcome that will benefit a lot of people.

            For me, what I think of this is that it is just justice with a mother’s touch to it. Care is something that is normal for all women and man alike. Care accompanies something that helps people with what they feel about a person or situation. If care is implemented, love will surely follow it in no time. Caring for others is something that comes from virtue or morality in life. People who grew up with someone who cares for them tends to gain this characteristic and shares it to others.

            Care with justice is just saying that even though a person committed something that is unacceptable for the society, it doesn’t mean that the person who committed the act should be treated like trash or waste. Proper care should still be present because that person who committed the act still has the right to be human.

 

Lessons Learned:

 

I have learned how share changes the justice for other people in a society. Care and Justice should be harmonized with each other for both male and female characteristics to be something unique and helpful to others. I have also learned how Annette Baier used care to show that there is a need for more than justice alone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Integrative Questions:

1.  Who is Annette Baier?
2.  Whose work this she followed?
3.  What are the things she wanted to harmonize together?
4.  What does care have to do with Annette Baier?
5.  How does care affect the way people live?

 

Review Questions:

1. Distinguish between the justice and care perspectives. According to Gilligan, how do these perspectives develop?

-       The morality it imparts to the people helps it to develop and the harmonization of justice and care also helps.

 

2. Explain Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. What criticisms do Gilligan and Baier make of this theory?

-       It is seen to matter is pleasing or not offending parental authority-figures, through a conventional level in which the child tries to fit in with a group, such as a school community, had conform to its standards and rules, to a post-conventional critical level.

 

3. Baier says there are three important differences between Kantian liberals and their critics. What are these differences?

-       Relationships between equals or those who are deemed equal in some important sense

-       Relationships between those who are clearly unequal in power, such as parents and children.

-       Relationships between unequal and of the morality of our dealings with the more and the less powerful.

 

4. Why does Baier attack the Kantian view that the reason should control unruly passions?

-       She is disagreeing with that view.

 

Discussion Questions:

1. What does Baier mean when she speaks of the need “to transvalue the values of our patriarchal past”? Do new values replace the old ones? If so, then do we abandon the old values of justice, freedom, and right?

-       Yes, I think so.

 

2. What is wrong with the Kantian view that extends equal rights to all rational beings, including women and minorities? What would Baier say? What do you think?

-       I think she will agree to it.

 

3. Baier seems to reject the Kantian emphasis on freedom of choice. Granted, we do not choose our parent, but still don’t we have freedom of choice about many things, and isn’t this very important?

-       Yes it is important.