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 Mary Midgley attacks the Moral Isolationism and how she made up the insights that she have about it. I also expect to learn how Moral Isolationism impacts the world that we live in.

Review:

            The fourth (4) sub-chapter of the 1^st Chapter in the book Contemporary Moral Problems written by James E. White, it is mentioned there that Mary Midgley attacks the Moral Isolationism. Who is she anyway you might ask, well she is a philosophy teacher at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England for twenty (20) years but is retired now. As mentioned in the book, she is disagreeing with moral isolationism because it just forbids any moral reasoning to come up and be shared by other people.

            First of all, what is moral isolationism? It is a morality of which people immorally isolates themselves to something that they desire or want to say. This in time would create even more immoral people who judges a lot of things based on what they know and what they want. There are groups of people that are into immorality because of what they have in their thoughts. An example for this is the Germans in the World War II, there are some who says that the Germans under Adolf Hitler are immoral on the things that they are doing. They didn’t think about others first before committing to what they want to do. They disregarded other people’s ethical views in life and pushed through with theirs. They didn’t care what others would think of them as long as they are fulfilling things that they want to accomplish.

            Immoral judgment is something that a lot of people are doing each and every day. These are judgments or claims that doesn’t require them to think morally first. They disregard reasoning for the sake of what they want. There are also some accounts where they immorally judge something just for the cause of satisfying their wants and needs.

            What was mentioned on the book is that people shouldn’t judge others due to their appearance and actions. It was also mentioned that people who hadn’t experience about something before doesn’t have the right to judge. It is in fact true for me because to judge something, you should first acquire experience from it to know personally the feeling on that topic. A great example for this is if a person got badly injured from playing a sport, another person judges the injured one due to the fact that he is injured. The critic shouldn’t judge the injured one because he/she doesn’t know what it feels like to be badly injured. It is highly immoral for people to criticize others based on what they see. They should first experience and feel it first before judging or criticizing. This kind of morality is influenced greatly by moral isolationism because the people who are judging and criticizing the others would based their assumptions from the things that they are seeing, hearing, or even smelling. They should firstly feel or experience that first before arriving on a firm decision or clear criticism.

            Another mentioned in the book is about culture. Many people have their own culture and respect it with their own reasons. Others in the other hand, doesn’t know anything about that culture. All they know is from what they have seen or something. An example for this is the culture I watched on National Geographic. A clan in Africa has the culture of which they lacerate and cut the skin of their teenagers and let the wound heal up to form something that resembles the skin of crocodile. It is the right of passage into adulthood that pushes this traditional and cultural people from doing it yearly. For them, it is a sign that gives them authority and power as an adult in their society. At first, many people would surely say “what the heck would they do such painful things for?” What other people doesn’t know is that these African clan or tribe is doing this because it is their culture and tradition. Without it, they are different kind of people, a kind of which they are not from what they are previously. It is sacred for them to perform these actions for them to be who they truly are. Many people would really say negative things about this culture. Well, for me, I don’t care on what they do to themselves. That is their culture and people should respect it. They aren’t being forced to do those things anyway. What they should do is to respect and just be amazed on what people can do based on their culture and traditions. Those who criticize these traditional and culturally bound people should first experience the culture themselves for them to even have the formidable right to judge or criticize this unique group of people.

Lessons Learned:

            I have learned how Mary Midgley showed her insights about Moral Isolationism and the way she attacked it. I also learned how Moral Isolationism affected the world we live in.

Integrative Questions:

1.  Who is Mary Midgley?
2.  What is Moral isolationism?
3.  How does moral isolationism affect the way people live?
4.  How does she attack Moral isolationism?
5.  What did the Nazi Germans did that has relation with moral isolationism?

Review Questions:

1. What is “Moral Isolationism”?

-       It is the view of anthropologists and others that we cannot criticize cultures that we do not understand.

2. Explain the Japanese custom of tsujigiri. What questions does Midgley ask about this custom?

-       Tsujigiri is a way for samurais to try out their new samurai sword on a chance wayfarer.

-       “Does the isolating barriers work both ways?” & “Are people in other cultures equally unable to criticize us?”

3. What is wrong with moral isolationism, according to Midgley?

-       It assumes that cultures are separate and unmixed which is false.

4. What does Midgley think is the basis for criticizing other cultures?

-       We should be a part of the culture first before we can have the right to criticize it.

Discussion Questions:

1. Midgley says that Nietzsche is an immoralist. Is that an accurate and fair assessment of Nietzsche? Why or why not?

-       No, because both of them have different insights in life.

2. Do you agree with Midgley’s claim that the idea of separate and unmixed cultures is unreal? Explain your anwer.

-       I agree in a way because he was not there when all cultures started in the world. How can he know the beginning or birth of a culture if he himself is not present in those days?