Here is what she stated: let me say quite clearly at this early point that there is little disagreement that justice is a social value of very great importance, and in justice an evil. Nor would those who have worked all theories of justice want to deny that other things matter besides justice. Rawls, for example, incorporates the value of freedom into his account of justice, so that denial of basic freedoms counts as injustice. Rawls, also leaves room for a wider theory of the right, of which the theory of justice is just a part. I do agree to her statement because there is more besides justice and it is not something we would expect to have every single day which is why we fight for it, it is something we seek therefore, we act on having it.

There are different perspectives in form of justice. Justice, as said from Wikipedia, is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, fairness and equity. A conception of justice is one of the key features of society. Theories of justice vary greatly, but there is evidence that everyday views of justice can be reconciled with patterned moral preferences. In the same site, there is also different types of justice such as Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, where punishment is forward-looking. Justified by the ability to achieve future social benefits resulting in crime reduction, the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. Retributive justice regulates proportionate response to crime proven by lawful evidence, so that punishment is justly imposed and considered as morally-correct and fully deserved. Retribution also means prosperity, prosperity results in crime prevention. The law of retaliation (lex talionis) is a military theory of retributive justice, which says that reciprocity should be equal to the wrong suffered; “life for life, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” Distributive justice is directed at the proper allocation of things – wealth, power, reward, respect – between different people. A number of important questions surrounding justice have been fiercely debated over the course of western history: What is justice?

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It is revolutionary when we think of the rights of others because we always think about those rallies you see almost every day on the news and even on the streets and you always remember those people who took a stand for the life and happiness, and rights of others. As noble as it is, taking our rights seriously is very essential to us as a human being who deserves to achieve happiness. But what is a right? Let me clear its definition. Based from Wikipedia, Rights are legal or moral entitlements or permissions. Rights are of vital importance in theories of justice and deontological ethics. Many contemporary notions of rights are universalist and egalitarian, with equal rights granted to all people. For instance, the rights of a father to be respected by his son did not indicate a duty upon the father to return that respect, and the divine right of kings to hold absolute power over their subjects did not leave room for many rights to be granted to the subjects themselves. Conversely, modern conceptions of rights often emphasize liberty as among the most important of rights, though conceptions of liberty frequently differ. The specific enumeration of rights accorded to people has historically differed greatly across space and time, and in many cases, the view of rights held by one group can come into sharp and bitter conflict with the view of rights held by another group. At present the question of who has what rights is normally addressed by the constitutions of the respective nations (in the case of legal rights) or a particular philosophical theory (in the case of natural rights).

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We all know what duty is but if you still don’t, here is the definition of duty from our good friend Wikipedia: Duty (from “due,” that which is owing, O. Fr. deu, did, past participle of devoir; Lat. debere, debitum; cf. “debt”) is a term that conveys a sense of moral commitment to someone or something. The moral commitment is the sort that results in action, and it is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition. When someone recognizes a duty, that person commits himself/herself to the cause involved without considering the self-interested courses of actions that may have been relevant previously. This is not to suggest that living a life of duty precludes one from the best sort of life, but duty does involve some sacrifice of immediate self-interest. As mentioned, it is a term that conveys a sense of moral commitment to someone or something which means it is intertwined and directly connected to our own morals. There can never be a duty if we don’t directly connect it to what we believe in. Like mentioned in our BUSLAW class, when you owe something to someone, you need to give it back to him in any way possible because it is the right thing to do or else you will be facing some serious cases that you wouldn’t want to deal with in the first place for your future and possibly, for your future family that will carry the burden you made for them and we don’t want that right? We would never want that.

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Being a truly happy person, based on Aristotle’s theory, is becoming a man that lives his true purpose in life with good actions. It is somewhat similar to placing a word “good” in a man’s function in life. It is trying to look for one’s purpose without regrets. It is hard enough but excluding the bad and practicing the good will lead one man to happiness which is opposed to what we believe in nowadays that once we embrace pleasure, whether in wealth or in health, we embrace happiness. Aristotle made it clear that money or wealth itself is not the means for happiness because it is just physical means for something else which can be abused by nature. Virtue and happiness were also identified by some as one and in harmony. Relating it to virtue, happiness is found when something has been done for it. Similar to a man that is good and did something good which is why he is now known to be good. As for pleasure, happiness does exist but still becoming consistent to the idea that it exists not in physical concept but within one’s soul. That once the human soul found contentment through virtuous actions that triggers nature pleasant, then happiness will be achieved in life. If I were to consider my own personal point of view of happiness, I believe it is a set of mind. Everyone can be happy and contented in whatever they do even for those who commit sins because we all have different mind sets which are why we see things differently and seeing things differently means experiencing things differently as well.

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Of course, we are human beings who are known to have good will as a personal conviction. Here’s a part of the chapter that explained it quite well. It is impossible to conceive anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be taken as good without qualification, except a good will. Intelligence, wit, judgment, and any other talents of the mind we may care to name, or courage resolution, and constancy of purposes, as qualities of temperament, are without doubt good and desirable in many respects; but they can also be extremely bad and hurtful when the will is not good which for this reason has the term “character” applied to its peculiar quality. I know acting for someone and desiring good to them is not bad but expecting something to get back from doing such thing is something intolerable. It is selfish to expect something in return just for doing something good to someone else which I think should have been the focus of the whole chapter. I also found confusion with the idea of people trying to become someone they are not by providing food and shelter to others just having in the back of their minds that more will be given back to them by the great Being that provided us life. It is selfish because you expect something in return but Kant also explained a side where in it is meant to be selfish because if it is not, then you would not achieve happiness through good will.

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As I was saying before, if you guys didn’t remember my story, let me just repeat it here to exemplify my explanation of utilitarianism. My cute little tale was my friend is courting this girl and with the strength of what he’s feeling, it is quite obvious that he will do everything and the girl knows about it so what she did is that she abused my friend’s emotions and manipulated my good and dead in love friend to buy her expensive stuff but my friend gave in to her every whim. Because he’s so in love at first it was okay for me and for my other friends because when guys give gifts, it really means they like you and they want to see you happy but the thing is, it went on to six months and no, she didn’t like him or at least let him drive her home. I still did not think she was using him or anything but when a friend of mine told me that the girl my friend is courting is already committed for three whole years then I get really mad at her so then I was shocked and went to his house that moment just to tell him to slap the girl because of what she did to him. After that incident, the same friend that knew about her relationship told us that she had a lot of suitors and still let them court her even when she’ s in a relationship because she is fond of getting gifts for it. So the concept of utility would mean gaining benefit from others. A lot of people object to this idea – so am I – but some still believes it is a way to achieve happiness.

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Utility is such a broad word but once it is utilitarianism, all it exudes is power over another man. I’ve never experienced such or at least I didn’t know about it yet but I did have a friend that had an encounter with another person that applied such to him which he did not realize before until I explained it to him. So my friend is courting this girl and I with what he’s feeling, he will do everything and the girl knows about it so what she did is that she manipulated my good and dead in love friend to buy her expensive stuff – gold digger! – but my friend gave in to her every demand. Of course at first it was okay for me and for my other friends because when guys give gifts, it really means they like you and they want to see you happy but the thing is, it went on to six months and no, she didn’t like her or at least let him drive her home. I still did not think she was using him or anything but when a friend of mine told me that the girl my friend is courting is already committed for three whole years, wow! Then I was shocked and went to his house that moment just to tell him to slap the girl because of what she did to him. After that incident, the same friend that knew about her relationship told us that she had a lot of suitors and still let them court her even when she’ s in a relationship because she is fond of getting gifts for it.

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Trying out one’s new sword did not make sense to me because of another similar sentence that might mean differently. In the latter part, I came to realize that this is a subchapter dedicated to a whole study on Japanese culture particularly tsujigiri which is literally trying out a new sword to another man’s body. Of course I was surprised that such morbid practice had been a part of a country’s culture or belief because a part of tsujigiri is that once the man whom the new sword will be tried to by the samurai gets physically and literally chopped in half from the shoulders to the other side, then he is a humiliation for his family. Now that is new! There are a lot of things we can do to aid us with the isolation of cultures form our culture like reading about from an encyclopedia, surfing it through the internet which, as we all know, the greatest possible library there is made by man, and we can always go to the place and see, respect, and practice the culture ourselves. I have never been to a place wherein loads of people try out something new because here in the Philippines, tribal practices are only available in the smallest and most hidden part of the country that may even be never known to any man’s existence. We could not condemn oppression and insolence if we thought that our condemnations were just a trivial local quirk of our own culture. We could still less do it if we tried to stop judging altogether.

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I did not really thought that there is such types of morality – slave and master morality – because one, I don’t get it and two, it is something I have never heard of before. The first thing I thought of when I read the title of this subchapter is how can this be explained because it is obvious enough to know what slave and master means but as a morality, now that is really something you don’t hear every day. Anyway, as I read through the chapter, I realized something, that it is the obvious meaning or slave and master intertwined with the definition of morality. It is a way of thinking back then there has to be a slave and a master and that both cannot meet because of their difference in worlds. I only saw this in movies because I was lucky enough to be born way past the era of Spanish and Japanese reign here in the Philippines – but am I really lucky to have missed that? – which makes me thankful because I scanned through my junior high school history book and it made me realize that most Filipinos are slaves or those deprived by the goods they are supposed to have particularly education. Only minority of Filipinos are coined as elites which are people who are rich enough or those who are wealthy enough to buy almost every possible service possible and as for the majority of Filipinos, some became slaves, some became deprived of land, and some even died.

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When Donita Rose came to our class to discuss about her triumph as a VJ considering her confusions with religion and life beliefs, she said she does not believe in religion – and I agree. Why should we limit ourselves? Hey, I am not saying you should start going to different churches of different religions but what I am saying is that you should first think and analyze if you really do believe that there is someone out there that is so powerful that he can literally take our lives in just one blink, now, once you realize you do, then you have faith. I know it sounds almost as though I am advocating that you guys shouldn’t have a religion but that is not what I am trying to put out. I am trying to make you realize that religion means nothing if you don’t believe in God; that religion is nothing if you don’t want to talk to him; that religion is nothing if you don’t even heard His name before; that religion is nothing if you don’t accredit your life to Him because at one point or the other, you will realize that you can’t just have a religion without knowing someone who is the strength, someone who can teach us how to live and someone who can be with us anytime, anywhere listening to our every word. Along with realization will be analysis of your morality because we all have different morality, different belief because of different upbringing.

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Egoism’s concept was well explained by James Rachel considering he included some opposing ideas to back up his explanations. Although both concepts are well described, I still had confusions between the two but I won’t elaborate on them considering that there is certain number of pages to follow.
We all here about ego, of course you did, everyone is familiar with the term especially girls. Why? Because we all know we have a strong ego and we all know that the only one that beats that is a man’s ego. We hear the word “ego” often but how come we can’t really define it? How come on way or another, we still lack the explanation to define it to people who never heard of it. The answer would be similar to why it’s so hard to define life, love or other things intangible, is that it cannot be seen by anyone but it is a characteristic that we contain. Even though we try hard to keep our true selves to not exude egoism which means considering oneself first before others and defending your side which means it is really likely to become a unilateral attribute rather than bilateral which means both sides approve or talked or are involved in a specific situation. I know it is hard but can we at least try for the sake of others and for the sake of those who are very close to us because we will have the tendency to apply skepticism to them without realizing we do and may even become a standard of living for us.

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