Morals in Business

Lately in my Explorations in Business class we have been talking about business ethics. This overlaps perfectly with what we have been talking about in class. In the first place, I'm not sure what Confucius would say about businesses in general because he talked about demeaning the pursuit of profit, which is the main motive of a business. For this reason, I just answered my own question. I was going to ask what Confucius would say about ethical decisions in business such as pay, working conditions, etc., but he would obviously promote the well being of employees over profit. So then, if we ignore profit for a minute we can look at Confucius' view on a question from my homework. The question asked if it is the public's obligation to help support a failing entrepreneur. I said it is not because if the entrepreneur is incapable of running a successful business now, what shows that they will be able to make it work in the long run? This is where I run into a dilemma. Would Confucius say that it is our obligation to help this struggling entrepreneur because morals make us help others, or would he allow this failure because of the goal. If the entrepreneur is striving for a successful business, he is striving for profit, which Confucius discourages. What do you guys think?

Family Values

On page 17 of our book, Confucius talks about the importance of being a good family member. He believes that being a good family member also influences one's behavior towards other people, thus making the world a better place. He states that "The transformation of society begins with the cultivation of the self within the environment of the family" (17), again stressing the influences on society of a good family member and even goes on further to say that this behavior could effect government. This made me think about the societal effects of being a bad family member. Is it possible that today's divorce rates are causing a drop in the average quality of family members? And if so, is this having an impact on government, a government that people never seem to be happy with? Confucius notes that it is vital that we treat others as well as we treat family members. Clearly this is not evident in many places of the world, never mind government.

Community Service

So today in class I brought up the issue of community service and Confucianism. I know I'm not the only one in class that has done community service, but I believe that lots of kids did it for selfish reasons like we talked about in class today. Community service looks great on college applications and I know many kids that were obligated by their parents or even by the National Honor Society to do community service work. I like to believe that I have genuine intentions when I do community service, but Confucius' talks of selfishness really made me reflect on my own actions and the actions of others. I liked that we were able to clarify today that selfish actions are determined by your motivation. These people who were obligated to do community service do not have the proper motivation, making them selfish. On the other hand, people like myself and others in class who I have performed community service with, have genuine desires to help people, making this a selfless action. 

Philosophy Toolkit

Intellectual Virtues: Seven habits of highly reasonable people

6. Intellectual Courage – A willingness to consider with an open mind ideas or lines of reasoning that are unpopular or potentially dangerous, to follow reasoning and evidence where they lead undeterred by any potential risk their conclusions may pose.

7. Interpretive Charity – A preparedness to give others the benefit of the doubt, interpreting their statements in the best possible light and on the working assumption that their thoughts are valuable. To interpret charitably is not to read or listen uncritically, but to be disinclined to condemn others’ views except as a last resort. It is the practical basis for civility in discourse, as well as prerequisite for grasping unfamiliar texts and approaches.

So after reading over these two virtues I disagreed that it was a natural reaction for people. I then went back and realized that the virtues were of "highly reasonable people". So that got me thinking, what determines a highly reasonable person? Do you acquire these attributes in order to become highly reasonable? Or do you get these attributes once you become highly reasonable?

I do not think that most people have intellectual courage. In our brief first discussion in my Media, Self Identity, and Society class, we talked about how the media influences our ideas of who we want to be. This media has a large impact on trends, which often discourage unique fashions or ideas. What I'm getting at is that I think someone can be highly reasonable but at the same time be afraid of the norms that society has created, discouraging them from advertising their different ideas.

Interpretive charity is noticeably absent from many conversations these days. Therefore, I do think that this is an attribute that is key to becoming a highly reasonable person. So often these days, people will hear one thing they don't like in a statement and focus solely on that one point so they can respond to and attack it. As professor noted yesterday in class, this mindset shuts out anything else the speaker could mention after the point. This behavior promotes ignorance as this wall that is put up is a result of one disagreement. Even if the speaker has several other points that you agree with, if you focus only on the negatives you will not even pay notice to their valid points.

So I conclude that these attributes must be attained in order to become a highly reasonable person.

First NHN Post

Hey guys,
My name is Will Jones and I'm from Sturbridge, MA. I just switched from an FPA: Music major to Sport Management this semester. There's not too much to me. I like sports and music. I played soccer all through high school and am hoping to play next year here at MCLA. I've played the trumpet for...nine-ish years now and have played with the idea of going into music education but my mind is still in a big mess when I think about that.
I took Logic & Critical Reasoning last semester with Matt Silliman so I like to think I have a little experience but not much with Philosophy. I am familiar with the toolkit because of that class which is nice but I don't know much about anything else this class covers. I'm really interested in and have heard good things about this class. Let's see how it goes!
Will