Influence of Choices

If free will exists, is there truly any choice that is unaffected by outside influence? Supposing that we have the ability to make a choice of one action over another, it is still very difficult to say that any choice goes without any outside influence. For example, I am hugely influenced to write this blog right now. Blogging for my course is a homework assignment, but we all know that that is not always a strong influence on a young student. Also weighing on my decision, is society's expectations to get good grades and do well in school, hopefully leading to a better job in the future, and I must complete the assignment to even come close to a good grade. This reasoning can be applied to the simplest decisions. Why brush your teeth? So people around you don't think your breath smells, or because society values healthy smiles. Why pick up trash in your home? So that you are not seen as a mess by your company. Even when it would seem that our choices would only affect ourselves, we still learn most of what we know from the people and world around us and all of this information that we take in helps us make every choice, it influences us. Therefore I believe that is basically impossible for someone to make a choice without any outside power affecting them. This does not mean that free will is impossible but it does change the sense of how free our choices really are.   

Underestimating Habit

In the reading Houchin states in relation to habits: "All you have to do is start doing good things reguarly, and before long you'll do them without thinking"(18). But in many cases that is not true, whether or not a person actually picks up a habit dependons on thier attitude towards actually learning it. For example, if a person were to hold open doors whenever they were around other people, friend or stranger, but were never thanked for thier actions, they might become irrated and discouraged and give up on holding the door open. Also, in some cases, no matter how many times a person might be taught or told to do the right thing, they can still be prone to do the wrong thing simply because they have no will to learn other wise.  In any case I belive that Houchin underestimates what it would takes to make yourself learn a good habit.

Response: Meghan's Selflessness

In response to: http://meeghanrose.blogspot.com/2012/02/selflessness.html
I also agree that selflessness is impossible, as is it is a figmant of the world's imagination. Everything you do, you are doing because you some part of you wants to. Every time you chose to do something, even reading this post, you are making a choices and whether you would like to admit to it or not, in some way, however minescule, you are benefiting from it. For example, you may say that it is selfless to donate to charity, but you can get enjoyment from it or you may do it because you feel like you should be charitible, both ideas are in thier own way self-interested. Even the most seemingly selfless actions, like risking your life to save another, are not truely selfless. You are making the choice to save them, you are doing it because some part of you wants to. So no there is no such thing as being selfless.

Altruistic and Virtuous

 Can you be altruistic but not virtuous? Altruistic fits in as sub category of virtue, in other words, an altruistic act is automatically a virtuous act. However this does not work the other way, not every virtuous act is altruistic. You can practice always telling the truth but even though this is a very worthy practice it is not altruistic, it is  usually not directly helping anyone else. Just because you do not fit into the idea of being altruistic does not mean that you are not a virtuous and morally good person, it simply means that your actions do not tend to focus on purley helping others.

Anonymous Charity

Is an anonymous and charitable action any more altruistic than one in which the people benefiting from the action know exactly who is helping them? I think the answerer to this question lies what motivation the reasoning behind staying anonymous. For instance, if you decided to donate money anonymously because you were too shy to face people, there is a much more self- interested interest than simply not caring about recognition. On the other hand, if a well known billionaire decided to give money to a charity and only gave about one million dollars they might be seen as selfish for only giving such a small sum of there riches. For that reason that person may decided to stay anonymous in order so that their donation would still be looked upon as being very generous. In that case their decision to stay anonymous would lean much farther towards being selfish, rather than simply self- interested. So I do not believe that a person is specifically more altruistic to remain anonymous and while a person's decision to remain as an anonymous detonator can in fact be very self-interested, I believe that the action of donating in the first place remains an altruistic act.  

Isolation Impossible

In class we discussed how humans are social beings. This lead to the idea that we cannot survive without one another. Even if you trapped yourself in your home and were never to come out again you still would be dependent on others. Just look around you; our lives are filled with things that other people make. The clothes on your back, the chair you are sitting in, the computer your are reading this blog on, all of it has been touched by another human before arriving where it is now. Even when you build something you use tools and materials made and produced by other people all over the world. If you were to be picked right now and thrown onto a deserted island it would still be impossible to escape the influence of other people. At this day and age we know how to survive in 'the wild' because we observed other people doing so or teaching us. We would have some sort of  an idea of how to make a fire or shelter because someone else already learned how to for us.
 We live in a world where nothing can be done without the influence or resources that other people share with us, we are dependent upon each other making isolation impossible.

A Common Thread

"[Aristotle] says that we can all agree that there is such an end, and that we call it ‘happiness,’but we may disagree about what happiness actually is”(98) but is there a common thread in peoples’ definition of happiness? We could say that people can be happy when surround by friends and loved ones. At the same time we could claim that an addict could be happy when they feed their addiction. Ultimately we are usually happy doing something that we see as pleasurable. However Aristotle argues that in order to be truly happy they need to be doing something that is fulfilling, that exercises the abilities that that person has learned and enjoy. This is perhaps why the people who claim to be the happiest are those whop were able to get a job that they can truly enjoy and feel as if they are doing something in. Perhaps then the common thread to true happiness is that not only does something bring some one a sort of pleasure but a sense of fulfillment as well.