Individuality & Equality

In ethics three of the most important things to me are individuality, equality, and happiness. (I’ll get to the happiness part later) Individuality and equality may seem slightly contradictory but I will explain how they are different. I believe that every person is different. We all have different ethics and morals, based on how we were raised and what our experiences taught us. Your political morals and beliefs are shaped by those things, and I don’t have any problem with someone disagreeing with me about politics, as long as they can explain why they hold those beliefs. The same idea holds true for most of the areas of ethics. I don’t really care if we have the same ethics or not, as long as each person sticks to their ideas. If someone is vague, or indecisive, I wouldn’t have much confidence in their morals. In terms of equality, I believe that every person should be treated as equals. One of the biggest problems in our society is how people who are different are treated as lesser. I believe every person, not just in our country but around the world, should have equal opportunities in all forms. Intelligence, gender, sexual orientation, financial situation, race, religion, disability, appearance, etc. These are all things that define people and create stereotypes. I think that these are things that should embellish the equal base of each person. These are things that should help to define our individuality, not to create limits on our ability. In my opinion, a middle-class, black, jewish lesbian from australia with a slight speech impediment has just as much potential as a rich, white, christian man from the US. The things that make them different only make them more interesting individuals.

These values make me a lot like Nel Noddings. I know we haven’t really looked at her yet, but I agree with almost everything I’ve read about her. She was a strong feminist, but even more importantly, she has spread the appreciation of education and care in our society. She believed that education was the central source of spreading good morals in children. This quotation I found summarizes the connection between my ideas and what she said about ethics. “We need to give up the notion of a single ideal of the educated person and replace it with a multiplicity of models designed to accommodate the multiple capacities and interests of students. We need to recognize multiple identities.” To me, one of the most important things is giving people equal opportunities. In our world, the simplest way to do that is through education. I believe that all children should have the same opportunity, not just to go to school, but to be treated as equals at school and to learn in a safe environment where they don’t have to be afraid of being a certain gender or race etc.
As for the happiness, I believe that the purpose in life is to achieve happiness, or come as close as we possibly can.  This is actually what I wrote my paper at St. Pauls about so I’m just going to share with you pieces of what I wrote over the summer:

“Does happiness exist? Perhaps pure happiness is unattainable, and we have to keep reaching for it, but can never touch it, for it will burn our imperfect lives. And yet, we reach. Perhaps pure blissful happiness is something we can only dream of, but happiness itself is no foreign concept. We experience moments of joy every day, and these moments prove that what we are searching for is waiting to be found.

The reason we work so hard throughout our lives is to obtain the money and resources we need to live successful, healthy lives. In today’s society we rely too much on our material belongings so its actually become possible to ‘buy happiness’. However, we must remember that these possessions cannot replace happiness. We cannot rely on items or even other people to make us happy. This is something we must do for ourselves.

There would be no such thing as happiness if there was no sadness. While we all want our lives to be void of pain, it is necessary to contrast the good moments. If we were always happy, nothing would be special and nothing would be important. Sadness must exist for us to feel happiness. Therefore, it is impossible to be completely happy all the time. While maintaining happiness would be ideal, it is not rational because it would lose its meaning over time.

When making difficult decisions, I often think of this. I consider how each choice will immediately, and in the long run, affect my emotions. This doesn’t always solve my problems, but it gives me a different outlook on the situation.  It is important to remember that if you are doing something that does not make you happy now, and will not foreseeably make you happy later, it may not be worth your time. The one condition is if it is making someone else happy. In order to maintain our happiness we must also care for the happiness of those around us. This means doing what others ask as well as going out of our way to help them. Often, these actions will be self-rewarding because they can give you a sense of givingness or accomplishment.

Ultimately, you just have to live. You can make decisions and surround yourself with people who will make you happy, but it is up to you to emotionally create your happiness. Searching too hard or reaching too far won’t work. The most effective thing you can do is to always be optimistic and positive. When you keep an open mind to all people and ideas you can create the ideal environment for happiness.

Negative thoughts and emotions will always be present, but we don’t need to acknowledge them. We need to remember that being happy is what ultimately matters, and that it is achievable if we stay in an optimistic mindset. All the little things will just make the next happy moment even closer to pure bliss.”

I guess this makes me a lot like Aristotle because his philosophy focuses on a pursuit of happiness. He even said “Happiness depends on ourselves,” which is very close to some of the things I said before we even started discussing morals.