Why, like so many others, do I lack knowledge and discipline in everyday life choices?
What has made us so focused on making emotional, typically selfish, choices?
Plato concluded that most people are unfit by training and ability to make the difficult and necessary decisions that would result in a just society. The “average person” lacks wisdom and self-restraint to serve the needs of society. As Plato viewed the world, most people make emotional responses based on personal desire and sentiment rather than on rational considerations stemming from an objective view of what is genuinely good for the individual (Soccio, Section 5-1b).
I feel so many of us including myself lack discipline and knowledge to make choices that are efficient for society while staying morally correct. We allow our emotions to completely drive the choices we make. So many times we are emotionally wrapped in our feelings and mind that we do not realize the consequences to the choices we make. I find that we are naturally selfish beings .
A recent example is the school shooting that occurred in Arizona. In this particular situation,a student killed a peer that she had a romantic relationship with.Than she killed herself making this situation what was considered to be a murder suicide. Obviously, many questions may be left unanswered but we can suspect what drove this student toward their actions...emotions. Her emotions,lack of knowledge most likely made her feel like she was making a wise decision.It was what she wanted to do, having zero regards for the future,her life idea of taking the life of another. She made a selfish decision to somehow “benefit” her and harm the life of others. This is a more influential example of how our choices in everyday life can affect us just as strongly.
Time, age, and general maturity can play a key part in our decision-making skills. Perhaps she felt this other person wronged her in some way or that ending her life would benefit her. Regardless of the real reasons, having no discipline in morality or knowledge of life prevent us from making choices that could positively influence our society altogether.Similar to the past, people are still making choices that benefit themselves on a personal level. We are people who emotionally respond in the moment and not thinking of the long-term results. This has caused many of us to make some good and some bad choice; ultimately, just selfish choices.
I feel that most of us lack discipline and wisdom on every day life choices; myself included, I am a diabetic. I often find it difficult to resist sugar or sweets knowing that they are not beneficial for my health. I find myself ignoring the warnings and advisements of my medical prescriber because of my own selfish wants. We simply have those physical cravings that I find difficult to fight against.
These selfish tendencies can cause individuals to be blinded by their desires. I have witnessed a person in the car smoking, while their are children in the car. Would that not be considered satisfying one's own personal wants without thinking about those around us, whether it be strangers or our own children (including disregarding one’s health conditions)?
Bibliography
Soccio, Douglas. PAC LMS INTG MT PHILOSOPHYARCH/Archetypes Of Wisdom, 9 Th Ed., Mindtap. 9th ed. Cenage Learning, 2016. Print
Word Count: 561
Dibs
ReplyDeleteTotal number of words in the post: 554 including bibliography. Author stated 561.
ReplyDeleteSpelling errors:
“This has caused many of us to make some good and some bad choice; ultimately, just selfish choices.” The first “choice” in the sentence should be “choices.”
“I feel so many of us including myself lack discipline and knowledge…” This sentence is missing two commas, it should be: “I feel so many of us, including myself, lack discipline and knowledge…”
The author was missing spaces in several places:
“In this particular situation,a student killed a peer that she had a romantic relationship with.Than she…” Missing spaces between the comma and “a,” and between the period and “than.”
“Her emotions,lack of knowledge most likely made her feel like she was making a wise decision.It was what she wanted to do, having zero regards for the future,her life…” Missing spaces between the comma and “lack,” the period and “it,” and the comma and “her.”
“…altogether.Similar to the past, people are still making choices that benefit themselves on a personal level.” Missing space between the period and “similar.”
The author had extra spaces in two places that I found:
“I find that we are naturally selfish beings .” There is an unnecessary space between “beings” and the period.
“…that she had a romantic relationship with.” There is an extra space between “romantic” and “relationship.”
Grammatical errors:
“I feel that most of us lack discipline and wisdom on every day life choices...” “Every day” is an expression that means each day. It should be “everyday,” which is an adjective that means average or regular.
“I have witnessed a person in the car smoking, while their are children in the car.” The author should have used “there” instead of “their.”
“Than she killed herself making this situation what was considered to be a murder suicide.” There is no space between the period and beginning of the next sentence. Author also used “than,” which is used to make a comparison. It should be “then,” which means next.
Lack of clarity: I thought that the blog had clarity.
Organization of ideas: I thought the blog had good organization of ideas.
Did the author answer their question? Yes, the author answered their question.
Did the author provide a concrete example that clearly illustrates their main point? Yes, the author provided multiple examples that clearly illustrated their main point.
How does the author’s concrete example illustrate or not illustrate their main point? The author gives several concrete examples of how people make choices based on emotions and selfishness. The author uses the example of the recent school shooting to illustrate a decision being made without thinking about the consequences. A decision based solely on emotions. Two of the author’s examples illustrate how people make decisions knowing the negative consequences: making the decision to eat sweets when diabetic and smoking in the car with a child present. The diabetic knows eating sweets is bad for their health, and the smoker knows that it is bad for the child’s health. They disregard the consequences because of their selfish wants.
Do you agree or disagree with the author’s answer and why? Yes, I agree with the author’s answer because I agree that people lack knowledge and discipline when making everyday choices. Emotions and selfishness are the reasons for making irrational decisions. They are also the reasons why people do not think about or ignore consequences when making decisions.
ReplyDeleteWhat is a concrete example that clearly illustrates why you agree or disagree with the author? A concrete example that illustrates why I agree with the author is the decision people make to text while driving.
What is your explanation of how your concrete example clearly illustrates your reason for why you agree or disagree with the author? People make the decision to text while driving because of emotions and selfishness. People know that texting while driving causes you to be distracted and could cause an accident. An accident could cause damage to vehicles and property. It could cause injury to the person texting as well as others. People ignore the consequences because of the selfish want to socialize and the emotional response associated with socializing.
Nice peer-review MissL2.
DeletePLEASE NOTE: My peer response post was late due to technical difficulties with Blogger.com. I emailed a screenshot of the error message I was getting yesterday.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with the peer response. The responder stated that they found spelling errors. After going back, I do see some of the errors the peer responder saw. Even though the peer responder found errors in the spelling and grammar, the peer responder still agreed with my writing form and stated that the blog post gave clarity. The responder provided an example about texting and driving. This is a great additional example that further shows how we as people do things out of selfishness knowing how it may cause bodily harm to ourselves or others. We both agreed with Plato and interpreting his message. I believe this helped the responder agree with my position that I took as an author of this writing assignment.
ReplyDeleteWhy, like so many others, do I lack knowledge and discipline in [making] everyday life choices? [What has made us so focused on making emotional, typically selfish, choices?]←(Are emotional choices always selfish choices? Are emotional choices what stand in the way of knowledge and discipline in making everyday, life choices?)
ReplyDelete[Plato concluded that most people are unfit by training and ability to make the difficult and necessary decisions that would result in a just society. The “average person” lacks wisdom and self-restraint to serve the needs of society. As Plato viewed the world, most people make emotional responses based on personal desire and sentiment rather than on rational considerations stemming from an objective view of what is genuinely good for the individual (Soccio, Section 5-1b).]←(Nice summary of Plato’s view.)
I feel so many of us including myself lack discipline and knowledge to make choices that are efficient for society while staying morally correct. [We allow our emotions to completely drive the choices we make.]←(Do you think there might be a way in which emotions could help us make such decisions better rather than stand in the way of making these kinds decisions?) [So many times we are emotionally wrapped in our feelings and mind that we do not realize the consequences to the choices we make. I find that we are naturally selfish beings.]← (The connection between these two statements is not readily apparent. Can you tell us a little bit more about how it is that you believe they are related.)
A recent example is the school shooting that occurred in Arizona. In this particular situation [delete comma] a student killed a peer that [with whom] she had a romantic relationship with. [space] Than [Then]←(‘Than’ is typically used when we care comparing quantities of things, e.g., 5 is bigger than 6; ‘then’ is used when we are speaking of order of events, e.g., first this happened and then that happened.) she killed herself making this situation [into] [what was some would considered to be a murder suicide.]←(Wouldn’t the situation in fact be a murder suicide rather than something that is just “considered” by some to be a murder-suicide?) Obviously, many questions may be left unanswered but we can suspect [that it was the student’s emotions that] what drove this student toward their actions...emotions. [Her emotions [delete comma] [and] lack of knowledge most likely made her feel like she was making a wise decision.]←(Can you explain in a bit more detail how it is that her emotions and lack of knowledge might have made her think that she was making a wise decision? Doing so would help us get a clearer idea of whether or not what you claim about emotions (as standing in the way of making good choices) is true. Even if you do not know what really happened, it would help if you could simply imagine what might have been the case, and then give us a detailed account of how emotions and lack of knowledge were involved.) [space] It was what she wanted to do, having zero regards for the future, [space] [her life idea of taking the life of another.]←(This is unclear. What were you trying to say here?) [She made a selfish decision to somehow “benefit” her and harm the life of others.]←(Can you explain this in a bit more detail as well. It’s clear that you think that she didn’t really make a decision that would benefit her, so why would you assume that that was the decision she made. Perhaps she made a decision to sacrifice herself because she thought all was lost; because she thought she was in a loose-loose scenario and that nothing she would do would end up being a benefit for her?) [This is a more influential example of how our choices in everyday life can affect us just as strongly.]←(Okay, but you seem to have shifted a bit from your original point/topic/focus. Now you are speaking of choices affecting us, but you initially began with speaking of how our emotions and lack of knowledge affect our choices. These are two different considerations.)
ReplyDeleteTime, age, and general maturity can play a key part in our decision-making skills. Perhaps she felt this other person wronged her in some way or that ending her life would benefit her. [Regardless of the real reasons, having no discipline in morality or knowledge of life prevent us from making choices that could positively influence our society altogether.]←(Your example still does not really illustrate or help us understand why this would be the case.) [space] [Similar to the past, people are still making choices that benefit themselves on a personal level.]←(Again, you seem to think that emotions and selfishness are tied together some how, but you never really tell us how or why they would be.) [We are people who emotionally respond in the moment and not thinking of the long-term results.]←(Are all of our choices that are made based on our emotions decisions that are only looking toward short-term results. What about, for example, the sacrifice that a parent might make for their children’s education because they love their children and they know that the education that their children receive will matter greatly in terms of what kind of future life their children will end up living as adults?) [This has caused many of us to make some good and some bad choice; ultimately, just selfish choices.]←(There seems to be three factors here that you are especially concerned with: 1) emotions, 2) selfishness, and 3) lacking knowledge. It would be fruitful if you could speak about how each of these, on their own, individually contribute to the making of bad decisions in order for us to get a really good idea of if, how, and why these three factors are significant to the phenomenon of being undisciplined and making bad choices.)
ReplyDelete[I feel that most of us lack discipline and wisdom on every day life choices; myself included, I am a diabetic. I often find it difficult to resist sugar or sweets knowing that they are not beneficial for my health. I find myself ignoring the warnings and advisements of my medical prescriber because of my own selfish wants. We simply have those physical cravings that I find difficult to fight against.]←(Is an emotion the same as something like a craving, thirst, and pain?)
[These selfish tendencies can cause individuals to be blinded by their desires. I have witnessed a person in the a car smoking [delete comma] while their [there] are children in the car. Would that not be considered satisfying one's own personal wants without thinking about those around us, whether it be strangers or our own children (including disregarding one’s health conditions)?]←(Ok. Sounds good, but the question is not whether or not emotions, selfishness, and lack of knowledge are involved in these kinds of decisions. The question is whether or not these kinds of decisions are ALWAYS and ONLY rooted in emotions, selfishness, and lack of knowledge.
One final note: Although you provided a nice summary of Plato's view on who is fit to govern, your really didn't related this to anything that followed regarding your life. What would have been good is if you ended your post by bringing the discussion back around to Plato's view that you introduced at the beginning of the post.
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