“How should one live?” is the question posed by Plato. There are two ways to attack this question, from a specific or a general standpoint. For the purpose of addressing the bigger picture, this paper will focus on the latter. The essence of this is that people should live in a way that reflects what they think and believe, but then this answer asks more questions than it answers. What should people believe, exactly, and what about when people have disagreements about how they should live?
There are some aspects of life on which just about everyone can agree should be universally accepted (e.g. Do not murder), and others which have become integrated into culture (e.g. Don’t let the American flag touch the ground). Still, culture cannot project itself into anyone’s mind, so each person has a specific personal code of beliefs. From person to person, these codes may be similar, and of course they will integrate rules or ideas from outside sources, but one cannot pretend to follow the same exact belief system as anyone else.
Some of these statements may seem contradictory, and it is natural to think that way. Humans want everything to be neatly classified and ordered. People want a system that they can understand, but duck-billed platypuses keep popping up. Perhaps in frustration, the man who could not put the answer to every moral question into neat black-and-white categories came up with a gray-scale, declaring truth to be subjective and those who disagreed to be narrow-minded. Perhaps this hypothetical person is being a bit hypocritical in thinking that he has to have just one system for classifying beliefs. It stands to reason that there are black-and-white rules, as well as gray principles. Certainly, examples could be provided to disprove both ways of thinking by themselves, but together they form something solid.
“How should one live?” is a broad question, so appropriately the answer given in this writing is broad enough to address it. Because of this, even If these answers are accepted, there is to be argument over which issues should be black-and-white and which are gray. The important thing is to be accepting when judgment need not be cast, to be judgmental with what one cannot accept, and most importantly to know the difference between the two.
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1 comment:
(from Lucie, reposted by Laura)
First, and, foremost, I want to say that I love the part about "black and white rules" and "gray principles." To me, this is the hardest part about growing up. School teaches you a lot about black and white, but the real world teaches you about gray. And, most things in life are gray.
To me, Martha Nussbaum's article is all about "gray." I completely agree with her statement, "Theories of Justice need to be abstract because if we remain immersed in the prejudices of our immediate time and place, we may create theoretical structures that are unfair to people in other places."
To sum it up, everyone is different. So, the black and white rules of justice don't work for everyone. And as James pointed out, it is almost impossible to address everything needed to live a great life or every injustice in this world. Which is why Ms. Nussbaum's "Central Human Capabilities" only touch on different issues that she thinks are essential to a just life. She never gets too specific.
Questions:
Is there anything that needs to be added to Ms. Nussbaum's "Central Human Capabilities"?
Is there one point that is more important than the others?
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