What is the Good?

Aristotle argues that all action aims at some good. That is, whenever you act you do so because you believe the action will produce some form of good, otherwise you would not do the act in the first place. Aristotle's point is that you cannot act without aiming for what you believe is good. But that simply begs the question; what do we mean by Good?

I got attacked recently for posting a thread on a website that will remain nameless so as to protect the guilty. Basically I started a thread laughing about a news reporter stating, and I quote: "Coons are invading the Whitehouse." I almost feel out of my chair laughing so hard. I posted a thread describing what had happened. Perhaps I did it to get a few people's panties in a wad, I wasn't thinking that when I posted the thread, but that damn sub-consciousness can strike at will. Anyway, some people lost their freakin' minds. You would have thought I was Mel Brookes or something! Did I miss the class where it was explained that you are not allowed to find something funny because it makes someone feel bad? I thought that was what made things funny in the first place?

So back to Aristotle, clearly I was aiming at some good, as were those who tried to belittle me for posting something so cleary racists and uncalled for; as though they had some priveleged position from which to judge the rightness and wrongness of all acts. But that still tells us nothing about what is actually Good? Is laughing at other's expense not good? What can I laugh at? And why can't I find coons invading the Whitehouse humerous? I have no answers, but I will say that I am more worried about people telling me what to laugh at then I am that people will laugh at what makes another feel bad.

Universal Principles?

Are there universal principles, or would it be better to say humanistic principles, that all "normal" humans agree upon? Such as murder? Do all humans agree on this issue? If not, do they disagree because they are "abnormal" or do they disagree because they do not hold to same principles, therefore suggesting there are no such sorts of universals.

Everything hinges on where one falls with respect to this question. Now there is unlimited possibility connected to both, nevertheless, one must it would appear take a position with respect to this question. Even doing nothing, is ultimately, doing something. The question is simply why we do what we do when we do all the crazy things that we do. And that's a lot of do-doin'.

Ethics and Faith

Should how we act be influenced in any way by faith? If so, how so? Who's faith exactly? Will any faith work, or is there a "right way to walk?" Are we to take serious a claim to action that grounds itself in someone's belief? For example, that homosexuality is "wrong." Or that abortion is murder?

Should not our ethics, or common morality if you will, be supported by more than mere faith? If we assent, however, upon what do we then ground our ethics? Must not any ground involve some degree of faith? At what point does fact fade to faith, and how can we know when we have crossed the line?

What is Education?

Interestingly enough, the question of the One and the Many often leads toward the question of how we are to educate the youth.

But what does it mean to educate? At the time when the gigantomachia (battle of giants) was being waged philosophically, education was paediea (cultivating excellence). Granted, that is a loaded idea, though at least the Greeks took a stand on what it meant to educate. Today, we no longer question education, simply how to train individuals in particular forms of thinking. Perhaps that is excellence? How are we to know?

This I do know. Tuition is going up while Humanities courses are being cut. Business courses and the sciences lose few if any instructors/courses when compared to the "uselessness" of the Humanities courses such as History, Religious Studies, Philosophy, etc. So they will argue your education is simply being streamlined to serve your needs; hence the tuition increase.

So education is training. Correct?

Do we need a beginning?

Does the universe need a beginning? When we are taught about the Big Bang the first premise reads "we are reasonably certain that the universe had a beginning." Reasonably certain? What does that mean exactly? Does the universe even need a beginning? And if it does, why did it begin?

Not a new question. In fact, it reflects the philosophical question of western philosophy: why is there something rather than nothing? But what is a beginning?