Guilt

I think that it would be useful to separate actual guilt from feeling guilty. We cannot control our feelings of guilt. We feel bad about something that we have done in the immediate past, because we wish that we had the ability to alter the past. Unfortunately we cannot. Moral actions are something that we ought to do, and ought implies can. As such, I don't think that we should incorporate guilt into morality given that we cannot alter the past, meaning the guilt can have little role in it. The feeling that we identify with guilt, which is more of an extension to empathy, perhaps, is useful in allowing us to realize that we have done something wrong and that we ought not to do that thing again. Determinism hardly affects this given that, once a person realizes that something is wrong, because they feel bad (and they cannot control that) they know that they should not do that again. Additionally, effectively, humans have the illusion of choice, and if something doesn't cause them to alter their negative behaviors, we ought to try to help them to become determined to do so.

Aligning Views with Reality

I think that it is always important to align our views with reality. If reality is that non-human animals can feel pain and that it is bad to inflict pain, we should align our views and actions to create as little pain as possible. If reality is that people with darker skin are people no different from people with lighter skin (besides phenotypic characteristics), then we should align our views and actions away from slavery. I do not think that the expense of having to change the system and think differently should change that. As with Plato's allegory of the cave, we ought not entertain ourselves with the shadows of what is. We should seek the real thing. I think, then, that if the world is determined, we ought to come up with a different theory of ethics. It may have taken thousands of years to understand ethics currently, but if reality is determined and people cannot be held responsible for choosing to do a wrong thing, we ought to come up with new theories of ethics and justice. If something is wrong, we ought to abandon it. If something is the truth, we ought to accept it, even if it "makes a mess" of our current system of beliefs, because our current system is wrong, and continuing it would not be useful.

Paving Our Path

The story of Genesis, I think, is a story of humanity choosing a path for itself. Basically, I think there is a historical explanation. For brevity's sake, I will be rather imprecise. The beginning of the agricultural evolution is marked with independence from nature. Before the agricultural evolution, when we were hunter-gatherers, we had to rely on the land (the animals and vegetation therein).  Eventually, we realized that we could manipulate the land to allow us to live beyond our needs. The new agriculturalists, started to take over land in order to produce more food. This upset the hunter-gathers who then proceeded to tell stories saying that somewhere these agriculturalists went wrong in thinking that they could act like gods and control their own destiny. Thus, I think, is the story of the tree of knowledge. A later part of Genesis, which I think is still a reflection of the agricultural revolutions, is the story of Cain and Abel. Cain, a tiller/agriculturalist, kills Abel, the herder.

Anyway, that was the short, informal, and slightly imprecise version of my historical explanation  for two parts of the story of genesis.

"Race"

Race, contrary to what some of us believe, does not actually exist. When we divide ourselves by race, we are actually dividing ourselves by phenotypic characteristics of skin colour. Skin colour is hardly different from eye colour, hair colour, ear lobe attachments, and so on. Why then, do we continue to refer to these phenotypic characteristics as classification of race. I am of the opinion that the very fact that we use the word race lends itself to discrimination and classification based on skin colour. If we continue to use the word race, we continue to reinforce that idea that 'race' in the form of skin colour is actually something that divides humans. Regardless of which side you take on the issue of "racial profiling" you acknowledge that there is a distinguished 'race' of people who are different from others in a drastic way. Colleges, ours included, often have groups dedicated to minorities, which, again, only reinforce the notion that people with darker skin colour are different and separate from those with lighter skin. Using words like 'race' and setting up establishments and groups to distinguish one group from another reinforces discrimination based on skin colour. As such, I think we should refrain from using 'race' and should replace it with 'discrimination based on skin colour.' We should recognize that the idea is hardly different from discrimination based on eye colour.

Morals - Tri-Part

Response to Corey - full post here

Avery and I recently, I think a week or two ago, had a conversation on morality. We decided that morality is based largely on three things: evolution, logic/reason, and emotion/intuition. Evolution supplies basic morals, then you can use logic/reasoning to extend those basic morals to new situations. Emotion, specifically empathy, helps us to understand that there are other creatures that have worth in themselves. It fosters a sort of golden rule which reinforces our morality. I think that guilt fits fairly well into the view of morality; it's our ability to feel negatively after we neglect the emotional aspect of morality. I think the emotional aspect of morality is very important and calls us to action. Guilt, I think, does not call us to action as it is reflective, as you mentioned. However, I think that other parts of the emotional aspect are very important to how we behave. When people neglect to be moved by emotion to behave morally, you get those who accept arguments for such things as vegetarians but, because they don't feel like it's the right thing to do, continue to ignore the moral obligation recognized by evolution and reasoning.

What It Means to Teach

I do not think that the end result of teaching should be belief inculcation, as that attitude does not foster progress. A teacher should give students the ability to reason things out for themselves; in that sense, I suppose a teacher should be able to give reasons or, preferably, resources to find reasons for many sides of many issues. If teachers give students resources and the ability to reason, it may be that the students eventually develop better reasoned points of view that the teachers had not considered. This promotes both progress and reason, whereas belief-inculcation limits and obstructs those things.

Thinking and Feeling

I've been noticing lately that people often expressing their thoughts by associating their thoughts with feelings in order to prevent other people from challenging their thoughts; they are lacking any confidence in their own answers, so they try to communicate their answers in the weakest way they can. What sad times are these when a growing number of people replace 'think' with 'feel;' I wonder why people no longer want to face having their thoughts questioned. Especially as philosophers, we should seek to put our ideas out to the public not hide our thoughts behind the shroud of private and personal emotions and intuitions. I think that we could use feel if we were actually using felt reasons. Though I don't think that we are using felt reasons as often as we say that we 'feel that (statement)."

Some great philosophy teachers once co-authored a writing checklist (rule 20) where they expressed that people should "never use 'feel' where 'think' will do." I think we ought to follow this wonderful piece of advice.  We should not try to do this; there is do and do not, there is no try.