Kindness?

What I took away from these reading on kindness if that kindness is something that should be a part of everyday life, somewhat like breathing. It shouldn’t have to be talked about, it should just be done, but this isn’t the case. “ Why do the pleasures of kindness seem to astonish us?” Pg.4. This is a question that is tough to answer for me because I don’t want to answer it. I think everyone should be kind, but today that isn’t the case. On a personal note, for lent I decided that I would do something kind for someone everyday, but when I thought about it, I already did do something kind everyday, even if it was opening a door for a stranger. Lent has been going on for a few weeks now, and I have noticed myself realizing my random act of kindness. I’m not doing it for anyone else, but more just to be a good person. I believe that kindness can be related to my Community partner because a lot of the kids there have kindness in their heart, but choose to not show it in fear of being made fun of. This is my opinion, but I believe it to be true. All the kids there seem to have a higher someone, something, telling them how to act and dress, because most of them act the same, and kindness is something that isn’t stressed in this world of theirs. Hopefully with time they will mature into people that society accepts as kind.

Kindly mistaken

How do you see the role of vulnerability in your service-learning experience?
By Justin Salter
In my service-learning experience I work with a very vulnerable group of people. As I talked about on my research assignment, the reason this age group is abused is because they are so vulnerable. It is because they are vulnerable however, that I feel like it is my duty to help them. “…which show kindness registering much higher on the happiness scale than self-focused behavior. “ (pg 3) This is true for me. I feel much happier when I help people than when I do anything else. This is why I want to be a nurse, so I can enjoy myself, while I make a good living. “In one sense kindness is always hazardous because it is based on the susceptibility to others, a capacity to identify with their pleasures and sufferings.” (pg 5) This is very true and by doing this people make themselves vulnerable as well. They are more easily taken advantage of and sometimes it even enables the other group to continue to portray the need for possibly unneeded help.
“We have become phobic of kindness in our own societies, avoiding obvious acts of kindness and producing, as we do with phobias, endless rationalizations to justify our avoidance.” (pg 8) This quote stood out to me because a common excuse I hear for why people don’t help others is because they don’t have time. Well I don’t have time yet I still do. People come up with justifications so they don’t feel bad about not helping others. To most, the self comes first, and as long as a person thinks this as opposed to society as a whole coming first, then this phobia of kindness will continue. Most believe it is a dog eat dog world out there so they don’t care about the eaten dogs. Unfortunately, it seems kindness is reserved for those who need it least, like the wealthy and the famous. This is because people want to identify with them, because they wish they were in the same situation. Man people can be so kindly mistaken!!

Kindness

Kindness is a trait that has evolved over time. Many people believe that self interest or focusing on yourself will bring you true happiness however, "kindness registers much higher on the happiness scale the self focused activities."(Phillips 1) If more people would just realize that being kind to other people would significantly increase their happiness and the world would be a better place. According to philosopher Marcus Aurelis "kindness was man kinds greatest delight" What exactly happened to change this way of thinking? As the world becomes more modern the focus falls off of pleasing and helping others to pleasing yourself but we should return to our roots and realize that true happiness comes from kindness, and empathy to others. Many people do withdraw from kindness because the act of being kind is based on a "susceptibility to others"(Phillips 5). It forces us to be empathetic and see what someone really needs which can put you in a vulnerable position. When people do get over there fear of being kind, and when people realize that being kind to others will actually make them happier then focusing on themselves I think that many people will realize that showing true kindness will be beneficial to everyone.

The suppression of emotions and kindness

Why has the act of showing emotions become taboo? In the society that we live in kindness and other emotions are very strictly suppressed. It is inappropriate for people to show too much personal excitement (too happy with ones own accomplishments, unsportsmanlike), for people to cry in public (overly emotional, over dramatic), and for people to show extreme anger (over reacting, not everyone else's problem) unless of course it is broad casted across the nation on Jerry Springer. Showing a simple act of kindness is also not accepted. One thing we are taught from a very young age is to suppress our emotions, to control ourselves, and not make a scene. Is it because it inconveniences the general public to have to think of your problems rather than their own, or is it because it is embarrassing for those involved? Ultimately it is because in many situations emotions=weakness. The idea that one cannot control him or herself leads to the thought that he or she cannot possibly control any other part of his or her life. I mean if you can't control yourself, then what can you control? Emotions are weakness. Any act of kindness stems from an emotion, so indirectly kindness is weakness. And weakness is unacceptable. As Phillips and Taylor state it, "Living according to our sympathies, we imagine, will weaken or overwhelm us" (4-5). This basically means that if we give in to our emotions and sympathies we will not be able to function in everyday life. It is too easy to get caught up in emotions and consequently not attend to other work. But if people have no emotions at all then what are they? Can people who seemingly have no emotions even be counted as people? Why are emotions suppressed? Because emotions are incredible. How could emotions weaken you if they weren't themselves extremely powerful? The idea of being overwhelmed deeply frightens people. In order to stop this tidal wave of emotions before it even has a chance to begin, we as a society teach our children to suppress our feelings. Tears are weakness, and kindness is vulnerability. On Kindness says, "Kindness is seen either as a cover story or as a failure of nerve. Popular icons of kindness [...] are either worshipped as saints or gleefully unmasked as self-serving hypocrites" (8). It is either one extreme or the other. There is no medium. In this respect people can't just be kind. Why not? In my service learning there is one students who always asks me why I am there, or if I get paid to be there. When I tell him no he gives me a strange look and rolls his eyes; every time. Why is kindness such an anomaly? The idea that people are just kind doesn't seem to make sense in the world that we live in. Many people nowadays are deceitful and have a need to constantly ask why. In society today this lack of trust is understandable. It seems that most people have a hidden agenda that leads to the selfishness associated with certain kindnesses. Many times people benefiting from acts of kindness are, understandably, suspicious. What does this person want from me? What do they get out of this? Why? The idea that certain people are willing to put themselves out and act kindly is amazing to some people. I have friends who would always ask me why I did community service when I wasn't required. I would respond that I enjoyed it. They thought it was ridiculous that I would choose to spend parts of my summer days running around with little kids. I cannot say that by doing community service I was acting selflessly because I enjoyed myself as well, but through the eyes of people around me, I was willingly giving up my free time to do something that had no tangible value to me. Does this mean I am weak? In what sense would this make me weak? Emotions are powerful. One way to strengthen your heart is to help others. Kindness is a powerful act that many people take for granted everyday. What would society be like if we weren't so afraid of weaknesses? If people were encouraged to say what they feel, or to show their emotions, society would be completely different.

Text Reflection 8: I AM … KINDNESS

Philips and Taylor point to important issues of kindness, vulnerability, weakness, and fear. As I was reading, I immediately confronted my long-held beliefs about independence, self-reliance, self-focus, and my often self-punishment in feeling too connected and dependent on people, whether it be my parents, a friend, or a lover. I have personally always battled with complex questions of life, purpose and human nature. On Kindness spoke from a perspective I wasn’t necessarily used too, but a perspective that made sense to me and my life. In foraging societies or even as we trace history, it seems more prevalent that the past is more engulfed in love because the ultimate reality then was mutual belonging, connection, and cooperation with one another. Now, however, with pressures from numerous institutions like government, education, society, capitalism, etc the motive is autonomy and independence. This explains our frequent feeling, as a whole, of discontent and speaks specifically to my emotional imbalance and doubt with the idea that “something seems to be missing.” So, like the authors pose the question, why do we run from what makes us feel good? Why do we make rules for what is wrong or right to ‘feel’ or ‘strive’ for? I do not believe it is because we are actually innately born “bad, mad, and dangerous…that as a species… we are deeply and fundamentally antagonistic…that our motives are utterly self-seeking and that our sympathies are forms of self-protection” (4). But, in actuality, we cannot love our neighbors as ourselves because we have lost love for ourselves without truly knowing why and what to do about it. With this as a generalization, it is also a vague, but often true remark to notice our expectations of kindness as a parent. And with this relationship, we often see how kindness brings pure joy and unconditional love, as well as vulnerability. Many people are deeply moved when they have a child and some contain such total love for them, even when the child disappoints or angers them. There is a connection that remains eternal between a parent and child. It is of course children that are pure and innocent, not yet contaminated and trained on how to avert kindness and vulnerability. Just in watching a young child, one can see the obvious attraction they have to help and be connected with another being.
The question posed is, are we meant to be competitive or cooperative? Tom Shadyac, director of I Am seeks to answer these questions as well. One example he gives is, Darwin’s theory of natural selection, where one might assume that nature is simply about survival of the fittest, or rivalry, but in actuality his popularized theory was skewed by the biases of the people who marketed it. Darwin, in fact knew of love, especially in nature. One study looked at a herd of deer, where it was assumed that the alpha-male would decide when the herd would go the watering hole. Researchers were surprised when they realized that the group went only when 51 percent, or the majority were in consent with each other. Even animal, whom we refer to as separate then us, including our nearest relatives, the Great Apes, is built for cooperation, mutual belonging, and kindness. Shadyac further supports this notion by speaking to scholars of all different disciplines including religion, science, psychology, sociology, history, and neurosciences. Starting with the questions: What is wrong with this world, the underlying root causes of our problems, tragedies, and disaster? And what can we do about it? We all know about a disappointment, a misfortune, or a problem that needs fixing. At our community partner association we identify a specific need and address is through service, while simultaneously analyzing ourselves and those we work with. We question society and institutions and when we see the complexity of the root systems in causation of the problem, we slightly retreat at the idea that some things are too big for us to change. Yet, at the same time, we choose not turn completely because for some reason, we feel good about our service, even if nothing drastically or immediately changed in that hour, in that, day or even in that week. However, our kindness prevails eternally, flowing through our magnetic fields which alter our every surrounding, carrying through the ancient and indispensible Argon we breathe, and matching a parallel in another brain through mirror neurons. The simple fact is that in every moment we are altering the world as we know it. Our kind words, brilliant ideas, nurturing hugs, fathomless silence can and will reach someone at some point. We are changing our world.
The movie most positively ends with the inspiration of connection in all of us, whether it is firing mirror neurons, shared emotions, or quantum physics. With answers came more questions, but one specific thing was certain by the end. What is right with the world? Guess what the answer is?

I Am.

Prompt for On Kindness

Against Kindness and Modern Kindness

The authors' thesis (you may not agree but try to see this on a societal level, not from your individual perspective) is that, “[m]ost people appear to believe that deep down they (and other people) are mad, bad, and dangerous to know. . . our motives are utterly self-seeking, and that our sympathies are forms of self-protection” (4).

The authors suggest that although many of us live life in “instinctive sympathetic identification with the vulnerabilities and attractions of others. . . but without a language in which to express this, or cultural support for it” (4)

(Again, remember, at times we have to over-generalize in order to be able to examine collective issues, and if we look at the state of our own country in the moment, there may be some evidence that supports these claims.)

One of the reasons, that the authors suggest, for our ambivalence about our instinct for kindness, has to do with making ourselves vulnerabile, weak: “Bearing other people’s vulnerability—which means sharing in it imaginatively and practically . . .––entails being able to bear one’s own” (11). In a sense, what we have in common is our vulnerability (an idea that Judith Butler will elaborate on in Precarious Life).

Thus, kindness has an internal tension—it brings us pleasure but it also reminds us of all that we fear about ourselves including change. (There is also an interesting discussion about whether kindness requires selflessness—hopefully we will discuss in class as this is important and a theme that will come up in C. Fred Alford’s book on whistleblowers.) How do you see the role of vulnerability in your service-learning experience? Think about yourself, those you work with etc. As always use the text to support your ideas and specifics from service to illustrate.

Also think about this in relation to and tie in the final chapter, "Modern Kindness" where the authors start by citing Winnicott who wrote about our moral ability to imagine the "thoughts and feelings and hopes of another person" (95). Jonathon Lehrer also described this capacity for empathy and its source in the emotions. The argument is also very much the message that is so well captured in I Am, for those who saw it: "We depend upon others not just for our survival but for our being. The self without sympathetic attachments is either a fiction or a lunatic" (95).

The authors continue to discuss the reasons why this is such a difficult reality for us to face: "Our resistance to kindness is resistance to encountering what kindness means in us, and what we meet in other people by being kind to them" (113).

Of course, our issues with vulnerability and dependence as discussed in the first chapter are a large part of this resistance. So keep thinking about the connections and how you see the implications in your own relation to your service experience (remember to start with yourself, not just about what you see in others).

Good and Bad

I think that everyday people make good and bad decisions, little or big, they are still a decision we must make and sometimes it is going to be good and sometimes it is going to be bad. Most people are good people who want to do good, but mixed in with those people are people who like to do bad. I don’t know why, because I don’t think I am a bad person, but never the less they make bad decisions that could end up hurting people and making people unhappy. What I just said also brings up the question of what is good and what defines a good person. Based on the society we live in the idea of a good person is someone who is generally nice, not to friendly and willing to help people in need. These people are all over the place. When describing a bad person, the task is a little harder. Needleman says we are “ searching…for a new purpose, voluntary to serve the good.” But as I said before the bad are out there and everyone has there own opinion of what is bad, even the bad. I hope that makes sense. I thought the part about the body and the soul being part of the reason you are good or bad was very interesting, but at the same time is tough to understand because we don’t want to believe we were born good or bad, happy or sad. That’s why the people who actually do stuff to be good, or bad, are at least speaking there action. To many people sit back and do nothing, just watching the world spin, when they could do something good with their lives.

Embodying Goodness

Embodying Goodness

In every day life, people act as if they are "good people." And perhaps they are, to some some extent. However, if we were truly good people then wouldn't there be a lot less pain and suffering in the world? People have the amazing ability to trick themselves into believing that they are "good people" even if they continuously don't do good things. In Needleman's opinion, "the sin and ignorance of mankind itself and the sin and ignorance of one's own self (93)" are intertwined. The world that we live in is a representation of the people who live in it. In the words of Buddha "Our lives are the creation of our mind." Everyone lives a different reality. No one can fully experience another person's reality because they have no way of knowing all the little experience the other has lived. For some reason, even though all these realities exist within the same world we manage to live. But who is a good person? Who's reality has made them into this person? Who has lived correctly enough to be considered good?

The idea of the body playing a role in goodness was very appealing to me. Religions and philosophers always talk about the inner self and the role of the mind and spirituality, but this is the first time i read about the idea of the body being important in goodness. As Needleman puts it the body is "considered as the instrument of action in the world (105)." Without a body how would people influence the world? We all hear that actions speak louder than words, but looking at it from Needleman's point of view makes it a lot clearer. People can say whatever they want, but they if they don't do anything then it doesn't matter how much they preach. In order to embody goodness one must actually embody goodness. People can speak, and lecture, and talk, and praise, and worship, but if they don't act accordingly none of that matters.

Needleman describes us as "searching for a new kind of body, a body that has a new aim, a new purpose: voluntarily to serve the Good (107)." As we search we must be able to actually accept our findings. If we don't, we will never learn anything and will never be able to make the transformation into this new body that we all seek.

Prompt for extra credit reading: Why Can't We Be Good?

One of the reasons that I originally picked this piece is that Needleman, unlike many philosophers, acknowledges the role of the body, the fact that we are embodied and it is the body that moves in the world and manifests thought through action. Reading this on the heels of Arendt's Responsibility and Judgment, it is interesting to note that he too sees guilt as a way of hiding from responsibility. He writes that it is "such emotions as guilt and fear, with their reflexes of self-pity and anger" that can lead to emotional reactions that do not include the necessary reflection that will lead to ethical action. (pdf pgs. 2.2-3.1).
This is part of his larger question regarding crossing the Socratic threshold between thought and action. The whole question, Why can't we be good?, rests on this, not the fact that we may know what is good but what " we do, with painful frequency" is the very opposite (pdf. 7.2). "Ideas . . . are necessary. But they are not enough" (pdf 9.1).
Needleman writes,

we need to make use of the ways and means to be outwardly 'in the street' in our actual lives, while somehow, or to some extent remaining inwardly in the theater of the mind . . . to be in two places at once. . .We need something that is fundamentally unknown to ourselves: to question our lives without inwardly or outwardly holding back from whatever life offers and asks of us. (pdf 10.1)

Think about these ideas in relation to our class, the ways in which we are trying to cultivate the habits of mind that lead to the capacity to question ourselves and at the same time we are "in the street," in our bodies, living these ideas in our service. Use specifics from the text and your service to illustrate how this dual experience and what you are learning.

Art for Humanity

TED Prize Winner JR & INSIDE OUT from TED Prize on Vimeo.

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INSIDE OUT is a large-scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work. Everyone is challenged to use black and white photographic portraits to discover, reveal and share the untold stories and images of people around the world. These digitally uploaded images will be made into posters and sent back to the project’s co-creators for them to exhibit in their own communities. People can participate as an individual or in a group; posters can be placed anywhere, from a solitary image in an office window to a wall of portraits on an abandoned building or a full stadium. These exhibitions will be documented, archived and viewable virtually.

INSIDE OUT is a collaboration between the artist JR, the TED Prize and you.

INSIDE OUT is funded by The Sapling Foundation, Social Animals and generous donations from people like you.

a moral mind gives me hope

“Doing the right thing means thinking about everybody else…Selfishness needs to be balanced by some selflessness” (175). While reading the passages, this quote stuck out to me because during my junior year I took a religion class that focused on moral decisions in many different situations. And we had to think about how this will not only affect ourselves, but also the people around us, like our friends and family. I thought the second part of the quote was important because we all are not selfish. I feel like by me going to MCCS is for a selflessness reason. I go because I want to help these kids live a better life. And when I went this week, in my first class there were more students compared to the last time I went before this week. At first nobody showed up until like 30 minutes later. I was just shocked that 3 students showed up and I was also glad that these kids actually came to class. The second class I was in was with Mr. T and was a math class. A lot more people were willing to do their work, even though most of them were playing games. There was this one student that was very interactive with the tutors; he asked for some help and really wanted to get his work done here and there. This just motivates me to get up in the morning and go to help these kids. I guess you could say this is my selfless act because that morning I was considering not going to MCCS because I had an anatomy test, the following day. I could’ve just stayed but I really wanted to help these kids, and to maybe get away from college work. The first time I went I thought it was going to be a waste of time because nobody was motivated to do anything, but this week’s classes gave me hope. And I might just go next week.

Moral Mind

When something or action stimulates an emotional trigger in the brain this cause ones moral response to initiate, when having to think of other’s feeling or well being. For example, the reading used the soldiers during WWII, it described how about 20% of the soldiers actually shot at the enemy because they could not reason killing someone. there moral reasoning distinguished right from wrong, to kill someone is considered, in our society to be wrong (generally.

What I found to be interesting after this soldiers statistic was published the army felt the need to, lets say, re wire the moral reactions of future soldier to increase the amount for soldiers firing there guns. Soldiers were taught to shoot from long ranges or high altitude to disassociate the action of shooting bullets that would potentially kill with the person the could potentially die, “Army managed to turn personal moral situations into a impersonal reflex” (180) In addition to meddling to the soldiers metal moral processing the Military also have made religious soldier go against there beliefs as well. The reading reminded us of the 10 commandments one in particular says a person should not kill. This to me raises a question, where is the military’s morality? What gives them the right to meddle with the minds of our soldiers? I have respect for those out fighting, or have fought, I pass no judgment on them, but I do question if they really know why they are there and if they really agree with the reasons?

In relation to my service learning, there is nothing to the extreme moral reasoning of if we are going to kill any one, but we do have to make decisions that will affect others besides our selves. Moral judgment is to take under consideration others. For our service learning we evaluate a homeless or possible homeless persons situation and that make a decision on whether to help them or not, or how much to help them with. In some cases emotion definitely in triggered, I have found myself making decisions on first impulse or thought a certain way base on my emotional reaction. “And like the reading said feelings come first and the reasons come on the fly” (first half of Moral Mind) after my emotional reaction, I talk with my community partner and reasoning start kicking in.

What is and what should never be

Acting morally is just natural for most people. Although morality and judgment go hand in hand with legality, that doesn’t mean breaking a law is morally wrong. With that said there are some laws which morality steps in like murder. “When you act in a moral manner-when you recoil from violence, treat others fairly, and help strangers in need- you are making decisions that take people besides yourself into account. You are thinking about feelings of others, sympathizing with their states of mind. This is what psychopaths can’t do.” (The Moral Mind, pg 169) What happens though if killing one person would save many lives? For example, what if someone decided to assassinate Hitler and did? Wouldn’t that have been morally right or at least not morally wrong? Let’s turn the tables around for a moment and talk about our military. We go to other countries, fight for our country, and kill many people, yet this action is patriotic, American, and viewed as morally right. What makes these murders right and why? I don’t think killing of any kind is morally right, but this reading has left me with more questions than answers. It talked about psychopaths and their lack of emotional brain and how it prevents them from feeling any empathy or regret, but than what is the excuse for soldiers of any military? Also, the story about the siblings having sex was very shocking because it’s true. Why is it immoral? I know I think it’s immoral, but then when I think of why, I have no logical explanation, other than that it is wrong. It seems people’s biological factors as well as their environment, play a part in moral and ethics in a person’s life.

What is Right and What is Wrong?

Reading “The Moral Mind” brings up the issue of what is right and what is wrong and why people do the things they do. Some people follow all of “Societies’’ rules while other thrive on breaking them. “Societies” is in quotes, because there are different societies around the world, and what is wrong some place may be acceptable in another. I feel that this can be connected to my service learning, because at County Community you can see kids who have mad bad mistakes and broke societies rules and therefore are in a different school from most their peers and have a target on their back that says I have done something wrong, so watch out for me. This brings up the big questions of why do these kids make, “ Poor…sometimes dangerous…moral choices.” This is a question anyone can answer, but it is also a question where we may never know the answer. I believe that it has to do with the family and background the kids are raised in, but their also has to be more than that, because some kids with tough backgrounds turn out great, and others with good family backgrounds have a tough time at that age. The kids at County Community have a tough road to battle ahead of them to get the “target” off their back, but many of the kids I’m working with are trying and succeeding at that. Others are having a tougher time and again the question of why don’t they just do their work comes up and the answer is still left blank.

The Moral Brain

Depending on the type of brain professional you ask, they will often give you different answers on just how the brain works. A psychologist might say that a person's past experiences that shape their brain in terms of retention, feelings and morality. A neurophysiologist will sternly disagree to this sentiment and state that it is the limbic system of a human brain that makes them tick--specifically the amygdala, where the fight-or-flight mechanism is regulated. Ask a humanist and they'll tell you that that morality is something inherent, and what all human beings are born with. So with all these definitions of what makes us moral, which one do we believe?

These articles give us a good insight on just how complicated the issue of morality is. It forces us to question what we consider moral and what other people considered moral. I am especially struck in the article entitled "The Moral Mind" where psychologists constructed several scenarios and asked subjects their opinions on it, or how they feel towards it. The train scenario is one of the situations that certainly got my attention. As a rather indecisive character, I personally would not know what to do when put in this situation. But it also got me thinking as to why one situation is more moral than the other? Does the number of human lives truly matter? In my mind, I pictured the experiment in a different light: what if it was someone's mother or father that was the one person who was about to get run over rather than an unsuspecting stranger? Would it be more moral to spare the lives of 5 people we don't know rather than our own parents? Though we are hardly put in these situations, it is a good way to re-define our idea of morality.

The thought of considering other people's ideas as a part of morality also lingers in my mind. It is true what the article wrote that what's moral is usually defined by what the society we live in. For example, in some countries in Asia it is morally and socially acceptable for couples to have an arranged marriage with a person they barely know. Though it seems blasphemous and unnerving to us to spend the rest of our lives with a person we would have met not more than 2 months before a marriage, this was the case no more than 30 years before our time. To an Asian family a few years ago, this brought great pride, joy, and honor to a son or daughter's parents. In modern times, this type of marriage is no longer acceptable.

Overall, the issue of morality has been brought up, argued, and will continued to be a hot-topic issue in a humane society. But on the same wavelength of morality, we have to consider what is good and evil. Would there necessarily be good without evil?

Moral Points of View and Justifications

I have always been interested in how and why people think the way they do. Some of the time, it's obvious why someone does something; however, the vast majority of the time it seems as though there are underlying reasons, some of which can't be explained. Morality is a very strange concept because, as Lehrer says, "moral decisions are supposed to rest on a firm logical and legal foundation" (171), but the funny thing is that in reality they don't. Morality is based on countless things that can happen in any person's life. Based on the way people have grown up, on their religious views, on their current environments, on random events or any number of experiences that may have changed someones point of view, morality differs for everyone.There are multiple points of view found in every situation. In one person's eyes he is the hero, in another's eyes he is the enemy. Who is he in his own eyes? Lehrer states, "the decisions lead to the same outcome, yet one is moral and one is murder" (177). How can there be such a great discrepancy? If there was a logical foundation for morality, then right and wrong would be black and white. But people are way too complex to have simple morals. In certain situations one thing is acceptable; in another scene the same act can be disrespectful or immoral.

One thing that most people have become very good at, is justifying their actions. Whether they are trying to convince a friend, themselves, or some unseen deity, people attempt to tie meaning and purpose to what they do, even if they know it is wrong. If someone wants to do something, most of the time it is not difficult to come up with a reason, or an excuse, as to why it's alright. As Lehrer puts it, "So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do" (173). Is it wrong, even if you have a really good reason? People have the abilities to manipulate and change almost everything around them, since morality is already such a flexible subject, it's not a surprise that it is stretched and twisted to meet people's needs.

Empathy in Human Nature

One thing that sets makes humans unique compared to all other creatures is empathy. Empathy is the ability to sympathize with someone, or feel their pain. John Lehrer explores this fascinating emotion and what humans do with it. However, he first explores a human without any empathy with infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Gacy was convicted of 33 murders of teenage boys. When Gacy was analyzed by a psychologist it was discovered that he had no empathy and things that would normally cause emotional distress in one person had little to no effect on him. Thus bringing in the question of if he knew the difference between right, and wrong. Whenever Gacy committed murder he felt no remorse, unlike a normal person who would feel a lot of remorse. These types of psychopathic tendacies connect to the nature of morality which is sometimes hard to define within your own moral code, but simply it is a crucial set of decesion making. The importance of morality is taking other people into account, and how your decesions will affect them, "selfishness needs to be balanced by some selflessness."(Lehrer 175). This is where empathy, and morality both come into play to make good decesions that will affect other people you must have empathy to understand their posistion, and to make the best decesion. This concept relates to my service learning a lot because to truly make a difference with these students you must be empathetic and understanding as to not judge them to quickly. Instead of seeing these students as behaviorally challenged teens it is important to see where there coming from, as to understand the personal battles that they go through everyday.

Reflection on What to Decide

In the chapters from How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, there was a part that I found really interesting to think about was the story of John Wayne Gary. It was fascinating to me to think that he was not “thinking about the feelings of others, sympathizing with their states of mind” (page 169) when he murdered “thirty-three boys” (page168) at his house. It is mind blowing to think that someone could be “killing without the slightest sense of unease” (page 169). There must be something wrong with the person’s brain to make them feel no emotion while they murder people. In my opinion, psychopaths are scary, monstrous, unmerciful and evil in every way. I really never understood why someone could act this way and am very curious of how they become these people. I wonder if these people were born psychopaths or didthey chose to be psychopaths. Also, I am curious about what makes these people “make poor---sometimes dangerous---moral choices,” (page 168)? A normal person would show emotion and empathy in making moral choices toward other people but I guess psychopaths are incapable of doing these things. They only think about themselves but I am wondering if they are aware of what they are doing to other people and why they act the way they do. I am guessing that on some level they do as regards to what they want out of what they are doing like paying someone for sexual satisfaction like John Wayne Gary did. But they don’t seem to learn from their evil deeds and feel nothing toward the people they kill. I don’t know but all I know is that these people are dangerous and need serious help. We just don’t know if people are normal people all the way around or if they just act normal on the outside to cover up the evil person they are inside. You really don’t know a person until you get closer to them on a personal level. But if that person is a psychopath it might be too late to save your life if they perceive you as threat to revealing who they really are. So it is best to be careful and watch your back if things get dangerous with people like this. Anything can happen when you least expect it especially with a psychopath who could strike at you at anytime.