Human nature

Dear Philosophers,
When talking about societies we have to take into account and investigate what is it natural to create a society. It is natural? It is artificial? It is something necessary? Some philosophers have developed different theories about that.

Plato: Plato was the first one to say that no one is self-sufficient enough to live individually so we need to live in society. Human survival depends on mutual cooperation. The human person is a social being and our basic needs are satisfied completely when each person specialises in some occupation and then exchanges goods and services.

Aristotle: He claimed that we live in a society to supply our basic needs and to be safe. Men is by nature a social animal because those people who are unsociable naturally for Aristotle they are animals, beasts, and those people who are self-sufficient are considered Gods. He also said that our ultimate objective in society should be developing our human capacities abilities and reach happiness.

Locke: According to Locke human nature is characterised by reason and tolerance. In a natural state all people are equal and independent. Humans aso have this natural right to defend their life, their health, their liberty... If everyone defended their rights in a different way we will have a chaotic society. In order to avoid this natural state (conflicts) we have to create a civil society where everyone can have rights and duties.

Everything for today Philosophers, we are missing two more philosophers (Hobbes and Rosseau) we will see them another day!! See you soon.

Origin and foundations of moral norms

Dear Philosophers,
Yesterday I explained to you morality, the concepts related to it and the moral norms. Today it is the turn for me to explain you the different origins and foundation of moral norms. We can find three different origins.

DIVINE ORIGIN: Its origin and foundation is God and they are known through revelation. The moral action is judged here in our world and after death in the postmortem judgement. We should also know that the moral norm is absolute and immutable.


NATURAL ORIGIN: Its origin and foundation is nature (human nature). They are known through the study and invesstigation of how nature works. Human behaviour fits in a natural order and we csn find naturalist moralities.

CONVENTIONAL ORIGIN: Its origin and foundation is culture, history and society. They are based on the idea of what a society should ideally be and people can either agree or disagree. We can fins conventionalist moralities and they are based on utopías.

See you son philosophers!

Moral norms

Dear Philosophers,
Today I bring you a new section. The last day we saw some theoretical points of view of morality so now we are going to study the moral norms.
What are moral norms? Why are they for? Moral norms are the criteria of judgement about the sorts of persons that we ought to be and the sort of actions that we ought to perform:
-They provide us consistency and stability.
-They provide us with patterns for human conduct.
-They are imperative.
-They regulate the relationship among people to guarantee the social coexistence.
-They are subject to historical, social and cultural evolution.
-They determine what is right and good within a given situation.

Morality and concepts related to it

Dear Philosophers,
We have started a new unit, the last day I talked you about the difference between Ethics and Politics. Today I am going to talk you about Morality and the concepts related to it. Morality comes from Latin and it means custom or way of living. This discipline is a dimensión of human related to the freedom to choose and the capacity to distinguish different ways of living. If you live in a moral way, you are a whole person.
We can find other concepts related to Morality:
-Moral conscience: an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgement of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms
-Personal morality: a collection of moral norms chosen by an individual to guide his/her behaviour.
-Social morality: a collection of moral norms chosen by a society or a social group.
-Personal moral behaviour: is a set of actions carried out by an individual liable to be morally judged.
-Social moral behaviour: is a set of actions carried out by a social group liable to be morally judged.

See you son philosophers, hope you enjoy!

Ethics and Politics

Dear philosophers,
We have already finished the first unit of the second term. Now it is turn to start the second one... named Ethics and Politics.
At this new unit we will study the human being living in society. Ethics has to do with looking for and individual happiness and the objective of our society, reaching happiness. Whereas political philosophy has to do with common good/well being. The first concept, ethics it is more connected to the concept of good/bad behaviour and politics is the discipline which is responsable for analysing the political existing models. These new models are utopies, ideas of perfect societies. We should also take into account another discipline: citizenship. Citizenship involves playing an active part in society.
Everything for today, just a little introduction for you to start thinking about this topic.
See you soon!

Blue pill or red pill?

Dear Philosophers,
Today I would like to talk about the Matrix film. The Matrix is a science fiction movie where the main character, Neo, is a computer programmer at MetaCortex (a big software company) but he is also an underground hacker. The objective of Neo and the rest of the 'Matrix rebels' is to free the humans from the Matrix.
On the Matrix film we have got a very known scene where the protagonist must choose between embracing the truth of reality (red pill) or the pleasant ignorance of illusion (blue pill). Neo is offered to choice between a red or a blue pill. The red pill would allow him to escape from the Matrix and therefore live at the real world. The blue pill would lead him to stay in the Matrix, living on a pretend comfortable world.
What would you choose? Answer me bellow. I recommend you to see the film. Great movie!
See you soon

Dualist theories of reality

Dear philosophers,
We are about to finish the unit of metaphysics and Gnoseology but we must take a look at the dualist theories of reality first.
Plato's theory was based on the world of Ideas (metaphysics and reason) and for Aristotle the world of senses became the only reality for him. Whereas Plato was considered a poet and a mythologist, Aristotle was considered the first great biologist. This last one was worried about nature changes and he devoted his life to explain why these changes happened. Aristotle refused Plato's theory of Ideas on the following way. He agreed with Plato that nature and all objects flow, he disagreed on the contrary on the fact that there would be a form or idea existing independently. So, what it actually exists is an object or a reality that embraces the physical part and the idea existing on the same being. To sum up, that the physical and the immaterial part are the same. This theory is named hylomorphic theory.
Descartes was considered the father of Modern Western Philosophy. On his meditations on first Philosophy he developed his dualist view of reality. He claimed that the reality was made of three substances, two of them immaterial and the third one material. Immaterial: infinite substance (God) and spiritual substance (Soul). Material: material physical substance (Body). He claimed that the human being is the only being in nature that has his dualist compositions.



Everything for today! Thank you!