Josef Pieper's Insights On A Few Virtues

I was reading A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart by Josef Pieper, and I found several of Pieper's thoughts to be very insightful. First, I was impressed by his description of patience. He says that patience is not the indiscriminate acceptance of any kind of evil, but is rather the ability to not allow the serenity and discernment to be taken away from one's soul. People often get patience confused with indifference, but as Pieper shows, it is much stronger than that. Patience is rather a recognition the evil, but yet some kind of strong resistance to it.

Also, I am encouraged by his description of discipline. Pieper explains that discipline is selfless self-preservation. Contrastingly, indiscipline is self-destruction through selfish debasement of powers intended for self-preservation. People seem to confuse discipline with a selfish ambition, but it is interesting to note that discipline's opposite is in fact the real selfish quality. There have been times when I felt discouraged because I questioned if much of my hard work (whether it is in school, at work, at the gym, or even around the house) was for selfish ambition. Pieper’s description gave me an encouraging new revelation on the nature of discipline.

Finally, his insight that anger is not necessarily a vice is very interesting. In the power of being angry, the human nature speaks most clearly. So, anger can be used in overcoming licentiousness, I think through clearly seeing the lack of real satisfaction that licentiousness brings. Whatever he was trying to get at, I think his insight on anger is interesting.

Nietzsche and Forgetting

In his Genealogy of Morals Friedrich Nietzsche explores the meaning behind “the right to keep promises.” At first, he marvels at the idea of the opposing force – forgetfulness. Nietzsche explains that forgetfulness is the active process of repression, which allows us to be free of our unwanted, over-produced consciousness, and that without it “there could be no happiness, no cheerfulness, no hope, no pride, and no present.” He follows to say that we humans have since developed the opposing faculty of memory, a continual active desire or will that something should not be forgotten. He continues to express that in order for this memory to be attained, in a world of constant distractions and different circumstances, one must become calculable, regular, necessary, and secure in one’s own future. Thus people had to become disciplined, conditioned by society, and responsible. Finally, he who is fully responsible is eligible to make a promise.

This brings forth a troubling thought. If in order to develop our faculty for memory, we have to abandon much of our forgetfulness, is it really worth it? According to Nietzsche, forgetfulness allows us to be happy. Is ignorance really bliss? I have thought about this several times. In fact, I have found myself doing whatever means I could find to “block my memory” so to speak. It is no secret that a huge number of people drink and do drugs in an attempt to escape the confines of reality. Should they?

Based on my past experience, the answer is a clear “no.” As Mill puts it, there are qualitative differences between pleasures and goods. The pleasure gained from a brief escape from reality is qualitatively inferior to that gained from truth.

Freedom in Kant's Ethics?

In one of my other classes, Introduction to Ethics, we discuss several different moral theories and ideas. Since ethics is a very interesting philosophical subject, (and I won’t lie, since I need to finish 12 blogs ASAP and I need some material to work with) I will share some of what I have learned. The first major ethical theory we learned about is from Immanuel Kant.
Kant proposes that rationality must be our basis of ethical conduct. He suggests that we may exist transcendentally solely through our ability to reason. That is, our reason may exist in and of itself independent of outer influences. Also, according to his philosophy, we can freely control our rationality but we cannot control our desires. Furthermore, he supposes that every human being is rational, or capable of rationality. He also says that rational beings are ends in themselves, and that we must realize that other people are ends in themselves as well, and treat them accordingly. So, he developed a categorical imperative – the law that suggests that a person should do that maxim which he could rationally make a universal law. He proclaims that his categorical imperative is an applicable universal objective law of morality.

Kant then suggests that we are most free when we submit to universal objective laws of morality. I find this a bit paradoxical. He explains that if we submit to our sensible desires, we are merely being influenced by outer causes in the phenomenal world. On the other hand, he proposes that if we rationally lead ourselves noumenally through rational submission to universal laws, we are indeed free. This is troubling to me because I feel that it begs the question, "why can't we freely choose to satisfy our drives and desires instead of reason." Perhaps our only freedom abides in our ability to choose what we submit to - desire or reason.

Introduction

Hello fellow bloggers/philosophers/classmates. My name is Derek Torres. I know that we were supposed to write our introductory blog about a semester ago, but better late than never, right? I started out my college experience as a business major, but quickly discovered that I had no interest in it whatsoever. My major was Sports Sponsorship and Sales because I love sports. Unfortunately, I soon realized that the criteria was actually more like straight “Sponsorship and Sales.” They pretty much took sports out of the equation. So, I thought about what I actually like. I took a few philosophy classes because I thought they would be interesting, and found that philosophy was basically the only class I was interested in. So, I switched my major to philosophy and have not looked back.
As many of you know, philosophy majors do not exactly have a straightforward path to any specific career. They say it will either take you anywhere or nowhere. I figure the most viable options for philosophy majors are either to be a professor… or a lawyer. I think I am going to go with the latter. I am pre-law and I plan to take the LSAT this coming fall. I bet many of my fellow classmates are probably in the same boat.
Anyway I love philosophy amongst many other things. I enjoy basically any kind of physical activity – sports, cliff jumping, floating rivers, working out, running, the outdoors, etc. I also like to just chill with my friends and watch TV (mostly sports; can’t wait for the World Cup this summer!), watch movies, play videogames, listen to music, etc. I also like sleeping, travelling, hot-tubbing, and going out to new places. I used to love to get drunk and high and party all the time, but then I found Jesus and He changed my life. He is REAL and GOOD to have around. If any part of my blog posts are taken with a grain of salt, let it be the previous sentence.