Ultimate Good

Aristotle says that the best way to live life is through happiness or the ultimate good.  He says that it should be our end.  As good as this sounds I do not agree with him.  Yes it would be great to have the ultimate good but shouldn't it be up to the person to decided?  Everyone is different and have different cultures.  Sometimes people may not believe in the ultimate good because it conflicts with their culture.  Aristotle does not take other cultures into consideration.

Beliefs

Reality to me is something that I believe to exist.  I believe that everyone has there own personal take on reality and that reality is constantly growing and changing.  For example when I was young I thought there was a monster in my closet and I lived most of my childhood believing in that monster.  When I grew up, I realized that monsters aren't real and so I stopped believing in them.  There may be facts and logic to prove that some things aren't real if someone were to believe in those things but it is up to that person to chose to believe those statements.  Someone could think that dinosaurs  are still alive and just by showing them the bones of dinosaurs does not make them believe that they are really gone.  

Good vs Evil

I find it to be very interesting that even the best of people can become different when put in to different envirments.  I feel that those college students that were chosen to be guards were power hungry when they were appointed that position because it put them in charge of others.  While the other students who were the prisoners had their free will taken from them.  Even though the situation was fake, meaning that these college students were places in the prison for research only, given the situation, the environment and the props that were given to them, they fell perfectly in to their character so fast.  They didn't even make it to the half point till the experiment had to be stoped.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a belief that the moral justification of an act is its end or goal.  The goal of our action is to produce happiness or prevent suffering.  This is difficult to grasp because there are so many exceptions.  For example the one with your friends in a car wreck and you have to hurt a little child in order to get the grandmother out of a locked room and give you the keys.  Even thought that could never happen, you can't decide what to do.  Helping your friends would be great but the action that you do to help them is wrong because you are hurting someone in the process.

Rings

Glaucon disagrees with Socrates and insists that justice and virtue are not in fact desirable in and of themselves. In support of his claim, Glaucon offers the following story which suggests that the only reason people act morally is that they lack the power to behave otherwise. Take away the fear of punishment, and the "just" and the "unjust" person will both behave in the same way: unjustly, immorally.

If people don't have anything to fear then they will feel that they can do anything and there is nothing that can stop them from acting unjust or immoral.  The fear of punishment is what makes people obey the law.  People don't commit murders because they don't want to go to jail, or people keep the speed limit because they do not want to get fined.

Kant

Kant's belief is that rules are established to constrain our behavior as rational beings. Without rules, we would not be rational beings, instead we would be animals. Rules tell us what to do and the difference between what is right a wrong. Without them, we would not know how to act.

humans are un predictable

It is surprising that when people see other people in pain, they do not stop to help them. I would assume that it is in our nature to help those who cannot help themselves. You always see a helping hand where ever you go. In the clip about the hit a run, no one comes to the injured person's aid. People just walk on by like he was invisible but in reality he was screaming for help. What kind of place do we live in if people don't help others?