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There were a number of topics covered Tuesday night that grabbed my interest. Exactly defining what counts as moral, particularly a “universal” moral, obviously proved challenging throughout our discussion. I initially thought coming up with such morals would not be so difficult, and so the challenge was somewhat unsuspected and seemed very intriguing. Why is it so difficult to identify a set concept of what is moral? Is it simply because cultures are so different? Is there a biological component? I’m (obviously) not sure, but it’s something that I think deserves further research and discussion.

Much of our conversation also seemed to depend on personal anecdotes and feelings. This makes sense and seems completely natural, since the “beetle” analogy applies here (in addition to many of our discussion topics) – nobody can actually know what another person is feeling, experiencing, or thinking. These personal anecdotes are quite important – they present real examples where people experienced a moral dilemma or change in their moral reasoning. Personally, I find these kinds of “stories” fascinating. For example, Jessica’s story about how learning more about animal research changed her moral mindset and judgments shows that learning and contemplation (which maybe depends on a social dialogue with others) can actually change one’s future inner dialogue within one’s own mind. This is a powerful tool our minds/brains provide – learning can change not only how we reason after we act or think a certain way, but can also actually change those initial judgments and choices. As many people reflected in class (I specifically remember Jenna’s comment), this rationalizing part of forming our thoughts in moral situations seems crucial to individual growth and development of a social functioning society.

Finally, Tamara left me with a thought I still am not sure I can reason through. The idea that we can self-identify a moral, but not actually let that moral choice/gut reaction play out in our everyday actions/thoughts really interests me. Is it that we rationally reason what is moral, but our gut reaction leads us otherwise? Or is it the opposite – that our gut reaction tells us what is the right thing, but our reasoning leads us to not follow through. I definitely know I have personally experienced such situations, but I can’t figure out why I necessarily acted/thought the way I did. I do seem to always come back to the importance of context – situational factors always seem to make huge differences. But I’m wondering if anyone else has any thoughts…