Catholic social teaching

The welfare of humanity can be rooted down to the Catholic social teaching which lays the foundation by analyzing the needs of even the “poorest members” of the community. Through the Rerum Novaram (an encyclical issued by Pope Leo Xlll on May 15, 1891), themes such as the dignity of a person, value of family, rights, concern of the poor, value of work, solidarity and the environment are all carefully examined. The Catholic society attributes the highest value for its people and the respect for each person. In this perspective, human life is valuable from the point when the person is formed in the womb to the point that the person dies through natural death. Ethical issues such as abortion and euthanasia are strongly argued as being the immoralities done to life. The respect for each of the individuals particularly form the respect towards a family or community. The catholic church holds account for its principle that family is the basic form of the society. Of the basic societal unit, family, branches off the rights and responsibilities of each person. Catholic church advocates the principle that each person has the right to own property up to a certain extend and also each person has responsibilities of his/her own . These responsibilities also include looking after the poor. The church also teaches that maintaining the social mortgage, one should perceive his poor brothers/sisters as equal to him and has the responsibility to fulfill his/her needs in all ways. The work structural should also maintain its terms of personal equality towards all its workers, without considering the superiority of the person. Through this the principle of solidarity can also be upheld. Solidarity calls in unity all its members to work together as a group to maintain the universal peace and structure. Lastly care for god's creation. Catholic teaching also include the aspect of protecting one's surrounding from his/her own actions. The environment is the gift of God and no human activities which can destruct the resources can be tolerated. All these teachings compose the universally divine tone and peace which is responsible to continue the relationship between the creator and its creation.  

Race and Language

          Language is definitely the source of communications between people but because of the stereotyping and different contributions by racism, language intends to destroy the relationship among people. The definition for race and culture is given by looking at the racial characteristics. Because of the race, the color etc humankind are separated into different ethnic groups and those ethnic groups have been understanding each other through the language interpreted only by the people in the ethnic group. The main reason which lead to the classification in the mankind was the distinction in the racial classification.

          From the context of history, several examples can be seen as a result of racism. Centuries back when there was a system of castes in India people were put into different groups according to the skin color, family background and the different accents in the language they speak. The different castes were the Brahmins, were the high priests and religious leaders; Kshatriyas, were kings and noblemen; Vaishyas, were the businessmen and merchants; Sudras, were workers; Dalits (Untouchables), were the group which was treated like slaves. The Dalits were not to walk through the path of the brahmins or the noblemen. People with a darker skin was considered as the low class people than the people who had lighter skin color. Even though the same language, the people who spoke differently than the high class people were also considered inferior. The Dalits had an accent in their way of speaking the language. They had speak to the Brahmins in a special way. They all contributed to differentiation in class which led to disunity among the people of the same nation.

          A race, or a nation is determined not only determined by the people's physical characteristics but is universally defined through the different ideologies the race share. In simple words, arguments debate that, if the world was entirely limited to one language and culture, it would be more easier for the people to understand each other and they would share the same ideologies. Racism has been demolishing the meaning of relationships through out the world. Racism has been promoting racial segregation and violence. Because there is a variation in race, nations have been struck into unresolved conflicts leading these unresolved conflicts into personal conflicts between individuals. These personal conflicts which can might sustain for generations basically destroy the motives of mankind.  

Does reason and emotion play an equal role in justifying moral decisions?

Does reason and emotion play an equal role in justifying moral decisions? First of all, let’s define what is right and what it is wrong. Something might be valued as right or wrong according to individual preferences rather than a universal “law” of morality. A particular issue might seem moral to some people but to a different group it might seem immoral. When defining what is ‘good’, one cannot show or touch what is good; it can only be obtained by one’s right decisions and right actions that might lead to ‘good’ results. Likewise, doing what one thinks is right or wrong might lead one to define it as being moral or immoral. But, these moral (or immoral) statements might have been made by one’s predisposed assumptions. If these assumptions are once not there, then the expression of the person might be just the person’s feelings; it might be just expressions of what one wants to achieve or gain; emotion. Behind the scenes of emotion, there is a big question – Why? – Why do people do things that we think is immoral? Why are some of our actions not “right” to others? If a person does an action or make a decision, he/she should know the reason behind what he/she is doing. He/She should be able to justify his/her actions. In today’s society, a social group might have a mutual understanding of why something is right or appropriate. But considering the fact that people think differently, this understanding might differ; then and there the crisis of moral issues arise.

To define if something is moral (or immoral), not just the person’s expressions, but also the person’s valid reasons should also be taken into consideration. The person should be held responsible of why his/her actions or expressions are moral (or immoral). Reasons might vary in value. All the issues are weighed as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ based on the validity of the arguments behind it. Also, these moral judgments made by a person should not just be applied to a specific individual rather it should apply to everyone. If these judgments are not applicable to everyone, the validity of the argument being moral (or immoral) is gone. Thus, because the emotions of different people vary, the supporting or opposing argument and the justifications given by the individual should connect with all the justifications made by everyone. When analyzing the reasons behind individual preferences, Lawrence Kohlberg claims that one of the reasons why people chose to do the right thing is to avoid punishment or any sort of external pain. The second claim is that people do an action to serve their own self-interests. These claims (and more claims) along with the individual’s feelings towards a situation aid an action to be justified as moral or immoral.

Emotions are just feelings or expressions of people, while reason is a stronger component that justifies the situation. These roles of emotions and reason can be illustrated through todays on going issues such as assisted suicide, animal rights, cloning, abortion, and feminist issues. These ethical issues are debated all around the world today. Most of the issues are pushed from both sides of whether the issues should be legal or not. As described before, the reason for why these debates still continue is that a social group cannot agree on a same opinion, instead people just take their own stand on a particular issue by only looking through their own perspective (that might be right or wrong), ignoring the opinions of their peers. Moral issues can only be concluded into a compromised agreement if the ‘supporting and opposing’ party step into each other’s shoes and spectate the issue from each other’s point of view.

Now lets look at one of the popular issues going on in today’s world, abortion. This issue has caught in the United States like wild fire because of the contrasting arguments made by the each group. Abortion can be seen as a right of the women’s personal choice or can be seen as denying the right of a human individual. The group supporting abortion argues that it is the right of the pregnant to abort the child or continue carrying the child since the child is part of her body. A controversial argument is that it is the right of every human individual to be born, live and to contribute to this world. Who knows whether the child will be the next ‘Albert Einstein’ or not? In certain countries abortion is permitted if only the two or more doctors approve it and in some other parts of the world aborting is only permitted if the child is defective. Certain religions such as Christianity, opposes abortion by arguing that god has formed the image of the fetus and that abortion is destroying the god given gift or demolishing the god given image of a human being.  

Sexism

         Sexism is a belief that one sex is inferior to the other. This belief creates a hatred towards one sex. Sexism holds beliefs that testify stereotypes about a sex. This is mostly formed because of the hatred towards a particular person which makes one think that the entire sex exhibits the same behavior. A person to person conflict might lead to a gender to gender conflict affecting the entire community. Sexism is most commonly applied to women. Women, back in the days, were considered to be inferior to the men. Women used to do all the house work. It wasn't 'normal' for a women to work in a industry or in any urban surroundings.

         Biology has a major impact in this issue. The 'biology of gender' explains that women are physically capable of giving birth to a baby and are capable of breast feeding. While the men only play a minor part in the beginning process of forming a baby. Strengthening this argument, people (sexists) argue that the women should be the ones who should stay home and help the children in their growth and nourishment. These attitudes towards women gives rise to sexism.

         Trans gendered individuals (male to female or female to male), still in some countries are not acceptable. They think that someone who transgender are ashamed of their sex and are incapable of doing anything. Therefore, it is hard for them to find a job or are less trustworthy in those countries. I am from India where I have seen transvestites (people who have male and female characteristics). Even these people who are not even responsible for their sexual characteristics are also mocked in countries like India. Some of the religious beliefs it is said that one sex is given by 'God' (creator) and is to follow the harmony of the nature. And disrupting it is denying the 'nature.' They say that men and women play a part in maintaining human existence. But, in some countries, like Thailand, men change their gender to be women. They work as entertainers to the tourists and make lots of money. They surgically replace their sex organs and inject hormones. But, the disadvantage is that they die young because of the alterations in their body. I think that it is the choice for a person . One should be recognized as a sex which they are comfortable with. One should not be judged because of their sex, matter of fact no one should be judged for anything.  

If the earth is round, why don’t people fall off the bottom?

This concept can be well explained by the law of gravity. Earth’s gravity pulls any particular object towards the center of the earth rather than letting it fall down. Isaac Newton explained the law of gravity. He said that, it is not just about a particular object falling towards the earth or something’s speed towards the surface of the earth, instead he said that objects attract each other or fall towards each other. Gravity occurs in objects that have mass. The attraction is much more larger in objects with larger mass than in objects with less mass. The larger an object is the more gravitational pull that particular object is going to have. This is the same with the Earth. The earth is also an object that has a force of pull by gravity. Since the Earth is much more larger than the people or anything which it withholds, the Earth has the ability to hold down whatever “stuff” it consists. If gravity was not in existence then, a person might be traveling in a straight line through space rather than just situating on another object. It does not matter where ever on the earth a person is standing, he/she will experience ‘almost’ the same amount of gravitational pull. Why ‘almost’? Even though, it is said that the earth has the same gravitational pull everywhere on its surface, there are places where this gravitational is a bit less. This is mostly not noticed because these variations in the gravitational pull (vibrations) are very minor compared to total gravitational pull of the earth. Despite these minor vibrations, the earth acts as a magnet with all the objects on it, no matter where ever it is; the pull of gravity is acting same on a person standing at south pole and a person standing at the north pole.

Do babies get angry?

Do your abilities and talents depend on the Nature or Nurture?  Some scientists say that your abstract traits such as intelligence, personality, aggression, and sexual orientation are also encoded in an individual’s DNA and some scientists say that your behavioral aspects originate only from the environment factors of your upbringing. On the American Psychological Association website, one of the issues which the scientists are still debating is that “Do babies get angry?” Some scientists like Linda Camras argue that the use of the term "angry" to describe infants before the age of six months can be misleading, she also said that the infants use the facial expressions of anger in many cases that the adults do not use and so those expressions should be described as “distress”, which partially means that the babies do not develop the emotion anger until or after the age of six months. On the other hand, some of the scientists said that the emotion anger is in the already in the DNA. I agree with what Linda Camras said about not using the word “angry” to describe infants before the age of six months because I think it is mostly depending on the nurture theory of behavior. I think after the babies are born, the emotion – anger develops as he/she grows.

Knowledge

          To understand something you need to rely on your experience and culture. Does this mean that is impossible to have objective knowledge? Let's break down this question into two parts. To attain knowledge does one have to rely on his/her experience and culture? First of all what is knowledge? According to the Merriam – Webster dictionary knowledge is defined as “the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association.” Knowledge can only be obtained by experiencing something a few times. Once someone experiences something, he/she begins to understand it and it becomes part of his/her knowledge. And when the person experiences it again he/she will associate the previous experience with the on-going experience. Thus, the person understands something. Knowledge about something, although might be different in different cultures. A particular culture shapes a particular person's way of experiencing something; thus, the knowledge obtained might be different among different cultures. Knowledge gained through experiences or the way of a certain culture doesn't really conflict with objective knowledge. Objective knowledge is not affected by one's views rather it is a general idea which everyone accepts regardless of their viewpoints. For example, one plus one is two. This is objective knowledge and cannot be refuted. So, even though the people coming from different cultural backgrounds have different viewpoints, all the views, ideas and beliefs narrow down to objective knowledge.

           Personal knowledge could be acquired through certain circumstances and situations which one has gone through. Some of the sources of knowledge are language, perception, reason and emotion. Language helps you to obtain knowledge from other people. Language plays an important role from one's childhood to his/her youth to his/her adulthood and throughout one's life. For example, when kids do something wrong, parents tell them not to do it again or might express some sort of body language which might make the child understand that it is wrong. Even though, the child might not recognize that it was wrong quickly, the child might understand it after continuous scolding. Language makes people share their personal experiences with each other, this building up a society with a publicly shared knowledge. Perception, one of the strongest source in obtaining knowledge, makes us understand something through our five senses; sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. But, experience is also essential in perceiving certain things. We might not be able to recognize something which we only experienced once because it might not have been fully depicted in the memory. The experience we get from our culture through these five senses makes u knowledgeable of only what we perceive; not exceeding the limits of what we ourselves experience.

          Another important source of knowledge, reason, is not a matter of culture or experience; rather, is an accurate source in which the obtained knowledge has to be true according to the assumptions. For example, to answer the question “did the apple fall from a apple tree or an orange tree?” is very simple since only the apple tree holds the apples. The answer seemed simple because of the true assumption that orange trees do not consist of apples rather consists of oranges; so the did not fall from the orange tree. Thus, the knowledge that the apple was fallen from the apple tree has been obtained by a true assumption.

          Emotion gives one the potentiality to understand the world he/she lives in. some strong emotions can make one unaware of the reason of a certain situation, changing one's way of perception and language leading the person to a different conclusion; an obstacle to knowledge.

          Culture shapes the way we see things. The culture we were born and bought up in might play a very crucial role in determining the way we look at a situation or the way we understand something. And because what we see in our culture, we tend to think that the way we see our culture do something is the right way to of something not thinking about the situation in a different way. For example, in the Hindu culture some of the animals are considered holy while in most of the other cultures animals are used for food, petting, cosmetics etc. The Hindu culture believes that God has come in the form of animals and nature, while in most of the other cultures this concept is totally disregarded.

            Regardless of the culture and experience, objective knowledge can be present. Culture and experience might only shape one's thinking and might only make one understand something through thinking. But, objective knowledge is what is there or present. Objective knowledge is not influenced by someone's feelings and is unbiased. For example, people in every culture accept the fact that people die after death. Some cultures might say that there is another life after death. Some others say that after our last breath we cannot see, touch, taste, hear, or smell anything, so we are not alive. Also, if a one day year old baby is asked the same question the baby might respond not knowing the meaning of death or life. But, it is definitely possible to have objective knowledge about this issue. Because, when someone 'dies' we fo not see that person smile, talk, more , or even breather. Generally, this state is referred as being 'dead.' this meaning of death is not influenced be any cultural ideas or beliefs. Now is the experience playing any role because the one year old baby can understand the concept of death and life when the baby gets older. So, this is considered as being one of the examples of objective knowledge. Opinions are that this 'objective knowledge' can be wrong too. Someone out there called the state of 'dying' as being death and it eventually became a certainty. 'What if there is another life after death we enter into?' 'What if the soul is still living even if the body is not?' are there considered to be in the state of death? This is where reason and emotion come into play. Because of these doubtful questions about 'objective knowledge' people tend to believe their own reason and emotion. Some people tend to reason death as these questions above 'are we really dying?' they put their strong emotions into finding out the real meaning of death. When talking about the concept of death, the objective part is that only the state of not being alive is death.

          Looking at the past, people shared a belief which they thought to be knowledge, that the earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. This was believed by the people because their culture said so. But, as time passed this cultural belief or the objective knowledge back then was changed. Likewise, experience can also be biased. As mentioned before experience might be obtained through perception or language, sources of knowledge. If the way of perceiving something or interpreting something is incorrect, knowledge obtained might also be incorrect. Analyzing the example above, the people saw that they were on the earth and everything else was moving. They said to each other that the earth is center of the universe. This belief became common knowledge. Even though this belief changed as time progressed, because the way perception and language changed, those people back in time were unaware of it. As time passes, those philosophers and people who set the objective knowledge might be proved wrong.

          If the cultural beliefs and personal feelings about something is neglected and is just taken the way it is, that might be called as having objective knowledge. Some things that people consider as being knowledge might change from time to time according to one's culture and individual experience but the objective knowledge will be present. It might be just the matter of how people perceive the objective knowledge. Even if something is understood by one's culture and experience, objective knowledge can still be existent.