Joe Beaty

Jr. Morality 07

May 18, 2007

How my experiences in junior morality has helped me grow morally.

Off the bat I believe I am the same morally because I have not felt a serious change in my attitude, but compared to first semester I do feel more sympathetic towards people affected by violence and injustice, and I have learned more about how decisions are made and should be made, though I do not always agree with them. This class has been more of an eye opener than mind changer.

I have been moved the most by the research paper presentations, mainly Vonderheide’s paper on the fire bombing of Tokyo, and Hock and Langenfeld’s paper on the fire bombing of Dresden. There presentations were nothing spectacular, and I’m sure mine would have been no better, but the movie, "Fog of War" shockingly revealed many of the injustices we put on Japan during World War II. Not only were all the fire bombings unfair to the civilians, but it broke the Jus In Bello rule of discrimination by not only targeting military opponents. I was also informed of the other seven steps needed before entering a war justly. Before this class I only had the basic idea that a war was only just if we attacked out of defense. Although I am not a big proponent of war myself, I still do not like to fight needless wars or try to interfere with other countries through military action.

As for medical ethics I still couldn’t be more indifferent. If it was my wife or someone younger than I was, I would undoubtedly do everything I could to save their life, but I would not want to prolong their suffering. As for someone who is much older, on the verge of dying, or already brain dead, I would not argue against pulling of life support or feeding tubes to end their life. In the cases that we saw from the University of Chicago, I would not of worked on Burton, but I felt the decisions to help Demarco Hayes and Heather Wilson were wise choices. I strongly agree with the doctor’s choice to take a liver from an outside donor to give to Heather, but it was smart of him not to sacrifice her uncle’s life because he did not need to. As for Terry Schiavo, after so many years of no results I too would have tried to pull the feeding tubes from my suffering wife.

I do not care so much about what the church has to say towards these matters, I just want the facts and possibilities and be able to decide on my own. As I learned in the first semester, I should think things out, but with decisions about ethics, I think it is better to go with your gut feeling, than going with the consensus on how to decide.

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