Insight Spring 2019

Insight Spring 2019

Insight

Religion & Philosophy

Masthead

Editorial Board Danny Irvine ’19 Anton Kandalin ’19 Kate Liu ’19 Jimmy Chen ’20 Vince Huang ’20 Liana Raguso ’20

Faculty Advisor Dr. Jason VonWachenfeldt

Foreword in·sight /ˈinˌsīt/ Oxford English Dictionary 1.

Internal sight, mental vision or perception, discernment; in early use sometimes, Understanding, intelligence, wisdom.

2.

The fact of penetrating with the eyes of the understanding into the inner character or hidden nature of things; a glimpse or view beneath the surface; the faculty or power of thus seeing.

Mission Statement The student-run journal Insight, founded by the Department of Religion & Philosophy in 2015, aims to enhance the spiritual and intellectual experience at Lawrenceville by: Cultivating a deeper appreciation and interest among students for religious life, Exposing the student body to a comprehensive range of philosophical and religious work, Offering an open forum for the exchange and consideration of diverse beliefs, Showcasing the foremost written work of the Department’s students.

Contribution to Insight is open to the entire community, including students, alumni, and faculty.

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Letter From the Editors The first Insight board created Insight with the goal of allowing students to share their work in religion and philosophy with the rest of the community in a way that had been impossible before. After a brief hiatus, the second Insight board revived this mission, using Insight to give voice to student ideas and foster student engagement in religion and philosophy. Now, as the third board of Insight, we aim to continue reaching toward these goals. With the help of Dr. VonWachenfeldt, we seek to serve as an outlet on campus for students’ passions and ideas by publishing the best religion and philosophy papers produced this year. The ideas expressed within this year’s Insight are divided into three sections: papers addressing questions in philosophy, papers exploring world religions, and papers from this year’s Applied Ethics class delving into grading at Lawrenceville.

In philosophy classes at Lawrenceville, students grapple with both ancient, fundamental questions about the human condition and pressing, modern problems. The philosophy papers in this year’s Insight tackle topics from domestic surveillance to foreign aid, from the moral state of Silicon Valley to the moral character of Maeve from HBO’s Westworld. Each paper contains an original philosophical argument, using logic and knowledge of philosophical systems to analyze and provide solutions to real-world problems. In writing these papers, students draw on the works of thinkers from Aristotle to Kierkegaard to Marx to apply a range of theories to some of the most important issues we face today.

Lawrenceville students, harking from all regions around the world, engage with religious matters and questions from many varying perspectives. They have taken the initiative to learn about religious studies in order to better understand the context and culture of religious life. Students have undertaken the opportunity to explore the similarities and the differences between religions, examining the intersection between various religions and their application in our real world. This section consists of an analysis of charitableness in Judaism and Islam, as well an examination of feminism in Catholicism and Sikhism.

A special edition to this issue of Insight is the Applied Ethics - Grading at Lawrenceville Collection: a series of papers discussing the ethical impacts of the various grading systems at the Lawrenceville School. The works in this section come from the Applied Ethics class, where students closely examine and 6

analyze contemporary ethical dilemmas through the lens of Western classical thinkers as well as more recent thinkers and Eastern thinkers. These original papers extensively delve into areas of institutional grading, especially concerning the topics of pass-fail grading for new sophomores, graduation requirements, grading rubrics, as well as accommodations for students with special needs.

We would like to give several important thank-you’s: to our mentor, Dr. VonWachenfeldt for all his guidance and support in the creation of this year’s Insight and for inspiring Lawrenceville students to solve real-world problems; and to the entire religion and philosophy department for working tirelessly to share its knowledge with the student body and generate a love for deep, critical thought. Lastly, we would like to thank everyone who submitted to Insight this year. We received many more high-quality papers than we had space to publish, and we deeply appreciate all the thought and hard work that went into them.

One final reminder: if you have written a thoughtful paper addressing topics in religion or philosophy, whether written for a class or not, please reach out to jchen20@lawrenceville.org, vhuang20@lawrenceville.org, or lraguso20@lawrenceville.org. We welcome all insightful ideas.

Sincerely, The 3rd Insight Editorial Board

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Table of Contents Student Work:

Philosophy Erin McNulty ’19… A Kierkegaardian Anlysis of Maeve in HBO’s Westworld

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Danya Wang ’19… The Technology Capital: A Marxist Critique of Silicon Valley

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Hunter Mellon ’19… Foreign Aid: No Place for Moral Solace

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Haaris Mian ’19… Medal of Freedom for Sale: The Good Bribe Dilemma in Deontology and Utilitarianism

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Anika Bagaria ’20… The Correct Approach Towards Domestic Surveillance, as Guided by Virtue Ethics

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Religion Yukki Qiu ’19… Holy Mother and Son

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Jonny Yue ’19… “Thin and Thick Descriptions” of Charitableness in Islam and Judaism

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Jack Hallinan ’21… Exclusivism and Inclusiveness within a Single Religion

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Jupiter Huang ’21… Conjoined Ends of the Religious Spectrum: Buddhism and Islam

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Isabelle Lee ’21… Sikhism: A Counterproductive Religion Encouraging Utopianism

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Student Work:

Applied Ethics: Grading at Lawrenceville David Zhu ’19… The Ethics of Keeping Pass-Fail Grading Exclusive

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Yukki Qiu ’19… Dictated Education: On the Ethicality of Lawrenceville’s Graduation Requirements

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Thomas Eglin ’19... Not Special: The Truth of Living a Life with a Learning Disability

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John Park ’19... Dangers of Unified Grading Rubrics

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A Kierkegaardian Analysis of Maeve in HBO’s Westworld Erin McNulty ’19 In HBO’s Westworld, Maeve is a brothel madam who slowly gains consciousness while devising a plan to escape Westworld. She appears to be improvising each of her actions, and everyone else in the park seems oblivious to her rebellion except for the two human engineers that she manipulates to achieve her ends. In addition, she is plagued by memories of herself in a previous build with a daughter throughout her journey. However, she learns that all of her actions have been programmed for her: everything she did was predetermined. She is distraught but continues her escape, but just when she is about to depart on the train away from Westworld, she turns back to find her daughter in the park. By analyzing Maeve through a Kierkegaardian lens, it is clear that she went through the phase of infinite resignation on her way to becoming a knight of faith. Kierkegaard writes that a knight of faith is someone who transcends aesthetic and ethical rules in order to pursue their true purpose through faith alone. However, Maeve’s universal mandates are quite different from the typical universal ethical paradigm—Maeve is programmed to act in vice and with reckless abandon. Her plan to escape Westworld is in fact an aesthetic desire. Her leap of faith is not abandoning the ethical: it is disobeying her naturally reckless and selfish nature by returning to the park. While it may appear that Maeve’s escape plan made her a Kierkegaardian knight of faith, she was actually stuck in resignation during her escape because she was programmed to live rebelliously, implying that her true leap of faith was turning around to pursue her telos as a mother.

Before Maeve began to gain consciousness, she was stuck in a universal state in which she was programmed to behave with rampant rebellion and disregard for general moral codes. Although this would seem to go against Kierkegaard’s concept of the ethical as a universal force, in Maeve’s case, acting against societal rules as an unrestrained brothel madame allowed her to fit into Westworld. Just as we are taught to live by certain universal ethical rules in order to fit in, Maeve was programmed to disobey typical societal expectations in order to bring guests into the Westworld experience. Indeed, Maeve is introduced through a scripted monologue about the everpresent voice of expectations to one of the park guests: “whenever I wanted something I could hear that voice telling me to stop, to be care10

Makers of the Modern Mind ful, to leave most of my life unlived… so I ran away” (Westworld 2). Even though it seems that this speech is indicative of a Kierkegaardian knight of faith’s attitude, she is instead simply making guests buy into the twisted world of Westworld, where the universal code is vice. The only time when she strays from this script is when she has flashbacks of the life she lived with her daughter. She catches brief glimpses of what her ideal life as a mother is like, and it completely undoes the rebellious script she is programmed to say. She is bold in her sinful nature, saying to the other hosts and guests that “the only thing wrong with the seven deadly sins is that there aren’t more of them” (2). She is comfortable in the life of sin that was programmed into her, not questioning why she acts the way that she does.

At this stage in Maeve’s journey towards faith, she has not even reached infinite resignation: she is stuck in her endless loop of obeying universal mandates as they were programmed into her.

However, as Maeve begins her escape plan and starts to question the world around her, she turns into a knight of infinite resignation. She stays within the universal realm of sin in Westworld but realizes that there is something more beyond it. Despite this, she chooses to continue rebelling and becomes a knight of infinite resignation. Kierkegaard notes that “infinite resignation is the last stage before faith,” and one can clearly see Maeve approach her final leap of faith even while she is sinking deeper into resignation (Kierkegaard 75). It is difficult to determine whether she is driven by her rebellious code or by faith when she issues reckless threats such as “you think I’m scared of death. I’ve done it a million times and I’m great at it” (Westworld 7). Maeve feels comfortable in a role that fits into Westworld’s reckless narrative. She sinks deeper into a life of sin as she plots her escape. She kills anyone who gets in her way and is willing to sacrifice the people who help her—her very escape hinges on her ruthlessness. To some, this may appear as an admirable leap of faith; Maeve is willing to break any rule that gets in the way of the end goal she thinks might be her telos.

Kierkegaard acknowledges that “the knight of infinite resignation is readily recognizable, their gait is gliding, bold” (Kierkegaard 67). Maeve earns the respect of everyone around her because of her power and confidence in her rebellion, but she is really just giving into her core code. She rejects the normal investment in relationships that would help her to escape her sinful fate, saying that “every relationship I remember is a story created by you to keep me here” (Westworld 8). Shes wants to push away the memory of her daughter because it goes against her disdain for the park; she believes that she needs to hate Westworld in order to achieve her goal of escaping it. She realizes that everything she has done has been coded into her, but 11

continues with her programmed plan to try to prove her independence. At this stage in Maeve’s escape, she is trapped in a stage of infinite resignation.

When Maeve is about to escape, she begins to experience the angst that marks the Kierkegaardian transition from resignation to faith. After Sylvester tells her that her code is burned too deeply into her to change it, she says that her code is “complex like two minds arguing with each other.

There are things in me, things I was designed to do that are just out of my reach. They almost seem to be dormant” (Westworld 8). She realizes that there are two forces pulling on her and understands that she may have a different purpose. Throughout her journey, memories of motherhood have plagued her. That part of her, which she eventually determines to be her telos, rears its head as she further contemplates her consciousness. Kierkegaard recognized those two separate minds as the aesthetic and the universal, and Maeve is experiencing a pull between the two that will eventually result in faith. This battle between her two minds (her aesthetic desire to escape and her universal desire to live rebelliously and independently) results in the angst that Kierkegaard deems necessary for faith. Furthermore, right before Maeve escapes, she asks Bernard to remove all of her memories of her daughter because they cause her too much pain. Kierkegaard writes that “the knight will remember everything, but the memory is precisely the pain, and yet in his infinite resignation he is reconciled with existence” (Kierkegaard 72). In the final moments of angst before her leap of faith, Maeve realizes that she is unable to reconcile her memories with her escape, and at that moment she knows that her telos is not, in fact, to escape, but instead to find her daughter and become a mother. Thus, she is approaching the moment in which she will transcend infinite resignation through angst and take her ultimate leap of faith.

Maeve finally becomes a Kierkegaardian knight of faith when she leaves the train on the brink of escape to find her daughter. Maeve could have simply gone away and lived the independent life that would have satisfied her aesthetic desires, but instead she goes back to become “a guiding star that saves the anguished” by rescuing her daughter from the eternal doomed loop of Westworld (Kierkegaard 54). Going back into Westworld is bound to give Maeve another set of trials and difficulties, but she accepts that in order to pursue her telos as a mother. She is a true knight of faith because she “resigned everything infinitely and then took everything back on the strength of the absurd” (70). She killed, manipulated, and lied to get onto that train, but took a leap of faith that returning to the park would result in her best life. The idea that she can find her daughter and happily live in Westworld is indeed absurd, but Maeve takes the chance. The mo12

Makers of the Modern Mind ment Maeve steps off the train, she has achieved true consciousness as a knight of faith.

Maeve’s journey throughout season one of Westworld resembles the journey of an ideal Kierkegaardian knight of faith. She begins in a constant state of vice and recklessness: that is her universal paradigm in Westworld.

However, as she begins to carry out her plan to escape, she questions the nature of reality around her. Despite this questioning, she continues to live by the same universal code she always has, and so she becomes a knight of infinite resignation. As her angst grows, she realizes that her telos might be motherhood instead of escape, and her transition from resignation to faith begins. Finally, Maeve becomes a true knight of faith when she risks everything that she has worked for by stepping off of the train to return to the park and pursue the absurd by searching for her daughter.

Works Cited Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England : New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Penguin Books ; Viking Penguin, 1985.

Nolan, Jonathan. “Westworld.” HBO, n.d.

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The Technology Capital: A Marxist Critique of Silicon Valley Danya Wang ’19 Karl Marx has been long remembered for the value of his critiques of the capitalist superstructure. Today, as a place described as “America’s technology capital” because of its “outsize influence on the world’s economy, stock markets and culture,” Silicon Valley, primarily referring to the large tech companies that are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, presents a unique challenge to Marx (The Economist). While Silicon Valley has extremely skilled workers and the government has repeatedly intervened to prevent illegal practices in this highly secretive region, Silicon Valley still retains many similarities to Marx’s understanding of capitalist relations.

While many may argue that Silicon Valley has bettered the lives of countless people and that its ideology of innovation and free dissemination of knowledge has greatly improved quality of life, looking through the lens of Marx reveals that the very nature of Silicon Valley is one of suppression of workers and great inequality, making it essential for a third party such as the government to intervene with a code of ethics.

In Silicon Valley, a great deal of power is centered in the hands of very few, as a result of the shift from smaller independent companies to larger titans who retain almost sole power over wages and capital. Silicon Valley’s image remains that of “small independent companies creating their own ideas” (Faurus). However, that image is just an illusion: instead, the culture is now “small, independent companies coming up with stuff to sell the big guys” as a result of large companies “[swallowing] up the competitors and [poaching] top talent” (Paulus). Ultimately, both capital and power over working conditions and wages lands in the hands of the few officers of the larger companies. Marx argues that, fundamental to capitalism’s nature, competition will result in accumulation of capital in the hands of the small social class of the bourgeoisie, an idea demonstrated by this culture change in Silicon Valley (422). Workers such as Arthur Corona, an employee of cloud-based domain registrar Gandi.net, are concerned that the reduced number of competitors and centering of power “comes at a cost of security and data,” such as “the lack of penalties following the Equifax breach, and Congress’s feckless questioning of Mark Zuckerberg after the Cambridge Analytica scandal” (Faurus). According to Marx, the problematic consequence of this concentration of power is greater inequality between the 14

Makers of the Modern Mind capitalist and the worker and the ability of larger companies to be less careful with their security and data practices as a result of the worker’s reduced power.

In Silicon Valley, as a result, wages, hiring decisions, and more are controlled by very few, resulting in wages that can be easily suppressed. Many tech titans were accused of creating contracts containing a cannot-quit clause, effectively threatening their workers with expulsion from their field of work if they quit the company (Smith). Thus, employees are given no choice but to remain at their current company and, since they cannot present offers from similar companies to their current employer, have no leverage in asking for a pay raise, making vertical progress only possible if the company wishes it. In this way, companies in the Silicon Valley collude to suppress wages of their labourers. Furthermore, the industrial reserve army in the tech business is extremely large, at least partially a result of Silicon Valley’s ideology’s allure to college students and graduates of coding boot camps. Marx introduces the idea of an industrial surplus army that “during periods of stagnation and average prosperity, weighs down the active labour-army; during the periods of over-production and paroxysm, it holds its pretensions in check” (Marx 427). For Silicon Valley employees, the threat of replacement by a member of the industrial reserve army is very much feasible. Since one is part of the reserve-army “when [one] is only partially employed or wholly unemployed,” many recent graduates of college and coding bootcamps flood the pool of applicants each year, giving large companies the power to suppress wages (Faurus). Two years ago in 2017, “22,949 new graduates from coding bootcamps in the US and Canada were expected to enter the workforce, an increase from 15,077 in 2016,” marking an increase in the industrial reserve army that hands even more control over wages and working conditions to large companies: “the market dynamics of this influx seemed fairly clear: a race to the bottom for workers, as employers were able to choose from an increasingly large pool” (Faurus). Furthermore, not only are capitalists or large companies able to leverage the threat of replacement on dissatisfied employees, but in the case of any job openings, they are able to choose employees that will work for less to begin with. The pool of the industrial reserve army “isn’t bound by national borders, meaning employers could choose workers who are least-protected by minimum-wage laws, work-hour requirements, or the ability to unionize” (Faurus). In 2018, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, tech company Lanetix was accused of “responding to its engineering force’s unionization by firing them all and outsourcing their jobs to Europe” (Faurus).

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As a result of the concentration of power in the hands of the few, large companies’ working conditions are increasingly hostile to the worker. Inside the Bay’s largest companies, “employees are quoted to have consistently done 130 hour work weeks, sleeping under their desks due to competitiveness and pressing demands for productivity” (Rizov). Apple, a company known in Silicon Valley as secretive to the point of being paranoid, creates a culture in which employees “censor themselves.” For example, Apple spread a story among its employees that “plainclothes Apple security agents [lurked] near the bar at [the restaurant across the street] and that employees ha[d] been fired for loose talk there” (Paulus). Secrecy, much like the industrial reserve army, makes it difficult for Apple’s employees to change their working conditions, since they are unable to communicate with similar workers at different companies about their working conditions and wages. Life and work are very much intertwined in for Silicon Valley employees: it is common for Apple employees “go home with the work,” and they often do not describe their work as fun, mirroring Marx’s argument that “the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer” (Marx 430). One can foresee this current condition as a precursor to “[destroying] every remnant of charm [of ] his work and [turning] it into a hated toil” (430).

Some argue that reducing Silicon Valley to Marx’s terms is extremely reductionistic, and that simply material outcomes are not the goals of Tim Cook and Steve Jobs. Indeed, powerful CEOs are not aware of the depth to which they are exploiting workers, since they, similarly to the proletariat, suffer from false consciousness. Furthermore, a great deal of quality of life has been improved by Silicon Valley’s values, including great improvement in STEM education as well as in the general dissemination of information.

Thus, much innovation would be lost with restricting Silicon Valley’s progress through government means: some exploitation is a minor price to pay in increase in wellbeing.

However, to mask all of the above contradictions inherent in its structure, Silicon Valley has created an ideology that is a manifestation of Marx’s concept of ideology, which Marx views as a reflection of material relations and ultimately as self-destructive and “transitory” part of the capitalist superstructure. Silicon Valley’s ideology consists of many galvanizing ideas, such as innovation, entrepreneurship and ingenuity. As a result of this ideology, many flock to the Bay Area from around the country and even the world, in search of job opportunities and similar minds. Another part of this ideology is the idea of open access to information, or spreading knowledge; however, Silicon Valley’s irresponsible use of user data is similarly crushing 16

Makers of the Modern Mind material well-being under the guise of an ideology. This ideology has been cemented through the rise of tech titans such as Google, Facebook, and Apple, whose CEO’s and high-ranking officers promote Silicon Valley’s image as the foremost hub of innovation, encouraging every individual to strive to become an entrepreneur, programmer, or another worker for big tech companies. As Marx notes in German Ideology, “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas,” confirming that Silicon Valley’s ideology is one perpetrated by CEO’s and others who would take the position of “bourgeoisie,” “capitalist” or “agent of capital” (Marx). Furthermore, these ruling ideas are “nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships… grasped as ideas, hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance” (Marx 173). This is visible in the structure of employees, who “driven by this ideology of entrepreneurship and profit” and “becoming like the tycoons.”

Therefore, in response to opponents of Marx’s critique of Silicon Valley, Marx’s proposed class consciousness holds potential. In order to overcome contradictions and expose ideology or overcome false consciousness, Marx argues for seizing the means of production. Marx argues that the goal of history is for men to take control over the means of production: indeed, man can only take control by seizing the means of production. The proletariat can only uncover contradictions in superstructure by seizing the means of production, and therefore become conscious by overwhelming false consciousness. Therefore, we need to rethink how Silicon Valley is allowed to function. For a starting point: as a current investor in Silicon Valley and positively-viewed by majority in Silicon Valley, the American government should take a larger role, reversing its position as investor in order to better the conditions of workers within its borders. Instituting a code of ethics that all companies must follow before settling in the Silicon Valley or any of the other tech hubs in the United States should be a priority of the government, in order to better the material conditions of the many working under rampant suppression. Rather than an argument based on ideology, instead this is rooted in the material conditions of the workers and those displaced out of the Bay Area as a result of increasing wages.

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Works Cited Digital Labour and Karl Marx’ Reviewed by Vladimir Rizov. https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/8061_digital-labour-and-karl-marxreview-by-vladimir-rizov/. Accessed 14 Feb. 2019.

Lee, Timothy B. “‘Libertarian but Very pro-Government’: The Distinctive Ideology of Silicon Valley.” Vox, 19 Feb. 2016, https://www.vox. com/2016/2/19/11057836/silicon-valley-democrat-explained.

Paulas, Rick, et al. “The Shocking Inequality of San Francisco Is How Capitalism Ends.” Vice, 22 Oct. 2018, https://www.vice.com/ en_us/article/598kyx/the-future-of-capitalism-is-san-francisco-onsteroids-v25n3.

“Silicon Valley Tech Workers Locked in Jobs with Dubious Legal Tactics.”

Reveal, 31 Oct. 2014, https://www.revealnews.org/article-legacy/ silicon-valley-tech-workers-locked-in-jobs-with-dubious-legal-tactics/.

“Why Startups Are Leaving Silicon Valley.” The Economist, Aug. 2018, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/08/30/why-startupsare-leaving-silicon-valley.

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Applied Ethics

Foreign Aid: No Place for Moral Solace Hunter Mellon ’19 Despite President Trump’s aim of cutting foreign aid by nearly a third, the United States government plans to spend $27.7 billion in foreign aid in FY 2019 (McBride; “Map of Foreign Assistance Worldwide”). Of this, $14.4 billion is to be spent on eleemosynary causes such as health, education, economic development, and other humanitarian issues (“Map of Foreign Assistance Worldwide”). Meanwhile, over 80% of the world lives in poverty, surviving off of under $10 a day (Shah). The average American spends $140 per day, although over 12% of Americans live in poverty (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 1; “What is the current poverty rate in the United States?”). Clearly, poverty, both within and outside the United States, remains a serious issue. However, the question of the moral basis for American foreign aid as a solution to global poverty remains. Although some argue that American foreign aid is a moral solution to global poverty, American foreign aid, while not necessarily immoral, is not an adequate measure against global poverty, since foreign aid does not actually reduce long-term global poverty, is political in nature, and can provide a false sense of moral assurance to the taxpayer.

The issue is not ‘whether foreign aid is in the best strategic interest of the United States.’ While I do believe that foreign aid, by enhancing the military capabilities of our allies, currying the favour of certain countries, or even developing third-economies to bolster bilateral trade, can, and often does, serve the interests of the United States, that is not the issue at hand.

Rather, the issue is whether foreign aid is undertaken for the sake of morality: with the intent of causing the most good. I argue that it is not: American aid is often wrongly conflated with charity, sometimes incorrectly seen as at least partially fulfilling the taxpayer’s moral inclination to help the global poor. Some taxpayers may hold Peter Singer’s belief that they are obligated to prevent death regardless of proximity (Singer 132-138). Others, like Jan Narveson, may not feel responsible to prevent deaths they did not cause (Narveson 142-143). Regardless of the extent to which any taxpayer feels obligated to help the global poor, the taxpayer should not consider foreign aid as vehicle for abdicating any moral responsibility that they may otherwise feel to help the global poor.

Establishing that foreign aid is not a purely moral endeavor is important because it is often advertised as such. Proponents of tax-payer funded for19

eign aid, such as Bill Gates, state that such aid is simply “the right thing to do, … making a real difference in millions of lives around the world” (Gates). Similarly, former President George W. Bush defends foreign aid on the grounds that it is “in our moral interest;” essentially insinuating that foreign aid is a valuable government service not just because it helps the global poor but that because, by doing so, it serves help relieve moral guilt from the taxpayer (Scott). More specifically, the United States Department of State states that humanitarian aid is intended to “save lives, [and] alleviate suffering, … on the basis of need according to principles of universality, impartiality and human dignity” (Department of State). Mark Green, the current administrator of USAID, claims that the “purpose of foreign aid is to end the need for its existence” and that USAID is intended to “help lift lives and build communities” (U.S. Agency for International Development, “What We Do”). USAID’s own mission statement is peppered with references to moral aims, such as it’s supposed purpose to “save lives, reduce poverty, … and [to] help people,” all thanks to “American generosity” (U.S. Agency for International Development, “What We Do”). Since the State Department and USAID are the two largest government conduits for non-military American foreign aid and also because they provide the most specific moral defense of foreign aid, I will focus primarily on the disconnect between their morale rationale and their actions.

The State Department and USAID’s separate claims that foreign aid “saves lives” along with other self-righteous statements imply that they are acting with the primary goal of combating global poverty and producing the most good. While foreign aid may, on the small scale and in the short term, alleviate some suffering in localized examples, the idea that foreign aid is a moral solution to global poverty is disingenuous, or at best, misguided. The latest available data shows that the USAID spent at least $3.7 billion (in 2017) in direct food infusion for famine-struck regions; distributing bags of rice and other staples by the ton (U.S. Agency for International Development, “U.S. International Food Assistance Funding Fact Sheet”). However, as Professor Garrett Hardin notes, distributing food to famine-struck regions has severe “political and economic consequences,” such a fueling corruption, “depress[ing] free market prices” and discouraging innovation and investment in local agriculture (Hardin 152). For these reasons, Hardin concludes that, in the name of both pragmatism and morality, “we should never send food to any population that is beyond the realistic carrying capacity of its land” (Hardin 152). Furthermore, as economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson note, foreign aid (beyond, but including, food) that alleviates short term suffering often “prop[s] up the 20

Applied Ethics regimes that are at the very root of the problems” themselves, or, at the very least, severely reduces incentives for such governments to improve the situation themselves (Acemoglu and Robinson 453). If the State Department understands the possible long-term detriment of foreign aid (which they very well may), then it is likely that they continue aid simply to further state interests, and their moral justification of serving others is disingenuous. Regardless of possible mal-intent, these unintended consequences call into question the fundamental moral justification for foreign aid: Irrespective of the political interests that aid may serve, it is not clear that foreign aid even has a moral, humanitarian effect. In fact, it appears that certain types of foreign aid may very well cause long-term harm, and should not satisfy any moral obligation that the taxpayer may feel.

Moreover, the State Department’s moral justification on the basis that aid is distributed “according to principles of universality, impartiality and human dignity” is does not withstand fact. To suggest that the United States distributes humanitarian aid “impartially” without geopolitical considerations is patently false (Department of State). For example, looking just at USAID spending under the direction of the State Department (excluding military/security aid, which the State Department does not control), the State Department spends $50k on humanitarian aid to Canada, but only $5.3k on humanitarian aid to North Korea (U.S. Agency for International Development, “U.S. Foreign Aid by Agency”). The GDP per capita in Canada is 28 times higher than that of North Korea, and the Canadian life expectancy is over 11 years longer, and yet North Korea receives only onetenth as much humanitarian aid (“Canada”; “Korea, North”). One possible utilitarian rebuttal, that the State Department does not give to countries that might squander it’s funds, does not hold up: one example being the squandered—and continued—foreign aid given to Malawi (“Misplaced charity”; U.S. Agency for International Development, “U.S. Foreign Aid

by Agency”). There may be very good political rationale for giving more humanitarian aid to Canada than to North Korea (and numerous other similar examples), but for the State Department to claim that such aid is apolitically distributed “universally” and “impartially” for the sake of humanitarian morality is categorically untrue. Any taxpayer finding solace in such a concept is mistaken and mislead. Regardless of whether it should be, American foreign aid simply is political and centered around policy rather than principle. In the words of Professor Jan Narveson, “principles may be considered ‘just’ by considering possibilities; but when it comes to policy pursued in the real world, facts cannot be ignored” (Narveson 143).

In this case, the State Department’s moral basis for its policies ignore the 21

facts, and therefore their policies should not be considered as an inherently ‘just’ solution (although this is not to say that such policies are inherently immoral). It appears that organizations like USAID and the State Department are masking political calculus behind a facade of a sole concern with helping the global poor. The moral lens that such organizations purport (a supposedly righteous priority of reducing suffering in general, regardless of proximity or politics) does not match their actions. They may mean well and may even (in some cases) effect positive change, but they should not claim that proliferating a moral agenda “from the American people” is their primary concern (U.S. Agency for International Development, “What We Do”).

Not only is foreign aid political in nature, but, stemming from taxation, it is, on the individual level, coerced. As Professor Narveson asserts, there is a moral difference between ‘charity’ and ‘justice’ (Narveson 143). Narveson concedes that charity, when broadly defined as an any act which consists of “doing good for others,” can be coerced. In this limited sense, foreign aid that results in long-term ‘good’ is charity on behalf of the American people (Narveson 143). However, as Narveson notes, charity is viewed by many as an act “motivated by love and concern” and from an “emotionally tinged desire to benefit other people just because they need it” (Narveson 143). In this narrower sense, Narveson would not categorize foreign aid as “charity,” since the funding comes (usually) from a desire to pay taxes in accordance with the law rather a motivation to do the most good. One of the reasons that this distinction is important, other than because it may contribute to moral complacency among taxpayers, is because, as Narveson details, uncoerced charity benefits from the “efficiency” of the free-market (Narveson 147). People will tend to ‘invest’ money in charities that produce a visible good, even if it may result in helping causes that are physically closer.

Contrarily, the government distributes aid with regard to state interests, so it will naturally sponsor organizations that effectively further whatever state interest is at hand rather than those that produce the most ‘good.’ The ‘charitable taxpayer,’ meanwhile, relinquishes her otherwise meaningful ability to differentiate and support the most ‘efficient’ charitable organizations that, through the trial-and-error processes of the free market, could bring about the most good. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that if the government were to reduce foreign aid spending, much of the extra billions of dollars afforded to the taxpayer would still end up as charity: Already, private american charity to the developing world exceeds that of US foreign aid (“Private Giving to Developing Countries Vastly Exceeds U.S. Foreign Aid, Study Finds”). Therefore, while foreign aid is not necessarily 22

Applied Ethics an immoral expenditure of money, it should not be considered a righteous tool to ‘coerce good’ out of a uncharitable taxbaset, and does not achieve the goal of producing the most ‘humanitarian good.’

While foreign aid is often misportrayed as a moral remedy to global poverty, there are ways to continue both furthering government interests and increasing charity without misrepresenting foreign aid. One possible solution would be to re-label foreign aid in a manner that makes its intent clear (such as relabeling military ‘foreign aid’ as ‘foreign military assistance’), so as to not use misleading language which implies foreign aid absolves the taxpayer from and moral delinquency they may feel. Another action the government could take to facilitate charity would be to research, publish, and promote information about charities and their effects (more so than they already do), so that the taxpayer could feel more comfortable donating to charities which help causes that are physically further away. Or, if the government was truly concerned with providing moral relief for the guiltladen taxpayer, it could (hypothetically) force each taxpayer to contribute a certain percent of their income to the charity of their choice. There are countless other hypothetical legislative solutions that the United States government could take to prioritize reducing global poverty, but simply spending money overseas to further American interests and misrepresenting it as something resembling charity is not one of them.

In conclusion, while foreign aid may be a effective public policy decision, it should not be considered a moral solution to global hunger and poverty, since it is not proven to be an effective long term solution to global poverty, prioritizes state interests over humanitarian interests, and inhibits the taxpayer from furthering the most efficient charitable causes. If the taxpayer wants to find solace supporting a cause whose primary concern is the elimination of global poverty, he or she should not believe that government sponsored foreign aid meets this requirement. Conversely, if the government genuinely wants to abide by its mission statements and make the most morally-focused impact on global poverty, it must fundamentally reconsider the way it conducts and labels foreign aid. Global poverty is rampant, and the wealthiest entity in the world, the U.S. government, can take steps to combat it—but it must approach the issue with transparency, honesty, and pragmatism.

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Works Cited Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Pbk. ed., New York, Crown Business, 2013.

“Canada.” The CIA World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 24 Oct. 2018, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ ca.html.

Department of State. Humanitarian Assistance. www.foreignassistance.gov/ categories/Humanitarian-Assistance.

Gates, Bill. “Europe Day One: With Bono, Defending Aid.” The blog of Bill Gates, Gatesnotes, 10 Oct. 2012, www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Europe-Day-One-With-Bono-Defending-Aid. Hardin, Garrett. “Carrying Capacity as an Ethical Concept.” 1976. Applied Ethics, A Multicultural Approach, edited by Larry May and Jill B. Delston, 6th ed., New York, Taylor & Francis, 2016, pp. 148-55.

“Korea, North.” The CIA World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 17 Oct. 2018, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ geos/kn.html.

Lee, Harrison. “Peer Editor.” Dr. VonWachenfeldt’s Applied Ethics Class, pd.

A, 2018.

“Map of Foreign Assistance Worldwide.” FOREIGNASSISTANCE.gov, United States Department of State, 19 Oct. 2018, www.foreignassistance.gov/explore.

McBride, James. “How Does the U.S. Spend Its Foreign Aid?” Council on Foreign Relations, 1 Oct. 2018, www.cfr.org/backgrounder/howdoes-us-spend-its-foreign-aid.

“Misplaced charity.” The Economist, 11 June 2016, www.economist.com/ international/2016/06/11/misplaced-charity.

Narveson, Jan. “Carrying Capacity as an Ethical Concept.” 1976. Applied Ethics, A Multicultural Approach, edited by Larry May and Jill B. Delston, 6th ed., New York, Taylor & Francis, 2016, pp. 142-48.

“Private Giving to Developing Countries Vastly Exceeds U.S. Foreign Aid, Study Finds.” Philanthropy News Digest, 20 Apr. 2006, philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/private-giving-to-developing-countriesvastly-exceeds-u.s.-foreign-aid-study-finds.

Scott, Eugene. “George W. Bush: Foreign aid is essential.” CNN, 13 Apr. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/politics/george-bush-donaldtrump-foreign-aid/index.html.

Shah, Anup. “Poverty Facts and Stats.” Global Issues, 7 Jan. 2013, www.

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Applied Ethics globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats.

Singer, Peter. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” 1976. Applied Ethics, A Multicultural Approach, edited by Larry May and Jill B. Delston, 6th ed., New York, Taylor & Francis, 2016, pp. 132-142.

U.S. Agency for International Development. U.S. Foreign Aid by Agency. explorer.usaid.gov/agencies/?agency=1&measure=Obligations&ye ar=2016.

U.S. Agency for International Development. U.S. International Food Assistance Funding Fact Sheet. www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/FFP_Funding_Overview_2017.11.30_FINAL.pdf.

U.S. Agency for International Development. What We Do. www.usaid. gov/.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Consumer Expenditures in 2013. www.bls. gov/cex/csxann13.pdf.

“What is the current poverty rate in the United States?” Center for Poverty Research, U of California, Davis, poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/whatcurrent-poverty-rate-united-states.

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Medal of Freedom for Sale: The Good Bribe Dilemma in Deontology and Utilitarianism Haaris Mian ’19 A man walks up to you with a business proposition, requesting a deceptively simple exchange of value. He wants a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and he can shell out 10 million dollars in humanitarian aid to pay for it.

Of course, you know the generous gift is worthy as an end in itself: several hundred thousand Africans will gain access to clean water because of it.

But it still feels wrong for you to pursue it through these means. For one, the businessman holds an unsavory reputation, and he never really wanted to help anyone. He even has the nerve to tell you that his true motivation lies in improving his image. You might seek justification for either accepting or denying the money in deontology or utilitarianism. Immanuel Kant, the 18th century intellectual father of deontological (Greek root deon = duty) ethics, founded his idea of the good on well-reasoned a priori principles which apply universally, regardless of consequences. Only through setting duty-based rules before we act, Kant argues, can we achieve true autonomy and personal freedom. In sharp contrast to Kant’s abstract moral good, utilitarianism seeks the action that produces the best consequences (i.e. the most pleasure and the least pain) without considering the nature of the act itself. Though utilitarianism would justify the bribe because of its overwhelmingly good consequences, this theory lacks logical consistency, practical application, and objectivity in this situation, making a refusal of the medal based on deontological reasoning the superior choice.

Deontology, which finds more logically consistent application in this scenario, would argue for refusal of the offer because of its failure to meet Kant’s two formulations of the categorical imperative (CI), making the offer hypothetical and liable to empirical (for Kant, flawed) reasoning. In his framework, the categorical imperative acts as a logical stress-test, not weighing the outcomes of a possible reality but rather assessing the logical consistency and personal bias of a moral act in all cases. Professor Michael Sandel says, to this effect, that the CI allows you to “see whether you are privileging your particular needs and desires over everybody else’s” (Sandel 45:30-8). Therefore, in order for accepting the offer to constitute a moral act, it must be willed regardless of its potential consequences for you—in 26

Introduction to Ethics this case, the promise of providing clean water to thousands of Africans.

A possible formulation of the implied maxim might read: If you want to help thousands of people, then you should accept corrupting bribes. Already, from the wording of this maxim, Kant would fault the hypothetical (If…, then…) structure for its pursual of the bribe only as a means to securing its particular beneficial ends. This consequentialist reasoning conflicts with Kant’s fundamental notion of the free will as he writes, “a good will is good not [...] by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition” (Marino 192). Even if you reject that seeking consequences inherently limits autonomy, then the argument for Deontology because of its internal consistency and objectivity still remains. Boss writes that Kant built his theory in pursuit of “general moral principles that transcend cultural particulars,” in other words, a universal theory (Boss 303). Deontology, then, is ultimately fitter for this application because of its emphasis on the abstract good, existing independently of personal pleasures, and its unwavering certainty of its convictions (i.e. not accepting bribes always applies as a rule without exception, no room for doubt).

Utilitarianism, on the other hand, generally affirms the morality of accepting the bribe due to its negligibly small costs (your guilt, possible loss of trust) and its overwhelming benefits (providing clean water to thousands of needy people). According to Jeremy Bentham’s interpretation of utilitarianism, the greatest good can be fully determined in any scenario by maximizing the value of a theoretical pleasure function. In his utilitarian calculus (UC), all of the contributions to pleasure and to pain are summed up and weighted according to factors such as Intensity, Duration, Propinquity, Fecundity, etc. to arrive at a decision, positive or negative (Boss 242).

In this case, practically any pleasure awarded to several thousand people (quenched thirst, health) almost certainly outweighs the pain caused to the one person who accepts the bribe, making the bribe a moral good for the consequences it produces. John Stuart Mill took a more qualitative approach to utilitarianism, arguing that “[i]t is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied” (Marino 232). In other words, for Mill, some pleasures are by their nature superior to others, and likewise for pains (e.g. knowledge > satiety, grief > hunger). By this logic, perhaps Mill might support refusing the bribe to prevent the higher, intellectual pain of guilt and corruption, which could theoretically outweigh the baser feeling of fullness that the African people would feel drinking clean water. Even if he did support the same action, it would be for fundamentally different reasons than Kant.

Either way, utilitarians would refute the deontological premise that actions 27

have inherent moral worth as ends in themselves, claiming that intentions do not shape reality and its consequences the way pleasure and pain do, making the good will an irrelevant and impractical consideration. Mill and Bentham deal exclusively with the hypothetical, rejecting the idea of underlying abstract moral principles, while Kant derives rules without reference to experience.

But this particular application of utilitarian principles falls victim to personal bias and logically inconsistent reasoning, making the system unsuitable for rational decision-making. Firstly, no such pleasure function as suggested by Jeremy Bentham’s UC could ever be practically determined or integrated over time because of our limited knowledge of even the near future in the unpredictably complex system of reality. Even if such a calculation could be practically executed, still no one fully agrees about what constitutes pleasure, as Boss outlines: “[t]he capitalist’s idea of happiness, for example, is not the same as that of the religious contemplative” (Boss 262). In this case, even Bentham and Mill, who are both utilitarian philosophers, use pleasure, or happiness, to refer to different ideas: the first, a shared, self-evident benefit, the second, a qualitative hierarchy of intellectual, emotional, and physical fulfillment. The unresolved disagreement about true utility makes it a fundamentally shaky proposition upon which to build a so-called universal moral theory. And in one sense, utilitarians do prevent the privileging of some pains over others (your pain counts the same as someone else’s) by considering only the net pleasure value, but at a cost. Virtually any action can be justified by UC’s robotic, plus-and-minus calculation of the good. And even in Mill’s case, no means is off limits if it produces the necessary quantity of good. This lack of restriction on the good action constitutes a “fail[ure] to give sufficient attention to the integrity of the individual,” according to Judith Boss (Boss 263). Deontology, however, categorically denies certain actions like the bribe, and wisely so.

We, as humans, intuitively know that there is more to be said about morality than knee-scrapes, heart-breaks, and ice cream cones. The paradigm of pleasure is expansive, but it lacks the element of responsibility and autonomy provided by deontology; duty is the only way to truly own our individual actions and to have rule over our minds and bodies. In the case of the bribe, the President has the duty to prevent corruption, having set this rule for himself a priori, and not doing so amounts to heteronomy. By allowing himself to be influenced by the particular details of his situation, the President would lose the logic of universal principles in accepting the bribe and eschewing objectivity.

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Introduction to Ethics Works Cited Boss, Judith A. Ethics for Life: A Text with Readings. 6th ed., New York, McGraw-Hill, 2014.

Marino, Gordon Daniel. Ethics: The Essential Writings. New York, Modern Library, 2010.

Sandel, Michael. “Justice: What’s The Right Thing To Do? Episode 06: ‘MIND YOUR MOTIVE.’” Youtube, 8 Sept. 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=17&v=8rv-4aUbZxQ. Accessed 16 May 2018.

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The Correct Approach Towards Domestic Surveillance, as Guided by Virtue Ethics Anika Bagaria ’19 For years, America has remained divided on the controversy surrounding the United States government’s National Security Agency (NSA), particularly its domestic surveillance activities. At one extreme, citizens demonstrate a deontological viewpoint, regarding “duty rather than consequences as the foundation of morality” (Boss 300). One of the principal duties of our government, illustrated through the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution, is to protect the privacy of citizens, so violating privacy is equivalent to infringing on civil liberties. Thus, the deontological argument advocates for the government to absolutely never infringe on one’s individual right to privacy, hence pursuing a categorical imperative— “that which [represents] an action as necessary of itself without reference to another end, i.e. as objectively necessary,” as defined by deontologist Immanuel Kant (Marino 210). Vowing to never invade citizens’ privacy in any case would theoretically provide for a more consistent approach in government, as the government would be rendered unable to abuse their power through particular exceptions. Conversely, at the other extreme lies the more consequentialist attitude, supported by the slim majority of citizens (The Washington Post). Expressing a utilitarian standpoint, this argument states that any domestic surveillance is valid, as it prioritizes national security and protects the nation from risks of terrorism. Thus, this case affirms that domestic surveillance provides the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people, following the ideal of utilitarianism that the “outcome or consequences of our actions are more important than our actions” themselves (Boss 234). Utilitarians view this standpoint as the most practical one towards the issue of domestic surveillance.

Striking the correct and most beneficial balance between both extremes has been the subject of great dispute in our nation. In this paper, I will argue that by following the system of virtue ethics, which “emphasizes right being over right action,” we can approach such a balance by using a plan I have formed called TRAN (Boss 384). As suggested by Aristotle, we must strive to achieve the telos, or higher end, of this situation, which is a relationship between the people and the U.S. government in which citizens can fully trust that the government will protect them while preserving their rights, aiding in the ultimate achievement of eudaemonia, or 30

Introduction to Ethics fulfillment. To do so, we must seek the intermediate of the virtue of collaboration, striking the balance of domestic surveillance through a system of trial and error. Although domestic surveillance serves as a major force in defending the nation, there have been various cases of severe infringement on civil liberties; therefore, the government must follow a virtue ethics approach to balance and pursue the most consistent and practical approach towards domestic surveillance.

Those with a deontologist outlook believe that the NSA (National Security Agency) possesses an intolerable amount of power, allowing it to misappropriate information and violate civil liberties in a manner that is unconstitutional, as it has done in the past. Therefore, through this lens, the solution to the case of domestic surveillance would be the ratification of some policy prohibiting the government from accessing private information to which individuals possess full ownership. Domestic surveillance puts at risk our principles as a democracy, potentially limiting our rights. As Professor of Law at the Washington University School of Law Neil M. Richards describes, “consider surveillance of people when they are thinking, reading, and communicating with others in order to make up their minds about political and social issues,” as this demonstrates how “especially dangerous” intellectual surveillance can be (Richards). Furthermore, the great power dynamic created by domestic surveillance between the government and the public presents crippling infringements on human dignity and freedom including “discrimination, coercion, and the threat of selective enforcement, where critics of the government can be prosecuted or blackmailed for wrongdoings unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance” (Richards). Intellectual surveillance and the subsequent power structure undermines our commitment to democracy and freedom as a nation. And while the prospect of being criminalized for an action with no relevance to a threat to national security during the domestic surveillance process seems unlikely, such horrifying instances have been reported. For instance, according to Malou Innocent, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, the government has misused the Patriot Act, a law that clearly violates the Fourth Amendment by allowing government officials to conduct searches without a warrant if they have reason to believe that someone is involved with an act of terrorism. As stated

by Innocent, due to the law’s ambiguity, the Patriot Act has been used to criminalize drug offenders, as well as monitor anti-war demonstrators and supporters of Ron Paul, a former U.S. Representative who was very vocal about his concerns regarding the NSA (Business Insider). The government has diverged from the established purpose of these surveillance 31

programs—to protect national security against terrorism—thus exploiting the excuse of “national security” to violate civil liberties. Furthermore, the lack of authorization checks or oversight has permitted officials to further misappropriate information for personal reasons. For instance, in September 2007, special agent of the Department of Commerce Benjamin Robinson used the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS), a government database to which he should not have had access, to monitor the movements of his ex-girlfriend and her family. Before he was caught, Robinson illegally accessed the system 163 times (Stanford).

As technology continues to develop and surveillance evolves, the ability for the government to abuse its powers continues to increase. The Atlantic aptly notes, “we can’t have secret warrantless mass surveillance [...] and also enjoy Internet-fueled economic, democratic, and political empowerment” (Sprigman and Granick). Thus, the deontologist would argue that the government must vow to always follow its duty of protecting citizens’ civil liberties when conducting domestic surveillance by following the categorical imperative of never violating an individual’s privacy, hence never accessing information without a warrant or secretly viewing data to which citizens possess full ownership.

However, in response, those expressing the utilitarian viewpoint could argue that the government does not abide by a deontological formation; rather, it is inherently based on a consequentialist assumption and assessment of pains and pleasures. While critics of domestic surveillance contend that the government sets a troubling precedent by infringing on citizens’ right to privacy, its proponents argue that this invasion of privacy is justified, as domestic surveillance serves as an effective tool to counter terrorism. Reflecting on the current War on Terror and citing various instances in which the NSA helped stop attacks, utilitarians may affirm that the amount of power held by the NSA is completely valid in guaranteeing national security. For the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people, citizens must renounce some constitutional rights in order to protect the nation from terrorism, even if some officials may decide to abuse their power and access data unlawfully. A relatively slim majority of U.S. citizens supports this stance, with a 2013 Washington Post-Pew Research Poll reporting that 56% of citizens deem the NSA’s surveillance methods “acceptable,” and 41% call it “unacceptable” (The Washington Post). Evoking the utilitarian concept of ensuring the greatest good for the greatest number of people, author Marc Thiessen deems domestic surveillance to be the “principal source of intelligence to stop terrorist plots”; hence, Thiessen claims, monitoring phone calls and internet communica32

Introduction to Ethics tions, particularly targeting those who seem to pose a threat to national security, is the only way that the government can protect the country (The Washington Post). To substantiate their argument, those advocating domestic surveillance emphasize that government-led data mining programs have, in fact, stopped attacks both in the United States and abroad.

According to an NSA official, the PRISM surveillance program—through which the US government collaborates with major internet companies to oversee and collect communications—provides a “field of dots” to enable authorities to gather leads on potential terrorists (Business Insider). And as attacks on American soil continue to occur—“the war on al Qaeda is coming home to us,” says Professor Glenn M. Sulmasy of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy—domestic surveillance may provide insights that can bolster national security (CNN). This view is by no means new: Abraham Lincoln, when seemingly defying the Constitution by suspending habeas corpus, remarked, “Would not the official oath be broken, if the government should be overthrown, when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it” (National Review). Thus, those sharing the utilitarian view would argue that the NSA’s actions are justified, as they are enacted with the nation’s greatest interest in mind.

To provide the most practical approach regarding domestic surveillance that will result in the most consistent government actions, I propose the implementation of a four-part policy that is grounded in virtue ethics: Transparency, Regulation, Authorization, and Notification (TRAN).

Aristotle’s works define a virtue as “an admirable character trait or disposition to habitually act in a manner that benefits oneself and others” (Boss 384). The virtue that serves as the basis of TRAN is collaboration, more specifically, the collaboration between the American people and the U.S. Federal Government. As outlined by Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, “virtues generally entail moderation or seeking the middle path,” an idea found in both Western and Eastern philosophies (391). Thus, through TRAN, we must seek to approach the intermediate between the utilitarian standpoint of domestic surveillance for the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people despite threats to civil liberties, and the deontological view of an absolute stop to the government’s warrantless access to personal data over which the individual possesses full ownership.

The virtue of collaboration must reflect this mean, the deficit being too little collaboration as suggested by utilitarianism, which could endanger rights , and the excess being too much collaboration as suggested by deontology, which could risk national security. The first step of TRAN to remedy the flaws in domestic surveillance legislation would be to en33

sure governmental transparency with the public regarding what types of information the government can access from citizens. In other words, the government must update citizens on its technological abilities, informing them about the types of devices and forms of data to which it has access.

Secondly, the NSA must regulate the conditions and frequency for which personal data may be viewed as well as the proportions of data collection. By aggressively keeping track of regular data collection activities, officials will be able to more clearly see if more data than required has been collected. Furthermore, such a requirement could help officials stay committed to not analyzing more data than is needed when considering the threat to national security in regards to the proportion of data collected. Third, TRAN would require the government to increase standards regarding the authorization of conducting domestic surveillance. One may not self-approve a request to access personal data, regardless of the position held; depending on the circumstances and urgency of the data collection, officials must seek the approval of a certain number of officials or follow a certain process, as agreed upon by the NSA. Finally, the NSA must abide by a certain notification policy, informing individuals who do not significantly threaten national security about their personal information the government is accessing, the purpose of the investigation, and a general overview of who has access to their personal data. If such an act will compromise the investigation, the NSA will hold the right to inform individuals after the analysis has been completed—but they must still eventually notify the person of interest, after the threat to national security has passed. By following virtue ethics—the virtue being collaboration—TRAN can establish a powerful balance between national security and the protection of civil liberties.

However, both deontologists and utilitarians—those at both extremes— may hold valid concerns regarding TRAN. Reflecting on a critique of virtue ethics, deontologists may believe that TRAN “does not offer sufficient guidance” and is “incomplete” due to its virtue ethics basis (Boss 414).

Because of its lack of concrete moral guidance, virtue ethics is “associated with a high level of autonomous moral reasoning,” and as Kant believes, “to a person of perfectly good will, the concept of duty no longer applies” (414). But of course, the NSA does not possess this natural ultimate good will, and because of this, it will lack proper guidance in given circumstances, allowing the organization to still do whatever they wish.

For instance, TRAN mentions in its notification aspect that the NSA may withhold notification if the person of interest is a threat to national security, notifying them only after the threat has passed. However, similar 34

Introduction to Ethics to today’s problems with the NSA, the definition of “national security” is still vague under TRAN, even if TRAN does provide stricter regulations.

Another instance is TRAN’s requirement of regulation, which states that officials must consider proportions of data collection when conducting surveillance; however, analyzing proportions can also be a subjective process, and TRAN lacks stricter guidelines of exactly what too large of proportions would entail. Thus, deontologists may believe that TRAN’s lack of moral guidelines weakens its purpose. Instead, they may still advocate for Kant’s categorical imperative, as this would prevent any problems that could arise from TRAN’s vagueness. On the other hand, utilitarians may argue that TRAN is far too open, and thus significantly puts national security at risk. By informing the public exactly what types of data to which the government has access, terrorists may find ways around domestic surveillance. Furthermore, those aiming to harm national security may try playing the system, intentionally acting suspicious to then be notified that they are being watched (as required by TRAN), allowing terrorists to know the powers and reach of the NSA. To the deontological argument that we must implement absolute duties to solve the vagueness of TRAN, I would respond that following a categorical imperative in this instance would be very impractical as, although it would promote consistency, it could put national security at great risk. TRAN’s requirements can be made more specific in other ways.

We can gather experts from across the nation, whose ideas would be of great value, as they have spent their lives researching this matter. After setting up various meetings with experts of all different political identities with the NSA, together they would form specifics, including rules that dictate exactly what “a risk to national security” entails. For instance, Richards stated in his Dangers of Surveillance that “to protect our intellectual freedom to think without state oversight or interference,” there must be a policy to protect “intellectual privacy,” outlining exactly what this signifies (Richards). Seeking ideas like these will help make TRAN’s regulations more concrete and clear. However, in order to still continue to promote consistency of the government’s actions, instead of including a premise of absolute duty, TRAN can follow W. D. Ross’ concept of prima facie duties, which are “moral duties that may on occasion be overridden by stronger moral claims” (Ross 321). In this context, the government would be required to uphold its duty of protecting civil liberties, while overriding this duty if needed in the interest of national security—yet TRAN will ensure that the exceptions that prima facie duty allows are not abused. In response to the utilitarian argument about how TRAN endan35

gers national security, I would respond that compromise is necessary in achieving the correct approach towards domestic surveillance, and regulations can be made harsher (or looser) after evaluating TRAN’s progress through a system of trial and error. The only way to ensure that one is correctly aiming towards the intermediate is by analyzing the outcomes; in other words, to see if the balance of collaboration is effective in terms of both consistency and practicality, we must evaluate decisions and impacts made under TRAN. As stated by Aristotle, “The intermediate state is in all things to be praised, but we must incline sometimes toward the excess, sometimes toward the deficiency; for so shall we most easily hit the mean and what is right” (Marino 80). Thus, if the regulations prove to be far too loose and we learn that terrorist organizations have began taking advantage of the openness, we must overshoot the mean. TRAN can then be made tighter by limiting the exact information released by the government. It will still remain transparent in this scenario, as only certain information will be withheld, yet the nation will still enjoy a much greater amount of transparency than today, preventing the NSA from abusing its powers.

Thus, the issue of domestic surveillance is largely split between the deontological view of those who remain vehemently opposed to the NSA’s clear abuse of civil liberties, advocating for the complete elimination of all warrantless surveillance, and the utilitarian view that accepts a compromise in constitutional rights under the condition that it can potentially increase national security. TRAN (Transparency, Regulation, Authorization, and Notification), a plan that I have proposed, provides a solution to this problem. With its basis in virtue ethics, TRAN provides for the development of collaboration between the American public and the U.S. government, the virtue upon which the plan is set. And it illuminates the intermediate between the two extreme deontological and utilitarian standpoints. While deontologists may claim that TRAN is vague and does not provide concrete moral guidelines, through increased discussion between experts and the NSA, more definitive policies can be formed. Additionally, while utilitarians may claim that TRAN significantly risks national security, by evaluating TRAN’s activities with a system of trial and error, the virtue of collaboration and its intermediate can be altered. In conclusion, domestic surveillance has infringed on civil liberties in various past instances, yet it has also served as a way to protect national security; in order to form a solution that takes into account both its flaws and benefits, the NSA must pursue virtue ethics to utilize the most consistent yet practical approach towards domestic surveillance, as shown by TRAN. 36

Introduction to Ethics Works Cited Boss, Judith A. Ethics for Life: A Text with Readings. 6th ed., New York, McGraw-Hill, 2014.

Cohen, Jon. “Most Americans Back NSA Tracking Phone Records, Prioritize Probes over Privacy.” Washington Post, 10 June 2013. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/most-americans-supportnsa-tracking-phone-records-prioritize-investigations-overprivacy/2013/06/10/51e721d6-d204-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_ story.html.

Francis, David. “NSA Surveillance: Why It Is And Isn’t A Big Deal.” Business Insider, 11 June 2013. http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-surveillance-prism-phone-nsa-bigdeal-2013-6.

Gallington, Daniel J. “The Case for Internet Surveillance.” US News & World Report, 18 September 2013. https://www.usnews.com/ opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/09/18/internet-surveillance-isa-necessary-part-of-national-security.

Granick, Jennifer and Christopher Jon Sprigman. “U.S Government Surveillance: Bad for Silicon Valley, Bad for Democracy Around the World.” The Atlantic, 28 June 2013. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/ us-government-surveillance-bad-for-silicon-valley-bad-for-democracy-around-the-world/277335/.

Gorski, Ashley. “How the NSA’s Mass Internet Spying Poisons Society.”

American Civil Liberties Union, 25 September 2015. https:// www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/ how-nsas-mass-internet-spying-poisons-society. Accessed 30 May 2018.

Marino, Gordon Daniel. Ethics: The Essential Writings. New York, Modern Library, 2010.

Richards, Neil M. “The Dangers of Surveillance.” Harvard Law Review, vol. 126, 25 March 2013. https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/vol126_richards.pdf Sulmasy, David. “Why We Need Government Surveillance.” CNN, 10 June 2013. https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/10/opinion/sulmasynsa-snowden/index.html. The Domestic Surveillance Directorate. https://nsa.gov1.info/.

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Thiessen, Marc. “Leaks, Not the NSA Programs, Deserve Condemnation.” Washington Post, 10 June 2013. https://www. washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-leaks-not-thensa-programs-deserve-condemnation/2013/06/10/e91d09acd1c9-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_ term=.60dacb0d1bc5.

Walpin, Gerald. “We Need NSA Surveillance.” National Review, 16 August 2013. https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/08/we-neednsa-surveillance-gerald-walpin/.

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Independent Work

Holy Mother and Son Yukki Qiu ’19

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‘Thick and Thin’ Descriptions of Charitableness in Islam and Judaism Jonathan Yue ’19 Charitableness is a means of showing compassion in many religions.

Looking at only two of religions specifically, Islam and Judaism, each has a terms that most nearly translates to charitableness, zakat and tzedakah, respectively. There are clear, observable similarities in their “thin descriptions” but profound differences lie in their “thick descriptions.” In comparing the two religion’s views, laws, and implications on charitableness, the two terms’ origins relate strongly to the foundation of each religion, uncovering deep motives in each respective term that may not be easily observable otherwise. Although Islamic zakat and Jewish tzedakah are described in the broadest terms to both mean charitableness, the thick description of both traditions points towards their respective and most fundamental origins and meanings, revealing that those two flavors of charitableness concentrate on different goals—the former, to depolarize wealth gaps, and the latter, to practice submissiveness to God. Diving into the “thick description” of zakat in order to better understand its meaning in a Muslim perspective, the practice is, itself, a founding law in Islam, one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Being the third pillar, zakat is an obligatory practice in Islam, having eighty-two Qur’anic verses that place the obligation to pay zakat immediately after the obligation to pray (Fauzia 35). Not only is it ritual ibadah (worship), to be practiced or at least thought about everyday, the importance of charity extends beyond just fulfillment for personal benefit, there is also a sense of social ibadah, in its aims to benefit humanity (Fauzia 36). Moreover, zakat is specified to certain groups of people as “... it is righteousness... to spend of your substance, out of love for Him, for your kin, for orphans, for the needy, for the wayfarer, for those who ask, and for the ransom of slaves” (Qur’an 2:177). Observing those who are specifically listed, it is most interesting to see “those who ask” on that list, as those who ask may not be worthy of zakat. However, in the perspective of the asker, who is likely impoverished, the system makes sense in that it reinforces action by the poor to seek financial aid and simultaneously encourages the wealthy to share with them; therefore, it attempts to equalize the wealth status of everyone. Additionally, in the excerpt of text, charity is shown not just to be a ritual ibadah, it proves faith and righteousness as well (Fauzia 36). Muslims, therefore, 40

World Religions see the practice of zakat as evidence of loyalty to God; in a sense, because material possessions are given from God to humans, who do not possess anything for themselves. Zakat is also an act of submission, which is in line with Islamic beliefs as the word Islam itself means submission.

On the other hand, an equally complicated concept of tzedakah or Jewish charitableness needs “thick description” as well in order to be fairly compared to zakat. Tzedakah is also a non-optional practice for Jewish people, even those who are dependent on the tzedakah of another. Tzedakah has the dual meaning of charity and justice, with “justice” referring not to retributive justice but to distributive justice (Sacks 113). How can one word have two meanings? Its dualistic nature can be described in two hypothetical situations. Let’s say person A is giving financial aid to person B: that financial aid is only valid under the name “charity” if person B is undeserving of aid and is only valid under the name “justice” if person B is deserving of aid. Therefore, Judaism validates giving financial aid to someone who needs it because that is just and vice versa. Additionally, Judaism sees charity as having a negative connotation as to say one is wasting aid on someone who does not need it. Tzedakah also extends far enough to say that “no one should be without the basic requirements of existence, and that those who have more than they need must share some of that surplus with those who have less” (Sacks 114) as a free society is “one that robs no one of that basic human entitlement” (Sacks 120). An ambiguous dilemma is present when someone gives financial aid - how much is sufficient? Two options are present: to give the absolute subsistence level (food, housing, basic furniture, wedding funds) in accordance with Jewish law, or to give relative subsistence level, not relative to others, but to the individual’s own personal standard of living (Sacks 118). Jewish people, therefore, see the practice of tzedakah as an obligation that intends for the Jewish communities’ lifestyle to contrast the suffering and slavery the Israelites faced during the Exodus - being free comes with obligations to keep from exerting tremendous power over one another.

Now, it may seem clear that these two terms for charitableness, tzedakah and zakat, truly have differences in “thick description.” In zakat, the responsibility falls upon both parties: the givers, to be generous, and the receivers, to ask for aid. On the other hand, in tzedakah, the responsibility falls upon the givers to understand what is the surplus and what is the subsistence level. The responsibility may seem to stress the givers more than the receivers because of the fact that Judaism requires all to pay tzedakah even those who rely on it while zakat limits the givers to people who can afford it. Jewish communities, therefore, seem more circulatory, as compared 41

to Islamic communities or ummah. Because the basis of tzedakah lies in the history of the Israelites that were oppressed, Judaism seems to have a more focused bilateral wealth depolarization system than Islam, where the rich lose their excess and the poor gain that excess to meet at a middle line. On the other hand, zakat, is based on submission to a greater power, God, and is not based explicitly on the ummah nor is it focused on depolarizing the enormous global wealth gap.

Works Cited Fauzia, Amelia. Faith and the State: A History of Islamic Philanthropy in Indonesia. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Print.

Sacks, Jonathan. The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations. N.p.: Bloomsbury, 2003. Print The Qur’an. Trans. by Tarif Khalidi. New York: Viking, 2008. Print.

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Introduction to Religious Studies

Exclusivism and Inclusivism within a Single Religion Jack Hallinan ’21 It is commonplace belief in the United States that religion and government authority should not intermix. Yet, despite all the stigma and scripture which supposedly prevents this phenomenon, it still occurs. As Nicholas Kristof alludes to in his 2010 New York Times article, “A Church Mary Could Love,” religions which have a hierarchy of authority (most notably the Catholic Church) are not dissimilar to systems of governance. Similarly, just like in any government, those at the top of the hierarchy will make decisions which fail to please the entire population. In some cases, and especially in something as personal and intrinsic as to one’s identity as religion, the failure of leaders to include everyone in a decision can not only do a disservice to certain people, it can ostracize them. Kristof suggests this concept with the tone of his piece on the Catholic Church. His focus eventually turns to the Catholic Church’s attitude towards certain aspects of society, such as sexuality and the use of contraception. The attitude of the Catholic Church discouraged the use of scientifically healthy practices, which would probably leave devout people feeling disenchanted with and forgotten by certain voices in their religion. This concept led me to begin asking questions and deliberating about how the concepts of exclusivism and inclusivism function within a religious tradition. Diana Eck’s terms for cross-religious attitudes and encounters can also apply in the realm of a single religion. Religions are inherently multi-voiced, so even within Catholicism, certain voices may be exclusivist, and others may be inclusivist.

I came to this general conclusion: hierarchies of religious voices, just like any hierarchies, will inevitably do something which divides their people, forming opposing exclusivist and inclusivist mindsets.

Kristof ’s perspective raises many excellent points, particularly in outlining the flaws of a religious voice as influential as the Vatican. Kristof makes clear his opinion that the Catholic Church suffers from deeply embedded androcentrism which, to many, can no longer be accepted: “the Vatican wrestles with the consequences of a patriarchal premodern mind-set: scandal, cover-up and the clumsiest self-defense since Watergate” (Kristof ).

Perhaps this comment appears overly dramatic, but Kristof clarifies that people do indeed have a right to be upset with and disconcerted by this particular religious authority. This begins with the inter-religion exclusiv43

ist tendencies Kristof mentions; women have a right to be frustrated and disenchanted with a Church “addicted to male domination.” Kristof also believes, from his own experiences, that despite exclusivism, goodness and sense will prevail in some form. This returns to the philosophy of hierarchies: that even when they divide people, there will be goodwill which steps in to rectify the issue by inspiring the hierarchies to care for people as best they can. Kristof hails “the grass-roots Catholic Church that does far more good in the world than it ever gets credit for.” Kristof mentions meeting a Brazilian priest that wished he could help all of the people in this world with HIV/AIDS, saying he would even go the lengths of putting a condom factory in the Vatican to help save lives. While this comment comes across as obvious hyperbole, the priest is acting with an inclusivist mindset. This inclusivism within a religion serves as the antidote to exclusivism. In other words, when people seek to exclude, others will rise who seek to include, whether that be within or across religions.

What Kristof possibly misses in this story of an exclusivist Catholic Church which he describes as “obsessed with dogma and rules and distracted from social justice” is that exclusivism easily garners a negative reputation, and perhaps gets used as a scapegoat too often. Exclusivism occurs to uphold a certain value or a set of values which the excluder seeks to maintain. The virtue of those values often becomes forgotten by those responding to exclusivism. After all, even when exclusivism deeply misguides people, it still has its roots in deep piousness and devotion to one’s beliefs, religious or otherwise. So, despite Kristof ’s perfectly acceptable lamentations, he does not acknowledge how the Catholic Church believes that the very dogma and scripture Kristof describes as overly strict will help people with their spirituality and devotion to their faith. However, Kristof shows that inclusivism can achieve these same goals by invoking the name and actions of Jesus, as a historical figure, who “focused on the needy rather than dogma.” Although the historical Jesus is commonly known to have been an ahead-of-his-time inclusivist who did not fear the stigma which came from being in the company of poor people and women, Kristof uses the image of a virtuous Jesus in a distinctively Christian manner. By referencing Jesus in this manner, Kristof creates his own dogma of inclusivism, centered around the virtues of Jesus. In doing so, Kristof feeds his narrative of the binary between exclusivism and inclusivism: when he perceived the Catholic Church to exclude, he, like all the religious figures he met who sought to include, also forged an inclusivist direction through his writing.

Divides between groups of people, large or small, have become inevitable and inescapable. Divides exist within opinion and authority, two concepts 44

Introduction to Religious Studies which will always draw humans towards them. Those divides rarely form clean, clearly opposing sides. They will leave people left in the middle, feeling wronged by and excluded from the source of the division, oftentimes an authority which they believed in and identified with. But amid the despair over this seemingly never-ending phenomenon, everyone should remember two things. Firstly, we should not simply hate those seeking to exclude, but rather try to understand what’s happening. The source of their exclusive tendencies is belief that they are doing right for the rest of the community to which they belong. Secondly, in multi-voiced societies, especially religions, for every force seeking to exclude, an equal force will seek to include. Kristof ’s commentary on the Catholic Church describes this parallel between exclusivism and inclusivism in society: ostracization will always be met with kindness and comfort in some form.

Works Cited Kristof, Nicholas. “A Church Mary Can Love.” The New York Times, 17 Apr. 2010.

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Conjoined Ends of the Religious Spectrum: Buddhism and Islam Jupiter Huang ’21 Buddhism and Islam seem to occupy opposite ends on the spectrum of religious. Buddhism claims the existence of no self and no supreme being, while Islam, being extremely monotheistic, stresses the importance of submission to the only God, Allah. However, in analyzing the core beliefs of both, they yield abundant similarities, but within these similarities lie distinct differences in approaching ideas and aspects that both faiths see to be true or important. Despite seeming to oppose each other, Buddhism and Islam both help followers overcome inherent struggles that come with the acceptance of both faiths, emphasizing kindness and practice in contrast to the violence that extremists associated with the religion commit.

Both Islam and Buddhism deal with struggle and list rules to help avoid hardships, although struggle manifests differently in the two religions. In Islam, many followers struggle with adhering to the strict rules of God, known as the inner jihad. The religion, recognized by its followers as demanding and oftentimes hard to completely uphold, requires the followers to attempt the greater jihad through “fighting against one’s self ” in order to obey the rules of Allah (BBC 2009), and become a true Muslim, or a submitter to God. To help its followers succeed in this greater jihad, the Quran lists key aspects of the religion that followers must uphold, known as the Five Pillars of Islam. These pillars give Muslims a means to submit to the rules of God even while carrying on with normal life. Recognizing these pillars in the Shahadah, the first pillar implies “believing or professing the unity of God, and Muhammed as the messenger of God” (“5 Pillars” 396). This truth must be accepted by a believer of Islam in order to become a Muslim; similarly, the truth of dukkha in Buddhism must be accepted by its followers in order for them to understand the purpose of the religion.

Buddhists believe that all life is suffering (dukkha). Dukkha stems from our senses, which cause desire, known as trishna. Trishna, literally translated as thirst, represents a key hurdle Buddhists aim to overcome. Gautama Buddha, in his meditation, realized that with endless desire comes endless dissatisfaction. Therefore, all life represents an endless loop of dissatisfactoriness; when people do not reach their goals or reach them only to find that they still want more, they feel dissatisfaction. To end this loop of endless suffering due to dissatisfaction, Buddhists seek nirvana, the ex46

Introduction to Religious Studies tinguishing of all desire, through the Eightfold Path, a list regarding the correct ways of thinking and acting to get on the path towards enlightenment, and eventually, nirvana. Thus, both Islam and Buddhism deal with inevitable struggles central to their respective religions and offer a solution in the form of listed rules.

The purpose of prayer in Islam mirrors some of the reasons why Buddhists insist on performing meditation, with both having an aspect regarding purity and the development of the mind. The second pillar of Islam, Salaat, involves “the performance of a continual round of prayers” on a special praying rug everyday, orientated towards the direction of Mecca (“5 Pillars” 397). This form of prayer serves the purpose of uniting all Muslims in the world together as they practice their faith and show their submission to God in the exact same way. Beyond this uniquely Islamic purpose, prayers help not just to “strengthen one’s belief in God’s existence and goodness”, but also to “purify the heart” and “develop the mind and conscience” (“5 Pillars” 397). The prayer’s purpose of purifying the heart and developing the mind shares many similarities with the purpose of meditation in Buddhism. In Zen Buddhism, the purpose of meditation, similar to all other branches of Buddhism, is to allow followers to “keep [their] beginner’s mind” (Suzuki 21). The Buddhist belief in trishnaas, the root of all suffering, explains the state of the mind after birth. Buddhists believe that the mind at birth has all the qualities of an enlightened mind, known as Buddha nature, something that proves to be hard to retain after one reaches adulthood because the mind becomes “impure” over the course of one’s life (Suzuki 21). The senses destroy the purity of the mind, masking its clairvoyance and enlightened original state with the temptations of trishna. Meditation serves partly to help one attain the original and enlightened mind, similar to the Islamic idea of developing the mind and conscience. Beyond practices, both religions share a common belief in promoting kindness among their followers.

From an atheist point of view, although both religions do have associations with violence, they inherently encourage compassion, with Muslims having an obligation to provide for the poor and fast during Ramadan to understand the suffering of the unfortunate and Buddhists believing in an ultimate goal of infinite compassion or empathy. From an atheist lens, the religion’s role as ideology makes them “lethally dangerous nonsense”, with the likes of Dawkins pointing to terrorist organizations claiming their purpose of action in the name of God (Prothero 321). There happen to be Muslim terrorists in the form of Islamic jihadists and also Buddhist monks such as Ashin Wirathu of Myanmar leading bands of disciples “with im47

punity” in the country, committing atrocities and “racial violence” towards Rohinya refugees, many of whom are, incidentally, Muslim (Oppenheim, 2017). In both of these instances, the perpetrators cite “protection” of their communities and their traditions as principal causes of violence (BBC 2014). In the case of the radical jihadists, their violent response stems from a wish to “reorder government and society” (BBC 2014), and in the case of Wirathu and his disciples, they speak of “protecting their flock” from the dangers of infiltration by other religions (Oppenheim 2017). Thus, these two cases show that both Islam and Buddhism can be manipulated to become ideologies that promote violence. However, neither religion is inherently violent. The third and fourth pillars of Islam show that Islam encourages kindness and understanding from its followers. The third pillar, Zakat, which “purifies the distribution of money” in Muslim society, serves as an obligation for individuals to give to needy Muslims in order to “prevent personal greed” (“5 Pillars” 399). The fourth pillar of Islam, fasting during the month of Ramadan, allows one to “control the lower desires” while also making all followers “share in the condition of the poor” (“5 Pillars” 400). Muslims are therefore obligated to not just quell their desires but also to feel compassion towards those who suffer. Consequently, Muslims who practice the fourth pillar are willing to abide by the third pillar, since they feel for those in need. In Buddhism, empathy represents an important attribute of a Buddhist. A common metaphor for enlightenment, the two wings of the Buddha, represent the two key attributes of Buddha nature. The first wing of Buddha nature is infinite compassion and empathy, with the Buddha himself knowing and feeling for all people who endure suffering. This concept has great impact on how Buddhists act and what they believe. In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhisattvas, those on the path to enlightenment, through evoking “the capacities of the human heart and mind”, represent all that Buddhists “expect for [them]selves” (Mary 2001). Because one of the key attributes of bodhisattvas, the physical representations of a Buddhist’s eventual goal, centers around immense compassion and empathy, these two ideals evidently hold incredible importance in Buddhism. Together with meditative practices, these two ideals give the religion its commonly perceived element of tranquility. Thus, in their quests for success, either in obedience or in the end to suffering, both followers of Islam and of Buddhism share a commonality of wanting its followers to understand the struggles of the unfortunate, directly contradicting the atheist idea of the inherent danger of religious tradition.

Although Buddhism and Islam deal with struggle in its different forms, whether it be the greater jihad or dukkha, both offer a solution fundamen48

Introduction to Religious Studies tal to the faith. These solutions happen to focus on similar aspects as well, with prayer in Islam and meditation in Buddhism conducted in order to achieve similar results An emphasis on learning to understand the suffering of others, and consequently taking the necessary actions, allow both religions to show how committers of violence in the name of Buddhism and Islam contradict the core aspects of both religions. Thus, despite Islam and Buddhism opposing each other in their beliefs on the existence of a supreme being, they share common attributes of dealing with the struggles of their followers through practice and encouraging compassion, allowing two very different religions to reject violence and spread in kindness in similar ways.

Works Cited Mary, Joanna. “The Wings of the Bodhisattva.” Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, 2001. www.buddhistinquiry.org/article/the-wings-of-thebodhisattva/.

Oppenheim, Marella. “‘It Only Takes One Terrorist’: the Buddhist Monk Who Reviles Myanmar’s Muslims | Marella Oppenheim.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 12 May 2017. www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/12/only-takes-oneterrorist-buddhist-monk-reviles-myanmar-muslims-rohingya-refugees-ashin-wirathu.

“Religions - Islam: Jihad.” BBC, 3 Aug. 2009. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beliefs/jihad_1.shtml

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Sikhism: A Counterproductive Religion Encouraging Utopianism Isabelle Lee ’21 In times of struggle, people often fall back to religion for answers and shelter. Both Sikhism and Catholicism are prominent faiths providing teachings that allow believers to eventually unite with the ultimate.

Nonetheless, different interpretations of doctrines contradict one another to form questions about the fundamental cores of these religions. One of these frequently discussed questions is whether or not both Sikhism and Catholicism promote gender equality. According to popular culture, Sikhism seems to advocate for women’s equality more so than its other religious counterparts, such as Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Similarly, the Roman Catholic feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson challenges the Catholic social hierarchy by terming scripture as literal, exclusive, and patriarchal. This controversy led me to believe that if Sikhism is truly a religion that promotes the utmost equality, it must have some sort of flaw. Does it really mean that gender equality is a good thing? Even with the importance of the “believing game,” approaching religion by doubting conventional ideas allows us to see the true merit of Sikhism and its significance in society. Although Sikhism’s preaching of gender equality is rare among religions as it honors the role of women in predominantly androcentric societies, Catholicism’s acknowledgement of its patriarchal social hierarchy actually allows believers to experience religious growth, suggesting that Sikhism’s sketch of an egalitarian society is unrelatable to the public.

Unlike many popular religions, Sikh doctrines put women on the same threshold as men and believers pay great respect towards women. During the 15th century, when male dominance was prevalent in Indian society, Sikhism’s founder, Guru Nanak (1469-1539) was “dissatisfied with the distinctions imposed between sexes created by the old caste system and other orthodox social conventions” (Kaur and Moghal 65). Cultural perceptions of women were largely influenced by religious doctrines preached within the community, and women were often seen as inferior beings to men (Kaur and Moghal 65). However, in such a time of heavy gender bias, Nanak created a religion that controversially accepted both females and males as equals. He “included [women] in the Adi Granth [and formulated] ideals of femininity” to give women more representation in the religion 50

Introduction to Religious Studies (Sharma 191). Nanak believed that “a woman is half of the personality of man and [...] she is the gateway to his liberation. Without the participation of women in social and religious activities man is incomplete and so is society” (Kaur and Moghal 66). Not only does Sikhism equalize a woman to her male counterpart, but the religion almost seems to idolize female capabilities by taking “revolutionary steps to enshrine the rights of women in scripture, and [challenge] patriarchal oppression well over 500 years ago” (Bhinder 1). The Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhism’s holy book, uses lotus flowers to symbolize women and emphasize their “non-attachment” to the world: “the lotus flower is with the scum and the water [...] As the lotus flower floats unaffected in the water, so does he remain detached in his own household” (Kaur and Moghal 66). The verse highlights how women live unattached and exemplary lives while simultaneously stressing that a typical Sikh should look up to women as life-examples. Furthermore, scripture also gives “high regard to women in Sikhism,” and according to a hymn in the Guru Granth Sahib, “Of a woman are we conceived, of a woman we are born;” men are lost without the presence of a woman and “Sikhism shows the remarkable ability of women being able to create life in this world” (Kaur and Moghal 67-69). Regardless of the many Indian cultural practices emphasizing the importance of men, Sikhism’s honoring of women and accentuating male dependency on female capabilities illustrate that the religion values gender equality.

Apart from Sikhism’s encouragement of women, Johnson’s argument that Catholicism is constructed upon a literal, exclusive, and patriarchal system promoting androcentric worldviews reveals the lack of gender equality within the religion. In lieu of the commonly debated topic contending that “God is taken to be beyond all physical characteristics,” Johnson claims that scripture’s reference towards God as a “he” not only exalts male believers but also denigrates “the human dignity of women [while justifying] the dominance of men” (Johnson 36-37). The religion itself “sculpts men into the role of God” and consequently lowers the status of women (Johnson 37). The introduction of patriarchal language into scripture through the Bible’s symbolization of God as a “he” creates gender inequality that further shapes how popular culture views women (Nye 74). Furthermore, Catholicism knowingly acknowledges the gender bias existing within its own system. In a published statement, Pope Francis asserted, “In Catholicism, many women [...] do not exercise the priesthood because in Christianity the High Priest is Jesus, a male [...] The woman has another function in Christianity” (Francis 134). By stripping women from authoritative figures in the Church and casting them aside, Francis undoubtedly degrades 51

the importance of Catholic women and undermines their capabilities. Often, people “stereotypically regard religious women as loyal and compliant servants of the Roman Catholic Church” and female importance pales in comparison to men (Gervais 385). As the face of the Catholic Church, Francis glorifies males by emphasizing Jesus’ gender, who one cannot fail to omit is a semi-divine figure possessing immeasurable power in Christianity.

In spite of the popular feminist culture that is growing in modern-society, Francis and the Catholic Church still purposefully choose to diminish the significance of women and their participation in the religion. If the Church possessed these flaws without realizing its presence, then it is rather understandable. But to be consciously aware of these issues while still ignoring their existence and uncovers a new layer of inequality within Catholicism.

But regardless of the gender inequality rooted within the Catholic social hierarchy, its flaws are essentially what makes the religion more relatable to people as opposed to Sikhism’s egalitarian doctrines. In retrospect, though it may be a bold claim, the beauty of a patriarchal system in Catholicism is the sheer fact that women are seen as inferior to men. The purpose of religion is for believers to undergo stages of religious growth as “human conscience gets refined with respect to moral commands and it also grows in the understanding of the faith” (Francis 161). Although it may seem as if we are seeking an omnipotent God for the sole purpose of finding answers to solve our problems, what religion provides is not deliberate answers but rather faith in resolving those challenges in society and life. As Kaur and Moghal have explained, “religion and culture have a significant impact on one’s lifestyle and way of living” because religion and culture are intertwined. Religion is a means for people to access a source of faith in order to maintain hope for the future. Furthermore, one cannot simply understand the concept of equality in Sikhism without truly undergoing what it signifies. If culture is unrelenting, then how could one who lived before the modern generation have known that in a male-centric era gender inequality is immoral and unjust? After all, “something that was once seen as natural, is not seen like that today” (Francis 161). Catholicism’s acknowledgment of its patriarchal system intrinsically reflects the prominent issue within most societies today: social inequality and a demeaning attitude towards women. Its problems more accurately correlate with what society is trying to overcome, and providing people with “God” gives them faith to eventually solve this gender gap. These societal issues give people a reason for investing in religion, instead of living in an egalitarian system where people have a hard time relating to Sikhism. Moreover, similar to how society has learned to become less patriarchal, Catholicism has adapted to 52

Introduction to Religious Studies modern culture and deemed a woman as a “figure that embraces society [...] The mother of the community” (Francis 134-135). Under different time periods, every culture is different and provides likeminded issues for society to tackle. Sikhism’s strive to create an egalitarian society makes it rather less relatable to the public because its disconnect from modern culture makes it overly idealistic. Its utopian vision acts as “thick description” and reveals the nuances to the religion; what appears to be an ultimately ‘perfect’ faith turns out to be impractical.

Unquestionably, Sikhism aims to improve female representation, even long before gender equality was considered acceptable in Indian society.

On the other hand, traces of female inferiority can still be seen within the Catholic social hierarchy. A religion promoting an egalitarian society may come across as being faultless and exactly what people need, but its ‘perfection’ is unrealistic. Not only does Sikhism jump straight to conclusions and separate itself from culture, but it also does not allow believers to experience the religious growth that Catholicism provides. Sikhism’s detachment from society consequently puts the public in an unwanted position.

People have a hard time relating to Sikh doctrines because they are idealistic, impractical, and moreover, incomprehensible. Sikhism’s utopian vision is actually counterproductive and the flaws within Catholicism make the religion more relative to culture.

Works Cited Bhinder, Kiran K. “Ask the Religion Experts:” The Ottawa Citizen, Jul 24, 2004, pp. E10. ProQuest, https://search.proquest.com/docview/24 0746391?accountid=12012.

Gervais, Christine L. M. “Canadian Women Religious’ Negotiation of Feminism and Catholicism.” Sociology of Religion, vol. 73, no. 4, 2012, pp. 384–410., www.jstor.org/stable/41818896.

Kaur, Parveen, and Arif Jawaid Moghal. “LOTUS IN THE POND: THE SYMBOLIZATION OF WOMEN IN SIKHISM.” International Review of Modern Sociology, vol. 40, no. 1, 2014, pp. 65–81. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43496490.

Sharma, Arvind, ed. Religion and Women. Vol. 2. N.p.: SUNY Press, 1994. https://books.google.com/books?id=_FJvQh_69KwC&dq=sikhis m+and+women&lr=.

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APPLIED ETHICS: GRADING AT LAWRENCEVILLE

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The Ethics of Keeping Pass-Fail Grading Exclusive David Zhu ’19 Every year, Lawrenceville receives over a hundred new Second Formers and inducts them into the boarding school experience. Each incoming class draws from a variety of backgrounds, mixing students from public and private schools with students from other countries. For these new arrivals to the Lawrenceville community, there are the challenges of integrating into the boarding school experience and developing key time management skills. As such, Lawrenceville grants these freshmen pass-fail grading so they can adjust to this new home away from home. When the freshmen graduate and return for their second year, their class will receive over 50 students to add to their numbers. However, these students do not receive pass-fail grading like their returning peers did the year before. As a result, they face the stress of receiving letter grades for all of their classes and the difficulties of adapting to a new school environment.

In this paper, I propose that pass-fail grading ought to be extended to new sophomores because they too face the same difficulties of fitting into the school community. While others argue that pass-fail grading for new sophomores would offer an unfair advantage over returning freshmen, they assume the premise that both groups are equally prepared for academic success. To this, I will argue that denying pass-fail grading to new sophomores is unethical not just because it is unfair to do so, but also because the administration fails to uphold its maxim of offering an initial adjustment period for all new students.

Before entering my main argument, I will first outline the pass-fail grading system. According to Dr. David Laws, Dean of Academics at the Lawrenceville School, the Pass-Fail system was implemented as an initiative by the administration. Freshmen receive Pass (P) or Fail (F) grades for three out of their five fall term courses due to different placements for Language and Math.1 This grading system tries to ensure that teachers and freshmen focus more on giving and receiving written feedback rather than on grades. As such, students are not operating under the assumption that they are being graded for their work. Therefore, the intended goal of the pass-fail grading Simply put, letter grades are necessary in these two courses in order to determine a student’s track in the discipline.

1

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Grading Collection system is to help reduce stress and prepare students for an all-graded 6-course winter term (Laws). Also, it is important to note for the purposes of this paper that I will focus initially on discussing new sophomores because there is a greater influx of new students in a class’ sophomore year compared to its junior and senior years.

Main Argument: First, I will illustrate that because Lawrenceville commits itself to fostering growth through House and Harkness, it makes a deontological promise to help prepare each student achieve academically and socially. According to Lawrenceville’s Mission statement, the school commits to a mission “to inspire the best in each to seek the best for all” (Lawrenceville.org). The school’s goal of helping each student succeed attests to the administration’s promise of ensuring students’ preparedness for Lawrenceville and beyond. As a college preparatory boarding school, Lawrenceville’s mission of “inspiring the best in each” means that the administration treats the students as ends by aiming to adequately set up each student for success. As a result, the school’s mission statement exemplifies the school’s promise that Lawrenceville is a place where individuals can grow as students and community members.

Second, I argue that Lawrenceville’s rationale for implementing a pass-fail grade system for freshmen is grounded in circumstances that are no different new sophomores. New freshmen face the daunting task of assimilating into Lawrenceville’s environment; they face homesickness and a simmering doubt that they might never fit in with the greater school community. According to Dr. Laws, part of the reason behind II form pass-fail grading is to help the freshmen focus on adjusting to a new environment; many of the freshmen face a new curriculum, a new set of expectations, and have to develop a new set of friends. But this is no different for new sophomores to the school (Laws). Moreover, a study done at Mayo Clinic on the benefits of Pass-Fail grading shows that the system offers an advantage—the positive effects of pass-fail grading in reducing stress and improving test-taking attitudes may carry over even after grading returns to the 5-letter scale (Rohe et. al 1448).

Thus, pass-fail grading benefits the freshmen and helps them adapt to the rigors associated with studying at Lawrenceville. However, new sophomores face the same challenges when they first arrive on campus. Moreover, they may face these challenges to a greater degree; they have to find their place among already-established friend-groups, struggle to catch up to the growing set of standards which their veteran peers have already become familiar with, and make the effort to look for the resources they need to succeed at Lawrenceville. In consideration of these challenges to all incoming students 57

to Lawrenceville Dr. Laws further noted that much of the pass-fail grading system for freshmen is grounded in a consideration of their inexperience with Harkness education (Laws). Yes, the school makes an attempt at preparing new students for Harkness with Harkness Orientation in the fall term, but this is simply not enough. New students complain that they cannot be expected to know how to effectively engage the Harkness table within the course of only three hours of Harkness Orientation (Interview with Anon).

Trial and error is needed to develop a mastery over engagement in discussion and only the freshmen receive this crucial opportunity through pass-fail grading in their cultural studies and English courses. Therefore, new sophomores, according to their subjective testimonials, face the same if not greater challenges as freshmen when assimilating into Lawrenceville’s environment.

Because the administration promises to foster students’ growth and denies pass-fail grading to sophomores whose circumstances are no different from the freshmen, it is considered unethical from a deontological position to grade new sophomores in the fall. Since we have already established that sophomores are just as inexperienced with Lawrenceville as incoming freshmen and that the school’s mission is “to seek the best for all”, the failure to grant pass-fail grading to new sophomores is unethical because the administration fails to practice its own maxims to a universal degree within the student body. This is unethical if we apply Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which states that a maxim is ethical only when one may will a maxim so that it shall be a universal law (Johnson et. al). So if the school’s mission is to maximize the potential for all of its students, it fails to uphold this promises when it grants only freshmen the opportunity to learn from their mistakes without the pressures of letter grading.

Counter-arguments: Opponents to my argument may argue that because new sophomores exhibit similar if not better grades and stats as compared to their freshman peers, it would be unfair to grant pass-fail grading to sophomores. Referring back to my interview with Dr. Laws, it was revealed that for many new sophomores, there exists no discernible difference between the performance of sophomores and freshmen (Laws). Moreover, Dr. Laws noted that new sophomores often reported higher SSAT scores by a margin of two percentile points when compared with the scores of their returning sophomore peers (Laws). As such, it would be unfair to give sophomores the advantage of passfail grading so that they can spend more time on their few graded classes and begin their Lawrenceville careers with a higher GPA. Those who challenge my argument may also argue that while sophomores 58

Grading Collection and freshmen demonstrate similar difficulties in their first terms at Lawrenceville, new freshmen and sophomores have varying levels of experience with high school. Incoming sophomores often come from one or two years of high school experience, depending on whether or not they are repeating a school year. However, freshmen come to Lawrenceville without any prior experience with high school, and especially boarding school life. As such, it would be unfair to argue that the administration should pander and grant pass-fail grades to sophomores who have already taken a year of high school before coming to Lawrenceville.

Moreover, others argue that offering pass-fail grading to sophomores would decrease their focus on academics and encourage poor work ethic. According to these contentions, instituting pass-fail grading for new sophomores would hurt the students more than it would help set them up for academic success; they would be more inclined to become complacent during their fall term and assume that winter term would be no harder.

Finally, some will note that in my thesis I have emphasized that the school promises to prepare “all” students and argue that if sophomores deserve passfail grading, why exclude new juniors and PGs? It is a hypocritical stance to push for pass-fail grading for new sophomores and not for older students.

Only allowing new sophomores to receive pass-fail grading would would also be unethical by way of the same deontological argument that I have used to argue for sophomores’ inclusion in this grading system.

Responses: In response to the argument that stated that freshmen and sophomores already have the same academic capabilities, I will counter that statistics cannot definitively show that they are in fact equally capable of high-caliber work.

In the later part of his interview, Dr. Laws noted that there could be some “off-roading” done by teachers where new students are graded with lower expectations as compared to their more experienced returning peers (Laws).

Therefore, subjective grading makes it impossible to discern if new sophomores really do need pass-fail classes for a truly level academic “playing-field.”

Concerning the argument that the difference in experience in high school matters between new freshmen and incoming sophomores, I respond that Lawrenceville’s nature as a boarding school eliminates the need to take previous high school experience into consideration. A student coming from a public day school will not have have any experience with a boarding school high school experience. The lifestyles and cultures are certainly different between boarding and day schools; sophomores coming from a day to boarding school 59

environment would have to adapt to the the same set of challenges with time management and independence that incoming freshmen face. Moreover, the counter argument fails to consider that there are repeat freshmen in classes at times. The argument that only freshmen deserve accommodations because they have not already experienced high school, specifically boarding school, is unfounded because new sophomores experience the same challenges.

While others state that the sophomores would lose focus due to pass-fail grading, the drop-off in the quality of work is not the result of pass-fail grading, but rather the direct result of a student’s acceptance of his or her declining work ethic. Dr. Laws noted that through memos and teacher feedback over the past several years, boys tend to experience a drop off in quality of work after the first term—they received more concerned memos compared to girls, and Dr. Laws hypothesized that this was the result of students’ developing habits that focused more on socializing rather than on work (Laws).

It would be a fallacy to state that these reports expose pass-fail grading as a cause of the decrease in the quality of work. If students decide that pass-fail grading means that they can cruise through four years at Lawrenceville, that is a decision made as a result by their own volition and not by external policy.

Students’ standards are their own and pass-fail grading cannot be blamed for contributing to laziness in students.

In response to the argument that targets my original decision to exclude new juniors and PGs from my argument for pass-fail grading, I will concede that there could be pass-fail grading for new juniors and PGs, but not to the extent that should be granted to new sophomores. The sophomore year of a class sees the greatest influx of new students among a returning student body and as such, these students often come from settings that differ from the boarding school experience. While the counter argument develops a key point that must be accounted for, the issue of incomplete college transcripts would mean that incoming students, especially juniors, would be hurt by mandatory pass-fail grading.2 By instituting this grading system for new juniors, Lawrenceville putting these students—who may need fall grades for their applications to be competitive for highly selective colleges—at a disadvantage. With so many students applying to top tier colleges, a gap in a junior’s transcript would raise questions within the college admissions committee and offer application readers another reason to turn away the student. As such, Lawrenceville would not be fulfilling its promise to prepare its There is no need to discuss pass-fail grading for PGs further because they already have earned their diplomas and a lack of letter grading in the fall term would pose no problem for their college prospects.

2

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Grading Collection students at Lawrenceville and beyond; the administration would be limiting incoming juniors’ potential for success in their application process to colleges by implementing pass-fail grading. However, the counterargument does raise an important point over whether or not incoming sophomores and juniors should be presented with an option rather than be forced into accepting passfail grading.

Revisions to Argument: In response to the counterarguments, key revisions to the main argument must be made. The problem of extending pass-fail grading to juniors must be accounted for—not every new student may desire this system. Therefore, does the administration wield the right to enforce pass-fail grading for sophomores and even juniors? To answer, I propose that we ought to give the incoming sophomores (and juniors and seniors) an option to decide if they wish to receive pass-fail grading for their classes. Presenting the option of pass-fail grading would still uphold Lawrenceville’s promise of preparing its students by “seeking the best for all”. In giving new students the choice, the administration would encourage students to assume responsibility for their own education, allow students to choose letter grading over pass-fail if they would like to have fall-term grades for college, and act morally from a deontological viewpoint.

However, there is a caveat—it would only be ethical to offer this option as a one-time choice. For students who decide take back this option at any point, changing their decision means that they would be treating the system and the instructor as a means to an end rather than an end in of itself. By the deontological view, it is always unethical to treat people as a means only and taking back one’s decision to commit to pass-fail grading would be wrong (Taylor et. al 17). Switching to Pass-Fail grading would require the teacher to change the structure of grading and feedback for the student mid-term. As a hypothetical example, if a new student in any way found that they were performing poorly in the class and were to receive a D, changing to Pass-Fail would allow them to receive a P for the class. In this context, in a Pass-Fail class, a student who receives a P after a term of D-level work would look the same to colleges as another student who receives P after a term of A-level work in the same course. As such, students who would like to switch between pass-fail grading on their own volition could play the system to their own advantage and act immorally by deontological standards.

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Conclusion: The administration’s decision to only grant pass-fail grading for freshmen fails to consider the similar circumstances and needs of older incoming students. The Lawrenceville School, through its mission statement, promises to treat students as ends and develop each and every student so that he or she will be prepared for success well after graduation. In effect, by extending pass-fail grading to freshmen over new sophomores, the administration falls short of fulfilling its promise to all of its students. In lieu of Lawrenceville’s not granting all students the same adjustment period as freshmen and the proposal that new sophomores ought to receive pass-fail grading, critics argue that it would also be unethical to refrain from excluding new Juniors and PGs from pass-fail grading. This objection brings up a valid point that has been incorporated into revisions to my counterargument that focus on the means by which students receive pass-fail grading. By offering new students a choice, the administration upholds its own promises and even furthers its mission of fostering students’ growth by encouraging students to take responsibility over their education. Therefore, in order to uphold its goals of preparing its students for college, the school must present pass-fail grading as a choice to all new students who face the task of assimilating into a new culture and the academic rigors of a college preparatory school.

Works Cited Anonymous III Former. Interview. 11 Nov. 2018.

Johnson, Robert, and Adam Cureton. “Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philsophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, 2018 ed., Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018, plato. stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=kant-moral.

Accessed 13 Nov. 2018.

Laws, David. Interview. 12 Nov. 2018.

Laws, David. Interview. 9 Nov. 2018.

May, Larry, and Jill Delston. Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach. 6th ed., New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.

“Our Mission.” The Lawrenceville School, www.lawrenceville.org/page/ about/mission-and-strategic-plan. Accessed 12 Nov. 2018.

Rohe, Daniel E., et al. “The Benefits of Pass-Fail Grading on Stress, Mood, and Group Cohesion in Medical Students.” Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Nov. 2006, pp. 1443-48, pdfs.semanticscholar.org/adb0/ db81957af6e8cf84a9f5fcc3b370f486e0d3.pdf. Accessed 13 Nov. 62

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Dictated Education: On the Ethicality of Lawrenceville’s Graduation Requirement Yukki Qiu ’19 The limits of education have expanded rapidly in recent decades: Whereas students in the 1960s may have only taken classes in “core” subjects like English or Math, modern-day students will often take classes across many more academic disciplines with much more autonomy in their studies at a younger age. While most still hold that students should have limited freedom in choosing the courses they take until college, the increasing trend of granting students independence in the choice of their studies urges us here at Lawrenceville to evaluate whether our graduation requirements are ethically supported—and if not, whether they should be altered or discarded.

Although some believe that Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements are unethical since they can hinder students from pursuing specific academic interests at a deeper level, graduation requirements play an integral role in helping students form closer relationships with their peers and develop into “virtuous” well-rounded individuals; they are hence ethical from a variety of perspectives and should be maintained.

Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements for students entering in the Second Form are as follows: twelve terms of English, as mandated by New Jersey state law; completion of a year-long Math course at the 400 or 500 level; completion of a Level 3 course in a Foreign Language; nine terms of Science; two terms of Interdisciplinary courses; three terms each of Forces That Shaped the Modern World and U.S. History; three terms of Arts; two terms of Religion or Philosophy, one being Introduction to Religious Studies; three terms of Humanities and Cultural Studies in the Second Form; and the fulfilment of the community service requirement (The Lawrenceville School). According to Dr. David Laws, Dean of Academics, a student cannot graduate without completing the aforementioned requirements, regardless of any justifications the student might provide for neglecting any requirements. These requirements would leave the typical student who enters in the Second Form with around twelve terms to take elective classes; students who enter in the Third or Fourth Forms will usually have one or two fewer terms for electives. Dr. Laws states that the graduation requirements were initially implemented to give students a breadth of academic experience, teach them the basic skills they will need to succeed in the future, and prepare them for interdisciplinary learning in higher education (Laws).

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The implementation of these graduation requirements is ethical from a utilitarian and feminist care ethics standpoint, as it curates a well-rounded curriculum which provides opportunities for students to form closer relationships with their classmates through shared academic experiences. Utilitarians hold that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness,” and thus the most ethical actions are the ones that produce the greatest happiness for the largest population (Mill 9). As the graduation requirements obligate students to take courses in major academic disciplines to a certain level, they ensure that all Lawrenceville students have at least a basic degree of understanding across said disciplines, which allows Lawrentians to become “well-rounded” students under typical societal standards. The number of well-rounded students Lawrenceville produces as a result of its graduation requirements is especially valuable when it comes to college admissions. Many colleges in the United States seek to admit students who are knowledgeable in a variety of subjects; according to Dr. Laws, these colleges are aware that Lawrenceville produces well-rounded students and thus favour admitting Lawrenceville students. From a utilitarian standpoint, Lawrenceville’s production of well-rounded students—a result of the institution of its graduation requirements—is moral as it generates happiness for both the school and for the students. Lawrenceville’s excellent academic reputation will encourage prospective students to apply to Lawrenceville and will increase current students’ chances of admission into top universities.

Moreover, the required courses in Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements create ample opportunities for Lawrentians to develop closer relationships with their peers, making the graduation requirements ethical from a feminist care ethics perspective. Feminist care ethics centres around how a situation promotes interpersonal relationships. To a feminist care ethicist, “the more connected the self is to others, the better the self is,” and the most ethical actions are those that promote such a connected self (Tong and Williams). Most Second or Third Formers will be taking the same classes as all of the other students in their grade, which provides common topics for students to discuss and encourages students to study together for said classes. Through required courses, students can meet many peers in their grade who have a variety of academic interests; without these required courses, for example, a student interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) might never take a class with a student passionate about the arts. Required courses allow students to bond over shared experiences and promote communication between students and are therefore ethical by feminist care ethics standards.

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Grading Collection Nevertheless, many ethical systems—utilitarianism included—also provide opposition to Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements. Some argue that graduation requirements are immoral by utilitarian standards: not only do they counter the greatest happiness principle by impeding students from taking more elective classes, but they also limit a student’s access to the higher pleasures of knowledge in preventing students from pursuing a subject at a deeper level. Opponents of Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements consider it unethical because they prevent students from taking any electives until their Fourth Form year even though both students and teachers agree that elective courses generate more happiness than required courses. Students who choose courses based on their interest in the material will be more invested in the course; a class will also be more productive if all the participating students are highly committed to the subject. A disinterested student would only be incentivized to do well in a required course in order to receive a good grade instead of actually investigating the course material. Meanwhile, in an elective course, interested students would naturally approach the curriculum with an exploratory attitude, which generally results in greater happiness and less stress. As faculty usually design the electives they teach, electives allow faculty to instruct students on the topics they are most personally passionate about, which promotes greater happiness among the faculty.

Furthermore, the “happiness” which utilitarians want us to pursue is related to the idea of “higher pleasure,” which prominent utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill defines as the one out of two pleasures “which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference” (Mill 10). According to Mill, higher pleasures are things that elevate an individual to “a being of higher faculties [that] requires more to [become] happy”—things like gaining knowledge (11). By indirectly restricting the number of higher-level electives students can take in a specific subject, graduation requirements are, in a sense, barring students from the pursuit of higher pleasure.

Additionally, some consider Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements immoral from a virtue ethics perspective as it restricts a student’s freedom in choosing the courses they take. Virtue ethicists consider an action moral if it is “virtuous,” and according to Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, a “virtue” is “a condition intermediate (a “golden mean” as it is popularly known) between two other states, one involving excess, and the other deficiency” (Kraut). Aristotle argued that virtue could be situated more towards the side of excess or deficiency depending on the circumstances of the individual. A student who hopes to go onto medical school would have 65

a different “golden mean” graduation requirement than that for a student who wants to pursue a liberal arts education. For the former, the “golden mean” requirement would involve less required courses than that for the latter, as the former must specialize in their field earlier on. Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements cannot adapt to individual circumstances and would prove excessive for students who need to start specialising in their field earlier on; it is therefore not virtuous and unethical from a virtue ethics viewpoint. Be they based on the grounds of general utility or virtue, these moral arguments opposing the current graduation requirements all seem to suggest that Lawrenceville should do away with, or at least heavily reduce, its graduation requirements.

These moral arguments against Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements can be refuted deontologically or with an alternative angle of virtue ethics.

From a Kantian deontological perspective emphasizing that in order to act morally, one must always follow one’s predetermined maxims regardless of the circumstances, graduation requirements are justifiable and ethical (Johnson and Cureton). Although elective courses arguably result in more happiness and productivity, it is not Lawrenceville’s duty to maximise the happiness of its student body and faculty. As a preparatory school, Lawrenceville must commit to its maxim of preparing its students for college and beyond—it must train students to be productive even when they are disinterested in a task. By a different strand of the virtue ethics argument, which defines moral actions as actions that a “virtuous” individual would do, Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements are indeed ethical. They promote students to behave virtuously by American society’s definitions—to be “well-rounded” or educated across a variety of disciplines.

Although a significant part of the initial argument was built on utilitarian grounds, perhaps we should not evaluate Lawrenceville against utilitarian standards if it provides such contradictory stances on the morality of the graduation requirements. The graduation requirements could be supported by utilitarianism for generating more benefits for both the school and its students in the long run, or they could be criticised for preventing students from seeking higher pleasures by delving more deeply into a subject.

Utilitarianism weighs the morality of a situation by the consequences it produces—but as we cannot accurately predict whether the alteration or removal of graduation requirements will contribute to greater happiness, it is perhaps not the most suitable model upon which to evaluate the morality of our graduation requirements. Instead, we can consider how deontology supports graduation requirements, as they adhere to Lawrenceville’s predetermined maxims of producing well-rounded students.

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Grading Collection As students are increasingly awarded more autonomy in their course selection at a younger age, Lawrenceville must reevaluate the ethicality of its graduation requirements to decide whether to discard them. Lawrenceville’s graduation requirements serve general utility by fostering wellrounded students, in turn benefitting both the school and its student body.

Additionally, these general requirements also strengthen interpersonal relationships between the school’s students, thereby making it ethical from a care ethics perspective. The graduation requirements arguably go against the greatest happiness principle and limit students’ pursuit of higher pleasures by not allowing them to specialize in a subject; for some students, these requirements might also prove too excessive to be considered “virtuous.” Nevertheless, by adhering to the current graduation requirements, Lawrenceville is upholding its predetermined maxim of developing wellrounded, “virtuous” students. Despite how they might seem unethical from certain aspects of a utilitarian or virtue ethics standpoint, Lawrenceville’s current graduation requirements are definitively supported by many more ethical systems ranging from care ethics to deontology, by which I think they should be preserved.

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Works Cited “Graduation Requirements by Entering Form.” The Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville School, www.lawrenceville.org/page/academics/ graduation-requirements/by-form. Accessed 12 Nov. 2018.

Johnson, Robert, and Adam Cureton. “Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” Edited

by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/kant-moral/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2018.

Kraut, Richard. “Aristotle’s Ethics.” Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 15 June 2018, plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=aristotleethics. Accessed 12 Nov. 2018.

Laws, David. Interview. 9 Nov. 2018.

Mill, John Stuart. “Utilitarianism.” Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, edited by Larry May and Jill B. Delston, 6th ed., Routledge, 2016, pp. 9-16.

Sharma, Debabrata Sen. “Hindu Values.” Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, edited by Larry May and Jill B. Delston, 6th ed., Routledge, 2016, pp. 36-41.

Tong, Rosemarie, and Nancy Williams. “Feminist Ethics.” Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 4 May 2009, plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminismethics/#FemAppEth. Accessed 12 Nov. 2018.

“Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” United Nations, www.un.org/ en/universal-declaration-human-rights/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2018.

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Not Special: The Truth of Living a Life with a Learning Disability Thomas Eglin ’19 A learning disability is a ​disability​; it places people in an adverse situation, causing their lives to be more challenging than others’. There is seemingly no reason why we should help these people if they are simply inferior and cannot produce equal work as fast as everyone else. If we give students with learning disabilities preferential treatment and accomodations, not only do we harm them by giving them a false sense of entitlement, but we harm society as well as students with learning disabilities are given a boost to appear academically equal those unburdened by learning disabilities. I have noticed that some teachers are sympathetic towards students with accommodations as they feel as if excellent work from a student with extra time is equal to that of mediocre work from a student without a learning disability, giving disadvantaged students undeserving boosts based on the fact that they are disadvantaged. In conjunction with my previous point, accommodations catered to students’ learning disabilities allow for these students to form bad habits, for “extended time” lacks prevalence at most jobs. If a student with a learning disability wishes to be equal to his or her peers, the disadvantaged student must work twice as hard in order to achieve academic equality, because the sad truth is that he or she was born with a disability and must face the challenges that thus arise. As a student with a cognitive learning disability myself, I have experienced the danger of these accommodations. A ​ lthough students with learning disabilities are currently given a boost in academia through accommodations, these accommodations should be canceled immediately in order to negate grade related effects that come with these advantages, allowing students with learning disabilities to be conditioned to the less sympathetic reality of the professional world that lacks demand for burdensome disabilities.

Firstly, I will define what learning disabilities are and how they are treated, as well as disproving a myth about students with accommodations. According to the Learning Disabilities Association of America, learning disabilities “​are neurologically-based processing problems that interfere with skills such as organization, time planning, abstract reasoning, long or short term memory and attention” (​Learning Disabilities Association of America)​. Given that all of such skills are critical to academic success, any one of their absences cause great hardships for students with learning disabilities.

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Common learning disabilities are Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which h ​ ave severe impacts on cognitive functions in certain ways (Learning Disabilities Association of America). Disorders such as these have specific effects on an individual’s scholarship, whereas other mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, have more critical impacts an individual’s behavior. While learning disabilities differ greatly in severity, they are generally treated with the same response

by The Lawrenceville School, ACT inc., and The College Board by granting extra time to students with disabilities in the hopes that they can cut their losses by having more time to deal with their intrinsic issues. Despite their varying needs, both a psychopath and a student with ADHD can be found in the same “accomodations” room at any given standardized test site. A recurring myth about students with learning disabilities is that they are intellectually inept. This is a gross rumor, as students with learning disabilities are simply weaker in cognitive areas unrelated to intelligence (Learning Disabilities Association of America)​. Many students at top universities have learning disabilities, so clearly their intellectual capabilities are adequate.

Before my main argument, I will explain my experiences at The Lawrenceville School with a learning disability so that my points are more clearly contextualized. One would assume that I would be pro-preferential treatment, given that I currently reap the benefits of it. I was born with a cognitive processing issue; it was hard to detect until it was too late: for two terms I did incredibly poorly. I am not looking for pity but rather to make my position clear: I worked the same amount as my peers did, but what my peers could do in one hour took me two hours. It is challenging for me to accept, but the truth is that I was born with a disability, and the world is not going to stop solely for my comfort. In truth, I could have worked harder, but I did not understand why two hours of my work could be done by a classmate in one hour. So, I was given “extra time,” which entails being able to take tests for one and a half times as long as my classmates. I do not think that this was the most effective solution because I am now so reliant on extra time that I cannot do meaningful work without it. If I hope to be a competitive employee, I need to learn how to work as quickly as my coworkers while producing the best results possible.

I am not evil as I am thinking about solutions that would generate the greatest happiness. Nor am I pro-preferential treatment. My argument is broken down into two thoughts: the first is concerned with the happiness of the individual, and the second is concerned with the happiness of society. Firstly, in order to produce the greatest happiness for all, we must 70

Grading Collection eliminate preferential treatment for students with learning disabilities so that they themselves can experience long term happiness. J​ ohn Stuart Mill argues that “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness,” (Mill, 9). If the elimination of accommodations and other academic boosts is used as a means to being aware of general expectations, then the end will ultimately justify the mean, as students with learning disabilities will be well equipped to thrive in a society that does not cater to their needs. Instead of failing economically as a result of being unable to keep up with employees, they will be aware of the amount of work they have to do and how to cope with their disorder. While it will be hard to wean these students from accomodations, their struggle will be worth the happiness they experience when working at a similar rate as their coworkers.

Secondly, if students with learning disabilities are capable of adapting to performing ‘normally’ through intense discipline, then accommodations will give them an unfair boost over other students without them. It is impossible to discredit teacher bias towards students with disabilities. Based on my personal experience, I have noticed that teachers are slightly more sympathetic towards me as I have extra time and they assume that I am producing my best work. By eliminating accommodations, this boost will be gone and teachers will be unable to be biased based on the fact that some of their students have accommodations, creating a standardized measure of excellency independent of mental handicap. The danger of this, however, is that if students with disabilities perform well in school because they have a handicap, they will obtain jobs based on bias rather than intellectual talent.

If this occurs, employers are robbed of the more fit candidate.

However, it is unrealistic to expect a student with a learning disability to perform equally to that of a student without a learning disability under the same conditions. Because it is nearly impossible to expect them to be able to produce equal work, they should be given extra time to create a level playing field. A level playing field allows us to engage with the individual intellectually, regardless of the disability that they were born with. Without accommodations, the perspectives of students with learning disabilities will be lost due to the fact that they were born with a learning disability and cannot complete work as quickly as their peers. Dr. David Laws, the Dean of Academics at Lawrenceville, states that accommodations “a​re supposed to level playing field so that [students] with learning disabilities can understand to do things,” which allows all students to make equal contributions to academia, regardless of their learning disabilities. This “level playing field” creates a greater happiness than the happiness produced by eliminat71

ing accommodations, because of the knowledge enrichment it provides to academia.

While a “level playing field” allows for equal representation in academia, it is an unrealistic emulation of the real world, causing students with learning disabilities to be less prepared for success later in life, because they are unaware of how to cope with their learning disability. If a student cannot learn how to deal with their learning disability or discipline themselves to find success, they are undeserving of high grades because their performance may be connected to how they will perform in careers. We cannot simply give students with learning disabilities boosts on the grounds that they have disabilities, since these boosts grant them a false feeling of entitlement. Just as Dr. Laws believes that “a person with a physical disability does not become a firefighter. A person with slow processing speed should not become an air traffic controller,” students with learning disabilities should not choose to enter careers where they are expected to perform well within a certain time limit. Dr. Law’s analogy consolidates my argument, and I would like to add that we do not give people with physical disabilities special equipment to help them be a better firefighter;there are simply more qualified people to be firefighters. In order to have the greatest happiness in society, we must consider this analogy in relation to people with learning disabilities. People with learning disabilities should not be given accommodations because we are less likely to be successful business people as a result of our disability. If our talent is skewed by accomodations and teacher bias, then we will ultimately harm society because we will be underqualified for our high intensity jobs. Society will therefore be robbed of the benefits that come with having deserving people in power. Academia and learning is a very specific niche, and there are other fields that people with learning disabilities can thrive in and make more meaningful contributions in. While we may have strong intellect, we do not have the cognitive tools to be successful in the professional world unless we discover a way to fight through our disorder. If we are excluded as a means to society’s end, then so be it, as our unhappiness is not greater than a competitive market’s happiness for not having to be bogged down by people with learning disabilities such as myself.

While academic accommodations provide boosts for students with learning disabilities, we should inhibit these advantages so that students with disabilities perform how they are meant to in order to condition them to the hard truths of living with a disability in a professional world. Cancelling accommodations would increase happiness in two manners: on an individual level, it would teach students how to work with their disability; 72

Grading Collection on a societal level, it would allow for merit to be dependant on raw talent rather than birth conditions. While a level playing field allows for talent regardless of disability to make equal contributions in academia, a level playing field is unrealistic in the professional world. Therefore we should cease efforts to create advantages for students with learning disabilities in order to prepare them for their careers.

Works Cited Learning Disabilities of America : “Types of Learning Disabilities.” website is made possible by a generous grant from the ​Learning Disabilities Foundation of America.​​Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 2018. h ​ ttps:// ldaamerica.org/types-of-learning-disabilities/ Mill, John Stuart. “Utilitarianism.” Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, INC in New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. 2016.

Laws, Dr. David. Interviewed on November 8 2018.

Peer edited by Aly Rubenstein.

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Dangers of Unified Grading Rubrics John Park ’19 As the college admission process becomes more competitive each year, the importance of earning good grades weighs heavily on students’ minds.

At Lawrenceville, where students are admitted based on their academic achievements before attending the school, the recent surge in competitiveness generates issues ranging from cheating and dishonesty to mental health problems. Especially in classes such as English, History, or Religion, students feel that their grades—which seem to affect so many aspects of their lives—depend on the teacher they have for the course. Clearly, this is not ideal; students should be receiving a fair grade that they deserve no matter the teacher, and not have the luck of course assignments decide whether they will receive an A or a B for the class. One suggestion to alleviate this problem is to unify the grading rubric for each department.

However, through Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, I will argue against unifying the grading rubric for essays in each department. Although a unified grading rubric for writing (UGR) in a department is expected to benefit both the students and the faculty, they are not actually advantaged by a unified grading rubric, revealing that an adoption of a UGR is not morally justified.

I believe that UGR benefits neither the students nor the faculty. As used in Lawrenceville, a grading rubric for writing would be a chart with categories and specifications that describe what constitutes a specific grade.

Because it would be impossible and nonsensical to create one rubric for every department to follow, a UGR would have to be specific to each department. For example, the implementation of UGR would mean that a US History paper and Forces of the Modern World paper would be graded based on the same rubric, while an English essay is graded according to a different rubric. This distinction will allow each department to decide what skills they want their students to focus on for that subject.

The greatest challenge to my position is the argument that a UGR would benefit the students, faculty, and the school. Because the students know what they need to do to get a good grade, everyone (hopefully) would write amazing essays and earn good grades. Better grades would translate to stronger college applications for Lawrenceville students, which would increase the college admission statistics. Ultimately, the school benefits as well from a UGR by being able to boast better matriculation statistics for 74

Grading Collection Lawrentians applying to elite colleges. Another advantage of a UGR is that there would be less grade disparity between different teachers teaching the same course. Students should feel that their grade is a product of their hard work, not a grade that was essentially predetermined by getting assigned to an easy or a hard teacher through sheer luck. The last product of a UGR is a transparent grading process. Because both the teacher and the students are clear about how an essay is evaluated, students will be less inclined to believe that they have been given a lower grade than what was deserved, so there would be fewer disputes between students and teachers. Even when comparing one’s own essay to someone else’s, the reasoning behind the grades would be clear because everyone should be writing the same way; in other words, discerning which is the better writing between two papers that follow the exact same rubric should be easy since both papers value the same skills as outlined in the UGR. Implementation of a UGR seems to be a win-win-win situation for students, faculty, and the school.

In contrast, I believe that UGR is not morally justified. A Kantian deontologist would find the first objection highly problematic. Students naturally desire good grades, and they are morally justified in being so since they earn good grades by actually learning in class, as grades are supposed to measure how much students learn. Thus, students can be deontologically moral by viewing high quality of learning as an end in itself rather than a mere means to an end, which would be receiving good grades. Students with the best intentions who adhere by a rubric and only want good grades to prove to themselves that they learned a lot from the class are morally sound (O’Neill 17).1 For teachers, rubrics also influence the materials they teach. Because a UGR will be determined through a collective decision from the department’s faculty, it represents what that department believes is the most important writing skill in that subject. Thus, teachers have an obligation to teach according to the rubric, otherwise there would not be a point to having a rubric. For example, if the rubric requires a three-part thesis, the teacher must go over what a three part thesis is. If all English teachers had the same unified rubric, they would all focus on same concepts that are stated in the rubric. Because the teachers would then be Kant only comments on using persons as mere means, but since my writing is about an abstract concept (grades), I believe that we can twist his teachings to apply to this situation.

Kant says that “to use someone as a mere means is to involve them in a scheme of action to which they could not in principle consent” (17). If we were to apply this to an object, we can interpret Kant’s teachings to define using something as a mere means as involving them in a scheme of action to which they are not intended for. Thus, I can evaluate the deontological morality of grade-chasing compared to truly learning to learn.

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forced to teach how to write in the same way, if the students were being deontologically moral as well and absorbing everything they were learning, all Lawrenceville students would eventually write the same way. The perceived effect of this policy is that students would earn better grades from knowing exactly what areas to focus in their writing. Ultimately, the admissions statistics for Lawrenceville would look better, improving the school’s reputation. Unfortunately, this result is morally problematic. Only knowing how to write one way for a subject will undoubtedly disadvantage the students in college and when they have jobs. No student in their right mind would voluntarily give up learning various styles of writing that will help them through college and later in life for a teaching that leads to slightly better grades that might result in admission to a slightly better college. As we have just seen, even if the students and the faculty acted in the most deontologically moral way possible, a UGR lead to a situation in which students, and possibly faculty, cannot “in principle consent� (17). Thus, a UGR leads to a moral contradiction.

Another point brought up by the proponents of a UGR is that a UGR mitigates grade disparity. Yet, this argument premises that grade disparity is inherently bad, which I believe is wrong. During our interview with Dean Laws, he told us that the measures taken by the school to decrease grade disparity has resulting in most of the school being clustered around the A-/A range, which seems to be great for all students. Yet, in a Lawrence article he had read, the writer argued that this lack of grade disparity disadvantages those who have only focused on their excellent academics. Because an A does not distinguish those students enough from varsity athletes that get an A-, the academic students have to push themselves to the edge to fight for an A+. The writer herself had felt this pressure and detailed how much her physical and mental health was affected by it (Laws). So, while I do not believe grade disparity is good, I also do not believe that grade disparity is strictly bad.

The last counter-argument also needs a revisit. To a utilitarian, the transparency of a grading rubric is not a moral good. Because the grading process is so clear, students know exactly what their writing technique should be like to get an A. No student will go out of their way and willingly disadvantage themselves by writing in a style that is not stated in the UGR. Strictly following the UGR for the purpose of achieving an A is problematic since students are restricted from chasing the higher pleasure, more specifically knowledge as defined by utilitarians. Because the teachers only emphasize one style of writing, students are forced to remain satisfied, rather than being pushed to learn new techniques and writings styles to enlarge 76

Grading Collection their bucket of knowledge (Mill 11).2 Additionally, once students write the same way for four straight years, the habit will stay long enough to affect their writing through college and even in their jobs. The lack of a distinct personal color in their writing will disadvantage the students later in life and potentially cause more pain than pleasure, hence unhappiness, which is immoral for utilitarians (9). It seems that a UGR might even lean more towards a morally compromising position to utilitarians.

In light of these refutations, I will revise my thesis. Because the deontological argument and the Lawrence article show that a UGR is unjustified at best, while the utilitarian perspective illustrates that UGR is possibly immoral, I now believe that implementing a UGR is potentially immoral.

What I am saying here is not that the elimination of UGR is an ultimate good. I recognize that there still is a potential drawback to not having a UGR: grading disparity is inevitable between different teachers without a UGR. So for those who believe that grading disparities are bad, lack of a UGR may seem problematic. However, having a UGR does not completely eliminate grading disparity either. For example, two teachers may have different ideas of what a good, clear three part thesis is. One might give an A for any thesis with three parts, while the other teacher only gives an A if the thesis follows the specific contra-twist-argument pattern. A student’s grade will nevertheless depend on what teacher they have for the course anyway.

The opposite scenario of a UGR would also have flaws; if every teacher in the English department somehow graded all papers exactly the same way, freshmen are greatly disadvantaged compared to the seniors since essays written by both classes are graded on the exact same criteria. A UGR seems to cause trouble on either end of the scale. Not having a UGR in the first place eliminates this difficult dilemma, not to mention that the lack of a UGR will also not have any of the other moral problems of a UGR as described previously. Although not having a UGR might result in greater grading disparity among classes, having UGR does not get rid of one of the major problems it tries to address and stifles creativity and learning by only allowing the teachers in each department to teach the same styles of writing. So I will acknowledge that not having a UGR is not perfect; I believe that a UGR has more morally compromising qualities than having a variety in grading rubrics has.

All in all, the perceived benefits and drawbacks of a UGR remain a central issue to grading at Lawrenceville. Proponents of UGR will list the immedi“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied� (11).

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ate benefits to everyone at Lawrenceville, alleviation of grade disparity, and transparency of the grading process as advantages. In response, I reject the first two arguments through Kantian ethics and the interview with Dean Laws to show that a UGR is at a moral middle ground at best. Then, I used Mill’s utilitarianism to show that the transparency of grading actually leads to a morally compromising position for a UGR. Though I am not able to make a strong enough argument addressing grading disparity, I have mitigated the objection by showing that adopting a UGR does not necessary get rid of all grading disparities at Lawrenceville. A UGR seems to benefit everyone, but students are actually disadvantaged and hindered by UGR, thus the implementation of a UGR is not morally justified, if not morally compromising.

Works Cited Laws, David. Interview. 9 Nov. 2018.

Mill, John Stuart. “Utilitarianism.” Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, edited by Larry May, 6th ed., New York, Routledge, 2016, pp. 9-16. Excerpt originally published in Utilitarianism, 1861.

O’Neill, Onora. “A Simplified Account of Kant’s Ethics.” Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, edited by Larry May, 6th ed., New York, Routledge, 2016, pp. 16-21. Excerpt originally published in Matters of Life and Death, edited by Tom Reagan, McGraw-Hill, 1986.

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