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The Student Cheater

Most students were apt to side with the idea of popular decorum in not reporting a student cheat but only saw this as a relative loyalty decision. In fact why should they feel loyal to Harvard when they have to pay to go there! That is if you have to pay to go there then the real test of noblesse oblige is on Harvard's ledger, not the student body. However that still doesn't mean that one should ignore the question of cheating, rather one should appeal to the students better nature and if necessary seek those who can help reveal the reasons why cheating is by nature a failing proposition.

There is a simple line from Shakespeare; We do not judge men sir, we judge crimes, thus while it's easier said than done, the critical point is not to seek punishment for abusing the system but correcting the abuse and or the presumed need for abusive advantage.

The Patriotic Question

From a Buddhist point of view all of the constructs of family, country, humanity, and community are abstract constructs and illusions and thus answering the question of what's the right thing to do is the principal of seeing the thing for it's true nature as opposed to ciphering some priorities of loyalty. That test which I don't mean to invoke as the ultimate rests on the demonstration of wisdom through the exercise of compassion and compassionate understanding.

Take the Robert E. Lee case refusing to take the Federal cause knowing it to be right, may seem like conscious objection based on his affinity for family and provincialisms and by itself that may seem noble. However to raise his own had against what he knows or believes is just, is certainly wrong. After the war Lee became president of a college which indicates that he considered himself a man of intellectual purpose and so should have used that talent to rejecting the rebellion and lobbying all for reconciliation. A confederate solider captured after a defeat was questioned seeing he was a poor boy with no real stake in the outcome , and so answering why he was fighting merely said; Cause your down here! Was he and many another influenced by Lee's example?

In the given case it's easy to be assuaged by the romantic and noble notion of home for the Confederate cause but try the same argument vox populii for the Race Riots of the 60s and overwhelmingly most Confederate loving Southerners will sing a different tune.

Aristotle V Kant : No True Bill

It would seem that sense Aristotle can defend slavery it only follows that he would have a diminished appreciation of notions of freedom. The problem I see for Aristotle goes back to the example of the best flutes for the best flute players which begs asking who gets to decide who the best flute players are. That on a given subject how do we know for sure what we claim we know? In an ideal utopian republic I would suppose one could invoke a forum of all flute players and have them vote on who gets what flute but this hardly merits real world dynamics. The second problem with the flute question is the issue of posterity and legacy. Ergo for subsequent generations the next great flute player would habitually be subject to inferior flutes until he could progressively prove his mastery. Further why should an individual who proves to be the greatest lover or caretaker of flutes be considered any less than one who plays better?

As for Kant, the more glaring problem for me is the abstract notion of Freedom, and the delusion of autonomy. Liberty not freedom is the extent to which one can apply social contracts as autonomous notions fail to consider the decorum of distinctions between rights and privileges. That generally rights are exclusive, while privileges are apt to be conditional and require some performance or the standard of conduct in ones good behavior.

[00:00:00]i hear he's great