The Human Person Is The Most Perfect In The Whole Nature

Human person is the most perfect in the whole nature simple because God made man. God made us. God made us very unique to each other and from all the things he created. God made us with his own image. We love and feel others and we reason out if we needed to do, because that's the human thing to do. Being human is the best form of living as a creature, for you have the knowledge, the skills and emotions, that you can use to please other people and to live with your chosen life. We can play with the modern technologies or dress ourselves with fancy clothes. Human is a teacher and a learner, which is good. But most of all, being human is to know how to value your life and be grateful that God created us because He has a purpose. We have a purpose in this world. Human is perfect because of God.

Man As A Person

LIKE A BOSS!

I know the picture above is irrelevant to the topic but, I just find it funny :)) I posted it just to get your attention :))

Man as a person. This entry is about you. You being as a person.

Man as a person should know how to live. You talk like a person, act like a person, live like a person. A man as a human being should definitely know how to live his life by being social and can make his own decisions. Man has a gift of reasoning that should be used in an everyday life situation. No man is an island as they say. Man cannot stand alone and should go mingle with the group of people. God created man for many reasons, one of those reasons is that man should feel and understand why he is living. Man and an animal, both can understand, but man can only say what he wants to say and has the free will to do what he wants to do. Man possesses dignity and rights which is/are very valuable to keep safe. Dignity and rights are the armor of a man to protect his life. Man is not a person if he doesn't know how to feel or to love.

Synthesis Essay

Philosophy provides us, students, the tools we need to critically examine our lives and our world. In Philosophy, relativism is a popular theme for philosophical debates and it has different faces like cultural relativism, constructivism, conceptual and etc. With these different faces, do you still know or do you even know what philosophers are debating about? For me, each society have different norms and beliefs, we cannot just accuse them that what they're doing is wrong or right (based on our beliefs) because they live in a different society. 

Philosophy also tackles topics like human person and logical fallacies. As a human person, we are invested to socialize and be who we are. We are created with God’s own image and therefore, we should take care of ourselves because it’s not only our own image we are protecting but also God’s. We have the dignity which is valuable and priceless. We have the human rights that we should be aware of as a social being. It will serve as our protection against unjust treatment and situation. Pointing out a logical fallacy is a way of removing an argument from the debate rather than just weakening it. Learning logical fallacies will not just give us idea on how to talk back or point out a non-sense answer by others but, it will help us to think critically on how to deliver and reason out legit and sensible answers. By doing it, we don’t just look like smart, but we are smart. Human person possesses ability to think and reason out. Therefore, critical thinking will help an individual to give a good criticism and a careful judgment.

As a social being, philosophy helps us to become aware of what our human rights are. Human rights are what we can use to protect our dignity and benefits that we can get from it.  Bill of rights is a charter of liberties for the individual and a limitation upon the power of the state. We have our political rights which pertain to individual’s participation in the government. We have our civil rights which apply to individuals to undertake the everyday business of life. We have legal rights which apply to individuals when subjected to the law and/or legal procedures and processes.

Ethics also helps us students to learn moral judgments.  Ethics is a widespread principle which is observed in every professional field and human daily life. Bioethics, a study of morality in relation to medicine, genetics, and other science advancements concerning the importance of life such as surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, abortion, mercy killing, stem cell therapy and etc. It gives us ideas on how these procedures promote or prevent life and what makes ethical and unethical. Nuclear testing also gives negative and positive side effects not only to humans but also in our environment. Work ethics is also applied on individuals who have jobs. These are code of conduct that should be observed, what one must do and what must not be done. But sometimes, when law and human rights are involved, such principles from the code of conduct can be violated, depending on the situation. When individuals, especially female and children, are violated such as sexual harassment and abuse, we have the right to fight for what have taken from us. In our everyday lives, cheating, lying and breaking promises are frequently done. Learning the benefits and consequences of these, we realize that ethics is really part of humankind.

Philosophy and Ethics will help us to think wisely, to communicate effectively (like debating or arguing), and to find legit evidences or proof regarding a certain issue, to help us appreciate the points of others and most of all, it will teach us how to respect other's views and opinions. Everything that we'll learn from Philosophy and Ethics will be a lifelong benefit to us. 

“Sam Harris: Science Can Answer Moral Questions” - Critique Paper

Sam Harris

Sam Harris began his argument by saying, “The separation between science and human values is an illusion,” adding “facts and values seem to belong to different spheres. This is quite clearly untrue. Values are a certain kind of facts. They are facts about the well beings of conscious creatures.” What is he trying to convey? Based on what he said, values are also facts about how people like us try to live a good life. If he considered values as facts, does it mean our moral values were created based on science facts? Or do scientific facts are based on moral values? We cannot say that a belief to be objectively true can be considered as a fact. He even pointed our ethical obligations towards the rock or insects. First of all, ethics concern is the morality of social beings. Since when can we talk to a rock and hurt it? He then justified that, “If culture changes us, it changes us by changing our brains. And therefore whatever cultural variation there is in the way human beings flourish can at least in principle be understood in the context of a maturing science of the mind…”  I probably I agree with him in this one. People change because the people around change. But does it make it scientific? That our brains control our ethical actions? Brain controls our actions and we reason out using our brain but acting according to our ethics what make us morally right or wrong. We live our lives base on our ethics and use our brain to absorb how to decide. He also gave example, which connects with moral relativism, that Muslim women cover their body completely so as not to offend their alleged god and then telling his audience that living in a different culture, we cannot avoid judging their well being because they do such practice. If we let empirical study to be the basis of what is right or wrong, scientific findings will show limited freedom of women which will develop conflicts between different cultures. 

So how can science answer a moral question if science can violate the morality of human beings? Even me, I don’t know the answer. He then argued between moral and scientific expertise. He used Dalai Lama and Ted Bundy as examples, “…there is nothing for the Dalai Lama to be really right about or for Ted Bundy to be really wrong about…” He then compared the differences of opinions of certain experts which telling that an expert certainly know which is right. He then connected it with science that when they talk about facts, certain opinions are excluded. So with morality, how can we say that there are no experts in moral sphere? People believe on he is an expert if he sound smart or can answer everything you asked. If a person is a moral expert, does it mean that all his life, he mastered how people act in a right way or wrong way, excluding each person’s beliefs? For me, I think he just has more experiences than others but cannot be considered as an expert because we different cultures and we cannot just simple follow what he says because he knows more than us. With his talk about science can answer moral questions, I definitely learned new something and widen my knowledge when it comes to science and moral reasoning. 

Commencement Speech: Science and Virtue

Ciencia y Virtud

Good morning faculty, families and student of 2015. It is my honor to speak in front of you today. Science and virtue as the university maxim, how does it relate to each other? Science as defined to be the body of knowledge and virtue as moral principles, does it really necessary to be smart or be intelligent to know your moral principles? Yes, maybe. But, do you think being aware and using what you learned to follow your moral principles are enough? At first, I’m not pretty sure with psychology as my course but as the time goes by, I knew that I made the right choice. With CEU’s maxim, “Science and Virtue”, it guided of what an Escolarian should be. In college, it’s not all about how smart you are or how popular you are. I experienced how hard it is for me to manage my time as a student and as a leader but look at me now. I’m here in stage, standing in front of you and about to graduate. Let me share you my secrets and how Cienca y Virtud guided me during my college years. First, I have this strong perseverance and determination. I’m always willing to do everything to achieve my goals and give my 100% best effort to do it. Second, passion is always the key to be successful. When I force myself to do something that I don’t like or I don’t have the interest to it, it always leads me to disappointments. So it is very important that you are well-decided with your plans and you love what you are doing. Third, I don’t let bad people influence me. Instead, I influence them to do what is right and let them decide on their own. They’re old enough to know what is right or wrong. I’m just guiding to make good decisions. And lastly, I always express my appreciation to my friends, professors and to those people who help me, especially my family. Without them, I might not be here, speaking in front you. You’ll probably find me in clubs or bars performing in front of the public to earn money for my schooling or I’ll end up sitting in the corner, staring blankly to nowhere and just eat until I explode. With those four secrets of mine, the university maxim is a perfect fit to me. You cannot just be a person full of knowledge but lack of virtue or vice versa. CEU taught us that being intelligent and living up to your beliefs and virtues, that together, it will guide you to achieve your goals and meet your purpose as a person and be successful with your chosen career. And with the education we received during our years at CEU, it prepared us to be competent, innovative, creative and successful.  I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. Use your knowledge to do what is right. If you don't think it is right for you, then don't do it. Thank you and God Bless.

Ethical Dilemmas of a Psychologist

Different professionals have their own dilemmas. A psychologist has different types of ethical dilemmas which involve confidentiality, conflictual relationships, payment sources of the clients, in forensic psychology and etc.

A national survey was conducted to the members of American Psychology Association about their ethical dilemmas that they've encountered. The following real life situations are the most frequent dilemmas:

Confidentiality

Most of the members’ dilemmas involve confidentiality. The incidents that they usually encounter are clients talking about actual or potential risks to third parties, child abuse reporting, clients infected by HIV/AIDS, patients who committed violence and etc. Some dilemmas are wrestling with agonizing questions about whether confidential information should be disclosed and, if so, to whom. A respondent said, “One of my clients claimed she was raped; the police did not believe her and refused to follow up (because of her mental history). Another of my clients described how he raped a woman (the same woman).”

Another situation is when some of the incidents, especially about mandatory child abuse reporting laws, illustrate situations in which some psychologists believe it is better to break the law and act on their belief. Most psychologists are likely to have encountered dilemmas in which following legal requirements seemed clinically and ethically wrong, perhaps placing the client or third parties at needless risk for harm and injustice.

Confidentiality is the one of the most fundamental principle in the field of Psychology. Violating confidentiality cannot be avoided especially if law and rights are involved. The boundaries of confidentiality should be discussed explicitly between the psychiatrist/psychologist and the client/group.

Dual Relationship

A psychologist must avoid entering into multiple relationships with his clients which could impair his professional judgment, compromise the integrity of the treatment, and/or use the relationship for his own gain. A respondent encountered this kind of dilemma wherein he had a romantic attraction with his client’s mother whom he already establish a good relationship with it. But then, refer to avoid the dual relationship. Also, they cannot work or frequently bond with their clients to avoid client’s exploitation or manipulation.

Payments

Another type of dilemma involves payment providers, plans, settings, or methods. Inadequate insurance coverage for clients with urgent needs created a cruel ethical dilemma in which psychologists felt forced either to breach their responsibilities to clients or to be less than honest with what sometimes seems an adversarial provider of reimbursement. As one respondent put it: "I feel caught between providing the best service and being truly ethical." Several of troubling issues were described such as billing for no-shows, billing family therapy as if it were individual, distorting a patient's condition so that it qualifies for coverage, signing forms for unlicensed staff, and not collecting co-payments.

Forensic Psychology

According to a respondent, “A psychologist in my area is widely known, to clients, psychologists, and the legal community to give whatever testimony is requested in court. He has a very commanding "presence" and it works. He will say anything, adamantly, for pay. Clients/lawyers continue to use him because if the other side uses him, that side will probably win the case (because he's so persuasive, though lying).” With tons of cash payment, a psychologist can manipulate the trial case and the judge, either in a good or bad way. When it comes to child custody, some psychologists tend to be bias because in this case, the psychologist cannot talk to both parents and the only goal of the attorney here is to make the psychologist tell a testimony which will help a parent to get the child custody.

Psychology Research

Another dilemma involves their research. Some psychologists mentioned pressure or tendencies to misstate research procedures or findings. They are concern about the right of the research participants because psychologists need to let their participants know that they are being used or experimented for a research, so there is the tendency that participant will reject or accept. Psychologists may have also inadequate researches and having difficulties to conduct a research in large population or organization.

These cited situations are just some of the ethical dilemmas of a psychologist. All in all, each profession has its own code of conduct that should be observed and there are situations that should remain in order.

Major Lessons Learned: Human Person and Logical Fallacies

"Human" Brain

During our midterms, our professor discussed about human person and logical fallacies. With these two topics, I can say that logical fallacies are difficult to understand or analyze, unless it is applied to a real situation. But more or less, the topics were interesting to learn.

Human Person

With the topic “Human Person”, I learned that as a living existential reality, man is invested with individuality which means he has these qualities by which he is physically and personally identified. As a human being, he shares the same human nature with all other men, and is therefore a universal human entity. Man is also a social being. Therefore, he is open to himself and to others.  Pope John Paul II also said that “The Human Person possesses dignity that has no price but value.” Dignity is related to goodness, excellence and perfection. The characteristics of a man that point to his dignity are intelligence, freedom and love. Being God as the creator, man is created with God’s own image. Therefore, man’s likeness to God gives him the capacity to respond freely to the call of God. There shall be no violation done to human’s dignity because God himself made man in his own image and it is the responsibility of the humankind to protect their dignity and right.

Logical Fallacy Scenario

A logical fallacy is a collapse in logic often used in debate to mislead or distract people from the real issue. Pointing out a logical fallacy is a way of removing an argument from the debate rather than just weakening it. If you can show that the original argument actually commits a logical fallacy, you put the opposition in the position of justifying why their original argument should be considered at all. If they can't come up with a darn good reason, then the argument is actually a waste of time to argue with. By enhancing your mind to think critically, you will develop good reasoning skills which you can use in everyday life situations.

Combining these two, I can say that human person has this advantage that no one or nothing in this world can have, and that is critical thinking.

"Why the World is the Way It is: Cultural Relativism and It's Descendents" Reaction Paper

There were many ideas discussed in the article, most of it is about multiculturalism. Some ideas gave me confusions maybe because i'm not familiar with the idea or I cannot fully understand the because of lack of certain knowledge. With multiculturalism, it was said in the article that it is the equal value of all cultures but rejects the idea that there are general truths, norms, or rules respect to both knowledge and moral. By its definition, does it mean we all have to base our decisions without being superior with the other culture? What if our decisions will cause inferiority to our own culture, is it a bad thing? Or is it when you make decisions, do you have to convince the majority that your decision is right? Does it make you a bad person or immoral if you made a decision that is considered wrong in your culture wherein it is your own belief? These questions are formed in my mind after reading some part of the article. Also, many factors affect our beliefs specifically our race and culture. Yes, it is true, but what if other culture rejected our beliefs because it is wrong for them? So with this article, it is not my fault if I didn't fully understand it. To be honest,  during the time I was doing this reaction paper, I was in the hospital, watching my mother suffering and I have no choice but to write this reaction paper right away for submission. I know it is not related with the topic, but I have a need to explain it. :)

Philosophy: An Important Guide To Be Confident In Life

SOCRATES ON SELF-CONFIDENCE

After I watched the video, there are so many things that I learned and mademe realized that I should stand by my beliefs. The video showed that Socrates is a man of freedom and hungry for information that made him questioned people in Athens and wanted to know how people think and what are their beliefs. Socrates said that most of the people follow the majority's decisions or opinions or people who are in higher position of the influential ones because people thought they have the brilliant minds to produce brilliant ideas. He thought that we should all reflect on our lives and that we are all capable of doing something worthy to stand up for. I thought, maybe Socrates was right. We should not be afraid to stand and deliver our thoughts and ideas. Socrates wants us to have the self-confidence with the beliefs that we live in. It was also shown in the video that the host asked the passers-by the questions, "What is justice?" or "What is self-control?" (just like what Socrates did), for me, asking makes you more informed and it will help you to determine what is wrong or right or maybe what is true or false. We should respect the beliefs of others and don't force them to follow your ideas just because you think you're right. We should be open-minded with other people's ideas. I also learned some steps on how to determine if our beliefs is worth standing for: look for statements that most people would describe a normal old common sense, find an exception to it then if you find it, it may be false or imprecise then continue to find exceptions until you prove that your belief is true. Philosophy will indeed help me to live and to be informed with great ideas and lessons from other people and their experiences.

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Try to read this short story about self-confidence. Worth of your time: Self-Confidence: The Painter And His Son

My Purpose In Life

GOD GAVE US LIFE IN PURPOSE.

That purpose might be related to your family or something that will change someone's life. You will not know your purpose unless you struggle and start to ask why God has given you this life. In my situation, I think one of my purpose in life is to make my parents feel loved. Though, I grew up with a broken family but I still communicate with my father who is in abroad and I live with my mother. Recently, I've experienced struggles and I was scared that it might change my whole life. I was there for my mother, to support and guide her through her darkest hours and gladly, she survived. Maybe God created me to correct the mistakes of my mother and give my father another chance to be a father to me. It will not only change me life, but who knows, I might fulfill their purpose in their lives. But honestly, this is not only my purpose. I don't think so. I still have missions to accomplish and that's for me to find out.

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Experience how beautiful life is by listening to Jason Mraz's Living The Moment

Major Lessons Learned

With philosophy, there are many questions that are still unanswered. Every premises has different conclusions which leads on creating different arguments. Philosophy provides us, students, the tools we need to critically examine our lives and our world. Philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle gave huge contributions to philosophy, without them, do you think people will have normal lives? 

In Philosophy, relativism is a popular theme for philosophical debates. There are many faces of relativism: Cultural relativism, a view that no culture is superior to any other culture where all beliefs and norms are equally valid, depending on the cultural environment. With this, the moral code dictates what is right or wrong within a society. It claims that there is no universal truth; Conceptual relativism, it claims that man should shape the reality by the way how he conceptualize it; Constructivism claims that reality is not emperically investigated or observed only but interpreted, manipulated to construct; Post modernism says that people should believe or truth is created by powerful people; New relativism says that there is a common truth. With these different faces, do you still know or do you even know what philosophers are debating about?

For me, each society have different norms and beliefs, we cannot just accuse them that what they're doing is wrong or right (based on our beliefs) because they live in a different society. Lesson learned? 

-- Think before you judge.

Here's a video summary of what cultural relativism is: