An inconclusive conclusion

The final class discussion today was a very sobering experience. Taking all of our course material and synthesizing it into the important overarching questions was quite overwhelming. I would like to briefly discuss my final thoughts on political ethics in two different ways. This class gave me two different approaches to apply the material that was presented. On one hand, political ethics is a tool and practice that we can apply and use in the world to help create a better understanding of the essential questions that plague our political process. Then their is the other side of the coin, the dark and arduous task of contemplating ethics as a metaphysical concept.

Political ethics as a tool to better our political process and encourage society's understanding of how we must act as political actors is a vital lesson that can be learned throughout this course. Tying in course readings with theoretical concepts was an important element of the course that built a foundation on our approach to the continuous presence of dirty hands, corruption, etc. that does not seem to have an end. I believe that it is our responsibility as individuals who have studied this subject thoroughly to encourage and provoke the practice of maintaining the discussion of these ethics.

In contrast, it was a haunting, unnerving debate in the sense of the inconclusive nature of the entire subject of Political Ethics. There was clearly a multitude of ideas of the origin and manifestations of ethics as a general principle in our discussion. What has been bothering me the most is the argument that Nik presented. The theory of ethics through reason, as Rawls promotes, seems invalidated by human history. Are there any absolute truths in the realm of ethics? Can we come to any sort of common ground on the argument of the presence of ethics in our system? An even more difficult question that is naturally subsequent to the latter is one of the most intellectually intensive questions. If there is not a presence of ethics in our system, is there room for argument that the existence of inherent ethics in humans is invalidated by the claim that human nature can not be described through any sort of generalization? Is everyone's formulation of ethics specific to the individual? Can an individual step out of the bounds that society has created and come to a conclusive set of ethics that everyone would eventually deduce? I will argue that the complexity of the human species invalidates any universal source of ethics as a guiding principle that could be attained or understood. To me, everything is so entirely circumstantial and relative due to our complex nature. With that, I'm out.