The Ethics of Driving

There are very few things that people do on a regular basis that can easily end the life of another. Because of this, driving places a heavy responsibility on us that is almost incomparable to anything else. If we forget to make lunch one day for our children, they might have to buy food at school. If we forget to complete our project at work, we might lose our jobs. But just by looking down while we are driving can very well lead to someone's death. I am of the opinion that the vast majority of drivers do not truly understand the responsibility they have to drive well.

How often it is to see reckless driving! Of course most often than not, speeding and swerving between lanes is not the result of some mental illness or intellectual incapacity, and yet, it is difficult not to think that reckless drivers are crazy and stupid. What is going on in their minds? What if they hit someone? It is my belief that reckless drivers are simply not thinking about the possible consequences of their actions. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the people who drive recklessly do it because they are late for something important; I think it is simply the way that they drive. Therefore, it is not only that they drive recklessly and by doing so endanger other people's lives, but also that they do it for no good reason.

An almost equally irresponsible act in regards to driving is to distract oneself away from the road. It is true that we live in the age of smart phones, but that does not make texting while driving any less irresponsible or immoral. Anything that requires us to not look at the road should be reduced to a minimum if not completely eliminated. This means no texting, no putting on makeup and no turning around to talk to your passengers. These are common sense rules that everyone should understand and follow.

What is most disturbing about reckless driving is that the drivers themselves understand that their behavior is immoral. It is very unlikely that they have no conception of what good driving entails. Thus, it must be that they just choose to drive that way. But perhaps I am jumping to conclusions. Perhaps there are those who truly do not understand that texting while driving and swerving between lanes is irresponsible. To those people I have no idea what to say other than they should think about the ethics of driving.

A civilized society requires that people treat each other with dignity and respect. Driving well is simply one aspect of that.

GRE and Essays

The last few months have been quite stressful for me. In December I started to study for the GRE, which was not a pleasant experience. For those of you who don't know, the exam is split into three different sections: math, verbal reasoning and essay writing. The worst part of this process was relearning all the math that I learned in high school. Keep in mind I hadn't even touched a calculator for 10 years before last December. Having said that, studying for the verbal section wasn't that much better. I had to memorize hundreds and hundreds of words that I knew I would never use in my life, and the worst part is, none of the words showed up on the test. The essay writing, on the other hand, was a little bit easier, but still was frustrating. Even though I write all the time, I only write what I'm interested in, but for the GRE, they'll give you some random topic that you've never thought about before so the process still wasn't pleasant.

Fortunately, it turns out that my hard work paid off. On the whole, I scored in the 88 percentile which is quite good. I'm glad I don't have to take it again because the GRE was really affecting my sleep.

Another huge burden that I had recently was writing my essays for this semester. I unfortunately didn't do very well last semester so I really wanted to make up for it this time, but I don't think I was successful. I just turned in my papers a couple of days ago and I was only satisfied with one of them. The other one I actually rewrote just a few days prior because the first draft was that bad. The class in general was difficult so it took awhile for me to wrap my head around the material. In the end, I don't really know what grade I'm going to get, but the fact that I'm not happy with it makes me sad anyways. I truly dislike writing about things I don't care for. I know that may sound obvious, but I feel like I dislike it more than other people do. And although I understand that writing about other topics will give me a wider understanding of the field, I still don't want to do it.

Ultimately, I'm relieved to have the GRE and my essays over with. I can now focus on my theory of natural diversity, which is what I've been looking forward to this entire year.

A Theory of Justice

The opening sentences of Rawls' A Theory of Justice.

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.