The Morality of Politics and Justice
The morality of Politics and Justice is just like what it sounds. It is taking different, controversial arguments and arguing for the side that you believe is correct. Of course, one must look at the opposing side of the argument to understand and counter their arguments. There was a lot of work leading up to this project. First of all, there were the different moral philosophies. There were four that we learned about: Libertarianism, Rawls’ Theory of Justice and Equality, Utilitarianism, and Deontology. Each of them had things that were similar, but as a whole, each philosophy was very different. Then we learned about Rhetoric, and the three different forms of Rhetoric, which is using symbols to try and sway someone’s opinion. These are pathos, which is appealing to the emotions, logos, which is using numbers and other solid data, and ethos, which is appealing to credibility. The task for our Op-Ed was to create a piece of writing that argued our point firmly. We had to apply our side of the argument to the various moral philosophies we learned about in class. Our visual projects were a bit different from out Op-Ed. They required a quote from one of the moral Philosophers, as well as two different types of Rhetoric. This could be in any form however, from painting to Photoshop, so it allowed for a lot of interesting work.
I chose gay marriage mainly because I am gay. This really helped to become more confident in both being able to argue against those who would oppose my views and my decisions, and also just made me more comfortable with myself. In a society that has a government that hasn’t really fully accepted homosexuality, it can make a person feel awkward or out of place. I know now that I’m right where I should be, and should not let other people’s opinions and dispositions get me down. This has been largely due to learning and understanding Rhetoric. Now that I know what Rhetoric is, I can actually look at different pieces of work and break it down to look at the different uses of rhetoric, instead of just looking at it and either agreeing or disagreeing with it. Also, learning the different moral philosophies was helpful in a sense that I know where a lot of my different beliefs come from. I feel as if I’m largely libertarian, but I have a lot of other little things mixed in from the other three philosophies.
I think that I did really well on the focus and purpose parts of my op-ed. I did a good job of showing what I was talking about throughout the essay and made sure that it was all relevant to my topic. I could have been better at including the moral philosophy. It was more of a last minute thing that I did, and I feel like it could be tied in and more relevant throughout my essay. One thing I thought I did well with my visual piece is perspective. I feel like my piece felt very straightforward with a relevant message to it. If I were to go back and fix something, I would want to have worked some more on the rhetoric. I missed all the real planning days, so everything was really last minute and I didn’t find a good way to put rhetoric beyond pathos.
If I had another week to work on the project, I would go through and fix all the things previously mentioned. I would go through my essay and try to integrate the moral philosophy more, as well as get it checked a few more times in the process with Ashley and my peers to make sure it is top-notch work. In terms of my art piece, there’s a lot. There’s a lot of white space that just looks ugly, and I feel as if there is something that could be there. There was not enough rhetoric, and I wanted to change the positioning of a bit of the text. I would want to have some peer critique as well, just so that I could be more confident in the work I had done.
I chose gay marriage mainly because I am gay. This really helped to become more confident in both being able to argue against those who would oppose my views and my decisions, and also just made me more comfortable with myself. In a society that has a government that hasn’t really fully accepted homosexuality, it can make a person feel awkward or out of place. I know now that I’m right where I should be, and should not let other people’s opinions and dispositions get me down. This has been largely due to learning and understanding Rhetoric. Now that I know what Rhetoric is, I can actually look at different pieces of work and break it down to look at the different uses of rhetoric, instead of just looking at it and either agreeing or disagreeing with it. Also, learning the different moral philosophies was helpful in a sense that I know where a lot of my different beliefs come from. I feel as if I’m largely libertarian, but I have a lot of other little things mixed in from the other three philosophies.
I think that I did really well on the focus and purpose parts of my op-ed. I did a good job of showing what I was talking about throughout the essay and made sure that it was all relevant to my topic. I could have been better at including the moral philosophy. It was more of a last minute thing that I did, and I feel like it could be tied in and more relevant throughout my essay. One thing I thought I did well with my visual piece is perspective. I feel like my piece felt very straightforward with a relevant message to it. If I were to go back and fix something, I would want to have worked some more on the rhetoric. I missed all the real planning days, so everything was really last minute and I didn’t find a good way to put rhetoric beyond pathos.
If I had another week to work on the project, I would go through and fix all the things previously mentioned. I would go through my essay and try to integrate the moral philosophy more, as well as get it checked a few more times in the process with Ashley and my peers to make sure it is top-notch work. In terms of my art piece, there’s a lot. There’s a lot of white space that just looks ugly, and I feel as if there is something that could be there. There was not enough rhetoric, and I wanted to change the positioning of a bit of the text. I would want to have some peer critique as well, just so that I could be more confident in the work I had done.