Adrian Grabowski

Mrs. Carroll, Mr. Kelly, Ms. Wilczynski

American Literature

7 April 2019

Why our 10 rules?

Ethics are whether a human is doing the right or wrong thing. Which we had been
discussing in our recent Paideias using examples to think about what would be a right thing to
do in this event. Another word we have used is Justice which in my words means being fair and
equal and having a open mind for others. The reason why I brought up these two words is
because they are related to each other as doing the right things needs to be fair for everybody
and not just a certain group or person. This brings us to our ethical frameworks which we had
been learning in class for the past few weeks and how ethical frameworks can be used to be
that good person. With this we created our 10 rules to live by which is to help guide us in being
a good or better person in our society. The ethical framework that guides my 10 rules to live by
are the duty framework, and virtue framework which are framework that focus on the obligations
and your traits that can make you a good person.
These two ethical frameworks are what guide my 10 rules and what they are based on.
Some of these rules are about duty like ‘Do no harm’ or ‘Don’t endanger someone’ which are
rules that focus on natural duties. Another rule like ‘Don’t pull people down’ or ‘Respect and
think of others’ focuses on the people around you and how are you making a impact on them
which could be seen as Natural Duties or Obligations of solidarity. One of my favorite rule out of
all the 10 rules would be ‘Sacrifices have to be made in life’ which sometimes can affect the
people around the you or just affect you. Many of my rules do focus on the people around you
and are not just about making yourself feel like a good person like ‘Keep a open mind’, ‘Don’t
add fuel to the fire’, ‘Don’t give up on others’, and ‘Help people around you’.
The reason why I chose these rules are because I wanted to focus on rules that were
important and could be useful in the world as skills that you could then use to really be a better
person. First, Let's talk about the rules that are focused on duty like ‘Do no harm’ or ‘Don’t
endanger someone’ which mean that you as a human don’t harm another human being or don’t
put their lives at risk. These are rules that are just common thing that people should follow like it
states in the “Excerpt from Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” “Natural duties are universal.
We owe them to persons as rational beings...No one would say that I have a duty not to kill you
only if I promised you I wouldn’t, for example” (Sandel 2009). This shows that these type of
rules that we as humans know not to break as they are seen as things that crazy people would
do. Going to the next set of rules like ‘Don’t pull people down’ or ‘Respect and think of other’,
These rules like said before focus on the people around you and not just yourself. A quote from
“A Framework for Making Ethical Decisions” states “it would apply to every person in a given
situation” (Brown University 2017). This means that these set of rules are for everyone and
make everything fair for everyone by treating everyone the same and not different. One of the
rule that does focus on the virtue framework would be ‘Keep a open mind’ which is a trait that
can affect the people around you but it affect what type of person you are because being open
minded means your open to new things would could help you grow and make you a more
positive person. Going back to my claim about the frameworks that guide my rules, I feel that
many of my rules do follow the duty framework by affecting people around you in a good way
and just having common sense and also many do follow the virtue framework because they help
shape what type of person you are and how you act or think can affect that.
When I first started the list I had some ideas of rules that can be seen as a good person
would do but after coming near the end I was running out of ideas on rules that a person would
really live by. That's why some of my old rules were not the best as at the beginning I didn’t
know at all about these frameworks and all that. I was able to develop these rules from learning
about the frameworks which I used to make better ideas of rules. Also with the feedback from
students which helped me fix some of my rules that were focusing to much on me or where to
similar to each other. I also used feedback from teachers in the classwork to improve my rules
as with some rules I still didn’t know if they all were strong rules. Some of the revisions came
from reading the letters written by students which helped show what rules need fixing or needed
to be removed and what rules were to similar to each other. I had made revisions to most of my
rules as some were very weak and only original rules stayed on my 10 rules to live by.
If we were to live by these rules I feel that life would be better in some parts and I feel I
would be more productive with most of these rules and could improve my life but that's not true
for sure and some of these rules could come with negative effects and could make a big change
in my live for good or bad. I think that if these rules applied to everyone then in some parts the
world would be a better place because humans would be more productive and more would think
outside the box which could lead to good things or a negative effect.
Overall these rules are what I would think would make a good person and may not be
what everyone would agree or think are what makes a person good but it’s what's I think on this
matter.