Two philosophical questions
The first question:
If you were to design a curriculum for a high school and could only choose 6 courses, what courses would you pick? These would be the courses that were taught each year with some form of variation. So for example if you picked “math” as one of your selections, then one year it might be algebra and the next geometry. It’s still math, but a different derivation each year. When choosing your courses, try to think through what are the most important skills a person needs before entering the adult stage of their life. Think of skills that you wish you’d learned earlier in life or skills you think are crucial for being a productive member of society.
Some thoughts: would you want a course that focused on mental health? Physical health? Are math, history, and science important? I know a lot of people don’t use these studies in their day-to-day adulting lives, so maybe it’s wasted learning time. Personal finance seems important, but is that a topic that should be taught at home? Furthermore, what is the school responsible for teaching and what is your family responsible for teaching?
The second question has three parts:
It’s somewhat of the same question just asked in varying degrees. Is it morally wrong to wear glasses if you don’t need glasses? You can define “morally wrong” however you wish. Going a step further, is it morally wrong to wear a wedding ring if you’re not married? And lastly, is it morally wrong to wear a cast if you don’t have a broken arm?
In each of the three cases, I’d see the action as some form of lying. I wouldn’t say that any of them are necessarily wrong; it would just depend on the intention of the person. In the case of the glasses, if you’re wearing them to attract attention then that seems wrong to me. But if you’re wearing them to protect your eyes because you’ve been staring a a computer screen all day, that seems fine. For the wedding ring, maybe you’re a young, 20-something female who just wants the go to a bar without being hit on, so the wedding ring is an effective deterrent. Alternatively, maybe you’re a business man who wear’s a wedding ring to seem more trustworthy (sociologically a wedding ring has this effect). The businessman is using good strategy, but I’d say the action doesn’t display good morals. I couldn’t think of a scenario wear wearing a fake cast had some form of good intention underneath.
In general, one of my big life philosophies is that you shouldn’t judge people by their actions, but instead judge people by their intentions. At the same time though, you’d never know what a person’s intentions are, so you can never effectively judge them. You would need a judge who knew everyone’s inner intentions to be order to effectively say if a person was morally good or morally bad. (I’m alluding to God in that last sentence, just to be clear.)
