Excuses In Everyday Life, By Bernard Roth

In her paper, The right to lie: Kant on dealing with evil, Christine Korsgaard offers an example in which lying is morally permissible under one formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative yet not another. From this Korsgaard concludes that Kant’s formulations of Universal Law and of Humanity as an End in Itself are not equivalent, and that one is more strict than the other. In this paper I will present Korsgaard's example and then use her interpretation of the Formulation of Universal Law to evaluate what it would prescribe as the correct responses to three additional cases.

In today’s American society, lying has become something that we are accustomed to using almost every day without even realizing it. In “The Ways We Lie”, Stephanie Ericsson, screenwriter, advertising copywriter, and writer, elaborates on the act of lying and how it is used by everyone on a daily basis. She comes up with a list of the common, different kinds of lies that we all have told. Furthermore, the text goes in depth about the significance of lying and how it is an essential part of every human’s life. Ericsson’s essay effectively conveys this idea through the use of pathos, logos, ethos, personal examples, rhetorical questions, and analogies which helps the reader better understand the reasoning behind lies and how it affects our

What is morality? Where does our sense of morality come from and why is it important for us to know? The cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and scholar, Steven Pinker discusses this in his essay, “The Moral Instinct”. In this essay, Pinker claims that our morality sense is innate, it constantly changes, and it is universal among each culture. Pinker also explains that moral sense shapes our judgement as it is something that we value and seek in other people. The science of the moral sense is important since it shows how morality impacts our actions and it explains why we act in certain ways.

In the essay The Ways We Lie, author Stephanie Ericsson writes in depth about the different types of lies used by most people everyday. While listing examples of them, Ericsson questions her own experiences with lying and whether or not it was appropriate. By using hypothetical situations, true accounts, and personal occurrences, she highlights the moral conflicts and consequences that are a result of harmless fibs or impactful deceptions. In an essay detailing the lies told to ourselves and others, Ericsson points out one bold truth; everyone lies. Through her writing, Ericsson causes the reader to look into how they’ve lied in the past and how to effects others and the general greater good of society.

If a person had the option to change the world for the better, would they? If they would, then why is it when a person gets minor inconvenienced by a small problem like not having enough chips for the bean dip, they just accept the problem and they do not do anything about it. William F. Buckley Jr. Wrote an essay called, "Why Don't We Complain". Buckley is giving the readers his experience on both the lack of care within the political system and also the apathy people give when it comes to life's minor roadblocks. Society needs to learn that fixing minor problems when given the chance is better than letting a problem grow so much that it starts affecting other people. The audience that this essay is directed to will learn the message of why people should complain, and the purpose the author has to complain.

America is the land of opportunity and equality. Many people grow up believing this to be absolutely true, but Stephen Marche feels otherwise. He wrote “We Are Not All Created Equal,” arguing his point that opportunities in this country are strictly determined by the fate of ones class in society. Marche starts off making a strong case by mentioning the United States’ third place ranking for the least amount of social mobility. In further attempts to prove his point he outlines how class determines the fate of Americans place in society by comparing it’s rigid divisions to those of the aristocracy in Britain. There is a repeating idea throughout the paper that many people in the upper classes love to assume that the poor should fault themselves for their predicament due to their lack of hard work. Marche knocks that assumption out the park with statistical evidence to back up his claims. Although he made a very convincing argument with facts, he had a host of overgeneralized statements throughout the paper, which ultimately weakened his argument of class being the only determining factor of success in America.

In today’s society a huge issue is that we constantly hear about the food industry in America. We often hear in the news that obesity rates have increased, or that Americans have many diseases that contribute to being obese. “What You Eat is Your Business” by Radley Balko expresses that people are at fault for making such unhealthy food choices. Others argue that the food industry is to blame for being so unhealthy. According to David Zinczenko in “Don’t Blame the Eater” he blames the fast food industry as well as the consumer. Zinczenko asks “shouldn’t we know better than to eat two meals a day in fast food restaurant’s?” (392). So, who is to blame for American’s eating so much unhealthy food? Should it be the consumers’ burden or the fast food companies? On one hand, as consumers we continue to purchase foods that we know are making us overweight. On the other hand, fast food companies continue to offer high in calories foods.

Carlos Wallace’s book, “Life is not Complicated, You Are” is an extraordinary digital narrative. It is a very meaningful piece of work. He has written this book during an emotional point of life due to the loss of his mother and father after they passed away. From this, he came to the state of realization about life. He acknowledged different ways an individual can choose to take in order to keep moving forward with the intention of creating a better life. Nevertheless, Wallace emphasized on progress. He believes motivation builds during the progress phase as a person is achieving his or her goals. One way he kept moving forward is by a supportive family. He often referred back to his mother, father, and his grandfather. The main role models

When a child is having problems with emotional detachment they are unable to emotional detachment to others. They are in their own bubble and is in their comfort zone and is guarded against anyone who wants to enter. Grief and stress are two know factors of an emotional trauma. Psychological behavior is another form of emotional detachment. Children suffer from emotional trauma for coping with situations that may lead connect with others.

When it comes to the topic of addiction, most of us will readily agree that it is a miserable trait to possess. An addiction is a physical and psychological state of being that if not treated correctly could result into harmful wrongdoing. In The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, he recounts a story in which a fatigued housewife named Angie Bachmann lost all of her family’s assets, amounting to a million dollars due to a gambling addiction. Every habit has three components: a cue or a trigger of an automatic behavior to start, a routine the behavior itself, and a reward which is how our brain learns to remember this pattern for the future. According to Duhigg, “you cannot extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it” (63). Duhigg

LGBTQ social movements have evolved over time from liberationist politics of the 1970s to an enormous contemporary focus on gay and lesbian marriage rights, a controversial and arguably assimilationist priority for mainstream LGBTQ advocacy groups. Different forms of activism have approached assimilationism versus societal reformation or preservation of unique constructions of queer identities with a myriad of arguments. In “The Trouble with Normal” by Michael Warner, the author focuses primarily on a criticism of gay marriage rights activism in which he posits that all marriage is “selective legitimacy.” He points to other LGBT movements and issues as more worthy of pursuing, particularly intersectional pursuits of equal rights for people regardless of coupled status. In “Marital Discord: Understanding the Contested Place of Marriage in the Lesbian and Gay Movement” authors Mary Bernstein and Verta Taylor give a snapshot history of LGBTQ activism since the 1970s and offer similar arguments as Warner about the heteronormative and neoliberal nature of placing the fight for legal marriage rights at the forefront of LGBTQ activism, although they do also introduce emerging improvements with the increasingly intersectional awareness of modern advocacy efforts.

The article that I have chosen for my second Pop paper is called “Why Do Anything?” by Costica Bradatan. The article juggles and correlates the ideas of perfection, imperfection that is actualization, and its relation to nothingness, and based off of what is described, what the point is in doing anything in this universe. The idea/analogy used to depict this concept involves the story of an architect from Shiraz, who created one of the most beautiful and breathtaking structure designs ever. Apparently, after devising the plans required for the construction, they were so beautiful and intricate that nearly anybody with any rudimentary understanding of the architectural world was envious, to the point where “Famous builders begged the architect to allow them to erect the mosque; wealthy people came from afar to buy the plans; thieves devised schemes to steal them; powerful rulers considered taking them by force.” (Why Do Anything?) One may think that the architect would have feelings of grandeur and accomplishment, however, quite the contrary occurred. The reason being is that he created a plan so perfect, pure, and clean, that to bring it into the real world via physical construction, would simply be a dissipation of its original, unborn perfection and purity.

Everyone says it’s very hard to find your purpose in life. There are so many possibilities and variations of thing we can do and it’s impossible to try everything. For some, it may be hard to find one thing to which they will dedicate their whole life. That’s why Elizabeth Gilbert talks about four different components that fulfill our lives and help us to enjoy it. The first one is hobby.

Hannah Arendt’s most influential work The Human Condition was published in 1958. It makes distinctions between labor, work and action, between power, violence and strength and between property and wealth. It is surprising that more than 55 years later the originality and novelty of this book is still present. Arendt compels the reader to open their eyes and to look at the world and human affairs in new ways and with a completely different perspective. In her prologue she professes that she wants us to do “nothing more than to think what we are doing.” The Human Condition is associated with Arendt’s work on totalitarianism. The Human Condition and her work on totalitarianism work together to highlight the contemporary human predicament. Arendt’s interest in human affairs was due to her encounter with Nazis which led to her interest and participation in political activities. Hannah Arendt developed her philosophy of education during her time in the United States. Her philosophy is shaped by the political turmoil that played out in public schools at that time. Arendt was influenced by many philosophers. “One sees Jasper’s influence in The Human Condition in which Arendt developed this idea of action: public, political behavior based on communication” (Snelgrove, 4). Hannah Arendt was struck by Cal Marx’s picture of individuality which was devoted to production and consumption. For Arendt this is a revealing representation of modern society in which economic concerns have come

Bernard Roth, a Professor at the d. school in California, has an impressively valid outlook as to why all reasons given are bullshit. Roth provides numerous examples of people who use regularly use excuses to get by in life; however, he also plays the devil’s advocate when stating that excuses may help you in the current situation but does it really help you at all in the long run. In the second chapter of his book, Roth classifies the use of excuses into several categories; ethically, logically, and emotionally. Although I understand Roth’s beliefs there are some areas I fundamentally disagree with. Such as, some excuses must be explained no matter what the circumstances were due to the fact that the reasoning is important. Roth would rebuttal by saying reasons have no meaning which in turn goes back to having no excuses. Roth utilizes an abundance of forms of thinking to emphasize his point. He explains to every student the three possible rationalizations for excuses. Once again he suggests every excuse is bullshit, and has no place in an individual’s life. These excuses are ultimately hampering an individual’s ability to reach for his or her dreams. Bernard Roth, author of, “The Achievement Habit, stop wishing, start doing and take control of your life” effectively uses Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle in chapter two, his argument contains ethos, pathos, and logos to authenticate the thought that reasons are bullshit.