Artist Statement

My idea for the most recent project came to me after a while. At first I was thinking about basing it on an artistic medium-my forte which is photography. But after a bit of consideration I realized that I didn't have the time or resources for the kind of project I was looking to make.
Then I started to think about which class discussion worked the best-which got my attention as well as the attention of my classmates. I remembered the morality debate. This had to have been my favorite discussion all year. The question posed made me think hard about my own thought process and also made me think about what factors influenced everyone's answers to be so similar. I wondered if I could devise my own moral riddles and hope to find out what factors play the key role in the person's decision. I had a lot of ideas and I quickly got to work.
I figured it would be best to make the questions, then ask people I knew and collect the data. Then I realized that might limit my results, so I found a site that builds a survey for you and then collects/analyses the data. Then I went onto a chat site and asked strangers to take the quiz. Surprisingly about half of them took it. Then I published the link over facebook and had some friends do the survey. Unfortunately the site will not let me share the data with the public (it says I have to become a pro member which means $$$).
The questions I asked had to do with saving someone's life. In one instance it was saving a group of people over a group of horses. In this question, 92% of the people voted to interfere and save the humans by killing the horses instead. The purpose of this question was for me to see if people would value humans over animals-even at the cost of interfering. It would be much easier to do nothing and let things happen as they would but the end result would be traumatizing. I think the results mirrored what I expected.
The second question was involving a stingy customer and wether or not you should treat him equally even though he was impatient and rude. Although 81% said that they would treat him fairly, less people in the class voted for this.
The third question was the most difficult. It had to do with rescuing your neighbor from suicide at the risk of your own life. The results were nearly even, with 52% saying they would run inside to call the police and the rest saying they would jump a balcony flight to pull him to safety. The class response was very different. Nobody said they would have jumped to save him, but a couple of guys mentioned that they might if it didn't seem too risky for themselves. Perhaps men's preconceived roles as being heroes in our culture was in influence there. Maybe the anonymity of the internet survey had an influence. I wouldn't want to be the only one to raise my hand in class.
I thought the presentation encouraged everyone to participate and that is what I wanted. The fact that others were involved helped me relax. I wanted to get people thinking on a level of mindfulness that confronts us every day:doing what we feel is right. I have read from many psychologists and spiritualists that one's belief system can help to improve confidence and happiness. I believe this to be true and see it as a good exercise to know your own right from wrong.

Project 3 Proposal

I have decided to do my third project based on the WNYC radio broadcast about morality. What I will do is think up a couple of new scenarios similar to the train problem. I will record what people say and then either mix the audio together or read it to the class. After experimenting with factors such as physical interaction and amount of people hurt, I will try to make a conclusion based on the results. The main question asked is when a person becomes more involved with the hypothetical scene, do they feel more responsible for the outcome?

Animal Treatment-Questions

1. My code of ethics for animals is complicated, and I still haven't completely decided on it. During high school and part of college I gave the subject a lot of thought and decided that I would cut meat out of my diet. I felt that since I had pets, it made no sense for me to go eating other animals no matter what my relation was to them. Unfortunately I didn't have the resources to maintain a healthy enough diet without meat and so I decided to go back to my carnivorous diet. I don't feel especially guilty about my choice but instead my perspective shifted back into my original one-even though humans mostly don't hunt for their food, there are certain nutrients in meat that we require. I do believe that we have mostly eaten meat in the past, it's obvious when you compare our teeth to those of carnivorous animals.
The other day I fed my turtle mealworms. I didn't feel especially guilty about it, because were he out in the wild, he would be eating the same. Since I try to create an environment similar to a non-captive turtle it only makes sense to give him the same kind of food his species is used to.
2. I agree with him on the fact that human suffering is on a higher and more complex level than nonhuman suffering. One thing that doesn't make sense to me is that he states that a person of lesser intelligence shouldn't be disregarded, yet that perfectly describes animals. Also in the case where he gives an example of slapping a baby and a horse, he tried to compare the two which is outlandish-and misses the point that both are wrongful acts.
3. I agreed with him on less than most of his arguments. He seemed to take an approach that was trying to be open and non-subjective but ended up being a little bit opinionated. He could have raised more questions and let the reader answer themselves instead of answering them. I think it would be more beneficial if people could decide on their moral code with their own hearts and not be so influenced into believing one way.