Juan Oliva

Mrs.Carroll

American Literature

30 April 2017

An Analysis of Personal Rules and their Reasonings

Throughout the unit on Ethics, several different types of obligations and frameworks

have been covered. Through this one could hope that the future generations that are being

cultivated will be more ethical. Natural Duties being one of the most ethical obligations since its

an universal obligation to everyone. Justice could be defined as doing the least amount of evil

necessary to save the greater good. The one underlying theme to connect all of my rules are the

Natural Duties. All of my rules connect to the natural duties we owe to every person because

theyre the most ethical.

The first of my ten rules would be Do no harm. This rule is important because it is kind

of obvious that we should not cause harm to another person. This is reflected in Justice: Whats

the right thing to do? where the author, M. Sandel, states They include the duty to treat

persons with respect, to do justice, to avoid cruelty, and so on (223). This shows how important

the rule is because obviously a person should not cause or put harm upon a person. This rule

connects to the underlying theme because it is the natural duty of everyone to treat people with

respect. We owe it to everyone to not harm them simply because we are all rational human

beings.

The second of my ten rules is to believe in yourself and others. This rule is important

because believing in your friends and yourself is the basis of being a good friend. It is necessary
to believe in oneself because that makes one believe that he/she is a good person. If you dont

believe that youre a good person, what is the point of having rules that dictate whether or not

youre a good person. The text states We owe them to persons as rational beings (Steinbeck 3).

This quote shows how believing in people and their ideas is a necessary good. Although,

believing in someones ideas does not necessarily mean to accept them as take them as your

own. This rule connects to the theme of natural duties because as the above quote states, we owe

it to everyone, regardless of who they are, to believe in them.

The third rule in my list is do not lie, unless itll hurt the persons feelings. This rule is

important because it fosters a society where people no longer lie, but still remains true to the first

rule which is to not do harm. Sometimes the truth is just too much for a person to handle, and

altering the truth would do less harm than telling the truth. This rule connects to natural duties

because it, again, brings forth the idea that a good human being would not lie to another person,

except in the case that the truth would cause too much harm to a person. This exemption of the

never lie rule connects directly to the first rule, do no harm.

My fourth rule to live by is to not speak while mad, even if youre about to explode. This

rule is important because it limits the harm one can do while being mad. While mad, one

typically doesnt think straight, and will blurt out any of the hurtful thoughts that come to mind.

The text states that an ethical person will follow his/her natural duties, which include to not

cause harm to another person. Since harm can be both physical and emotional, hurtful words

while mad can actually harm someone. This rule connects to natural duties because we owe it to

every person to not be mean, even if we are currently really mad. This rule connects with another

commonly known ethical rule, which is Think before you speak.

 The fifth rule on my list is to be friendly. This rule is very important because it connects

to the more commonly known rule treat others how you would like to be treated. This rule

would remove any possibility for any bad relationships because everyone would want to be nice

and helpful to each other. This would also allow for everyone to be friends and for no harsh

feelings to be brewed amongst people. In Justice, Sandel states that one of the natural duties that

we owe to one another is to be respectful to one another. Being respectful is also essential in the

act of being friendly. This rule connects to natural duties because it is simply the right thing to

do. Everyone should be friendly to everyone, regardless of who that person may be and we

should all be nice to each other.

My 6th rule is to not judge. This rule is important because there are only a few things that

judging could lead to, and those things are conflict and hurt feelings. This rule would eliminate

those negative things that come along when people judge. Who are we to judge anyways?

Throughout Justice, Sandel states that ethical beings are nice to one another since it is our natural

duty to do so, and a main component of being nice in general is to not be judgemental. This rule

can be connected to natural duties because as human beings we owe it to people to be nice,

therefore judging people would not fit into the ideology of natural duties.

The 7th rule on my list is to respect others. This rule is important because it is essentially

the base of every other rule. In order to be a good person, the idea is that one must be at least

respectful to others at the very least. The text, Justice, directly states that one must be respectful.

It states They [natural duties] include the duty to treat persons with respect (Sandel 4). This

rule can be connected to natural duties because it can be considered that we (at minimum)need to

show respect to everyone.

 My 8th rule to live by is to offer help to others. This rule is important because it fosters a

community in which one person helps another. It also removes the stigma of race. For example,

this rule would remove the idea that different ethnicities cannot cooperate. This rule would aid in

removing any racism as the rule would make people help each other regardless of color, tongue,

ethnicity and etc. The text references that an aspect of natural duty is to have these duties come

naturally, and therefore not need an act of consent. Typically, helping others comes naturally and

that would make it a natural duty.

The 9th rule on my list is to spend time with your loved ones. This rule is important

because not only does it touch upon the natural duties that we have to people that we love such

as our family, but also a new type of obligations such as family obligations. This new type of

obligation is basically reminds you that you have family and that they come before anyone else.

The text states that By accepting the benefits she [my mother] conferred on me, I implicitly

consented to pay her back when was in need (Sandel 16). This could make my rule seem like

more of a family obligation than a natural duty, but the care that was given to the child in his/her

adolescence taught said child the morals he/she needed in order to make it a natural duty to help

their mother.

The 10th and final rule on my list is to be happy. This rule might be the most important

because we owe it to ourselves to be happy more than anything else. If we arent happy, then

what is the point of doing anything? In Justice, Sandel states that the ethical decisions that are

made through the ideology of natural duties all come autonomously, and typically, we do what

makes us happy. Obviously we should only do the things that make us happy if theyre not
causing harm to anyone else. This connects to natural duties because maintaining ourselves

happy and doing what makes us happy comes naturally to us.

I have always kept a list of things that I like to do on a daily basis in order to keep myself

happy, so when I was given this assignment, I sort of tweaked those things on my first list into

rules that I could live by. This didnt turn out as good as I thought it would, that why on the 10

rules worksheet, most of the rules have been scratched out. Throughout the entire process of

making the rules I tried to keep being happy at the forefront or the basis of every rule. This

caused me to come up with rules such as Take time to smell the roses which means take time

going through like and dont rush through it. Although its a good thing to remember on a daily

basis, it isnt necessarily a rule that fosters good people. By the end of this project, Ive

changed all of my rules at least twice, simply because I found a better or easier way of saying

them.

I believe that if I lived by these rules 100% of my life, I would be very happy. For the

most part, I do live by these rules. I dont think that my life would change too much if I did begin

to live my life by these rules because I basically already do live by them! A rule that I do believe

that I could follow more is to spend time with your loved ones. I think I should follow this rule

more because as I have seen in previous weeks, you never know when someone can leave you.

You might as well spend as much time as possible with the people you love while theyre still on

Earth.