Transcript TOK_NEW_PRESENTATION_KHADIYA[1]

Theory of Knowledge
Khadiya Alony
Should
majority’s
morals
Is authority
always
right?
dictate the
rules of
authority?
Parents
Justice/Law
From where do we obtain our
sense of right and wrong from?
Reason
Dogmas
“What is morality in any given time or
place? It is what the majority then
and there happen to like – and
immorality what they dislike.”
Alfred North Whitehead
Authority

Tends to use utilitarianism as an ethical
approach.
Russia in the 1900s



Extremely poor.
Hard conditions.
85% population
consisted of peasants.
Tsarism.



Appointed by God.
Divine rule.
Unity.

Can we say that authority is right?
“There is violence that
What
is
then
good
for
liberates, and a violence
the
people?
Should
they
that enslaves; there is a
obey
this
idea?
violence that is moral and a
violence that is immoral”
Benito Mussolini.
“In Tanzania albinos are
killed because they believe
albinos are the result of a
curse, and that their bodies
have magical properties.
......172 were last month
arrested in connection to
the cases - 71 of whom
said they had been told by
witch doctors to bring them
albino body parts....
....A teacher in the northern
town of Arusha has been
arrested for killing his own
child, who was albino.”


Majority believed it was right.
Should we always abide by what is
being told to us?
Should we act individually then?
This is Issei
Sagawa. He is
a Japanese man
who in 1981
murdered and
cannibalized a
Dutch woman
named Renée
Hartevelt.
Should he be allowed to do this?
Issei was...






Born to wealthy parents.
Had a very thin body and odd shape, thus causing him to
envy the “curvature, fullness and roundness” of others.
Like many other Japanese men at the time, he adored
women with western features.
Both those desires merged and were instilled in his brain.
She was selected because of her health and beauty, those
characteristics Sagawa believed he lacked.
Sagawa describes himself as a "weak, ugly, and small man"
and claims that he wanted to "absorb her energy".
Does this make him right?
Should we respect this decision?
What could we conclude?