Term Papers on Philosophy

Term Paper Title	Philosophy
# of Words	952
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.81

Philosophy

Nicholas Barker
Philosophy
March 25, 1999

One question that arouses us as humans is why are we here? When trying to answer this question, we have only come up with more questions. One of which, to what extent are you the product of your own conditioning? Basically meaning what choices we are able to make. As long as we are able to determine what is morally right and morally wrong, we can be held accountable for our actions. Of course there are exceptions to this, (like most rules) one of which could be a child obeying his mother. Hence the child cannot be held accountable, because he was obeying his mother. In this circumstance the mother would be held accountable. There are relatively few things that we can control about who we really are as individuals, however our choices are in our control. Chinese thought says that as in nature, the human is composed of five elements; Earth, metal, water, wood, and fire. Earth being the thoughtful and nourishing aspects, metal being our respectful and inspirational side, water giving us our wisdom and capability to listen, wood giving us our vision and creativity, and finally fire giving us warmth and compassion. I feel that it is up to us that we determine how strong or weak each of our elements are, individually. Chinese philosophy reminds us that “we must nourish ourselves before we can expect to nourish anyone else.”(118) Thus we are the products of our own conditioning as long as we are able to make choices. Choices can help determine who and what a person is. Things such as birth gender and race we are unable to control. Basically what we, as individuals produce, whether it be verbal or physical, allows us to have say in our own conditioning. As the Buddha would say, we must be clear and empty of our desires before we can reach enlightenment. Which leads to another important point; our subconscious urges.
We’ve all probably had an urge that we hoped just went away. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Subconscious desires live in us, however can we control them, or do they control us? To a small extent we are prisoners to the urges, because we don’t know where they come from. We cannot cease the desire, but we can choose whether or not to take action on it. The urges cannot be controlled, but acting on them can. Thus, we are not prisoners; it’s more like we’re on probation. If we act on our desires we will be in “prison,” but if we do not, then the answer is no. In fact, sometimes we can learn from the desires. We can see just how strong we are, once we have controlled the desire. As Aristotle would retort, we should at least have them in “m...

This is ONLY a preview of the article. If you would like to view the entire document, you must subscribe to Digital Term Papers. Please register below now!

Digital Term Papers has over 63,000 essays, term papers, and book notes online. Many paper sites will charge you hundreds of dollars for a single paper. Digital Term Papers only charges $14.95 for a one month membership with instant account activation!

Don't waste anymore time! Join NOW!!!

1 Month (automatic renewal) ($14.95)

3 Months (automatic renewal) ($29.95)

6 Months (one-time billing) ($39.95)

Pay by: