“a value is like a fax machine: it’s not much use if you’re the only one who has one.” -Kwame Anthony Appiah

This week I finished reading my outside materials, allowing me to focus in on the interpersonal aspect of my project. I reflected on the interview I had already conducted, talked with people in informal discussions about philosophy, and prepared for my final interview. This past week took all the hard work that I had put in, and transformed it into practical application. 

I worked together with Jack Trowbridge and Caleb Kohn-Blank to work through some ideas that I had come across in my reading. We got together to work on Caleb’s Senior Project of making a board game, while simultaneously talking about our (mine and Jack’s) more conceptual projects. This demonstrated a kind of quid pro quo that is the basis of a lot of life, at least from my observation. Often, action is put into the context of what can be gained. There is a mindset of mutuality that I see held up.

I recently worked through the basics of Kantian moral thought, which tells us that the moral thing to do is that which is moral in and of itself. It glorifies the effort and the motivation as much as the action. This is one of the most difficult schools of thought for me to understand. The reason being that motivation is hard to clearly decipher. When I helped Caleb, was it purely to help? Or was it that quid pro quo I mentioned? Was it selfishly motivated, only in it so I could practice for my own project? Or was there any selflessness that wished to further someone else? My guess is that it is all of these. This is the flaw I find with Kant: it ignores all the immoral motivations if even one factor is moral. 

In contrast, Appiah describes above that a shared value is a good one, a useful one. So perhaps this shared value of promoting our own work is the moral thing to do. It is something we must do in order to complete our project. I like this quote. It highlights the nature of morality that often goes overlooked. Too commonly, we think about action when thinking about morality, but as important (if not more) is each other. An action in a vacuum cannot be good or bad. It is only when applied to real life that it takes on meaning. That is why this week has been the most fun thus far.