My quote that I chose is from the book to Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and it is,“One thing that does not abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” When reading To Kill a Mockingbird, it is evident that opinions and the terms in which people view things and the way they come to these conclusions is an important aspect in the unfolding of the story. My largest philosophical question emerged, in reference to the quote, about the idea of the human “conscience” and the way it is not affected by “majority rule.” Epistemology and ethics are of main concern when understanding the ideas behind the quote. The quote moves itself in the direction of rationalism, stating that a person's conscience and opinions and maybe all the way to morality
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Harper Lee wants us to think that people learn and perceive things through their conscience based upon their own thoughts and belief in understanding the situations. Also, it implies that all outside forces are ineffective in trying to persuade the real actual conscience of a person. This agrees with the idea of rationalism, which is defined as the belief that "we have to rely on reason itself as the basis for determining whether our opinions are justified true beliefs." It's clear that this is what Harper Lee had in mind when she wrote her novel To Kill A Mockingbird. This has correlation with the ideas of philosopher Spinoza, an accredited rationalist. He viewed anything besides rational thought, such as “sensory inputs” as, simply put, random experiences in life. Furthermore, Spinoza believed that true ideas are only perceived by the mind and grown without the interference for “sensory perception.” Given this, we can assume that Spinoza would support the ideas presented by Harper Lee in the given statement. The conscience is simply a formation of ideas and beliefs and opinions within a person. By this definition, the conscience is somewhat of a pure place. Meaning, it is not, for lack of a better term from the rational point of view, polluted by what the “majority rule” on a given subject may in fact
Harper Lee wants us to think that people learn and perceive things through their conscience based upon their own thoughts and belief in understanding the situations. Also, it implies that all outside forces are ineffective in trying to persuade the real actual conscience of a person. This agrees with the idea of rationalism, which is defined as the belief that "we have to rely on reason itself as the basis for determining whether our opinions are justified true beliefs." It's clear that this is what Harper Lee had in mind when she wrote her novel To Kill A Mockingbird. This has correlation with the ideas of philosopher Spinoza, an accredited rationalist. He viewed anything besides rational thought, such as “sensory inputs” as, simply put, random experiences in life. Furthermore, Spinoza believed that true ideas are only perceived by the mind and grown without the interference for “sensory perception.” Given this, we can assume that Spinoza would support the ideas presented by Harper Lee in the given statement. The conscience is simply a formation of ideas and beliefs and opinions within a person. By this definition, the conscience is somewhat of a pure place. Meaning, it is not, for lack of a better term from the rational point of view, polluted by what the “majority rule” on a given subject may in fact