Between the two perspectives that were presented in this class, I definitely find the enlightenment point of view more appealing. As someone without a religious background, my understanding of the world has always been through the lenses of reason. Thus, I found myself often agreeing with enlightenment thinkers such as Hume who criticizes the rationally of religious belief. However, one area where I do agree with romanticist is political theory. I find Rousseau ideas of the body politic and social contracts to be more compelling than the existence of natural rights. The enlightenment figures’ justification of natural laws that govern humans in a state of nature seems contrived and despite being inspired by scientific laws, the two are very different.

This course has changed how I view modern-day society by making me think about how the government gets the right to govern. It is something I’ve never really thought about before this but only had a vague sense. This class has allowed me to solidify my beliefs.

A surprisingly interesting part of the class was the art showdown tournament. It was weird to compare two different pieces of artwork and feel that one is better than another, even if you can’t express why. It was not surprising at all to find out that Monet won previously because something about it makes it stand out among the others.

I recently found myself conversing with a family member on the topic of illicit drug use. And since this interaction was of some interest, I thought it appropriate to write about it here in this forum. The crux of the issue was that they were concerned about the prevalence of harmful illegal drugs. Living in the country Canada, they thought the penalty for trafficking and using drugs was far too lenient, and that this ensures the continued prevalence of contraband. They proposed that harsher punishment would discourage these villains from their villainy. I greatly disagreed with this notion and told them such. I thought that we ought to learn from the mistakes of the past and realize that we must not be so quick to employ such drastic punishments. After all, it is unclear if such measures deter crime in the slightest. It would be a great shame if the only thing we did for victims of drug epidemics was to hang them. It is as is said on page 33 in the Discourse on Inequality, “great evils are often introduced in order to correct the lesser ones”. We must be conscious of the various effects that our laws much have.