{"id":199,"date":"2019-08-30T19:34:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-30T19:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/sarah-watts\/?p=199"},"modified":"2019-08-30T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2019-08-30T19:34:31","slug":"ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/sarah-watts\/ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On Monday, we present our results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is good news for me, as I'm one of those people that prefers public speaking to death - by a large margin. I like <\/em>it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It's also good news because I feel like my work has advanced progress on an issue that matters, in a country I care deeply about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only bad news is that I have to make the decision about whether I want to maintain this blog - this could well be my last post, at least on here. I'm planning on picking up my other blog again (in which I think critically about often vacuous books<\/a>) once I've graduated and am back at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if this my last post, looking back at the arc of what posted here is interesting. At first, the blogs were all about content: who does what, how it works. This past month, though, I've spent more and more of my time thinking not about how things work but what constitutes a good choice and and what our moral obligations and rights are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These thoughts have led me directly back to Ishmael.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, not 'Call me Ishmael.' And not the Biblical Ishmael.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This book changed the way I view my position on the planet<\/a>, and changed how I want to impact the world with the work that I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The book is a loose narrative with an intense ethical core. Really, it's about our perceptions, and how we use those perceptions to group people, animals, and entities together, how we rank them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does the correct choice change when we are in a different group? Can we know the right choice when we are looking in from the outside - when we have decided that we are on the outside?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of the questions I have been pondering on this blog and in conversations with friends are answerable, but I think that asking these questions is a practical exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, another practical exercise is finding a job. The good news is that this masters degree has helped me find a concrete direction for my career, and at least a partial understanding of what I'm capable of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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