technically, i'm done w/the fall quarter; i have only 1 more final to go, and it's my easiest class... gonna have some fun cramming tonight... man, i've done to hell my sleep schedule this week... at least 2 times i've pulled all nighters out of fear of not doing my best on the finals as i would like. i just wanna be able to go to sleep at 11:00 after a nice shower each night and wake up at 7:00 refreshed, but that'll never happen partially because i waste time...

the most interesting philosophy question i've gotten today during my Ethical and Social Problems in Contemporary Society final; usually philosophy questions i get in the past philosophy classes up here i brush aside, but i was chewing on this one for a bit. i'll try to paraphrase it for you readers:

suppose a medieval scientist desires to create an advanced form of a dog by genetic breeding and giving them voice boxes and artificial hands... essentially, he desires to create a dog who can think and interact with humans. he disappears into canadian wilderness and we never hear from him again...
in 1999, we discover about a group of 1,000 such dogs living like they're 19th century high-class Prussian ppl... after a celebrated public notice, they move to NYC where they begin to partake in human activities; namely business, entertainment, and the like ventures. however, after beginning to interact with humans, they slowly begin to contract a disease that transforms them back to their canine instincts. essentially, they would lose all of their human intelligence. now, not all of the dogs have this disease, but it is inevitable that all of them will eventually contract and sucuumb to it. except one dog which appears to be immune; this dog is named Ludwig. it's possible you can extract a cure for this disease if you can perform many painful and unbearable experiments upon him. however, Ludwig is not willing to partake in the experiment voluntarily, and as a fatalist, chooses that once all but him sucuumb to the disease, that he will kill himself.

that said, is it right or wrong to perform those experiments upon Ludwig?

essentially, this question tested the lessons we learned on abortion(just like how a mother refuses to let a baby live over her own happiness) and animal cruelty... and so what it essentially comes down to is that if we do the experiments, we have a good chance of saving this race; one dog's selfish ambition pales to his entire race(consequentialist argument)... however, it is right to torture a dog? and now think: he's a dog who can think like a human, essentially making him one. would we torture a human against his will too? also, in light of the abortion side, this would be like a case of rape; we subject the dog unwillingly to the experiments, and force him to bear the burden to save another group of dogs... we normally allow for cases of rape in abortion cases, but what about this?

so even though the final doesn't say what you have to say, only that you back it up, i answered in favor of the experiments, but i couldn't help but wonder just really what would I do if i were in the situation in real life. is one being's life worth sacrificing to save a whole race, and what if the being is unwilling to cooperate?

what do you think?