During my first year at the Honors College, I took a course that was focused on philosophy, where we studied the greatest thinkers throughout history. These thinkers were people such as Plato, Martin Heidegger, John Locke, Jean-Paul Sartre, and many others. One of the main goals of this course was to understand the differences between these schools of thought, along with their similarities. Additionally, we were challenged to align ourselves with a school of thought and to further explain it to our classmates, who would then question us. I decided to research John Stuart Mill and his belief in Utilitarianism. He believed that the wrong actions were those that created the least amount of happiness to everybody, and the right steps were those that create the most amount of happiness. He believed that the end justifies the means in any action, meaning if an officer tricked a suspect to revealing their guilt, then that trickery is justified because of the overall positive goal. Utilitarianism is overall a selfless way of thinking, as the sacrifice of one is necessary if it allows for the increase of happiness for all.
Throughout school, I have mostly geared my efforts towards becoming a physical therapist, neglecting the other essential subjects that allow me to not only become a well-rounded student but also to become a well-rounded adult. This research activity helped me broaden my horizons and to seek ways to apply them as a future medical professional. As someone who was utterly foreign to this method of thinking, it was extraordinarily difficult to understand the information that I had to present, it forced me to compare the information with my way of thinking and try to rationalize it from that standpoint. I believe that this is my best piece of work because of how much it changed my style of thinking. It helped me immensely in developing critical thinking skills, which I applied to my future research projects. However, I could further have improved my research by analyzing other sources of information that interpreted John Stuart Mill differently. What is unique about philosophy is that there are multiple ways to understanding a philosopher's style of thought, and each method is valuable in their way – allowing for a deeper understanding of the thought as a whole.
Through this research project, I could broaden my own way of thinking by aligning my beliefs within John Stuart Mill. However, I also gained an understanding of what I morally do not believe in allowing me to gain a better understanding of my self. In the future, I hope to deepen my understanding of morality and philosophy and use it to become a better medical professional. Being able to understand the purpose of why people act a certain way or think a certain will allow me to connect with them on a deeper level.