Should I steal the bike?

 Another English lesson, another existential crisis. Today I have been learning about Immanuel Kant and his concept of categorical imperatives. Kant is interested in morals and in his opinion, morals aren't connected to religion, they are connected to us as people.

This ties in with our exploration of the concept of self because morals make up the unique reasoning why we do the things we do.

There are two categorical imperatives which Kant uses to summarise how we as humans have morals.

1. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. A maxim is the action that you are thinking about taking. For example, I could be thinking about stealing somebody's bike. By this moral logic, I can only steal this bike if I think everyone should always be allowed to steal. Obviously thats a dumb idea, because that would just cycle around and around, so by Kants logic, I should not steal that bike. 

2. “So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end and never as only a means.” This means it is wrong to use other humans for the sole purpose of your own benefit. Obviously we use things as a mean all the time, such as the computer your are reading this on, or the bike I definitely didn't steal in order to get around, but it is morally wrong to use a person and only treat them as a way to get what you want. We use people all the time too, such as teachers to pass on knowledge, or chefs to make food for restaurants, but we still acknowledge their humanity and know there is more to them than that singular purpose. 

These two ideas come together to form the idea that we treat others as human and don't do to them what we wouldn't want them doing to us. 

Ps. No bikes were stolen in the making of this blog post.

Level one art: term 3 update

 As expected, more progress has been made towards my art board. Art series 3 has been completed, art series 4 is nearly done and both 5 & 6 are planned out. I am happy with my progress so far, and am really enjoying planning and creating artwork. 

Art series 3:

This series' artist model was Shane Cotton. I used his signature dark colours, geometric shapes and grungy textures. The geometric shapes and borders (along with the colour scheme) also link these pieces into the rest of my board. The ideas behind this series were the treaty of Waitangi and the musket wars. The key parts are the rid of painted muskets, the treaty of Waitnangi (text) and the moko pattern of Ngai Tahu (which is my tribe). This series was done in acrylic paint, water colour paint and lino print.

Art series 4:

Art series 4 sits directly under #2. These pieces all flow together with the colour scheme and the invading Tudor rose element. At this current moment (while im blogging) the roses and borders are not painted yet. These paintings are done in water colour and acrylic, and have Sofia Minson as it's artist model. I used her flat colours and various textures in my pieces. They link into the rest of my board with the borders and color scheme. There isn't a whole lot of geometric shapes in this series, because I was focusing on more natural shapes and nature being consumed by the tudor roses (a visual representation of colonisation).

Art series 5:

This will be the last piece of art board one. It still focuses on colonisation, and will keep the goemetry and contrast. This will be slightly more gruesome (blood, ect). The artist model for this peice is Shepard Fairey. I am using bright colours, various textures and geometric shapes which link back to the artist model and the rest of my boards.

Art series 6:

Art board two will focus on the 1900's -2000's. This particular series will be around the suffragette movement in New Zealand. The artist model is Sofia Minson, and I will be using a realistic image contrasted with a flat-patterned background.I plan to use the same lino print as a part of the pattern.