1.3 What Should I do?

Aristotle also defined human beings as “political animals” since we live together in societies organized around explicit rules and social norms. Here as well we don’t have to simply act on whatever urges we feel most strongly, or even just follow along with what others expect of us, we can stop and think about what to do instead and think about whether it is right to do or not.

Our ability to reflect on our choices and actions introduces a normative dimension to human practical and social life as we come to ask ourselves questions about our own needs, desires and decisions as well as about the rules governing our social lives. We may wonder what we should do in some particular situation, maybe when our impulses lead us in one direction and our experience and reason says otherwise; or when we feel social demands imposed on us that we still feel uncomfortable with. Consider the following famous fictional case.