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Thoreau (ethic Studies)
How Thoreau sees the government: His vision of justice
Thoreau's essay "Civil Disobedience" was written after the Transcendentalist author was imprisoned for refusing to pay his taxes in protest against the Mexican-American War. In his essay, Thoreau demanded that America become once again a truly free government, for the people and by the people. Thoreau believed in minimal government, given that all government leaders tend to set policy based upon their own interests, not true justice. The Founding Fathers had wanted the American government to have relatively little power, to avoid the new nation descending into European-style tyranny. But Thoreau believed that America's new, expansionist policy was an example of the fact that America had forgotten that the government that governs best, governs least (or not at all).
Government...
Given this idea, slavery is immoral, as it deprives people of their liberty. When a government acts against the principles of the people, it should be resisted and overthrown. That is what the Founding Fathers did, in resistance to the British Crown. So why are not more Americans doing the same thing, in opposition to the American government's support of slavery and its immoral war against Mexico, asks Thoreau? People say that they cannot do anything, but they can.
Thoreau is profoundly distrustful of the conventional democratic process. He compares voting to gambling. Voting does not do something concrete to change people's lives. You cast a vote, and hope that the person you vote for does what he says he will do. Thoreau sees his refusal to pay taxes as a more meaningful,…
Ethics "That government is best which governs least," (Thoreau). The opening line of Civil Disobedience testifies to the importance of individual enlightenment over blind conformity. Government should ideally be by the people and for the people. Laws are often arbitrary and reflect outmoded social norms. In Crito, Plato foresees centuries of government oppression of the people via unjust laws. Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are both figureheads of civil disobedience
Plato, Martin Luther King and Henry David Thoreau each had widely differing ideals relating to the government, its necessity and the responsibility of citizens towards this government. These views were all closely related to each philosopher's personal ideals regarding how best to live their lives with the greatest of integrity. This also applies to life and politics today. Each individual is free to decide whether to take civil action against
" (Carson, 2) That the correlation between these collected symptoms and the use of pesticides in our predominantly agricultural towns had yet to be recognized at this point in history is important to consider. Though today it still receives troublingly little acknowledgment, the exponential rise in the consumption of organic produce in recent years is indicative of a graduating cognizance of that which Carson's work brought to the forefront of
Theories The Uganda bananas case is about the regulatory and political issues surrounding genetically-modified crops. The case is written from the perspective of a scientist who has developed a banana that is resistant to a particular Black Sigatoka, an airborne fungus. This fungus can kill banana plants, which makes it a threat where bananas are a staple crop and where there are few remedies once the fungus sets in. The
landscape studies pioneer, John Brinckerhoff Jackson, studied the contemporary landscape - common, everyday places where we live, work and play - for the clues it provides to American culture. In 1964, the American Congress passed the Wilderness Act, thereby protecting over 100 million acres of public land from development. Wilderness was "recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself
Socrates' speech in Plato's Apology. It is this author's opinion that Socrates' position that the unexamined life is not worth living has validity. We will see that this is the case as we examine Socrates' spontaneous oration regarding virtue and how it can not be learned. Obviously, if the lives of these youths had been virtuous, then it might have been possible for them to learn this character trait