Morality in America
Morals are defined as a set of principles of right action and behavior for the individual. The traditional morals of any given society are the set of moral principles by which the majority of its members have lived over a long time, a consensus which that society has reached on what is considered correct and decent behavior. It is the way one's society expectsone to behave, even if civil law-does not require it (Luce p. 1).
Many believe there is a universal morality that knows no race, no geographical boundaries, no time, and no particular religion. John uskin, the English social reformer, wrote, "There are many religions, but there is only one morality." Immanuel Kant, the greatest of German philosophers, called it the Moral Law, which, he said, governs all mankind. Kant compared this Moral Law to the Sublime Law that rules the movement of the stars and the…...
mla
References
Luce, C.B.. Is the new morality destroying America?
Morality to human sentiment is a unique kind of feeling. It comes about through a kind of perspective-taking that we encounter, via a practice of sympathetic imagination, sentiments belonging to individuals that have been affected by a given action or other evaluation objects.
There are two main claims in which Hume's account of moral sentiments rest upon. Firstly, it holds that the source of our normative standards should be found within obvious human concerns. Morality has been described as a practical fact, social coordination mechanism that is to make our lives improve, and the surrounding rules with it reflect what matters to us. Secondly, the account claim that human identifies common concerns; hence conclude it to moral norms, using reflective feeling exercise that develops on the sympathetic communication of sentiments, (David Fate, 1990). However, the whole concept does not carry normative weight. Strictly personal feelings remaining is capable of motivating…...
Moral ratings of each picture in the pair were given on a seven point Likert scale, and the five highest and five lowest rated photos were retained and paired with control photos for the second phase of the study. The second population of 111 subjects (35 males and 76 females) in this second phase were asked which person in each paid of pictures they would prefer to share a toothbrush with, with a simple recording of preference making up the raw data. These two data sets were then compared and analyzed using basic statistical techniques (t-tests) to determine the level of correlation, if any, that existed between the results of the two independent populations.
esults
The mean moral rating for the top five rated pictures was 5.7780 with a standard deviation of .83237, and for those lowest rated was 3.9101, standard deviation .92796. With a t-score of 18.15, there is a…...
mla
References
Curtis, V., Aunger, R. & Rable, T. (2004). Evidence that disgust evolved to protect from risk of disease. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biology.
Fessler, D. & Navarette, C. (2003). Domain specific variation in disgust sensitivity across the menstrual cycle: evidence in favour of an evolutionary account of sexual disgust. Human Behavioral Evolution 24: 406-17.
Lee, S. & Schwartz, N. (2011). Wiping the Slate Clean Psychological Consequences of Physical Cleansing. Current Directions in Psychological Science 20(5): 307-11.
Zhong, C. & Liljenquist, K. (2006). Washing Away Your Sins: Threatened Morality and Physical Cleansing. Science 313(5792): 1451-2.
395):
"I felt this immaleability, this refusal to cohere, was essentially Greek. That is, I finally assumed my Greekness… I saw that I was the only person left in that square who had the freedom left to choose…"
The very importance that Conchis attaches to this type of morality and freedom of choice, even to the detriment of his own life, is in itself subjective and reactionary. After being forced to witness the full horror of what the German morality was capable of, Conchis found himself driven to ultimately resist it, regardless of its consequences. It is a type of ethics that refuses to accept as true anything beyond its own reason and paradigms. This is also true of the decision-making process at the basis of Colonel Wimmel's moral actions, questionable though they may be.
Colonel Wimmel subscribes to the collective ethical subjectivism of the Nazi German paradigm. This is summed up…...
A college educated doctor, for example, needs to understand his or her obligation to the patient to do no harm, to be honest about conditions and medications, not to put any outside interests over patient health, to keep confidentiality, to treat fairly with co-workers, not to steal drugs from his workplace, and all other such ethical constraints. Regardless of whether or not it may be "moral" to spare someone from suffering, for example, a college-educated doctor should know that it is not ethical to euthanize someone without their consent. Likewise researchers should know about the ethics of research where it concerns honesty, good treatment of test subjects, and other such issues. Even those studying business or other fields without such strict ethical codes should be trained in ethics for their field -- a corrupt accountant, for example, may not feel personally that they are being immoral (perhaps they consider…...
Morality, Justice, Feminism
Equating morality with justice presents some problems, not least of which is the relativity inherent in morality; morals change from generation to generation. Justice is more constant, although more difficult to achieve. Still, when an action is truly just, it is difficult to dissect it; morality, on the other hand, can be dissected relatively easily. A case in point: Is the current war in Iraq immoral? The answer, to a humanist, is yes. To a conservative on the religious right, it is moral; we are, after all, attempting to show the Iraqis a better way, and is that not a moral imperative? The humanist would argue that leaving the Iraqis alone is the only moral thing to do: How can we know what is right for them (and lord knows having their villages, schools and entire way of life reduced to rubble hardly appears right) when we have…...
mla
Works Cited
Brown, Alan D. "Beyond Prostitution: Justice, Feminism, and Social Change." Canadian Woman Studies 19.1-2 (1999): 163-9. Questia. 6 May 2005 .
Ellis, Rebecca. "Second Thoughts about a Third Wave." Canadian Woman Studies 20.4 (2001): 24+. Questia. 6 May 2005 .
"Works by Marabel Morgan." Answers.com. 6 May 2005 .
This is the perfect way to end this poem. The ending is in fact effective and consistent. The entire time, the duke speaks about how it was to have his wife besides him and how much he did not agree with her behavior. He then makes an insinuation that it was him in fact that had her killed. The ending leaves the reader in a sort of shock. The lines, "...Notice Neptune, though, / Taming a seahorse, thought a rarity, / Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!" are so effective in clarifying that the Duchess did not die of natural causes and it was in fact the Duke that wanted her to act in a certain way, and he did: by having her killed. And the only thing left of her is the portrait, which he praises for capturing her, after he managed to "tame" her.
If this is true that by the same standard, a person who can keep money can also steal it. Thus a moral person would be at the same time a thief. How can a thief then be moral? After much debate, Socrates states that: "So the claim that it's right and moral to give back to people what they are owed -- if this is taken to mean that a moral person owes harm to his enemies and help to his friends -- turns out to be a claim no clever person would make. I mean, it's false: we've found that it is never right to harm anyone.' (p. 15)
Socrates' own view of morality is lost among heap of discussion and arguments. It appeared that his main purpose was to contradict the views presented by others and was even called a "bully" by Thrasymachus. (p. 21) Thrasymachus was the…...
mla
Reference
Plato. Republic. (1994). Translated by Robin Waterfield; Oxford University Press. Oxford
I believe that one of the strengths of this plan is that it is far different from the moral values that most conservative Christians want to teach, and I think that this is where teaching morality in school has gotten its bad name. Shafersman (1991) discusses a religious right that wants to teach women to be subservient to men and that certain political forms are more godly than others. I believe this is going to far. What our children need is simply someone to show them how to make the right decisions. This is what I learned at Azuza Pacific -- I learned to use the Bible to make right decisions and to converse with my peers about those decisions to confirm their correctness. The principals of Christianity mandate certain fruits of the spirit, certain moral actions, and faith. I believe these are what should be modeled to the students.…...
mla
References
Garlikov, R. (2001). Moral and Spiritual Values and (Public) Schools. Retrieved June 23,
Abraham acts like a man who has been chosen; he acts with the assurance that he is superior to others and that he has Yahweh's favor. In fact, he boldly intercedes when Yahweh informs him that He plans to destroy Sodom, and Sodom is briefly spared as a result of Abraham's righteousness. What Abraham's story makes clear is that Old Testament righteousness cannot be defined or explained by modern definitions of morality. On the contrary, Old Testament morality came down to a single major issue: whether one would submit to the will of Yahweh. If so, then one was considered moral. As a result, even when the authors do not show overt approval of the patriarchs' actions, they do not show any type of condemnation of those actions. In fact, even when the authors do not justify the patriarchs' actions, they at least pass along the justifications that the…...
1).
"It turns out that some mothers and fathers don't view certain genetic conditions as disabilities but as a way to enter into a rich, shared culture" (Sanghavi, p. 1). Based on the data that Sanghavi researched, genetic testing for dwarfism has "an extra ethical wrinkle"; when both parents are dwarves, their embryos have "a 25% chance of normal height, a 50% change of dwarfism, and a 25% chance of…a double dominant mutation," usually fatal soon after birth (Sanghavi, p. 3). And so, given the fear that their child might die a few days after its birth, parents that are dwarfs and who want a dwarf baby, have a perfectly ethical right to go to a PGD clinic and proceed to prepare for a dwarf baby.
The Case Against Deliberately Implanting a Defective Gene
Dr. Yury Verlinsky of the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago, refuses to grant requests from dwarf parents to…...
mla
Works Cited
Adelson, Betty M. The Lives of Dwarfs: Their Journey from Public Curiosity Toward Social
Liberation. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005.
Bandman, Bertram. Children's Right to Freedom, Care, and Enlightenment. London, UK:
Morality in Literature
Journey as pursuit for 'true' morality: Literary analysis of works from William Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Moliere, Dante, and Samuel Coleridge
More than depicting the nature of humanity, literature has also seen the preponderance of artistic works that delve into the morality of humans. Society has been exposed to the dichotomy and conflict between goodness and evil, or, more concretely, between what is considered as right or wrong. The standard of morality prevalent in the society was distinctly distinguished between right or wrong; ultimately, humanity should only commit, behave, and think 'rightly' -- that is, actions must benefit the greater good.
Indeed, contemplation on humanity's continuous pursuit for committing moral actions and behaving and thinking morally has been interpreted in famous works of literature. While other works centered on the 'rightness' of what society considers as moral acts and behavior, other literary works have focused on providing a multilateral rather than…...
Although many site the concepts of faith and belief to be of paramount importance in the study of any major religion, especially with regard to study originating within any particular religion, there remains a striking aspect of similarity between most major religions when the concept of morality is introduced. Indeed, although the theological basis of the four major world religions -- Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are often cited as divisive (again, especially in the collective imaginations of the members of each faith), the similarities of the moral precepts contained within the defining texts of each religion seem to underscore a fundamental unity.
The concept of "morality" is generally defined as that which constitutes virtuous conduct, or right behavior. Of course, given the vast cultural, economic, and societal differences between the majority populations practicing the aforementioned religious traditions, one might expect the moral precepts of…...
mla
Works Cited
BBT A.C.Bhaktivedan Swami Prabhupada, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prahupada. Bhagavad-Gita as It Is. Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, Los Angeles. 1998.
KJV. World Bible Publishers (staff). The Holy Bible. King James Version. World Publishing, New York. 1988
NIV. Zondervan Publishing House (staff). The Bible: New International Version. Zondervan, New York. 2002.
Swami Prabhavananda, Christopher Isherwood. Bhagavad-Gita: The Song of God. Signet Classics, New York. 2002. p. 3.
Mark Constanzo discussed the argument of deterrence as well, by stating that "Fear of the execution chamber will restrain potential murderers" (Constanzo, 95). However, the author acknowledges that the reality is different in that murder rates have not decreased but instead they increased. Constanzo is against death penalty, and believes that people are perfectible and may change. He used the argument of discrimination against capital punishment by stating that wealth, social status, race etc. play an important role in convictions. Moreover Constanzo used moral and religious arguments against death penalty. For instance he considers the practices related and the methods applied to kill murderers (lethal injection, hanging, burning, poisoning etc.) as dehumanizing and sinful for the individual and society.
In conclusion, law professor Ernest van den Haag supports death penalty, and puts forth arguments related to deterrence, retribution and justice. On the other hand, psychologist Mark Costanzo denies that the death…...
mla
Bibliography
Constanzo, Mark. (1997) Just Revenge. Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty. St. Martin's Press: New York.
Morality, Suicide and Euthanasia
There are always important questions to be asked -- and answered -- when a child is very ill and healthcare decisions have to be made by the family. In the case of 11-year-old Jimmy, who suffers from an incurable neurological disease in addition to the deadly cancer known as lymphoma, this paper uses helpful, scholarly information from the literature to point out how the parents should respond to Jimmy's health problems and to his decision not to have the chemotherapy. Jimmy is very religious and says he wants to "go to God" but he is not in a position to make that decision independent of his parents.
Should minors be permitted to participate in decisions of the magnitude that Jimmy and his family are faced with? The answer is yes, of course in this case Jimmy should be involved and have his say. His parents will listen to…...
mla
Works Cited
Devettere, Raymond J. (2009). Practical Decision Making in Health Care Ethics: Cases and Concepts. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
Diekema, Douglas S. (1998). Ethics in Medicine: Parental Decision Making. University of Washington / Department of Bioethics and Humanities. Retrieved July 10, 2012, from http://depts.washington.edu/bioethx/topics/parent.html .
McPherson, Amy. (2010). "Involving Children: Why it Matters," in Listening to Children and Young People in Healthcare Consultations, S. Redsell and A. Hastings, Eds. London, UK:
To write a good thesis about this, you have to first put together what you know about early America and its approach to religion. Obviously, the American colonies were initially established, in part, as a way for people to freely practice certain religions. That said, they were extremely restrictive, with punishments for people who did not adhere to societal norms. Many undesirable behaviors were not just considered undesirable, but labeled as sin. The most dramatic example of this could be found in the witch hysteria that overtook some of the colonies and the executions and general destruction that happened surrounding....
This is a very interesting topic. Near the end of each year, Lux Research posts a list of transformational technologies to watch in the following year, which might be a good place to start if you are looking for ideas about a specific technology. However, those are going to be technologies that are already invented. Inventing a technology that would transform society in a specific country would require an intimate understanding and knowledge of a country’s culture, geography, religion, history, infrastructure, and natural resources; identifying a problem that it has; and combing up with a novel invention....
Pornography is a controversial topic. Discussions of pornography incorporate issues of free speech, morality, women’s rights, sexual violence, domestic violence, and misogyny. Many people believe that images of pornography are harmful and degrading, even if the pornography is not violent. However, the issues are not as clear-cut as they seem at first glance. Many people believe that pornography has some positive benefits that go beyond any thrills it offers.
Here are some essay titles and topics to explore:
Does Porn Cause Rape?
Pornography and Erectile Dysfunction
Socially Active Smut
Erotica and Pornography: Same Thing, Different Name, or Two Different....
Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library
of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
